From: Alan
Subject: Well done
To: Agent.Green
Received: Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Thanks for the site and I agree with you that Agent Orange seems to be on some sort of witch hunt for AA. Still, his fascination with the 12 steps, AA and the Big Book seem to have kept him sober for years it seem so, I guess the promises come true in their own way to each of us. I wonder what he would have used if he had not found them and had something wonderful to focus on like this.
Live and Let Live.
Alan
>>Alan:You make an interesting point that Agent Orange has transferred his addiction from drinking to orange-papers.org, guess only he can answer whether that is true or not (although he may struggle to do it honestly!).
My objection to orange-papers.org, (and the main reason I made my website), is that by his obsessive anti-AA stance, and by wilfully distorting facts and figures, Orange may be turning away desperate people whom AA might be able to help.
Yes, live and let live, but speak out against dishonesty.
Best regards
Agent Green.
From: BB
Subject: The 5% lie about AA attendance
To: Agent.Green
Received: May 7, 2010
Hello Agent Green
I am surprised to see you still have not caught on to one of the biggest lies of all being perpetuated by the likes of Agent Orange and Jack Trimpey - namely, the twisting of the original AA triennial report.
Look at the graph in the orginal report. Here is a copy of the original document. The actual graph is on page 12.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3264243/Comments-on-AAs-Triennial-Surveys
Where does the line start? The averages of all the triennial results is at the bottom of the graph. The line does not start at 100%. Now for that 5% to represent a 95% dorp in attendance, where do you think the line would have to start? Do you see the gigantic error? IF THE CHART REPRESENTED 95% LEAVING by the end of the first year, the line would have to start at 100%
It actually starts at 19% (averaged value given at the bottom by month)
So lets do the caluculation
In their 1st Month - 19%
In their 12th Month - 5%
5/19 x 100 = 26%
THATS 26% remaining, not 5%
Do I have your attention yet? IF nothing else, please point this out on your page instead of perpetuating the 5% myth. It's just the inability of people to read the damned graph! All the numbers represent are the lenght of sobriety of people in the meeting with less than one year.
Notice that things begin to level off by around 6 months? Gee, could it be that once the intitial slipping and sliding is over that people start to acheive stable sobriety?
So what else do we need to include to understand that other factors need to be taken into acount and not simply accepting that AA fails in 76% of cases (as AO and JT would have us believe)?
1. Newcomers go, only to come back week, months or years later. There's no shortage of people who check out a few meetings and decide AA is not for them, or that they really don't have THAT BAD of a problem . . .
2. People newly in sobriety are often encouraged to try and attend 90 meetings in 90 days. Do you think that might skew the count?
Really, as an AA member, I think that given we have now shown that 26% remain a year, we have a reason to be encouraged. Even if, in the end, the people who conducted the research are not trained researchers who should know to consider the other factors that would further skew the results! Who knows, that number might really be well over 30% when everything is factored in!
And thank you for correcting me where I have been mislead by another area of Orange Papers' propaganda - I've updated this site accordingly.
Best Regards,
Agent.Green
From: McGowdog
Subject: A.A.
To: Agent.Green
Received: Tuesday, February 16, 2010
I stumbled onto your site as I was wasting some time on that Stinkin'
Thinkin' site.
I've decided to not post there anymore... at least for a while. It's a
waste of time.
I wanted to thank you for your page and what you've done to debunk Orange
and an objective look at A.A.
I am an alcoholic and have been sober for 6 years and counting and I use
A.A. for that.
Thanks again for taking the time.
McGowdog
>>McGowdog:
No problem, thanks for your support.
Regards,
Agent.Green
Dear Agent Green,
Hope you are well. Just dropping a line to say that I agree with one part of your message - I wholly agree that alcoholics desperate for help, and lacking alternatives, should try AA and see if it helps and, if not, they should find an alternative. Mind you, alternatives are not readily to hand for most people, and moral - or even legal - pressure to "keep coming back" to AA may be very difficult to resist. Also, I doubt whether a mere six or so AA meetings is enough for a confused person in early recovery to form a balanced, clear-minded view as to whether AA is for them. Apart from anything else, it takes a longer than that for most Newbees to become clear-minded about anything ! It certainly took me a lot longer in that strange environment, trying with all my heart to "make it work", before I determined that the Fellowship was not for me, and the subsequent divorce was painful and seriously damaging to my recovery at the time. But I got over it.
