The emergent nature of reality is that all systems, whether it is knowledge, society, technology, philosophy or any other creation will when uninhibited undergo fluid perpetual change. What we consider commonplace today, such as modern communication and transportation, would have been unimaginable in ancient times, likewise the future will contain technologies, realisations and social structures we cannot even fathom in the present, we have gone from alchemy to chemistry, from a geocentric universe to a heliocentric, from believing that demons were the cause of illness to modern medicine. This development shows no sign of ending, and it is this awareness that aligns us and leads us on a continuous path to growth and progress, static knowledge does not exist, rather it is the insight of the emergence of all systems we must recognize this means we must be open to all information at all times, even if it threatens our current belief systems and hence our identities.
Sadly society at large today has failed to recognize this and the established 12 Step (AA) institution continues to paralyze growth by preserving outdated structures. Simultaneously the population suffers from a fear of change, for their conditioning assumes a static identity. And challenging ones belief system usually results in insult and apprehension, for being wrong is erroneously associated with failure, when in fact to be proven wrong should be celebrated, for it is elevating someone to a new level of understanding, furthering awareness. The fact is, there is no such thing as a smart human being, for it is merely a matter of time before their ideas are updated, changed or eradicated, and this tendency to blindly hold on to a belief system sheltering it from new possibly transforming information is nothing less than a form of intellectual imprisonment. The 12 Step system perpetuates this imprisonment not only by its self-preserving structures, but also though the countless number of people who have been conditioned to blindly and thoughtlessly upholding these structures, therefore becoming self-appointed guardians of the status quo, sheep which no longer need a sheepdog to control them, for they control each other by ostracizing those who step out of the norm. This tendency to resist change and upholding existing institutions for the sake of identity, comfort, power and profit is completely unsustainable and will only produce further imbalance, fragmentation, distortion and invariably destruction.
It is time to change! Turn of the Hazelden News! Tune into the emerging academic, the scientific research literature for information. The Grapevine, Hazelden Press and all Conference approved literature present everything pre filtered to maintain the status quo. With AA pre approving all literature, objective information is impossible. This is the true beauty of the internet, and AA has been losing control because of this free flow of information. Don’t ever allow yourself, your family or anyone you care about to ever join a 12 Step based program, this is an obsolete institution now used exclusively for maintaining the $10Billion+ per year recovery industry, without William G Wilson’s 12 Steps, nobody would keep coming back and the Fat Cats at the helms of Hazelden and the likes would be hemorrhaging money.
12 Step Counselors over the world work for 12 Step institutions, not the addicts. 12 Step propaganda forces us to believe that addiction is an incurable lifelong disease. Well if addiction is a disease, why is AA still trying to treat it different from every other disease known to mankind? Shouldn’t the alcoholism / addiction disease be treated by medical professionals? According to AA the only qualification you need to treat an addict/alcoholic is to be an addict/alcoholic.
For about 80 years now every Alcoholics Anonymous meeting starts off with someone reading out loud a document that says, that this Twelve-Step program has rarely been known to fail, except for a few unfortunate people who are "constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves":
Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are those who cannot or will not give themselves completely to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. A.A. Big Book, 3rd & 4th Editions, William G. Wilson, page 58.
That is a blatant lie. Even the most ardent true believers who will be honest about it recognize that A.A. and N.A. have at least 90% failure rates, actually more like 95% or 96% failure rates. It depends on who is doing the counting, how they are counting, and what they are counting.
Here was a book that said that I could do something that all these doctors and priests and ministers and psychiatrists that I'd been going to for years couldn't do! The Big Book, 3rd Edition, page 473.
An understandable statement in the 1930’s but ridicules in the 21st century.
Andre Pelser: Outspoken 12step Critic nad author. Lives in Gordon's Bay, South Africa.