I'll admit it, I need help, I have a serious substance abuse problem and I have set up an appointment with a professional. That being said, I need to know of some secular/rationalist recovery/support groups, I've been around AA and can't take that, anyone have experience with any groups like these?

Red,

You might find these three clips from Penn and Teller: Bullshit! useful.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tPNgHrIkgo[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uwx2P5LJgk[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PjpOsE3xoY[/youtube]

The_Metatron

AA is a tool. A psychological tool and it can be used effectively to change the life of addicts. However, like any thing out there many people on both sides can believe whatever they choose about the spook aspect of the brain but I think it counterproductive.

Red Zeppelin wrote:I need to know of some secular/rationalist recovery/support groups

You might find something here: http://www.orange-papers.org/menu1.html

Orangely missing the point.

Rational Recovery was set up as a counterpoint to AA.

amused wrote:Rational Recovery was set up as a counterpoint to AA.

That guy disturbs me with his economic motives. I can get around the fact that he looks like a child molester.

(VISA/MC/AmEx WELCOME)
LIMITED REGISTRATION
AVRT: The Class, $2,600
Family members, signifi cant others, $1,000
each
A $500 non-refundable deposit is required
to secure each person’s seat.
The waiting list varies but is
usually less than 30 days.

http://www.rational.org/pdf_files/Course.pdf

AA fights are lively and fast but this being the subforum it is I wonder if anyone has any ideas on how a secular AA type approach could be developed and how it would work to keep guys like me sober.

I would like to point out that the three links, P&T, the orange papers, and AVRT are the same links offered 3 years ago at RDF. The missing link here is this atheist version of AA whose name and link I have forgotten. They have two meetings here in MN and I found one of them to be an AA bitch fests and angry. Something is missing when I go to a meeting and want to either get drunk or get my gun.

SO. The rational approach has yet to find a way off the ground. Yet in my local AA group I find that I am having a great influence on many who formerly claimed to be christian and many who were just afraid to speak up. It's sort of an inside job but I am not happy to leave it there.

I certainly don't want to found anything. I want someone else to do it. I think it's time someone gets of their ass and takes a look at what does work about current programs and distill that into something new. Of course I have a few thousand opinions about what will work. One of those opinions is that statistical research will not be of too much use for the cause. As an addict I can assure you that I am not a statistic and would have no part of any study that tried to make we one. Doing statistics on addicts is like herding cats. The cats that will yield to such technique are not the cats you want to study.

SpeedOfSound wrote:AA fights are lively and fast but this being the subforum it is I wonder if anyone has any ideas on how a secular AA type approach could be developed and how it would work to keep guys like me sober.

I would like to point out that the three links, P&T, the orange papers, and AVRT are the same links offered 3 years ago at RDF. The missing link here is this atheist version of AA whose name and link I have forgotten. They have two meetings here in MN and I found one of them to be an AA bitch fests and angry. Something is missing when I go to a meeting and want to either get drunk or get my gun.

SO. The rational approach has yet to find a way off the ground. Yet in my local AA group I find that I am having a great influence on many who formerly claimed to be christian and many who were just afraid to speak up. It's sort of an inside job but I am not happy to leave it there.

I certainly don't want to found anything. I want someone else to do it. I think it's time someone gets of their ass and takes a look at what does work about current programs and distill that into something new. Of course I have a few thousand opinions about what will work. One of those opinions is that statistical research will not be of too much use for the cause. As an addict I can assure you that I am not a statistic and would have no part of any study that tried to make we one. Doing statistics on addicts is like herding cats. The cats that will yield to such technique are not the cats you want to study.

Alan Watts?
May be we can love the spiritual tree or stone.

Know anything about him?

SpeedOfSound wrote:Know anything about him?

want to know abt him

cavarka9 wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:Know anything about him?

want to know abt him

Hope I didn't misread this. You want to know about him? Me too. I read his stuff when I was a teen and I'm re-reading it now forty years later. Back when i first got into Watts I was struggling with hallucinations, suicidal depression and a nearly lethal overdose of existentialism and skepticism. His influence was the single most important element of how I use AA today and what I have cobbled together as a rabid atheistic mysticism.

I can't find a damned thing in his work so far that makes me think he is not an atheist. He is more like the Carl Sagan of the human spirit.

SpeedOfSound wrote:

cavarka9 wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:Know anything about him?

want to know abt him

Hope I didn't misread this. You want to know about him? Me too. I read his stuff when I was a teen and I'm re-reading it now forty years later. Back when i first got into Watts I was struggling with hallucinations, suicidal depression and a nearly lethal overdose of existentialism and skepticism. His influence was the single most important element of how I use AA today and what I have cobbled together as a rabid atheistic mysticism.