As to your arguments as to "ownership of the facts", well, I am afraid that I am with our friend Orange on this one. Your refutation of the Orange argument, on grounds of content, logic and consistency, seems about as hole-free as the average Swiss cheese from (let us say) Caux. I am not sure whether you have noticed, but Agent Orange has arisen from his slumbers, and has posted his refutation of your refutation (a bit over the top on points, as usual, but really a lot more impressive than your piece) in the most recent "letters" entry on the "Orange Papers". I look forward to your refutation of the refutation of the refutation with bated breath !
Really Best Regards from an Actual Ex-Member of AA,
Live Long and Prosper,
JR
>>JR. Thank you for writing. I certainly can't dispute your personal experience that AA didn't work for you, and I hope you found a path to sobriety. Unlike Agent Orange, you don't seem to say that AA is always bad for all people, which is also good. I made my argument as clear and logical as possible. Please do let me know what 'holes' I can fill up!Subject: Brava!
To: Agent.Green
Received: Saturday, March 15, 2008, 6:59 PM
greetings A.G
I have read much of what agent orange has written. I get a real kick out of his reasoning. AO has done much more work then I would ever do to foster his distain.
Underneath all his logic and statistics there seemed to me to be something just not right. There is much I happen to agree with such as the sick bullies and perhaps sicker people who follow them as so called AA mentors. I just cringe at meetings when I hear not only Bill Wilson quoted but living members as well. "Joe Says" this and so forth. Joe or "Mike" or whatever your AA guru turns out to be is just as close to a drink as you-arms lenght!
Some do tend to put people above the spiritual principles of this fellowship. Some ARE sicker then others. The "something" not right was simply this: AA worked for me since 1987! Well not only this fact but the 44 or so thousand I saw around me in Toronto in 2005. People from around the world gathered in one place to celebrate a common "weakness" The power there is beyond words.
Since November 4th 1987, I've seen many come and go and the sad fact is-they go! Yes many do not want what AA has or at least at some point of their lives as many do come back. How the heck can one really gather stats on who gets sober and when and where? Another fact that cannot be disputed is I know hundreds of people by face and name who are sober and got sober in the years I've been around. My guess is the average of these hundred's sobriety 'time" is about 10 years. Heck I'm just one person in AA
The AA number of members is roughly two million and I believe that is a good if not conserative number. I know many (my brother included) who got sober and stopped attendance in AA Should they be counted as well?
Anyway, I understand AO's resentment at AA his sicko counselor gave him a bad taste. Too bad I believe that bad examples such as his counselor give AA a black eye but not as "black" (if that makes sense lol) as the 'treatment" centers that fail background checks.
OA however throw the baby out with the bathwater due to his hatred of this one man. Sure AA has sick people it is by nature a place where sick people can hide their true agendas. So are OTB's and train and bus stations!
Please OA if you read this, give AA a chance to help you. A spiritual expirence is waiting for you.
My conversion took place in AA but yeah OA it could have come in a church or ashram. People do get sober on their own too.
Give it a chance and God bless.
Glen, NY
>>Thanks, for your message, Glen. Again, it's good to hear from people who can see both sides of an issue, instead of "AA good' or "AA evil."
Regards,
Agent.Green
Dear Agent Green,
I have just had the pleasure of discovering your site.
I left AA over two years ago and I am now over 5 years sober.
Once I left I used the internet etc to research AA’s history and became aware of Agent Orange, Ken Ragge’s books and the 12 Step Free yahoo health group; MSN X-Steppers on-line groups etc. What struck me was the shear amount of proclivity displayed as anger, insults and hypocrisy expressed by the majority of the people and groups I have mentioned towards any attempt at reasonable debate.
In fact some of the work by Ken Ragge borders on the ridiculous - stating that attendee’s at AA are subjected to Chinese Brainwashing techniques and that AA deploys a clever bait and switch technique to trap members. Laugh, I nearly fell off my chair! Attempting to correspond with this gentleman is pointless and attempting to do the same with Agent Orange has the same result. So I am very grateful that you have begun to pick over their work.
