Old 03-20-2008, 05:58 AM
  # 14 (permalink)  
nolonger
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Join Date: Oct 2006
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Posts: 299
I don't really have time to comment properly on this thread right now (or on the sudden appearance of a new “12-step-secular board” – but I am not if sure *more* divisions are what’s needed) but I want to say that there is nothing as depressing as the way hardliners and dogmatists and black-and-white thinkers can so easily dominate discussions, either here or in real life.

All this "AA is a crazy cult for the weak-minded" or "if you've overcome alcoholism in any way other than by my narrow definition of AA, you were never an alcoholic in the first place" makes me want to go away and sit in a dark room. And when people start aggressively throwing their dogmatic, unimaginative, self-certain opinions around (usually with “that’s not my opinion, it’s just the truth!” added on)… I want to start banging my head against the wall of the dark room.

On the one hand, I feel like saying – there’s so much more unites than divides us as alcoholics and addicts, all this taking sides is so boring. But then, there’s nothing worse than papering over real differences to achieve a fake-happy consensus – especially since that consensus usually means that one group of people have to shut up and not really say what they think. Trust and humility seem to be the key things, but they aren’t easily come by.

(ends pious waffling)

Paul, if you're not articulate enough for this board, then there's no hope for the rest of us!
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