Originally Posted by nonsensical
My biggest disappointment with the book Rational Recovery is that Mr. Trimpey never misses a chance to say something negative about the most popular recovery methods. To the point that I think it detracts from his otherwise brilliant work. I can see drawing some comparisons to promote your own ideas, but he really comes across as having a burr in his skivvies about the methods that didn't work for him. I found most of it unnecessary.
I used to think that too until I really understood what he was getting at in some of his points. There are some very valid points, even if at times his delivery is lacking. The more I looked into it unbiased, the less it appeared to me to be a personal vendetta. It's really less about what has failed him, and more about a system that really does need tweaking if people are to stop dying from addiction. I have no vested interest in seeing it that way, except for the purposes of my own education which is a hobby for me. I made the decision to quit in the nut ward with no knowledge of RR.
It's the same with other pieces of literature. There are times I have to plod through the style to glean the nuggets. I do find Trimpey to be somewhat batsh*t crazy, but I'm not looking to hang out and have lunch with the guy, shoot the breeze and maybe have a mani/pedi bonding moment. The same goes for Bill W. Many have objected to him in personal ways and still successfully followed the program he helped to found.
I once had an algebra teacher that rubbed me the wrong way, the toupe, the mannerisms, yuk...but man on man if I wanted to learn algebra, he was the man.