I left AA because I was no longer maximising my time and I am free to come and go as I please. I felt AA was no longer useful. This is my personal choice of course, something re-discovered in AA! However I became sober from my first meeting to this day which I will always be grateful.
The people like Agent Orange are unable to see that it is quite possible that AA is just right for an individual. It may be the trigger that changes one’s attitude towards drinking. Or you may enjoy the company of the many "like minded", kind and well meaning people that you frequently find in AA.
Overall it is an innocuous self-help group well known for its spiritual nature. I like you find the shear amount of inaccuracies written about AA incomprehensible and whilst the “in recovery from recovery fraternity” is all too ready to criticise - they are unable to take it.
Kind Regards,
Rob
>>Thanks for your message, Rob. I'm glad there are people who can see an issue from both sides, pro and con, without taking shelter in
simple-mindedness.
Agent.Green
Severe alcoholic is, probably, the person that AA helps. The person has allowed the matter to deteriorate to the point where a solution is very difficult. This is not a common situation. It is common for a person to get a grip long before that. He realizes it himself; is told that by a doctor; is told that by family and friends. Or, is told by a judge after being stupid enough to drink and drive.
95% are gone before one year. There are many reasons for that. A few reasons: they are not severe alcoholics; AA helped them and they got on with it; AA did not, and they went somewhere else; their sentence agreement sent them to AA, when the agreement was closed out, they left AA; they did not like AA.
Many in AA don't belong in AA.
It is common for people to quit or moderate on their own. These folks are not known to AA; nor, are they known to the recovery movement. These folks are truly anonymous. And that, is as it should be.
Agent orange is seriously displeased with AA. It may well be that he has good reason to be. Accept that. There are many alternatives to AA. They need to be easier to find.
Ahenobarbus
>>Thanks for the message, Ahenobarbus; I agree with most of what you say. People should be aware that many drinkers get sober without AA, and that there are other ways out that may be less well known to the public. I accept that Agent Orange is displeased with AA, but I argue against his use of false data to portray AA as evil. Also, note that 74% are gone in their first year of AA attendence, not 95% (which is another bit of false data, Agent Orange has put out there).
Regards,
Agent.Green
I enjoyed reading your rebuttal to the Orange Papers. It is refreshing to see someone from the 12 step camp offer an analysis based upon research, evidence and critical thinking, as opposed to simply telling Orange that he is some kind of sicko. That said, I feel the need to write to you to point out why I believe that Orange's analysis of 12 step treatment and its effectiveness still stands. I also intend to comment upon some of the other assertions that you have made on your page.
>>My position is that Orange's analysis only 'stands' because he misrepresents the texts he quotes. Specifially, he applies Vaillant's dismal clinic results to AA, and he ignores Vaillant's actual discussion of AA.
What I do not respect about Orange is:
* He distorts facts and figures. He ignores research he doesn't like. He'll read a whole book and quote only the one sentence that supports
his views.
The truth is that Orange has written a website that is supposed to be a rebuttal to AA propaganda.
>> The use of propaganda by some AA supporters does not justify Orange's use of propaganda.
Much of the material that Orange draws his information from has been written by people with a direct interest in propagating the AA message. This includes, but is not limited to, George Vaillant. As you are well aware, Vaillant is employed by AA, as a "non-alcoholic trustee", a board member of the AA World Services Board. Vaillant cannot help but exhibit a very noticeable pro-AA bias, which is most apparent in his interpretation of the results of his own study into AA's effectiveness.
>> Physicians are supposed to promote methods that objective research indicates to be effective. I wish all doctors would show Vaillant's committment.
Orange is entitled, as a critic of AA, to highlight the comments that Vaillant makes which support his point of view. It would be ridiculous to suggest that Orange should read a whole book and then quote only one sentence that supports someone else's point of view. In any case, the referencing of a single point/sentence from a published work is pretty standard practice, on wikipedia and in academia. On top of that, Orange actually prints 5 whole pages from Vaillant's book, the Natural History of Alcoholism.
>>Orange is entitled to pick out the negative bits, but I strongly oppose him pretending that Vaillant's results showed negative effects for AA; that is plain dishonesty. Orange doesn't even refer to the pages where Vaillant discusses AA (p 187 - 197). And, I might ask, why are you defending such behaviour? Or how what would you think if I didn't publish your letter and instead claimed that "Stephen R. admits that Orange is over the top", as you mention below?
