Alcoholics Anonymous

I am writing this essay for the purposes of outlining my own personal observations and beliefs about the core beliefs and practical application of the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) program.  I will begin by clarifying that this writing is not intended to impugn the usefulness or the efficacy of the program, nor is this meant to deny the good that the program does. Inasmuch as systemic errors with regard to the science of addiction are a part of AA, I believe that the academic correctness of the program has perhaps rightfully taken a back seat to utility. For adherents, the system works so attention to whether or not its components are true is entirely beside the point. Nor is this critique rooted in an aversion to treatment on my part because, although I am currently involved in a treatment plan that includes AA principles, I am in that system of my own free will and I am not compelled to participate in the AA steps apart from attending meetings. If it were my desire to reject the program, I would simply not participate. I would not have to write an essay to do so. The following are my ideas in regard to the scientific validity of the program.

I will begin with the assertion that AA, while largely effective as a means of providing members with a program that can help them attain long term sobriety, is scientifically unsound in areas, especially as regards to its tendencies to positing that the majority of the source of alcohol addiction stems from negative life experiences while either ignoring or denying the influence of genetics on the tendency toward addiction. It is my belief that the reason AA ignores the influence of genetics on addiction is due to the unwarranted fear that if genetics can be shown to have a causal role in addiction, that it necessarily follows that nothing could be done to improve outcomes for addicts. 

The error here is the idea that if behavioral traits can be influenced by genes that give people tendencies, that that is the same as saying genetics control our actions as on a one-to-one correlation. Not only is this manner of misunderstanding demonstrably false, it also does not take into account the idea that, if providing the knowledge that some people have greater tendencies than others to certain actions, it could inform their recovery plan and alert them of the need to be more vigilant than the average person in regard to these tendencies. Think, for example, of a person with a genetic tendency to aggression. We need not conclude that there is nothing to be done about this tendency and that this person should be exculpated for their violent attacks. Rather, we should conclude that this person might require closer monitoring and perhaps be given more severe methods to dissuade them from violent behavior. If the reality is that genetics does play a role in addiction, it would make more sense to use this knowledge for the purpose of fine-tuning recovery efforts rather than ignoring this reality.

I do, however agree that trauma, and specifically childhood trauma, does play a large role, not only in substance abuse addictions, but in other behavioral addictions as well. The identification of the source of these traumas and the resolution, a coming-to-grips with these experiences and emotions, can go a long way to aiding in a person's recovery. In that respect, I am not saying that a focus on genetic tendencies toward addictive behaviors should supplant the focus on trauma-therapy, rather I am saying it should augment it.

My other point is that there exists within the program a tendency to oversimplify psychological tendencies to trite phrases (the tendencies of rationalization and self-deception are reduced to being called "stinkin' thinkin'", and the like. Also, one of the most egregious examples of the existence of pseudoscience within the program is the concept that alcohol addiction is the result of an allergy (taken from the founders of AA). Anybody who actually knows how to science knows that an allergy is when the body misidentifies a benign substance as harmful which results in physical reactions that would normally work to dispel or combat these substances. Whatever else might be said about alcohol addiction, it is not and never was an allergy. It is instructive to note, however, that the AA program was developed long before neural imaging was available to show exactly how addiction affects the brain and, in all likelihood, this disinformation was included in the program with the intent of providing a benign falsehood that would help convince people that there was a medical basis for their addiction which would aid them in their long term recovery. In this viewpoint, it is not important that the principles being put forth within the program be scientifically correct, it matters only that these ideas are helpful in the battle against addiction. It is the opinion of this writer that the more scientifically literate people involved with the program are fully aware of the deception and allow it to prevail due to its utility.

My final point is that the efficacy of the twelve steps themselves cannot be properly assessed given that the promotion in the belief in a higher power and the value of the communal meetings of AA members are an invaluable part of the program and it is impossible (in my opinion) to assess the value of the steps themselves apart from the higher power belief and the meetings since all these elements work together. I venture to say that any reasonably contrived program of twelve other steps might be just as effective as long as the higher power concept and the meetings were included in the program. I think the value of the step program is most effective in that it keeps the members focused on their recovery on a day-to-day basis and keeps them interacting within the AA community and it is reality that makes the step program effective rather than the steps themselves. That said, there is undoubtably much value within the steps and inasmuch as these steps are helpful, finding utility therein does not require slavish attention to the order in which they are performed.

I am getting bored now so this is my concluding sentence. Except here is another one. And with that, I'm done,

 In  2000 I voted for Dubya.

