Orange Papers

THE ORANGE PAPERS
A series of pages about Substance Misuse Recovery Programs, Real Recovery. and Analysis of Alcoholics Anonymous.
An Online Book by "Orange"

"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance — that principle is contempt prior to investigation."

HERBERT SPENCER

The above famous misquote¹ was put in the Big Book by William G. Wilson, in Appendix II, "Spiritual Experience", in the back of the second and third editions. Bill Wilson was trying to imply that we should not dismiss his "spiritual cure for alcoholism" without first trying it.

That is curious, because in 1864 Herbert Spencer was actually arguing against fundamentalist religious beliefs and dogmatic blind faith, and in favor of Charles Darwin's new theory of evolution.

Nevertheless, that quote sounds like good advice. So let's really, honestly, investigate Alcoholics Anonymous, without rejecting criticism of A.A. before investigation of all of the facts...

What is the REAL A.A. success rate?

Out of each 1000 newcomers to A.A., how many will pick up a one-year sobriety medallion a year later? Or ever?
And how many will get their 2-year, and 5-year, and 10-year coins?
How about 11 years and 21 years?

HINT: the answers are here and here and here.

I'm chewing on some ideas to integrate commentary here but in case you can't tell I need a break, possibly even a permanent break, from operating such things.i Watch this space for an update, if there ever is one.

CONTENTS:

Pro-A.A. Propaganda, analyzed:

