Hurting Within the Rooms of Recovery

The video can be viewed here at: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-13th-step
or at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-_xPU3KC5E
if the vid is not showing up here.

The video is titled "The 13th Step" and a woman named Monica Richardson made it.  She and some women in California are on a mission to make the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous safer.  Or at least to spread awareness of several issues surrounding the rooms.

Those issues are people and the people in particular are predators.  Predators operate by looking for a vulnerability in their mark or vic, and then using manipulation to ease their way in.  So yes, women [and I suspect a few men but the men aren't talking yet] do get raped by predators that they have met in the twelve step rooms of recovery.  [I have direct knowledge of one such woman who was raped by someone she met at a meeting].  Yes, people do get robbed, beaten, taken advantage of financially, and murdered by others who they got acquainted with in the rooms.  People in the rooms commit armed house robberies.  These things happen.  I know they happen because I've known people [as in "more than one person"] that these things have happened to.  No murder vics in my direct knowledge but the other stuff yes.

Monica approached the A.A. General Services Office in New York City when she began receiving copious e-mails from women who were raped by other members of A.A.  But the A.A. Trad "A.A. has no opinion on outside issues..." was presented to her as an excuse for not doing anything about it.  So Monica said screw this shit and left A.A.  She currently has thirty years or so of continuous sobriety.

The trouble with citing a tradition as a "reason" for non-action is that this issue is not an "outside" issue.  It is very much an inside issue-- one that very few people have dared to brooch.  In typical A.A. fashion, a sponsor who does not know any better will ask the sponsee, "What part did you play in this?"  This question really misses the mark.

To those who have been fortunate enough to survive sexual assaults, beatings, and other such things which were perpetrated by people that they've met in recovery meetings, I can say this:  You did not deserve it.  You did nothing to make this happen to you.  You are blameless.  And, I believe you.  If you find that you cannot return to 12-step meetings but you wish to get support for your continued abstinence, I encourage you to check out alternative programs such as the ones listed in the links here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-_xPU3KC5E under the first section labeled "Non-cult Pro-Recovery."

                                radical sapphoq

Re: The Murder of Billy McDermott [and his friend]

Re: my friend Billy McDermott

Dear Chief Gregory Culick, Amsterdam Police Officers, Investigators, and Helpers,

With Respect:

Billy McDermott was my friend.  And I was honored to be his friend.  This is not a matter of "how he lived his life,"or "he had a history."  Some people who are addicted to drugs, even to crack cocaine, do recover.  Did you find drugs in his apartment?  Was there evidence of illicit drugs found in his autopsy, tox report?  I heard there wasn't.  Billy had had a heart attack about four months ago.  That scared him.  That scared him into another period of abstinence.

Oh I know Billy had a damming "history."  But Billy was also a very gentle soul and a sweet man-- whether he was using or not.   Until there is concrete evidence demonstrating that Billy was high at or just before the time of his death, we don't really know that he was high recently.  To blame his death partially or fully on his addiction sucks.  Are you aware that Billy had periods of abstinence as well as periods of time when he was using?  Billy did not just "live his life" high.  He wrestled with his addiction.  He wanted to be clean.  He also loved his parents, his brothers and sisters, his children and grandchildren.  Billy had a true generosity of spirit.  He bought lunch for people who were hungry.  He love kids.  He was always willing to listen, using or not.  Billy was truly a Sweet William.

I hope that Billy's past does not get in the way of finding the animals who perpetrated the double homicide which took his life and the life of Cheryl Goss.  There are other motives for violently stabbing people to death besides drugs.  Two of them are money and jealously on the part of current or ex-lovers.  I know the cops have difficult jobs and that you all put your lives on the line so we can live in relative safety.  I have to trust that you will investigate all leads-- the ones that point to drugs as well as the ones that point to financial greed and revenge. 

I hope you find the people who murdered Billy and Cheryl very very soon.  And I hope that they get put away for the rest of their natural lives without parole, regardless of the motive or motives for the murders.  And I hope that the truth will out.

              

                Yours in the struggle,


                   radical sapphoq



http://www.fox23news.com/news/local/story/Double-homicide-in-Amsterdam/LBWdwh6g70mhN_lbt-Y8mw.cspx

LET'S TALK ABOUT RECOVERY ( and a tiny bit about Britney) 2/25/07

It looks like reporters are having a heyday with Britney Spear's dance in-again-out-again of the luxury rehab. So much so that it was difficult to pick from the over 1,200 articles for the title link. Quite frankly, I don't much care what the shaven head pop star's motivation is, if her chosen facility is luxurious or not, or any other thing. It is rather fortunate that any addict's progress in recovery is not based upon what other people think. If it were, I myself might be dead or still in the mix today.

There is a popularity involved with critiquing 12-step methodology. I can accept that. I can also give a nod to the idea that 12-step programs in general may have some characteristics of cultish behavior. And a vigorous nod to the idea that 12-step program membership is not for everyone seeking to recover from addiction to alcohol, other chemical substances, gambling, sex, love, co-dependency [read: messed up families or relationships], eating disorders, or any other -ism. What I will say is that many people have found a way into a new life via 12-step programs-- whether mandated by drug courts or other legal authorities or not. And other folks have found other ways into a new life.

I have been abstinent from my own addiction on a continuous basis for more than a quarter of a century. I treasure my recovery. I have worked hard to get what I have today and I continue to work hard to keep it.

Britney is no different from any of the rest of us on the inside. She is not the first addict to bounce in and out of rehabs seeking direction but too afraid to stay, nor will she be the last. I am delighted when any addict is able not to use for one day regardless of how they do it. And so I extend my most sincere wish to Britney that she find some real peace.

radical sapphoq