* Though millions of people have attended AA, Orange will not admit that AA has helped a single one of them.
Of course, the main crux of Orange's argument against AA is that, despite the fact that many people attend, it has no effectiveness above the natural remission rate from alcoholism. Orange argues that AA is simply good at convincing both its own members and outside organisations of the effectiveness of AA.
>> Are you listening? Two million people, and Orange will not admit that a single person was helped. Sounds willfuly blind and obsessive to me. Furthermore, Orange's stats on AA are fake, as I discuss on the home page.
AND (the main reason I made this website):
* By his obsessive anti-AA stance, Orange may be turning away desperate people whom AA might be able to help.
I don't see that anyone looking for help would be put off finding it by Orange's website. If they are "ready", if they are at the point where they will be susceptible to treatment for alcoholism, there is little that Orange could do or say to stop them accessing it.
>> Alcoholism is a killer, and so is false information. There is no medical cure for severe alcoholism, and Orange's bogus research may turn people away from this possible path to sobriety.
This criticism seems to be saying that Orange should not be allowed to have his website. I believe these are pretty flimsy grounds for censorship. That is the problem with Free Speech; people are allowed to say things that we don't necessarily agree with. I can't remember who said it (Bill Bryson??) but I always think of the following when confronted with the suppression of ideas: "Sir, I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to be an ass-hole."
>> Sorry, buddy, don't tag me with the "censor" label. Orange is free to publish false information, and I am free to rebut it.
On top of this, Orange is very careful to offer people plenty of alternatives to AA. SMART, SOS, WFS etc. Many of the people who write to his website express gratitude to Orange for him having helped them break free from, what they consider to be, a dangerous cult which has negatively impacted their lives, sometimes in pretty extreme ways.
>> Yes, I am glad that Orange reminds us that AA is not the only way, and I am glad that he provides alternatives.
I should take this opportunity to say that Orange does sometimes seem a little "over the top" in the claims he makes about AA. I do not agree with everything he says (just a lot of it).
>> Orange may be more over the top that you realise. Have you read the source material? A quote to parallel yours above is "Sir I agree with your conclusions, but I will strongly oppose your use of propaganda and falsification of facts."
However, all the above said, I think the following may be of interest to you: http://www.peele.net/faq/imdrunk.html Does one case of a person relapsing because they have had an alternative viewpoint on AA exposed completely invalidate all the work that Peele has done? He seems pretty obsessively "anti AA" (and also believes that Vaillants work shows that AA is more likely to cause relapse than "natural remission" from alcoholism...). What about Penn and Teller? Their show "Bullshit" (which reached a far wider audience than Peele, Orange and Vaillant combined) was very one sided. Or South Park ? They didn't even bother with research; their argument was "Cancer is a disease, diabetes is a disease, alcoholism is not a disease. Therefore, AA is a cult." I don't see that Orange is doing anything wrong other than exercising his right to free speech and highlighting research that I would certainly want to know about if I was thinking of joining AA.
>> Orange has done more research than the South Park people, but he is less honest. I'm happy that Orange is 'highlighting' research, but I oppose his falsifying results.
So, should, as you asserted, an alcoholic attend a couple of AA meetings when he decided he has "had enough"? Sure, I don't see why not. But he should go in armed with all the facts. He is not going to get all of the facts at the AAWS website, or in an AA meeting. He is going to get pro-AA propaganda. "It works if you work it" "Do the 12 steps or die". Sure, not at every AA meeting, and not from every member, just from most. Reading the Orange Papers might give someone a healthy scepticism about the outlandish claims that are often made in "the rooms". Maybe he will find his recovery there, maybe he won't. But people need to know about some of the dangerous aspects of AA (such as the "high death rate" - which we will come to later - and the increase rates of binge drinking amongst those who drop out of 12 step programs). Orange provides that information, and not many other people do. This is surely not a bad thing?
>>Yes, I am glad that Orange reminds us that AA is not the only way, and I'm glad that he provides alternatives, but his claims of a 95% failure rate are based on misrepresentation.
AA - Only a 5% success rate??
(1) Was the study really about AA?