Letters, We Get Lots of Mail...
Letters I Letters II Letters III Letters IV Letters V Letters VI Letters VII Letters VIII Letters IX Letters X Letters XI Letters XII Letters XIII Letters XIV Letters XV Letters XVI Letters XVII Letters XVIII Letters XIX Letters XX Letters XXI Letters XXII Letters XXIII Letters XXIV Letters XXV Letters XXVI Letters XXVII Letters XXVIII Letters XXIX Letters XXX Letters XXXI Letters XXXII Letters XXXIII Letters XXXIV Letters XXXV Letters XXXVI Letters XXXVII Letters XXXVIII Letters XXXIX Letters XL Letters XLI Letters XLII Letters XLIII Letters XLIV Letters XLV Letters XLVI Letters XLVII Letters XLVIII Letters XLIX Letters L Letters LI Letters LII Letters LIII Letters LIV Letters LV Letters LVI Letters LVII Letters LVIII Letters LIX Letters LX Letters LXI Letters LXII Letters LXIII Letters LXIV Letters LXV Letters LXVI Letters LXVII Letters LXVIII Letters LXIX Letters LXX Letters LXXI Letters LXXII Letters LXXIII Letters LXXIV Letters LXXV Letters LXXVI Letters LXXVII Letters LXXVIII Letters LXXIX Letters LXXX Letters LXXXI Letters LXXXII Letters LXXXIII Letters LXXXIV Letters LXXXV Letters LXXXVI Letters LXXXVII Letters LXXXVIII Letters LXXXIX Letters XC Letters XCI Letters XCII Letters XCIII Letters XCIV Letters XCV Letters XCVI Letters XCVII Letters XCVIII Letters XCIX Letters C Letters CI Letters CII Letters CIII Letters CIV Letters CV Letters CVI Letters CVII	Letters CVIII Letters CIX Letters CX Letters CXI Letters CXII Letters CXIII Letters CXIV Letters CXV Letters CXVI Letters CXVII Letters CXVIII Letters CXIX Letters CXX Letters CXXI Letters CXXII Letters CXXIII Letters CXXIV Letters CXXV Letters CXXVI Letters CXXVII Letters CXXVIII Letters CXXIX Letters CXXX Letters CXXXI Letters CXXXII Letters CXXXIII Letters CXXXIV Letters CXXXV Letters CXXXVI Letters CXXXVII Letters CXXXVIII Letters CXXXIX Letters CXL Letters CXLI Letters CXLII Letters CXLIII Letters CXLIV Letters CXLV Letters CXLVI Letters CXLVII Letters CXLVIII Letters CXLIX Letters CL Letters CLI Letters CLII Letters CLIII Letters CLIV Letters CLV Letters CLVI Letters CLVII Letters CLVIII Letters CLIX Letters CLX Letters CLXI Letters CLXII Letters CLXIII Letters CLXIV Letters CLXV Letters CLXVI Letters CLXVII Letters CLXVIII Letters CLXIX Letters CLXX Letters CLXXI Letters CLXXII Letters CLXXIII Letters CLXXIV Letters CLXXV Letters CLXXVI Letters CLXXVII Letters CLXXVIII Letters CLXXIX Letters CLXXX Letters CLXXXI Letters CLXXXII Letters CLXXXIII Letters CLXXXIV Letters CLXXXV Letters CLXXXVI Letters CLXXXVII Letters CLXXXVIII Letters CLXXXIX Letters CXC Letters CXCI Letters CXCII Letters CXCIII Letters CXCIV Letters CXCV Letters CXCVI Letters CXCVII Letters CXCVIII Letters CXCIX Letters CC Letters CCI Letters CCII Letters CCIII Letters CCIV Letters CCV Letters CCVI Letters CCVII Letters CCVIII Letters CCIX Letters CCX Letters CCXI Letters CCXII Letters CCXIII Letters CCXIV	Letters CCXV Letters CCXVI Letters CCXVII Letters CCXVIII Letters CCXIX Letters CCXX Letters CCXXI Letters CCXXII Letters CCXXIII Letters CCXXIV Letters CCXXV Letters CCXXVI Letters CCXXVII Letters CCXXVIII Letters CCXXIX Letters CCXXX Letters CCXXXI Letters CCXXXII Letters CCXXXIII Letters CCXXXIV Letters CCXXXV Letters CCXXXVI Letters CCXXXVII Letters CCXXXVIII Letters CCXXXIX Letters CCXL Letters CCXLI Letters CCXLII Letters CCXLIII Letters CCXLIV Letters CCXLV Letters CCXLVI Letters CCXLVII Letters CCXLVIII Letters CCXLIX Letters CCL Letters CCLI Letters CCLII Letters CCLIII Letters CCLIV Letters CCLV Letters CCLVI Letters CCLVII Letters CCLVIII Letters CCLIX Letters CCLX Letters CCLXI Letters CCLXII Letters CCLXIII Letters CCLXIV Letters CCLXV Letters CCLXVI Letters CCLXVII Letters CCLXVIII Letters CCLXIX Letters CCLXX Letters CCLXXI Letters CCLXXII Letters CCLXXIII Letters CCLXXIV Letters CCLXXV Letters CCLXXVI Letters CCLXXVII Letters CCLXXVIII Letters CCLXXIX Letters CCLXXX Letters CCLXXXI Letters CCLXXXII Letters CCLXXXIII Letters CCLXXXIV Letters CCLXXXV Letters CCLXXXVI Letters CCLXXXVII Letters CCLXXXVIII Letters CCLXXXIX Letters CCXC Letters CCXCI Letters CCXCII Letters CCXCIII Letters CCXCIV Letters CCXCV Letters CCXCVI Letters CCXCVII Letters CCXCVIII Letters CCXCIX Letters CCC Letters CCCI Letters CCCII Letters CCCIII Letters CCCIV Letters CCCV Letters CCCVI Letters CCCVII Letters CCCVIII Letters CCCIX Letters CCCX Letters CCCXI Letters CCCXII Letters CCCXIII Letters CCCXIV Letters CCCXV Letters CCCXVI Letters CCCXVII Letters CCCXVIII Letters CCCXIX Letters CCCXX Letters CCCXXI	Letters CCCXXII Letters CCCXXIII Letters CCCXXIV Letters CCCXXV Letters CCCXXVI Letters CCCXXVII Letters CCCXXVIII Letters CCCXXIX Letters CCCXXX Letters CCCXXXI Letters CCCXXXII Letters CCCXXXIII Letters CCCXXXIV Letters CCCXXXV Letters CCCXXXVI Letters CCCXXXVII Letters CCCXXXVIII Letters CCCXXXIX Letters CCCXL Letters CCCXLI Letters CCCXLII Letters CCCXLIII Letters CCCXLIV Letters CCCXLV Letters CCCXLVI Letters CCCXLVII Letters CCCXLVIII Letters CCCXLIX Letters CCCL Letters CCCLI Letters CCCLII Letters CCCLIII Letters CCCLIV Letters CCCLV Letters CCCLVI Letters CCCLVII Letters CCCLVIII Letters CCCLIX Letters CCCLX Letters CCCLXI Letters CCCLXII Letters CCCLXIII Letters CCCLXIV Letters CCCLXV Letters CCCLXVI Letters CCCLXVII Letters CCCLXVIII Letters CCCLXIX Letters CCCLXX Letters CCCLXXI Letters CCCLXXII Letters CCCLXXIII Letters CCCLXXIV Letters CCCLXXV Letters CCCLXXVI Letters CCCLXXVII Letters CCCLXXVIII Letters CCCLXXIX Letters CCCLXXX Letters CCCLXXXI Letters CCCLXXXII Letters CCCLXXXIII Letters CCCLXXXIV Letters CCCLXXXV Letters CCCLXXXVI Letters CCCLXXXVII Letters CCCLXXXVIII Letters CCCLXXXIX Letters CCCXC Letters CCCXCI Letters CCCXCII Letters CCCXCIII Letters CCCXCIV Letters CCCXCV Letters CCCXCVI Letters CCCXCVII Letters CCCXCVIII Letters CCCXCIX Letters CD Letters CDI Letters CDII Letters CDIII Letters CDIV Letters CDV Letters CDVI Letters CDVII Letters CDVIII Letters CDIX Letters CDX Letters CDXI Letters CDXII Letters CDXIII Letters CDXIV Letters CDXV Letters CDXVI Letters CDXVII Letters CDXVIII Letters CDXIX Letters CDXX Letters CDXXI Letters CDXXII Letters CDXXIII Letters CDXXIV Letters CDXXV Letters CDXXVI Letters CDXXVII Letters CDXXVIII

