Tell ya what, jim. If you want to eat you have to go to one of Chairman Mao's re-training gulags. Okay? You could choose starvation instead, though.
Perhaps a bit extreme but in the same vein as the rights violated in the OP.

I think that whatever it takes for a person to heal, it's all good. I would bet that at least 50% of members pay lip service to a "higher power" yet are helped anyway. It's the support, the empathy and feeling that one is not alone in their struggle that is probably the core benefit. Group therapy with a step-by-step guide.

They should change it to "inner power" and be done with the religious aspect.

I would not want to be forced into a religious program of any kind. Would anyone defend the justice system if, instead, it ordered a person to attend church? Think about it.

I've tried to find the real funding behind AA, but can only find bits and pieces. I highly doubt that is solely funded by donations from individuals and imagine it's also from religious organizations. I found a tax statement from 2012 . Interesting, although I don't understand what most of it means, but it looks profitable for the execs and retirees.

http://www.expaa.org/documents/AA%20FS%202012%20Pub.pdf

I don't care about this guy and I really have no investment whether he gets help or not. I am irked by a $2M award to a guy who chose 100 days in jail rather than going to his inpatient rehab because it's AA-like.

A truism from a while ago... I can explain it to you but I can't understand it for you... or something similar.

You can't understand for me, because I look at it from a therapist's viewpoint and you are looking at it from an atheist's viewpoint.

This guy was on parole. The definition of parole.

the release of a prisoner temporarily (for a special purpose) or permanently before the completion of a sentence, on the promise of good behavior.

Hazle was on parole and a person on parole does relinquish some of his civil rights.

A condition of his parole was to go to a 90 day in-patient program. It was not AA in a church basement. He went to a Westcare 12-step program facility and was going through their program which was AA-based

Truthfully, if he was so offended by the religious nature of the program he had the option of going back to jail where he would not be inundated with the religious themes of the 12 step programs, but then he wouldn't be COLLECTING $2M FOR NO REAL OFFENSE. The program was as advertised. It wasn't any more offensive than Betty Ford's etc. Because it was a condition of parole it would have been paid for by the state of CA.

I disagree with the $2 million as well Kath. That is a ridiculous amount. But he was kicked out of the program for being "disruptive". And yet his "disruption" was "congenial". It isn't too hard to connect those dots.

And if people who disagree with you are obviously "ignorant" then enlighten them Jim. All you have to do is come up with a non-religious account of "higher power" and our ignorance would disappear.

MY opinion is that the government is constrained by the 1st Amendment from forcing anyone into any religious-based program ~

One last time - AA is not religious based. If it was, you wouldn't find many people in it. But, hey, you guys who have never attended a meeting have no idea what it's about but you're the experts. Nobody's going to tell you anything. You know it all.

Next: The guy volunteered to go to the program in order to get his parole. It seems to me the government did the right thing. If he didn't want the program he could go back to jail. Instead we have a whole bunch of folks cheering for a meth addict who has just been handed $2,000,000 of your tax dollars. Now he's upgraded to a meth dealer and looking for your kids and grandkids. That'll show the government!

What a load of BS, jim ~ I told you about my close friend and you dismissed it ~ I know what he went thru looking for an AA or AA-derivative [for lack of a better term] that was not religion-based ~ it took him months ~ and I deeply doubt that you're an expert on every AA group everywhere ~

And please provide a link to wherever your information on what the op guy is doing now is coming from ~ or are you still assuming?

Sooz

jim, I think it depends on the chapter. I've attended a meeting and the one I went to was heavy on the religious aspect. Prayer, hymns...the whole bit in a church that was, to my understanding, also a sponsor of that chapter. It could also differ from country to country and, in the US, from state to state, city to city.

From oskars link:



Sounds a tad like a cult (almost Masonic) to me...but I digress...

I'm not cheering this guy getting millions, but it does highlight that religion or religiously skewed programs should never be given that as the only option to incarceration. He did not volunteer, he was assigned and protested while trying to get transferred to no avail:




The funds awarded were way too high, as they are in many other such lawsuits. I don't know the reasoning behind the amount or why a settlement was negotiated.