I can't find a damned thing in his work so far that makes me think he is not an atheist. He is more like the Carl Sagan of the human spirit.

I would want to know about him,
he was a sort of traveler, few videos I saw were good videos

cavarka9 wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:

cavarka9 wrote:
want to know abt him

Hope I didn't misread this. You want to know about him? Me too. I read his stuff when I was a teen and I'm re-reading it now forty years later. Back when i first got into Watts I was struggling with hallucinations, suicidal depression and a nearly lethal overdose of existentialism and skepticism. His influence was the single most important element of how I use AA today and what I have cobbled together as a rabid atheistic mysticism.

I can't find a damned thing in his work so far that makes me think he is not an atheist. He is more like the Carl Sagan of the human spirit.

I would want to know about him,
he was a sort of traveler, few videos I saw were good

This may be the place to discuss him seeing as he died of alcoholism and I attribute my not meeting the same fate to him more-so than AA. If he had not given me a secular way to approach spirituality I doubt I would be alive. This is the conundrum of any intelligent atheist walking into AA for the first time. Watts is my Rosetta stone for translating AA into atheism.

SpeedOfSound wrote:

cavarka9 wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:

Hope I didn't misread this. You want to know about him? Me too. I read his stuff when I was a teen and I'm re-reading it now forty years later. Back when i first got into Watts I was struggling with hallucinations, suicidal depression and a nearly lethal overdose of existentialism and skepticism. His influence was the single most important element of how I use AA today and what I have cobbled together as a rabid atheistic mysticism.

I can't find a damned thing in his work so far that makes me think he is not an atheist. He is more like the Carl Sagan of the human spirit.

I would want to know about him,
he was a sort of traveler, few videos I saw were good

This may be the place to discuss him seeing as he died of alcoholism and I attribute my not meeting the same fate to him more-so than AA. If he had not given me a secular way to approach spirituality I doubt I would be alive. This is the conundrum of any intelligent atheist walking into AA for the first time. Watts is my Rosetta stone for translating AA into atheism.

Do tell what you read of him

cavarka9 wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:

cavarka9 wrote:
I would want to know about him,
he was a sort of traveler, few videos I saw were good

This may be the place to discuss him seeing as he died of alcoholism and I attribute my not meeting the same fate to him more-so than AA. If he had not given me a secular way to approach spirituality I doubt I would be alive. This is the conundrum of any intelligent atheist walking into AA for the first time. Watts is my Rosetta stone for translating AA into atheism.

Do tell what you read of him

A secular Buddhist who found a way to marry all the best value of woo and myth with science and rationality. He is very much into pointing out the falsity of dividing things up with our mind into black and white and then trying to worship the result.

I am slowly rereading him after 45 years away.

My mum was an alchoholic and fought with it for 20 years before it finally killed her. She tried AA but hated it. I was able to glean some things. Mostly the developing of habitual reactions that work against the desire to drink. The grouping together with other alchoholics is also important, but tricky because you can trick yourselves in to helping one another off the wagon as often as you can support one another to stay on it.

I also gather there is no global secular organisation that handles this but a myriad of small ones scattered about. Mum ended up with a group ominously called "ward 4" and I actually had 4 years of sober with her, the memory of which I still cherish.

DanDare wrote:My mum was an alchoholic and fought with it for 20 years before it finally killed her. She tried AA but hated it. I was able to glean some things. Mostly the developing of habitual reactions that work against the desire to drink. The grouping together with other alchoholics is also important, but tricky because you can trick yourselves in to helping one another off the wagon as often as you can support one another to stay on it.

I also gather there is no global secular organisation that handles this but a myriad of small ones scattered about. Mum ended up with a group ominously called "ward 4" and I actually had 4 years of sober with her, the memory of which I still cherish.

Rather sad, as if one must live rationally or live in a cartoon world. We need organizations for our needs.

SpeedOfSound wrote:

amused wrote:Rational Recovery was set up as a counterpoint to AA.

That guy disturbs me with his economic motives. I can get around the fact that he looks like a child molester.

What's disturbing to me is that he recommends unassisted cold withdrawal. That can be fatal.

Berthold wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:

amused wrote:Rational Recovery was set up as a counterpoint to AA.

That guy disturbs me with his economic motives. I can get around the fact that he looks like a child molester.

What's disturbing to me is that he recommends unassisted cold withdrawal. That can be fatal.

He's making a living. Can't fault him for selling shit to desperate people who need help can we?