Auxillary and Supporting Documents

Definitions of Some Commonly-Used A.A. Words
How to use Worldcat to find books
The Stock Prospectus for the 100 Men Corporation
Works Publishing Financial Statement, June 1940.
Original Big Book assignment of copyright to Works Publishing, Inc. document.
Bill's 1941 Memo (PDF) about bringing more money into the A.A. headquarters.
Cleveland, 1944: Clarence Snyder's objections
GSC51 (pdf) == AA GS Conference report from 1950, where Bill Wilson helped himself to even more money. See a discussion of this document here.
Bill Wilson's Last Will and Testament, leaving ten percent of his estate to his favorite mistress, Helen Wynn, and the other ninety percent to his wife Lois.
Lois Wilson's Last Will and Testament, where the royalty money for all of Bill's books leaves the A.A. fellowship forever.
Original Works Publishing Company name change document, page 1.
Original Works Publishing Company name change document, page 2.
Original Works Publishing Company name change document, page 3.
Bill Wilson's royalty agreement of 1963 with A.A.W.S., Inc.
Henry Parkhurst's handwritten outline for the Big Book (.pdf file)
1941 Letter Bill W. To Dr. Bob.jpg == Comment on this document here.
1941 Letter Bill W. To Dr. Bob 2.jpg == Comment on this document here.
1945 Bill W. to Gerig.jpg == Comment on this document here.
Henrietta Seiberling's letter
A letter from someone who knew him: Tom Powers, the co-author of Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions was a crazy scheming lying child-molesting con-man who never stopped drinking.
What Is The Oxford Group? (PDF) by "The Layman with a Notebook"
H. A. Ironside: The Oxford Group Movement: Is It Scriptural?
H. A. Walter: Soul Surgery. A manual for the Oxford Group cult religion.
I Was A Pagan, by Vic Kitchen. A manual for the Oxford Group cult religion.
Leonard V. Harrison 1946 Statement, disagreeing with Bill Wilson about how A.A. should be organized
Original 1940 A.A. Pamphlet by Larry J (pdf)
First Alcoholic Foundation Pamphlet (pdf)
Judge John T.: The "We Are The Chosen People" Idolatry
The Common Sense of Drinking, by Richard R. Peabody. A 1930s look at drinking.
Dr. Arthur H. Cain: First Harper's and Saturday Evening Post articles critical of A.A.
The Nation on A.A.: "Alcoholics Anonymous, the Dangers of Success", 1964.
Testimony of Chuck C. before a U.S. Senate subcommittee
Bill Wilson's speech at Dr. Bob's Memorial Service
Bill Wilson's testimony before the U.S. Senate, 1969.
Tiebout: The Act of Surrender in the Therapeutic Process
Tiebout: Direct Treatment of a Symptom
Tiebout: The Ego Factors in Surrender in Alcoholism
Tiebout: Surrender Versus Compliance In Therapy with Special Reference to Alcoholism
Robert Warner's page, "How A.A. Steals Your Soul"
A Cult Called AA by Paul Roasberry
S.O.S. Europe's Description of a Cult
Berkeley Revive's cult description
Totalism in Today's Cults by Jan Groenvald
Paul Diener on A.A., the Oxford Group and the British Fascists at Oxford in the 1930s
Paul Diener's letters to the Addict-L mailing list.
More inconsistencies: More of the propaganda trick of inconsistency
A pamphlet by A.A. members, criticizing the leadership
Unnamed AA2 Group File from the Midwest, pre-2005, A.A. propaganda about recovery
2011_Marcus_Chatfield.pdf, Marcus Chatfield's interview with William White about Straight, the child-abusing "rehab" program
Grant of Authority: A.A. General Manager Greg Muth authorizing the German A.A. organization to sue A.A. members who were publishing their own translation of the old out-of-copyright first edition of the Big Book
Spirituality versus Legalism in Alcoholics Anonymous, by Charlie Bishop, Jr. — About the lawsuits over expired and invalid copyrights
A lawyer's opinion to Greg Muth, declaring that the 400 multilith (mimeograph) copies of the Big Book that Bill Wilson made and sold were not a problem to the copyright. Of course the lawyer maintained the fiction that the copies were all stamped "Loaner Copy", which they were not.
Changing the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, One Conference At A Time — a document complaining about how the A.A. headquarters has made unauthorized changes to A.A.
Letter from Gordon M. Patrick, former Trustee Emeritus of the General Service Board, to Dr. Elaine McDowell, PhD Chair, General Service Board, requesting that his name be removed from all Alcoholics Anonymous literature because of spiritual shortcomings of A.A.
Remaking A Man; One Successful Method Of Mental Refitting, by Courtnay Baylor of the Emmanuel Movement, Boston, 1919 (Note that Courtnay Baylor treated Rowland Hazard, who supposedly learned from Dr. Carl Jung that religious fanaticism was a cure for alcohol addiction.)
The_Mathematics_of_Alcoholics_Anonymous_-_Part_1.pdf — Analysis of the mathematics of Alcoholics Anonymous, using A.A.'s own published documents
The_Mathematics_of_Alcoholics_Anonymous_-_Part_2.pdf — Analysis of the mathematics of Alcoholics Anonymous, using A.A.'s own published documents
A spreadsheet about the Foxhall Group's retention rate
1989_Membership_Survey_Form_Blank.pdf ; Size: 244 k
2007_Membership_Survey_Form_Blank.pdf ; Size: 58 k
Commentary on the Triennial Surveys (from 1977 to 1989), A.A. internal document number 5M/12-90/TC
Historymetaphor.pdf, by Peter Ferentzy and Nigel Turner, a history of the debate about whether problem gambling is literally a disease, or only metaphorically so. Much is also applicable to alcohol abuse and A.A.
A magazine article from 1954: Alcoholics Anonymous: No Booze But Plenty of Babes
12 Steps To Nowhere by J. Timothy Hunt
More Pseudo-Intellectual Bull: The_Cybernetics_of_Self by Gregory Bateson, and an analysis of it.
A paper by the World Health Organization in Europe which states that both 12 Step facilitation and Alcoholics Anonymous are ineffective
Here's an interesting study from Germany in 2007 that concluded that "The present study was unable to show an advantage of self-help group [AA] attendance in reducing relapses compared to the control group."
THE IMPACT OF SELF-HELP GROUP ATTENDANCE ON RELAPSE RATES AFTER ALCOHOL DETOXIFICATION IN A CONTROLLED STUDY.
http://alcalc.oxfordjournals.org/content/42/2/108.long
Also see the discussion of it here:
http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters406.html#Iamnotastatistic
Report: The Scientology recovery hoax called "Narconon" doesn't work either.
A.A. finances:
1. A.A. finances for 2004
2. Response to above letter from former A.A. EDP manager: the A.A. headquarters is filing false financial reports with the IRS
3. more discussion of finances
4. Use Guidestar to investigate the General_Service_Board
5. More on A.A. headquarters finances
6. links to A.A. financial reports
7. More on the A.A. finances
International Cultic Studies Association Cult Checklist
More humor:
1. Do You Think Too Much?
2. A 12-Step program for the dead.
A letter to the editors of the WSWS about Frank Buchman's Fascist leanings
An autobiography written for SOS
A History of Agnostic Groups in Alcoholics Anonymous: Part 1 By Roger C

