that's why it's *anonymous*
It's not to protect the members of AA (or any of the other As...OA, NA, GA...there are over 200 twelve-step programs for whatever ails you) that it's an anonymous program. It's to protect AA itself from looking bad.
Take these comments from Lindsay Lohan, this morning on MSNBC.com (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16172919/):
“I haven’t had a drink in seven days. Or anything,” she says. “I’m not even legal to, so why would I? I don’t drink when I go to clubs. I drink with my friends at home, but there’s no need to. I feel better not drinking. It’s more fun. I have Red Bull." And then, later in the article, she says, about her well-publicized pantiless drunken nightlife: "I was off from work, I was getting ready to start a film, and I was, like, going out just to get it out of my system.” This is after she says she has been going to meetings for a YEAR.
Thanks, L. Now someone will hear you and think this is what AA does to people. That being of legal drinking age - or not - has anything to do with the disease of addiction, that you can pound Red Bull as an alternative, and that you can go out and get it out of your system on occasion, when you're off work, or like, whatever.
For many people, recovery from addiction is not a quick-and-easy thing. We all know that. More often than not, the addict relapses one or two or four hundred times before they find lasting sobriety. But what happens when celebs (see: Robert Downey, Jr, Courtney Love, Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Bennett) make their AA-ness known, they become sort of a spokesperson, an example, even if that's not their intention. We listen to what famous people say. We watch their every move. So when some dingbat celeb comes along and talks so flippantly, so not-getting-it about AA, it makes AA look bad and gives those addicts looking for one more excuse to not go that excuse to not go.
Notice the ones for whom it's working are pretty darn quiet about it. You might not even know who they are. And that is my point exactly. If you're famous, and just sorta-kinda in-recovery-but-not, ZIP IT until you have something intelligent to say about the process. What you'll probably find is that by the time you do, you'll know why you shouldn't. Do not mistake your fame as a great podium from which to start helping people. It's not about recruiting. People know where to go and what to do when they bottom out, they don't need newcomer celebutantes spouting toxic misinformation to help get them there.
Au contraire.
Take these comments from Lindsay Lohan, this morning on MSNBC.com (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16172919/):
“I haven’t had a drink in seven days. Or anything,” she says. “I’m not even legal to, so why would I? I don’t drink when I go to clubs. I drink with my friends at home, but there’s no need to. I feel better not drinking. It’s more fun. I have Red Bull." And then, later in the article, she says, about her well-publicized pantiless drunken nightlife: "I was off from work, I was getting ready to start a film, and I was, like, going out just to get it out of my system.” This is after she says she has been going to meetings for a YEAR.
Thanks, L. Now someone will hear you and think this is what AA does to people. That being of legal drinking age - or not - has anything to do with the disease of addiction, that you can pound Red Bull as an alternative, and that you can go out and get it out of your system on occasion, when you're off work, or like, whatever.
For many people, recovery from addiction is not a quick-and-easy thing. We all know that. More often than not, the addict relapses one or two or four hundred times before they find lasting sobriety. But what happens when celebs (see: Robert Downey, Jr, Courtney Love, Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Bennett) make their AA-ness known, they become sort of a spokesperson, an example, even if that's not their intention. We listen to what famous people say. We watch their every move. So when some dingbat celeb comes along and talks so flippantly, so not-getting-it about AA, it makes AA look bad and gives those addicts looking for one more excuse to not go that excuse to not go.
Notice the ones for whom it's working are pretty darn quiet about it. You might not even know who they are. And that is my point exactly. If you're famous, and just sorta-kinda in-recovery-but-not, ZIP IT until you have something intelligent to say about the process. What you'll probably find is that by the time you do, you'll know why you shouldn't. Do not mistake your fame as a great podium from which to start helping people. It's not about recruiting. People know where to go and what to do when they bottom out, they don't need newcomer celebutantes spouting toxic misinformation to help get them there.
Au contraire.
posted by wendy at 11:28 AM
1 Comments:
I agree 100%. It seems to me that the celebs you mentioned were probably going to AA to get someone, perhaps their critics, off their backs. Recovery is something you do for you - not for apearances or the press.
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