I say this neither as a point of pride or shame, of satisfaction or regret. I say this simply to remind myself and others that I do not regard myself as a liberal. Before Trump ran the first time, since 1988 my Presidential votes had been split 50/50 between Democrats and Republicans. 

I voted for the elder Bush in my first election because I was going into the military and I regarded conservatives as more pro-military. Then, in 1992, something significant happened. A new candidate arose among the Democrats. The consummately young Governor Bill Clinton from Arkansas, the first baby boomer Presidential candidate ever. Times were changing and I was excited. And he was cool too. During his campaign, when a reported shouted a question of whether he wore boxers or briefs, he responded with an amused laugh and said "Boxers!" When they shouted the same question to H. Walker Bush, he responded angrily something about the question being inappropriate. That, of course, was not the driving force behind my vote. It just exemplifies (in my opinion) the difference of attitude between the then up and coming boomers and members of The Greatest Generation.

I voted for Clinton again in his re-election but came to regret later when, in order to distract from his blow job scandal in the Oval Office, he had the military blindly fire some missiles at a relatively unknown group of ragtags in Afghanistan known at Al-Qaeda (to no effect). Then, when he lied about the affair under oath in a deposition, I was really upset. I didn't care that he had an affair with a staffer. Do what you do, but don't lie about it under oath. Either tell the truth or refuse to answer the question on principle. If I commit perjury, I'm subject to jail time. I don't think the President should get special dispensation. I thought that then and I continue to think so today. Integrity means calling out wrong when it happens, regardless if it was the one you voted for or not.

I was really excited when Dubya ran because to me he seemed more a man of principle than Clinton had been. The latter would announce a position then immediately reverse it when the polls swung the other way. Dubya is the last Republican President we had (and may ever have) who truly understood conservative principles and acted upon them. Smaller government, family values, adherence to the original intent of the Constitution, respect for the military, the importance of the rights of the individual rather than the so-called collective rights, and respect for religion. I will say nothing here about Trump other than the fact that if your so-called Republican candidate does not check off these boxes, he's not at actual conservative and neither are you. I'm still mad about the fact that he's the only person in existence who could have (and did) make me vote for Hillary. It was kind of like drowning in the ocean and the only thing to save you is to grab onto a floating piece of outhouse. Yeah, it was like that. After voting, I went home and took a shower.

I will end by saying that the only reason I wrote this piece is because the manager at work who has only known me for the past eight or nine years once referred to me as a Democrat. I was a bit miffed, then responded "I don't consider myself a Democrat and I'm certainly am not liberal." But as long as the right continues to embrace those with a predilection for white supremacism, I will side with the left. And as much as I despise communism, if I have to choose to side with a communist or a Nazi, then I will be in the trenches with the hammer and sickle crew.

Wordsmithing

 On or about 1980, when I was about ten, I was at the home of my friend John Parsons and we decided to play a game of Scrabble. I gained the opportunity of making the first word by virtue of my picking a higher value letter, then we drew our letters in earnest and I was just staring at mine. They looked like very compatible letters and I thought I could use most if not all of them in one word. Finally John said "Come on, quit stalling, make a word!" I said "Hold on, I think I got something.

I placed all my letters on the board making the word strived.  He said "That's not a word!" I said "Yes it is." He challenged, "What does it mean?" I said "To strive is when you try to do something." I counted up all my letters as a double word score (first word always falls on a double word) then added 50 point bonus for using all my letters. If memory serves me, I was leading 76 - 0. John quit the game on the spot as we didn't have a dictionary to settle the dispute.

Years later, I wondered (feeling a little guilty) if the past tense of strive was supposed to be strove. I never bothered to look it up and gradually I ceased thinking about it.

I later found out that, over time, through usage many speakers will be unaware that a word had an irregular past tense and they will begin using the regular past tense. Thus, slew gave way to slayed and shew to showed. My web browser just underlined slayed as an error but I can assure you L.L never warned his opponents in a rap that were gonna get slew or slain. I digress. Also, pronunciation often change over time for various reasons, the biggest of which that the pronunciation itself is problematic. The past tense of make used to be maked but who has time to navigate two frictives in a row when the word began with a voiced consonant so the word finally ended up being pronounced exclusively as made. Also, the reason we have so many weird spellings in English is that the spellings are borrowed from other countries or they came from Old English (not the 40 once malt liquor but rather the time of Chaucer). It is why, in the word eight, we don't pronounce the gh but rather the Germans sort of do with the word ocht. Of course, Noah Webster could have cleared up English spelling itself, making it more consistent and phonetic but he relied more on gleaning words from the world of academia which was in the East, an arbitrary decision which leads us to believe that American Southerners speak incorrectly rather than just differently.