Archive files now available:
Get this entire web site in a set of compressed packages so that you can read it later offline (and burn CDs and give copies to friends). Archives are available in Unix/Linux tarred-gzipped format, Current as of 2017-11-22 (yyyy-mm-dd). The current goal here is to disseminate this archive of the Orange Papers as widely as possible to anyone who wishes to preserve it. Download it directly to /var/www/html and unzip it (or your webserver's root directory) if you want to mirror the archives on your own server.
Unix/Linux format archive orangepapers.tar.gz MD5SUM: ae10b1803ec5531e25f336f0b0240630 Verify the archive in linux by typing "md5sum orangepapers.tar.gz"	Windows format archive Not available.

Latest Updates:

(in reverse order, most recent first)

2022.09.11: The server hosting orange-papers.info was hacked into a few weeks ago and the site was taken offline until a backup from 2017 could be procured and restored. There is now a standby backup site at orange-papers.mx , should there be a future incident , orange-papers.info will be temporarily redirected there while its addressed.
More letters, and more letters
2015.11.26: Added material on fascism, orange-rroot480.html
2015.08.18: Updated notes on Ted Patrick, the so-called "Black Lightning" cult deprogrammer: orange-bibliography.html#Ted_Patrick
More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters
Added a page about A.A. Divorces.
More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters
Added more documentation about the Catholic Church banning Dr. Frank Buchman's Oxford Group and Moral Re-Armament, here.
Added two more items to the Heresy of the 12 Steps:
- Grandiose Presumptuousness and Fake Humility
- Pretentions of Faith Healing
More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters
More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters
2013.11.06: I did not get a URL for the "list of Major Areas of Post-cult Adjustments", but a Google search yielded this, which is probably what he was talking about:
http://www.csj.org/studyindex/studyrecovery/study_repairsoul.htm
That is a page by none other than Janja Lalich, Ph.D, who also co-wrote a bunch of books about cults with Prof. Margaret Thaler Singer of University of California at Berkeley, who was a reknowned expert on cults and brainwashing. (Look here and here.) Dr. Margaret Singer was one of the doctors who studied the brainwashed veterans who returned from Korea.
More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters
2013.10.09: Added more Propaganda Tricks, including
- Induce and Exploit Apophenia
- Fake Philosophy: "It's all just an illusion."
- The Perfect Solution Fallacy, also known as The Nirvana Fallacy
- It's Free!
- Pigeon-holing and Labeling
More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters
Added a page of Accusations of "you have a resentment".
A reply to Kris Best's articles in the Lafayette Examiner
More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters
Go to A.A., and get murdered by a psycho whom the judge sentenced to A.A. meetings. Story here.
New file: What Carl G. Jung really said about treating alcoholism
More letters
Did Dr. Frank Buchman teach brainwashing techniques to the Chinese Communists? Question here.
More letters
Received another document, the AA GS Conference report from 1950, where Bill Wilson helped himself to even more money.
More letters
Added International Cultic Studies Association Cult Checklist
More letters, and more letters
More complaints about Rick Ross came in.
More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters
Added two more logical fallacies to the Propaganda Techniques web page:
- The Gambler's Fallacy
- Mistaken Assumption of Randomness
More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters
Made a list of all of the letters where A.A. followers claimed that A.A. has saved millions of alcoholics. There are a lot of them. A.A. "MILLIONS Saved" Stories
More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters
Reworked the propaganda trick "Laugh It Off", and came up with a long list of A.A. members (ostensibly) laughing at information that disturbs them, like the cultish nature of A.A.
Moved the list of A.A. "no meds" horror stories to its own file: A.A. "No Meds" Stories
More letters
Moved the list of A.A. horror stories to its own file: A.A. Horror Stories.
And moved the list of A.A. suicide stories to its own file: A.A. Suicides.
More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters
More about Naltexone and the Sinclair Method
More about the "no medications" issue.
More letters
More about Naltexone and the Sinclair Method
More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters
Added a lot more slogans to the list of A.A. slogans. Now they number 865.
More letters
My "counselor" at the "treatment center" was arrested again.
More letters
More A.A.-Booster Propaganda
More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters
More A.A.-Booster Propaganda: "The Cybernetics of Self"
More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters
The quintessential sponsor's letter: a crazy woman insists that she has the sole right to talk to a kid who is a "retard" who "has a serious spiritual disorder and also one inside his head", here. Also see comments on this letter here.
More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters
More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters
Professor G. sent in some interesting history. Did you know that the "Big Book" got that name because Bill Wilson wanted to make a medium-sized book look bigger so that he could sell it for the equivalent of $55, so he had it printed on the cheapest, thickest paper that the printer had, with extra-large margins, which made it a very bulky book.
More letters
Someone sent in a document that is the first official A.A. headquarters admission that I've seen that says that sponsors raping under-age girls in 12-Step groups is a big problem. Look here.
The International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction totally discredited the faked Humphries-Moos study that supposedly showed that A.A. works better than Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. They criticized the "test" for many failings like bad mathematics in calculating the A.A. success rate, no control group, mixed teachings (teaching 12-Step superstitions in CBT courses), cherry picking, self-reporting, unrealistic environments, and no actual valid follow-up. See: orange-letters247.html#Clark_M. It's quite an article.
More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters
THE FORUM IS UP.