You claim that this study was not about AA. Of course, this is at best a misunderstanding and at worst what you accuse Orange of - purposely misrepresenting the facts. Vaillant himself states that he set out to prove the efficacy of AA with the following lines:
"To me, alcoholism became a fascinating disease. It seemed perfectly clear that by meeting the immediate individual needs of the alcoholic, by using multimodality therapy, by disregarding "motivation," by turning to recovering alcoholics [A.A. members] rather than to Ph.D.'s for lessons in breaking self-detrimental and more or less involuntary habits, and by inexorably moving patients from dependence upon the general hospital into the treatment system of A.A., I was working for the most exciting alcohol program in the world.
But then came the rub. Fuelled by our enthusiasm, I and the director, William Clark, tried to prove our efficacy."
The main body of research (the 8 year follow up study) was looking at the efficacy of putting someone in detox and then sending them to AA. You mention the "access to other facilities", but this was not the treatment that they received. They received a medically supervised detox followed by "encouragement" into AA. Correct me where I am wrong, please.
That said, you state that this is not a study of AA, and we will look at that when examining your next two rebuttals.
>> The severe alcoholics in the study came for clinic treatment, and not all of them attended AA. The quote from Vaillant is on the clinic results, not on AA. What's so difficult to understand about that? Why did Orange not refer to Vaillant's discussion of AA? It seems like a small fib, but Orange bases many pages of his anti-AA propaganda on this basic un-fact. By the way, "[A.A. members]" was inserted by Orange and is not part of the original text.
(2) Did AA really fail 95% of the time?
Of course, according to you, AA wasn't examined in this study. It wasn't about AA, and certainly never looked to test its effectiveness.
>> The study was of a clinic, but higher AA attendance went along with a higher recovery rate. I have inserted a summary box on the home page to clarify this further.
Meanwhile, back on planet earth.... You state that "half of the stable remissions, but only two of the chronic alcoholics, had made 300 or more visits to AA". So now we are to assume that AA works in 50% of the cases? Well, actually no. This shows that people who attend AA are more likely to be sober, a fact which has never been in dispute. But what we are looking at here is whether or not AA stops people from drinking. This is what Vaillant set out to prove, and this is the opposite of what actually happened. I can imagine that almost all of the chronic alcoholics made over 300 visits to the pub. Does this prove that Pubs cause alcoholism? No, because there were many more people who attended that pub and had no problems with alcoholism.
>> 300 visits to a pub would be associated with alcoholism, just as AA is associated with recovery. Also AA attendance was associated with sobriety in some patients who would not otherwise be expected to get sober. Read the text, please.
As for the fact that most people did not achieve abstinence from the start to the end of the study, we need to understand what was being tested here. And what was being tested was AA's effectiveness as an intervention from alcoholism, after detox. If I go to the doctor and he puts me on anti-biotics for an ear infection, then these anti-biotics don't work so he gives me another treatment which does work, do we say that the anti-biotics worked? What about if a few years later the infection comes back and he tries the original anti-biotics again. This time they do work, so we say they worked the first time? That isn't how tests of medical treatments work. Vaillants results, whether they were designed to show AA works as an initial intervention or not, show that AA does not stop people from drinking.
>> Again, the study was of clinical treatment; not all subjects attended AA. There is no medical cure for severe alcoholism like there may be for an ear infection; sobriety is usually attained through a long progression of slips and starts. If you define success as immediate sobriety, no treatment on earth will show good results for severe alcoholics.
(3) Does AA's retention rate indicate 95% failure?
Does low retention show ineffectiveness of treatment? Well, yes, I'm afraid it does. As I may have told you before, I work in addiction treatment. One of the biggest things we are measured on is our retention rate. If we don't keep a certain amount of clients in treatment, some very important people start to ask "why?" They are right to do this. Because the sad reality is that when someone drops out of addiction treatment, they have more than likely relapsed. This means that the treatment has "failed" on this occasion. If you attended AA and saw the horrendous retention rate, you yourself would no doubt assume that each person who does not return is "back out there".
>>I understand that you need to minimise lost patients to provide good clinical treatment. But with no follow up by trained researchers, you have no idea if your 'lost' patients are drunk or sober. This is doubly true for AA, where there is no set schedule.
Your gym argument is interesting, but unfortunately uses fallacious logic to reach the conclusion that "AA works".
