I am reading this book and it is what I suspected....you chose to quit and you quit or you chose not to quit and accept the consequences of your actions. Simple really. You cannot blame anyone or anything except yourself for your actions. You take responsibility. This is very much like dieting. You want to lose weight? You exercise more, eat less. It isn't easy but it is what it is. People many times don't like to hear the rational since reality is tough so they gravitate to the fads and quick fixes and the irrational. Thus you have people making millions selling the banana diet, the grapefruit diet, Atkins, pills dat kills, etc. which is essentially selling bullshit and in the long run it makes you fatter. Much of the introduction basically lays out the fraud that is the AA or 12 step programs. The 12 step programs are basically religion pedaling horseshit and not surprisingly don't work. The 12 step programs are worse than a placebo treatment and quite similar to the fad diets in that they make things worse in the long run. 1. We admit we are powerless over alcohol (drugs)-that our lives have become unmanageable. I have always had a suspicion that the term "alcoholic" is bullshit and the listing of it as a disease is also incorrect. It is simply an excuse and a justification for drinking and it makes family members and society accept this behavior as these people are "powerless" to do otherwise. What a wonderful thing for an abuser. To have the burden of responsibility taken from them. The next steps are simply religious hocus pocus. 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character 7. Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings It is all up to God. Only God can heal you, blah blah blah... 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others More religion, confessionals, ask for forgiveness, do 10 Hail Mary's.... 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out Reaffirms only religion can help... 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs Now go prosthelytize. The results of the 12 step programs are dismal at best with 95% of participants dropping out after one year. 20% of abusers eventually quit and 77-82% of those do it with no help at all. They just quit which is all you can do. 93%-97% of drug treatment programs in the US are the religious based AA and 12 step programs that facts show don't work. They do work at perpetuating themselves which seems to be the only real purpose of these programs. They are in essence a church. Participants in the 12 step program must accept that it isn't their fault they drink, that only God can heal them and that they will forever be afflicted with the 'disease". Failure is expected. There is jargon to explain and excuse the failure because failure is normal....relapse, triggers, enablers, etc...because you are never cured. The 12 Step counts on you not really doing what is needed (stopping drinking for good) because they need you for them to exist. To attend meetings you must only have a desire to quit drinking. You don't have to quit, you must just have a desire to quit. The 12 step is quite simply a fraud. | 