So go ahead and register and give it a try.
== Orange
More letters
More letters, and More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters...
The movie about "Up With People", called "Smile 'Till It Hurts", is showing in Portland, Oregon, on December 17, at the Hollywood Theatre, 4122 N.E. Sandy Blvd., Portland Oregon. It's supposed to run for two consecutive weekends. You can check for details at
http://www.hollywoodtheatre.org/engaging/index.html
or on the website:
http://www.smiletilithurts.com/index.html
Also see:
smiletilithurts.blogspot.com
More letters, and more letters...
Some hateful nutcase tried to blow up Pioneer Courthouse Square, where I have hung out a lot.
More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters.
The movie about "Up With People", called "Smile 'Till It Hurts", is showing in Bellingham, Washington. Check it out.
More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters...
Refuted five more fake-science papers that claimed to have discovered that 12-Step meetings actually work to reduce drug and alcohol consumption.
More letters, and more letters...
Added two more bait-and-switch tricks:
First A.A. is "Christian", and then it isn't.
And:
First, nobody is entitled to speak for A.A., and then lots of people speak for A.A.
Added a lengthy refutation to the inaccurate Wired magazine article about Alcoholics Anonymous.
More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters...
Went back and inserted gosling photographs into the last dozen files of letters, for those who love the gosling photos.
More letters...
A 12-Step counselor wrote in to defend A.A. It's quite a show.
More letters, and more letters, and more letters ...
Some interesting comments on Bill and Lois' wills, here and here.
More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters.
More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters.
More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters.
Kristin is collecting stories of people who grew up in the 12-Step world, for a book. Do you have one?
More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters
I noticed that a lot of the old stories about the Midtown Group had disappeared from the Internet, so I put together a web page of some of the archived Stories of the Midtown Group of Alcoholics Anonymous.
More letters, and more letters and more letters
Erik sent in a spreadsheet that shows the recruiting and retention and failure rates of the large Foxhall Group in Omaha, Nebraska. It's very informative.
More letters, and more letters
The NIH (National Institutes for Health), a U.S. Government agency, endorses SMART and alternatives to A.A.
Some people have been making a movie about Up With People and its Moral Re-Armament parents. Check it out.
More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters.
The story of Carmen, an orphaned gosling (which has nothing to do with alcoholism, except that this is the kind of fun that you can have when you aren't killing yourself with alcohol and tobacco.)
Over in Oregon, the old group leader seduces and marries a 15-year-old girl who came to A.A. meetings seeking help.
More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters.
More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters.
Fixed a zillion misspellings and typos and broken links, thanks to Alan who compiled a long list of such errors. If you haven't updated your local archive of the Orange Papers in a while, now might be a good time, because much is fixed.
Qwest pulls the plug on my DSL line.
More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters.
The search engine and public viewing of server statistics are finally fixed.
2nd Washington Post article: Mike Quinones, the Midtown Group leader, dies:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/rawfisher/2007/08/aa_renegade_dieswhither_midtow.html
== "AA Renegade Dies — Whither Midtown?"
Includes a good debate between the people posting comments.
It turns out that MGM made a movie that satirized Dr. Frank Buchman's Oxford Group / Moral Re-Armament cult back in 1940, called "Susan and God". Check it out.
More letters, and more letters, and more letters.
More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters
The Washington Post published an article on the Midtown Group:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/rawfisher/2007/07/midtown_group_aa_group_leads_m.html == "Midtown Group: AA Group Leads Members Away from Traditions"
More Midtown links here.
More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters...
Another post on the Midtown Group MySpace thread says that the "Pacific Group" on the West Coast is similar to the Midtown Group.
And NBC4 produced yet another story of the Midtown Group. This time a policeman's wife says that she was encouraged to cheat on her husband and to divorce him. See the story here.
And also see the following story about life as a teenage girl in Midtown:

Michelle told News4 that sexually transmitted diseases are not all that uncommon in Midtown.
"It was almost your rite of passage. I would say that it would be uncommon to not have something once you've been there a couple months," said Michelle.
And there are also many more links to Midtown Group information.
This has nothing to do with alcoholism or A.A., but a little girl has been kidnapped in Europe, and if you are in Europe, please keep an eye open for her.
And still more on The Midtown Group. NBC 4, the local TV station in Washington DC, has another story about a girl who ended up in the hospital after she was told to have sex with the male cult members and stop taking her doctor-prescribed psychiatric medications. See story here.
And more news: Midtown Group banned from another church in Washington DC. See the story here.
Still more from the Midtown Group: A good historical narrative from one of the earlier old-timers, who saw how Mike Q. took over the Midtown Group. Includes stories like how girls are counseled to have sex with the older male members of the group. Described and linked here.
Still more from the Midtown Group: Newsweek magazine published an article:
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID;=137850505&blogID;=258918827
== A 15-year-old girl is told to cut off all communications with people outside of A.A., and stop taking medications for a bipolar disorder, and is encouraged to have sex with MUCH older A.A. men.
And that's just the start of the article.
A therapist says: "We're all saying, 'Go to AA, go to AA,' and we may be sending people into this terrible situation and not realizing it."
Worse of all, the police say that they can't find anything wrong with it.
Also see:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18368218/site/newsweek/
== where MSNBC has reprinted the article
Now we get a report from the Phoenix, Arizona, Young People's A.A. that says that the group exists solely for "cars, pussy, and money". Check it out.
Rick Ross gives me an "award".
Another treatment center nightmare
Another story: Growing Up In a 12 Step Home.
Washington DC has a large A.A. group for young people that specializes in the sexual exploitation of under-age girls by old sponsors. Check it out.
You must see this video on cult mind control — it's great: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnNSe5XYp6E
More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters...
More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters.
http://www.vsocial.com/video/?d=47999 == Somebody put this online: a video of Penn & Teller on 12 Step Programs. It's great. Get it while you can.
More information on the finances of the Alcoholics Anonymous organisation. Man is there big money to be made in selling quack medicine and goofy religion!
Scott S.'s analysis of the AA-NY statements about the A.A. dropout rate.
Over at the Rick Ross web site, there has been an on-going debate about whether A.A. is a cult. I saw such obviously wrong statements being made that I just had to jump in. After a few posts, Rick Ross started deleting my messages, especially when I questioned his credentials and knowledge of A.A., and pointed out that he had the same number of degrees and certifications as I have == none. (But at least I've gone to a lot of A.A. meetings.) You can read the censored posts here.
More letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters, and more letters.
News of the Day, 1
More letters, and more letters.
Health authorities report that tobacco will kill 1 billion people in this century, but Alcoholics Anonymous still says that smoking is okay — only Demon Rum is the evil drug.
More letters and more letters and more letters.
This is too much: a violent video game from the Religious Right where the players wander the streets of Manhattan and shoot those people who will not convert to fundamentalist "Christianity". See descriptions here and here. (Can you say "Fascism" and Hitlerjugend? I knew you could say that.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpSslAhuGu8&search;=12%20step == Here is another hilarious spoof of 12-Step Recovery — "Pigs Anonymous", a 12-Step program for male chauvinist pigs
More letters and more letters and more letters and more letters and more letters and more letters and more letters and more letters and more letters and more letters and more letters.
More letters and more letters.
Just when you think that maybe the Children's Gulags problem is behind us, the sadistic monsters who wear drill sergeants' hats brutally murder another child:
http://www.nospank.net/anderson.htm == the story of Martin Lee Anderson.
Many more propaganda and debating tricks:
1. The Positive Accomplishments Sidestep
2. The Story Sourcing Distraction
3. The Personal Loyalty Red Herring
4. Reversal Of Reality
5. De-legitimize One's Opponent
6. Moving The Goalposts
7. Pollyanna's Ploy — Unbridled Optimism
8. Chicken Little's Pessimism
9. Deflect Criticism and Blame By Deligitimizing It
10. Specious Argument
11. ...and more...
More letters, and more letters.
2006.03.28: A girl is hijacked to a 12-Step treatment center by an aunt, after the aunt gives the girl alcohol.
More letters, and more letters, and still more letters. And then some more and some more and some more.
A reader finds another self-proclaimed "expert on addictions" who is trying to make a living by raving about how bad alcoholics and addicts are.
The Recovery Propaganda Machine, part 7 — Saturating the Internet with recovery misinformation and quackery
More letters, and more letters, and still more letters. And then some more and some more.
Laugh of the week: http://www.eap-association.org/index.html — this is allegedly The International Employee Assistance Program Association. (That terminology, "Employee Assistance", is code-speak for "shove all drinking and drugging employees into a 12-Step quack medicine program.") Their web site is so messed up that it looks like they are all stoned out of their gourds on something or other. Check out their web site, and then ask yourself whether you would trust those people with your mind and your life. — Or with the lives of your loved ones.
Fun and games! South Park did a show that is an outrageous spoof of Alcoholics Anonymous — the most biting and true satire of A.A. that I've ever seen. You can download the show to your computer and watch it again and again. See the story and the procedure here. Have a Merry and Hilarious Christmas!
More letters, and more letters, and still more letters.
Celebrities maybe sort-of endorse A.A. recovery.
More unscientific "scientific" papers that try to fool people into believing that A.A. works.
Another old-timer writes about his experiences with "the evil empire".
More on the Straights, the child-torturing "drug and alcohol treatment programs" that were run by, among others, former Ambassador Melvin Sembler, who was also a Finance Director of the Republican Party. (Melvin Sembler is the guy whom Gary Trudeau lampooned in Doonesbury for buying an ambassadorship.)
Added an "Action Alley" web page — quick, easy things that you can do to make a difference.
Right now, you should send an email to your one Congressperson and your two Senators to oppose H.R.1258, which is just another attempt by the quacks to steal some more of your money.
One clever correspondent, Rob, got the bright idea of asking the A.M.A. to explain their policy that "alcoholism is a disease". The results are appalling, outrageous, and entertaining — It turns out that the A.M.A. actually let two A.A. front groups write the definition of alcoholism.
More letters, and still more letters.
Reworked the web page on "Snake Oil", adding a lot of neat old images of quack medicines.
Added more logical fallacies, propaganda techniques, and debating techniques:
- If It Looks like X, Then It Is X.
- Misrepresent Your Opponent's Position, or Mischaracterize Your Opponent, or Mischaracterize His Statements or Questions
- Laugh It Off
- Repeat Old Memes