Is it accurate to suppose that the fine particulars of the AA experience depend a lot on where one goes for it, and on who is in charge at that location? The church where I work ( and have been a member going on 40 years) provides a meeting space for AA every Monday evening. They insist on meeting in the common area, where people from the two congregations (one Lutheran, one UCC) mill around before and after worship services. The AA people do not want overt religious symbolism on view during their meetings. So I have to conclude that the God component of AA can be optional.

This program is not an AA meeting. None of us have any idea what this program entails. I tried to search online and I can't find any details.

I know how the people convicted of drunk driving behaved during the IDRC mandated meetings that I co-facilitated. I'd say the term "congenial disruption" is fairly accurate. They also had to submit urine samples. If they failed that, they wouldn't get their licenses back. No God was ever mentioned in our meetings. LOL!!! We talked about AA meetings and why heroin is so popular now and how all therapies are all bs and blah blah. I think I asked what wouldn't be bs and how do you see your life going from here as an addict. Those answers weren't generally very concrete, but it worked as well as anything else. Aging and illness does, too. When the clients realize they aren't immortal some things kick in.

Yes, gramps ~ it is largely dependent on the individual groups how big a role religion plays in AA ~ there ARE some AA groups that don't want the enhanced religious aspect ~ but those that do, at least here in the Chicago area, are far more numerous ~

Sooz

Sounds a tad like a cult (almost Masonic) to me...but I digress...

Oh for Christ's sake! The Tea Party is starting to make sense.

Anyway, you guys win. You've made the world safe for meth addicts - managed to ensure the only program that has a chance of working can't be available to them. Got the courts to adopt your ignorance and created a nice new meth dealer. All is right in the world.

Does it state that it was NOT AA?

I just found this oskar.

He was released in February 2007 upon condition that he attend a 90-day drug rehabilitation program. Hazle told WestCare California, Inc., a private company that contracts with the state to provide substance abuse coordination services, that he was an atheist, and requested assignment to a non-religious treatment program. They sent him to Empire Recovery Center, where he found they used a 12-step program modeled after Alcoholics Anonymous, including references to “God” and a “higher power.”

Hazle refused to attend and was thrown back in prison for 125 days. He filed a complaint, but was told by his parole officer that the only other available program was even more religious. Hazle was bailed out, though, when the Ninth Circuit Court ruled in September 2007 in Inouye v. Kemna that parolees could not be forced to attend a faith-based program if they objected to its religious nature.


I will look up Empire Recovery Center...
http://olderc.empirerecovery.org/

Betty Ford mentions AA, twelve steps. I am going to lookup Maryville where I refer people sometimes.

Well I'm no expert Jim, but this was all the information the 'expert' here gave us:

#15 The references to a higher power are simply to remind him that he is not in control of the universe.
#20 It just seems to me that if the guy has been in AA for 20 years and AA requires some kind of belief in a higher power, he's accepted that there are forces greater than he is.
#23 And that's all the higher power/God/Force/Society whatever you want to call it of AA is - a force greater than you.

But I suppose being an expert means he doesn't actually have to back up what he says - the rest of us acolytes should just nod and remain silent at the foot of the master I guess.

And now it seems we have defied the teachings of the anointed one and, as a result, meth addicts will take over the world!

(ok, a bit of hyperbole there, but sometimes its a good idea to fight fire with fire)

Well, Cattleman, my sobriety date is March 4, 1976. Over the past 38 years I've gone on countless 12 Step calls, visited inmates and patients in countless detox centres, prisons and psych wards. I've attended thousands of meetings all over North America and both conducted and participated in numerous step meetings and programs. Not once in all those years have I felt I was attending a religious program or a religion based program. Nor does my concept of "God as I understand Him" have anything to do with any kind of religion. Yes I say the Serenity Prayer at the end of each meeting but, to me, the "God" in that prayer is the power of nature, reason and rationality.