Pronunciations and grammar evolve, not because some pointy-headed intellectual told us they should be but because word usage evolve for clarity and simplicity. Thus, nobody speaks of a facsimile machine today but they speak of fax because it's easier to say, Also, nobody talks about what they learned on the world-wide web or the information superhighway. Language isn't imposed from the top down but rather in the most egalitarian way possible, by the usages of the speakers themselves.

Man Made Economic Calamities in Modernity

 Throughout human history there have been economic and humanitarian calamities caused by flooding, droughts, diseases, and insect swarms which destroyed entire crop seasons. When humans have caused such disasters, it was often the result of wars where destruction of crops and property were intentional. In such cases, economic concerns were not the impetus for the wars and the ensuing collapse can be attributed to intentional bad actors. Less common have been economic disasters caused by small groups of people who were, ironically, actually attempting to improve economic conditions. The first that comes to mind was the Russians in the Bolshevik Revolution.

The Bolsheviks in Russia were members of a movement opposed to the Tsarist regime which they believed was repressive of the commoners and a throwback to an earlier time that had run its course. They were inspired largely by the concepts of Karl Marx who asserted that all of history was war between social and economic classes. He taught that capitalism was a tool that the upper classes used to oppress the common people and, as a result, when the Bolsheviks succeeded in overthrowing the Tsarists, the communist party succeeded the Tsarist and the USSR was established. The communists abolished the concept of private property and consolidated small, private farms into large communally run farms that operated, ostensibly, for the good of all. Since the impetus to work hard for personal gain was eliminated, these endeavors ended in spectacular failure resulting in the famine of 1930 - 1933. An estimated 5.7 million Russians died of starvation during this time (source, my friends Gary and Bernard). This was, at the time, the most egregious example of economic catastrophe caused by a small group of people trying to fix the very thing they destroyed.

As bad as that example was, this was dwarfed by the Great Chinese Famine of 1959 to 1961. This occurred due to the Great Leap Forward which was instituted by the planned economy instituted by the Chinese Leader Chairman Mao Zedong (for whom my cat is named, don't even ask). During this time, it is estimated by western scholars that between 15 and 55 million people died of starvation (as for that discrepancy, I challenge YOU to try using an abacus). There were more examples of economic disasters that occurred due to failed policies but I simply chose the most prominent of to 20th century but this is not a concept specific to communism. The next example is in full effect now and it is being waged by the so-called leader of the free world and putative capitalist Donald J. Trump.

It is at this point that I will point out that, whatever your opinions are of capitalism, in the past 125 years the standard of living has gone up, not only for all economic classes, but also for today's poor versus the rich of 125 years ago in nearly every respect. Today's poor have better food, access to better health care, and a longer life expectancy than the wealthy did in the past and the vast majority of improvements have been due to capitalism. When allowed to keep a great share of the profits from the efforts of their work, people are more apt to innovate and take economic risks to create new businesses which results in the hiring of more people from the less advantaged classes. New and better products are created, new service industries are born so, even if you excoriate against the evils of capitalism today, it is likely you do so via computer or cell phone in the comfort of your temperature controlled home before you retire to your living or bedroom to play on your X-Box.

I digress. I am loathe to assert that there is a flaw of the current US President that is bad as his blatant race hatred but if there is a flaw that rivals it, it is his economic illiteracy. Anyone who has completed a course on economics 101 (and don't say he has because rumors are that he payed someone else to take his SATs and there is no reason to believe he ever did his own coursework) would be able to tell you that, in a world where economic outcomes have made nations interdependent, the unilateral imposition of massive tariffs would be a spectacularly bad idea. When he asserted that other nations would pay the tariffs to do business with the United States, those in the know pointed out that the tariffs are not paid by other nations but by the American people. Economically, this is like threatening your neighbor that if you don't get your act together, I am going to beat by own wife and kids. 