- False Dichotomy
- "Somebody's got it worse"
- The Enemy Of My Enemy Is My Friend
- Apply Labels
Lots more letters, files 22 through 26.
Reworked, rewrote, and expanded the history of the Oxford Group and Moral Re-Armament, and then split the one overly-large file into 34 smaller files, here.
Got another account of Dr. Frank Buchman at the 1935 Nuremberg Nazi Party rally, from Henry Williamson, who described how Frank Buchman used his fat ass to shove Williamson out of his seat.
Got a scanner. Added many more historical pictures of the Oxford Group and Moral Re-Armament, and fascists and Nazis, and Up With People to the history of Frank Buchman and his Groups.
A British journalist, Michael Burn, who went to the 1935 Nuremberg Nazi Party Day rally found Dr. Frank Buchman, Unity Mitford, and Lady Diana Mosley sitting together on the bench in front of him. Frank Buchman was, of course, the founder and leader of the Oxford Group and Moral Re-Armament religious cults. The madcap blond Unity Mitford was a passionate fascist and a favorite of Adolf Hitler. Lady Diana Mosley was the sister of Unity, and the wife of the British fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley. What a small fascist world it is after all.
Likewise, another British writer who observed the 1938 Nuremberg Nazi Party Day rally noted that Heinrich Himmler "apparently dotes on the Oxford Group and writes to its English members discussing their troubles with them."
Lots more letters, files 17 through 21.
Added more logical fallacies, propaganda techniques, and debating techniques:
- The Real Scotsman
- Flattery
- Appeal To Common Folk
- Exchange A Term
- Inflammatory Language
- Dominate the Conversation, Talk Non-Stop, and Interrupt Constantly
- The Fallacy of One Dissimilarity
- Deception Via Mislabeling or Misnaming Things
- Refute By Exposing Contradiction
Added The Twelve Traditions, Interpreted
Added two more bait and switch tricks:
1. First, God is your servant, and then you are a slave of God.
2. First, they will tell you to see a doctor, and say that "we know only a little", but then it's "We know more than doctors", "We are the experts on addictions", and "Don't take your medications that the doctor gave you."
The debates about the torture and murder of prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison are giving us lots of examples of propaganda tricks like distraction and minimization and rationalization.
Is George W. Bush a dry drunk? Alan Bisbort wrote a great editorial on the subject.
Dr. Arthur H. Cain's magazine articles about Alcoholics Anonymous that he wrote back in 1963 — now have both articles. Dr. Cain was an early critic of A.A., and clearly saw the cultish nature of A.A., even way back then in the early days.
More about Bill Wilson's narcissistic personality disorder: Nina Brown's book on living with a narcissist explains a lot of Wilson's behavior. Quotes here and here and here.
Carolyn See is the stepdaughter of Wynn Corum, who was one of Bill Wilson's paramours, and the author of the Big Book story "Freedom From Bondage". Carolyn recently reviewed Susan Cheever's book for The Washington Post. Besides verifying her stepmother's affair with Bill Wilson, Carolyn reported that the early A.A. members were so extreme, so fanatical in their opposition to medications that they even bickered about whether taking an aspirin for a headache constituted a slip from sobriety.
Susan Cheever's new biography of Bill Wilson, "My Name Is Bill" is quite an apology for Bill.
Tobacco — Some thoughts thereon
More Big Lies — The A.A. propaganda mill never sleeps.
Sentenced to A.A.: Judges in the Westboro, Massachusetts area are sentencing people to A.A. meetings for everything from exposing oneself in public to stomping heads to being a bad cop who threatened to rape a 12-year-old girl. It seems like those judges really do believe that A.A. is magic snake oil that can cure anything.
Another AA/NA horror story: First, a sponsor seduces the guy's girl-friend, then the group seduces his 15-year-old god-son; then, years later, another A.A. group nearly destroys his marriage.
A survivor of Dr. Miller Newton's "Straight" concentration camp for children tells her story. And more about Miller Newton the child abuser here.
Another letter: Arguing again about the original A.A. success rate.
Just when you thought it couldn't get any crazier: Now there is even a 12-step recovery program for the Adult Grandchildren of Alcoholics.
Frank Buchman the social climber actually had the nerve to tell Queen Marie of Romania that she was endangering "the moral and spiritual development of her children" by not attending any more of his tea parties.
The finances of the Oxford Group: Frank Buchman financed his cult by collecting rich and famous members, and then shaking them down in the name of Heaven.
Peter Howard, Frank Buchman's disciple who took over the leadership of Moral Re-Armament and The Oxford Groups after Frank Buchman's death, was a fascist — a real genuine fascist. Peter Howard was a high-ranking member of Sir Oswald Mosley's New Party, which morphed into the British Union of Fascists, and Howard was the leader of the New Youth Movement, Oswald Mosley's copy of the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth).
Dr. H. H. Henson, the Bishop of Durham, pointed out that Frank Buchman's doctrine of Checking Guidance created "a paradox" It was a classic example of a bait and switch trick — you started off being told to listen to "God", but ended up being told to listen to the cult leader — and Alcoholics Anonymous still uses the same trick today.
Narcissism revisited, again: Frank Buchman's outrageous behavior fits the criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder, too.
Narcissism revisited: Dr. Alexander Lowen wrote a great book on the narcissistic personality disorder, and darned if it isn't a very accurate portrayal of Bill Wilson's behavior.
New letters: Screwing with alcoholics in the U.K., and Seven rehabs, seven chances to get cheated.
My 12-step true believer "counselor" goes to prison for pedophilia, child pornography, and cocaine.
Paul Diener's letters to the Addict-L mailing list.
Added two more bait-and-switch tricks to the list:
1. First it isn't political, and then it is.
2. Shifting objectives: First the goal is to quit drinking, and then the goal is to "acquire faith" and "come to believe" in Bill Wilson's religion.
More revelations of Carl Jung's fascism and racism.
In 1939, Percy Hutchison, the poetry editor of The New York Times (and a hidden propagandist for A.A.), declared that the new book Alcoholics Anonymous was the best treatment of the subject of alcoholism that he had ever seen, and it had the best alcoholism treatment program (as if the poetry editor was qualified to give medical advice to the public).
Rev. Sam Shoemaker, the American Oxford Group leader, invented the "Act As If" routine to help in the religious conversion of doubters, and A.A. has been using it ever since.
Paul Diener on the Oxford Group and the British Fascists at Oxford in the 1930s.
We know that Bill Wilson learned the cult religion routine from Frank Buchman and his sequacious "Oxford Group" followers. So, from whom did Buchman learn it? The answer was buried in an obscure book that was published in 1946.
Spontaneous remission: alcoholics successfully quit drinking all on their own, all of the time — plenty of them — in fact, far more than ever recover in A.A..
According to A.A. propagandists, all doctors should now stop thinking logically and scientifically, and quit wanting to "know the reason for everything", and just "come home" to the cult.
Bill Wilson's education: Bill the "conservative atheist", "skeptical scientist", and "icy intellectual" "whose God was science" was really just Bill the superstitious college flunk-out.
Temperance organizations before A.A. — Bill Wilson wasn't the first at anything.
Bill Wilson the self-proclaimed "gifted psychic" talks to dead people. And he does it again here.