But, hey! You guys all know so much more than me about AA and how it's a cult and a religion - I'll bet some of you are even sure we sacrifice kittens and drink their blood during our dark rituals.

Anyway, if any of you are concerned about a drinking or drug problem you may have, try attending an AA/NA meeting. If nothing else it will fuck-up your drinking until you are ready to give it a real go.

So you participate in a religious act, but you don't think its actually religious to say a prayer to God. Ok.

I would. And I suspect most other people, including people at AA meetings would as well.

And I'm all in favour of "nature, reason and rationality", but I don't pray to them.

Cattleman wrote:

So you participate in a religious act, but you don't think its actually religious to say a prayer to God. Ok.

I would. And I suspect most other people, including people at AA meetings would as well.

And I'm all in favour of "nature, reason and rationality", but I don't pray to them.

As usual you are wrong. But then you figure you're omnipotent so I wouldn't expect you to be able to discern the difference between asking for something and praying to something.

It doesn't matter what you think you are doing Jim. This isn't about your perceptions. Its about what activity is taking place. I could go into a church and participate in the service without accepting any of the religious significance of what was being done or said. Would that mean it wasn't a religious service after all?

But just out of interest who/what are you asking?

And if you really need to insult me at least get it right. That would be "omniscient", not "omnipotent".

That would be "irrascible".

And if you really need to insult me at least get it right. That would be "omniscient", not "omnipotent".

You're batting 1,000. Wrong again. I meant what I said.

Good for you, jim! ~ your history is very impressive and I give you a lot of credit ~

But here's what I don't understand ~ given your own history, why would you dismiss others' experiences? ~ that just doesn't make sense to me ~ no one is questioning the 12 steps or that they generally work ~ but YOUR take on AA is that it is non-religious, while others [including a close personal friend] had a terrible time finding a group that doesn't use religion playing in various levels ~ and you yourself admitted that you've swapped out "God" for "a higher power" ~ why do you refuse to accept [and cheer on] those who refuse to make that same swap? ~ isn't the ultimate goal to beat a personal addiction?

Sooz

*** Edited to add: Isn't a goal of AA to give emotional support to others who are fighting the same battle?

But here's what I don't understand ~ given your own history, why would you dismiss others' experiences? ~ that just doesn't make sense to me ~ no one is questioning the 12 steps or that they generally work ~ but YOUR take on AA is that it is non-religious, while others [including a close personal friend] had a terrible time finding a group that doesn't use religion playing in various levels ~ and you yourself admitted that you've swapped out "God" for "a higher power" ~ why do you refuse to accept [and cheer on] those who refuse to make that same swap? ~ isn't the ultimate goal to beat a personal addiction?

I don't dismiss other people's experiences. What I do say is that every one of them, if they have been successful in AA (and that includes your friend), have adopted some form of God as we understand Him. It may be that they have gone full fledged into religion or they merely accepted that the laws of nature apply to them, but, one thing is certain, they have some concept of a power outside themselves that has more power than they do. Some have just adopted AA and it's messages as their higher power.

I've known alcoholics who have managed to stop drinking, sometimes for long periods of time, without that acceptance but nothing else has changed for them. They are still as miserable and unhappy as they were when drinking. Almost inevitably they wound-up drinking again if it went on for too long. In most cases though they gave up their "I'm the centre of the universe" beliefs, accepted the idea of a power greater than themselves and begun to grow.

*** Edited to add: Isn't a goal of AA to give emotional support to others who are fighting the same battle?

That's a bit of a misunderstanding. AA isn't one of these warm and fuzzy, group therapy, I'm okay/you're okay
group therapy sessions. The last thing it does is offer emotional support, that's just a sure way of killing them. Remember, AA deals with alcoholics the most dishonest, emotionally screwed-up group of people this side of Ted Bundy. They've spent their entire drinking careers lying to themselves and others, feeling sorry for themselves and rationalizing their actions to shift the blame to someone other than themselves. Offering emotional support to that kind of thinking is counter productive at the max. You are much better off telling the guy right up front that he's full of shit and to start just doing what he's told until he gets smart enough to make some of his own decisions.