Subsequent to this, Trump either continued either in his ignorance or at least pretended not to be aware that tariffs are a tax against your own people. The resulting economic data has settled the debate beyond a shadow of a doubt. The stock market has plunged, companies have either eliminated positions or laid off large swaths of people, and prices have risen. Economists also are predicting product shortages akin to those of pandemic era. This is part where I point out that political leaders often are often falsely credited or falsely blamed for economic forces that are beyond their control. The economy is a thing unto itself and, left alone, waxes and wanes to the multiplicity of forces that affect it. Presidents cannot create a good economy (removing constraints on the economy often create the illusion that the President made the economy good but that's kind of like saying you're a great doctor because you took the other guy's foot off someone's neck). 

No, a good economy is created by business owners, workers, and customers operating with a minimum of interference from government, to wit, people acting freely for their own rational self interest. A President cannot create a good economy but he can wreck it. Trump's tariffs are antithetical to that which made made this the wealthiest nation in the world and we are now paying the price for this malevolent ignorance. America was great before he got ahold of it and what we, the people, have created he is now dismantling bit by bit, right before our eyes. We are losing our budgets, our livelihoods, our ability to benefit from new research, and our access to health care. And amid this all, his cohorts are largely still oblivious to the economic ruin that is happening all around them. My only hope is that, if despite this ensuing tragedy you still support him, you lose the ability to sustain yourself or provide for your health care, and you end up going before your time, that they bury you with your stupid red hat.

Middle Eastern Lentil Soup Recipe

 Soak 2.5 cups of red lentils for at least an hour. Do NOT substitute brown or green lentils as these require a different amount of time to soak. For the best price, do not buy the lentils from a supermarket. Buy them from a halal store where you can buy it in bulk.

Dice up one small onion and three cloves of garlic and saute in oil in a pot (preferably olive oil but regular cooking oil will do). The onions/garlic should be enough to comfortably cover the bottom of the cooking pot.

Put together in a bowl:  2 tbsp turmeric powder, 3 tbsp cumin, 3 tbsp salt, and 1/2 tbsp black pepper, Dump these spices in with the hot oil/onion for 20 seconds to bring out the flavor.

vegetables:  I usually mince up a couple of stalks of celery and one small carrot to give the soup a little more body but this is optional. If you are using these, dump these in and then add enough water to submerge contents of the pot and allow for the eventual addition of the lentils which you should strain in a collend,. .   colland/. . . . collein.. . . .  spaghetti strainer

When water is at a rolling boil add the lentils and stir

After fifteen minutes (this is also optional), dice up a small potato and add to the pot in order to give the soup more body.

Cook at least 20 more minutes.  When it's done it should be like soup. If it's not like soup you either didn't cook it long enough or you used too much water or not enough water. Oops.

When it's done, check for salinity. Add salt if needed.

Serve with lemons to squeeze juice into the soup. Actually I cook the soup with lemon salt which you can buy from the halal store under the name acid salt but fresh lemon is better.

If the balance of spices is not to your liking, adjust next time. I don't actually measure my spices in measuring spoons so I'm just approximating.

Generalizations, Prejudgment, and Bias

Back on or around October 1991, I was a student at Lansing Community College. I was friends with a black female student named Valencia. One day Valencia showed up to class looking miserable. I asked her what was wrong. She said, "Michael, I feel so bad about something I just did. I was walking across the bridge to come to class and there was only one other person walking on the bridge. It was a black male walking towards me on the same side of the street. I got nervous so I clutched my purse and crossed to the other side of the street. Mike, we get mad at white people when they prejudge and are fearful of minorities and then look I just did the same thing we get mad about."

I told her "Don't you dare feel bad about you looking out for yourself. You don't know that guy and have no idea whether he's good or bad. You have no responsibility to put yourself in a possibly dangerous situation just to prove how non judgmental you are. In fact, in this case, non judgment would be the wrong answer. We can't just presume everybody out there is good."

In this society, at least since the Civil Rights Movement, we have been raised to believe that prejudging and generalizing about people are moral wrongs but in fact these are mental shortcuts that help humans optimize their choices in situations where our knowledge is limited. Compare 100 people who arrive to a job interview dressed professionally with nice shoes, a tie, and a neat haircut versus 100 people who arrive in jeans, a hoodie, gym shoes, and unwieldy hair. While I acknowledge that there would be some in that second group who would make good employees, the first group would have a higher percentage of good candidates because the way they dress speaks the qualities of conscientiousness and professionalism that set them apart from that second group. You don't have to bother with going through 200 applications in this situation. Restricting your search to that first group will provide optimal results.