>>I'm not trying to prove AA works here. My logic is 'fallacious' because I'm using Orange's techniques.
If a Gym had an annual 26% retention rate, would it start asking itself some very serious and searching questions about its own ability to get people healthy? As Gyms are run as commercial enterprises, I rather think it would. Would it continue to portray the message (through advertising etc) that coming to a Gym could make you a sexy, healthy, good looking individual? Well of course. New members are its bread and butter. A Gym can't go on without "new blood". Would an outsider look at that Gym and conclude "exercise is unhealthy"? No, but they might look at the Gym and say "That Gym is being mismanaged and I imagine that most people who stayed there are not exercising, because if they were they would still be at the gym". Well that is what is happening with AA. It has a poor retention rate, but refuses to ask questions that might help it to increase this retention rate. However, it still tries to "advertise" that it is hugely successful in its aim (to make people sober), as AA relies on "new blood". Nobody that looks into AA sees the failure and says "sobriety is unhealthy". They say that AA doesn't work at helping someone achieve sobriety.
>>I would imagine most gyms do have a very low retention rate. There are new people who are want to get fit but don't last long in the gym, perhaps because they give up on exercise or just go on to another physical activity. Contrary to Orange's argument, a low retention rate is not a failure rate. If you stay at the gym, you get healthy. Likewise, if you stay at AA you improve your chances of getting sober.
Antiquated and Irrelevant References
As you point out, Vaillant's study is not of AA.
>>Vaillant did study AA. However clinical results should not be applied to AA. AA was associated with improved outcomes.
Therefore, Orange has looked at other "randomised, longitudinal, controlled studies" (his words, not mine, minus the US spellings...) These are the only types of study that are scientifically valid. Ask any pharmaceutical company to release a product that hasn't undergone similar rigorous testing and they will laugh at you. Why? Because they couldn't get a doctor to prescribe a product that they can't prove works. Unfortunately, Ditsman and Brandsma are the only studies on AA which fulfil these criteria. Even the hugely expensive "Project MATCH" failed to include a control group. And it is hugely important that any study of the effectiveness of a medical intervention be randomised, in order to avoid "cherry picking" and accusations of bias. According to wikipedia, any study on AA is very difficult, because AA members are "self selected". This makes doing a randomised study almost impossible. Unless the members can be coerced into the treatment. In step Mr Brandsma and Mr Ditman.
>>Every study has its limitations, including Ditsman and Brandsma. Their tests were semi-randomised, but subjects were coerced, which doesn't work with AA. It is usually not possible to set up a control group when studying AA; it's impossible to prevent people from attending if they want to. Project Match didn't 'fail'; it was simply comparing different treatments. All research on AA is indirect; it is a difficult topic to research.
The truth is that research shows that coerced addiction treatment is just as effective as voluntary treatment. In a very real sense, practically everyone who engages in treatment is coerced in one way or another. Some via the courts, but others by their wives, or their jobs or their finances, or a million and one other reasons. People get sober because the results of not getting sober will be worse for them. That is what coercion relies upon. The ethics of criminal justice "coerced treatment" (which I find sickening) do not come into it. It works just as well as "normal" treatment.
>>Coerced addiction treatment may work in clinics, but not in AA, which is a spiritual program. For best results, reliance on AA has to be an individual decision.
So, are these results "outdated"? Well, probably not. For a start, there is no research which supersedes the results of Ditman or Brandsma, simply because there are no "randomised, longitudinal, controlled studies" which have been carried out since. And in any case, the methods used in AA have not changed since 1935. However, it would be important for you to know that George Vaillant used studies going back as far as 1949 for comparison in "The Natural History of Alcoholism".
>>As I pointed out above, there is no single flawless study of AA. As responsible writers, we have to look at the bulk of research over the years. Vaillant does surveys of the literature going back for years. Orange cherry-picks the papers he likes.
I hope this has given you some food for thought. I look forward to hearing back from you. I wish you some very good tidings and hope that you can expand the website soon...
Best regards,
Stephen, England
>>Best wishes to you also for a good '08.
Agent.Green
Home URL http://www.green-papers.org/. E-mail agentgreen@green-papers.org. Letters are posted I get them, then answered when I get a chance.