Now you can see what was
Censored by Yahoo!

This web site, all of these pages and all of this information was suddenly totally erased without prior warning or notice, or explanation, on Sunday, April 20, 2003, by Geocities.Yahoo.Com, whose friendly staff didn't seem to like something that I said. They wouldn't say what it was that they were censoring. Read the story here.

Join the Blue Ribbon Online Free Speech Campaign!

The censors and the book-burners are at it again.
Now my email is
Blocked by AOL!

Wednesday morning, December 28, 2005, I answered an email from somebody on AOL, and it immediately bounced back to me with a big hairy error message.

I investigated and found that AOL had blocked my email account and IP number because somebody complained about my web site. Read the story here.

And, if you are on AOL, you can help out by sending a letter of protest to the postmaster@aol.com

It's fixed! AOL silently removed the blocks, without a word of explanation or apology. Thanks to all of the people who wrote in support of this web site.

Footnotes:

1) Michael has done a lot of research on that quote, and he found that it actually came from William Paley, not Herbert Spencer. See Michael's paper here:
Survival_of_a_Fitting_Quotation.pdf

Search the Orange Papers

Click Fruit for Menu

Acknowledgements:

Word is that Orange is okay, the person previously hosting the website passed away and arrangements were not made for continuity.

The maintainer of this mirror did not author any of its content and is a neutral historian of this comprehensive history of AA and a repository of information for skeptics, some of whom have found it to be helpful in their decision to leave 12-step groups.

There are several online discussion groups named after the Orange Papers. I'm banned from most of them, and you will be too. This is why I do not name or endorse any of them.

The bills are paid through 2024, this is a mirror run by a volunteer, no donations are accepted from the public. If you wish to support Orange, his contact info is all over this page please contact him directly.