This isn't an easy concept for people to understand because their belief in the immorality of generalizing makes them try to think of objections. Think about it this way. As a group men are taller than women. But if you say that (which should be a purely obvious and banal fact), someone is going to respond "That's not true. There is a 6 foot tall women at my job and the guys there are like 5'5". Of course the proper responses to this is are:

• The exception does not disprove the rule and;
• A woman in the top 2% of women's height should be compared to a man in that same percentile, not to a man in a low percentile

I was once in a bar with three members of my pool team and we got on the subject of generalizations. I said "Not all generalizations are bad. Some things just are. For example, black smokers are more likely to smoke menthol cigarettes than white smokers."

On of my teammates took immediate umbrage at this and said "That's not true! I know plenty of black people who smoke non-menthol!"

Note first, he ignored the fact that I did not say no black smokers smoke non menthols. Also, my point is not that he was unaware of the fact that what I said was correct (and to clarify, it has been well documented that cigarette companies historically marketed menthol cigarettes much more actively in the black community and that menthol cigarettes are actually more deadly than non menthol but I digress). My point is that denying obvious truths in situations like these are examples of virtue signaling. Look at me, since I am the one arguing against generalizing and you are the one generalizing, I am the good guy and you are the bad guy. Never mind that acknowledging the discrepancy in these rates would actually be the first step in addressing health disparities between the two groups but that is entirely beside the point. For the person doing the virtue signaling, their point never was actually helping the people they are ostensibly advocating for. Their main and possibly only point was ever to paint themselves as good and their opponents as bad.

My final point is that generalizing is only appropriate when you lack specific knowledge of the situation you need to judge. If you have candidates of different races before you and you say to yourself oh Asians are more academically successful that other races, then you look at their transcripts and you find that the Asian is only in the median range and you hire that person anyway because "Asians are smarter", that is not appropriate and is evidence that one, you are a racist and two, you should not be doing the hiring.

If you have read this far, that is hilarious to me.

My LSJ Editorial

 

Martial arts and film star Bruce Lee once said, “Knowledge is fixed in time, whereas knowing is continual.”  To on knowledge is to retrieve a memory from yesterday which may or may not still be relevant today.      It is our reliance on accumulated knowledge that hinders our present knowing, our struggle to arrive at the truth.

With ancient generations, it was their “knowledge” that the universe was geocentric that prevented them from knowing that the Earth revolved around the sun.  New and better systems cannot come into being if incorrect systems that prevent them that prevent them are not first identified and removed.  The best way to accomplish this is to question everything, especially the conventional wisdom.

 Bruce Lee also said that every system is a cage and that to embrace a particular style is to exclude all others.  This can be true in fighting, such as when a person holds that a particular style of karate is the best, and refuses to learn useful techniques of kung fu, wrestling, and boxing.  The style that does not adapt becomes ossified and is limited, not by the opponent, but by the self.  The worst enemy is that which comes from within.

 Something similar happens in politics when people say that a person of color who identifies as a Republican must be a sellout, and another person chooses to believe it.      This tactic was used against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.  But when you really stop and think about it, what could be more limiting and racist that you must vote such and such a way because of the color of your skin? Who in their right mind would trade shackles for a straight jacket? This is not critical thinking.  It is not thinking at all.  It is following with the blind devotion of a pig being led to the slaughter.

We must stop being led by the politics of the past and begin to question the conventional wisdom.  Instead of asking why other countries hate us so much, we should ask why we are choosing sides in bitter disputes overseas, spending billions of dollars to arm Israel, inviting the wrath of other nations in the region.

 To those who might think this position is unpatriotic, I ask you what is so patriotic about propping up a modern day apartheid on the other side of the world, instead of applying that money right here at home? What is so patriotic about helping to deprive the Palestinians of their homeland by supplying the very weapons that are used to gun them down? What is so patriotic about involving ourselves in faraway disputes when every time you turn around another nation in those areas either has or is suspected of having nuclear weapons?

And to those who say we should nuke those nations and be done with it all, that kind of logic is like throwing a grenade at a mouse in your living room.  Sure, it’ll do the job, but consider what you’ve done to your own home.

 Every problem in the world today can be traced to an action that preceded it.  Rather than follow the conventional wisdom of meeting violence with more violence, perhaps it would be wise to acknowledge that the United States has about as much business making policy in the Middle East as Iran has making policy right here in the United States.

 The United States has a Monroe Doctrine so that other nations do not interfere in this part of the world.  Is it that hard to understand that the Islamic nations of the world might want the same?

 This is not a question of military might.  One can accumulate all the fighting skill in the world, but sometimes the smartest fight is the one not fought.