The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Ben Stein's Legions

1.30.06 @ 12:01AM

PITY CONTEST
Re: Mark Gauvreau Judge's One-Downsmanship:

As a recovering alcoholic who has just celebrated seventeen years of sobriety and who still attends two meetings a week, I disagree with Mr. Judge's conclusions about recovery. Having attended many AA meetings over the years, I have seen my share of horrifying "drunk-a-log" swapping and pity parties but that is why those with sober time under their belts should stick around, not why they should leave. The central idea of AA is that the most effective means of getting sober is one drunk helping another. While the point of recovery is reintegration into society as a whole, the recovering alcoholic should never lose sight of who and what he is. There is no graduation. Besides, how will newcomers ever learn the way out if everyone who has found success leaves?

It is the responsibility of those who have recovered to give back what has been so freely given to them, namely the experience, strength, and hope of those who have gone before them. They need to show the newcomer that there is life after alcohol and it is good. If I don't like the tone of a meeting, it is my responsibility to steer it back onto recovery and to put the focus back on the solution rather than the problem. The most important thing my sponsor taught me is that my recovery is solely my responsibility but, paradoxically, I cannot do it alone. No one ever died because they sat through a "bad" meeting. However, many of us have buried friends who stopped attending AA, forgot what they were, and drank again. That is the real tragedy.

Dr. Bob, the pragmatic half of the duo who founded AA, wrote about why he continued to go to meetings. To paraphrase him, he kept going because of a sense of duty, for pleasure, as payback for those who helped him and as insurance against the next drink. That answer works for me. In recovery, we speak of "trudging the Road of Happy Destiny." Anyone stuck in a recovery cul-de-sac is doing something wrong. I have known alcoholics like James Frey over the years, posturing and embellishing their stories for effect and thinking they have everyone fooled. We simply look them in the eye, smile, and invite them to keep coming back.
-- Anonymous Alcoholic in Maryland

There's much truth in the piece by Mark Gauvreau Judge. Someone out there will relate to your story. To the witches brew of "One-Downsmanship" mix in a handful of repressed memories and a dollop of self-pity. Top off with a heaping spoonful of con artist bravado and voila--an instant best-seller!

Despite Oprah's condemnation, James Frey will continue to seek a market for his book. It's scheduled to come out in paperback with only a slight modification of the title to: "Would You Believe 500,000 Little Pieces?"
-- Stan Welli
Aurora, Illinois

I read James Frey's book in 2005. It is a page-turner, there's no doubt about that, but recent revelations of Frey's "one-downsmanship" don't really surprise me. In that regard, would someone please look into the veracity of the book's most harrowing chapter, where Frey describes getting a root-canal without the benefit of anesthetic? It seems to me that someone who would turn three hours in jail into a three-month stint in the pokey would have no qualms about getting a tooth filled and calling it root-canal.
-- Gavin Valle
Peapack, New Jersey

I, too, am a former drinker. However, I am at odds with Mr. Judge regarding Alcoholics Anonymous. For me, AA was a failure. No, I didn't start drinking again; I just got tired of the "One-Downsmanship" and the whole "disease" mentality. "Drinking" is behavior! I believe, when you "medicalize" behavior, you defer responsibility! Diagnoses provide excuses; excuses offer justification for... more behavior; and on it goes. You want to stop drinking/gambling/drugs, etc.? Stop the behavior! No one's putting a gun to your head.
-- Jon Lindquist
Las Vegas, Nevada

The former Mark G appears to have benefited by his tour in AA. Godspeed with the rest of your life, Mark. I have chosen to regularly participate in the AA fellowship until God calls me home. That's because I feel an obligation to be there when newcomers need direction. God bless those oldtimers that were there when I needed the help.
-- Les P.
Chicago, Illinois

BEN VS. JOEL
Re: Ben Stein's Saints in Armor:

To Ben Stein From a Marine Office in Iraq:

Thank you, God Bless.
-- [classification: UNCLASSIFIED]

It's too bad this article cannot appear on the front page of every newspaper in the country and on every TV in America at prime time. Ben Stein should give the State of the Union Address, or at least, write it.
-- Louis

Thanks to Ben Stein again. I know that there are millions of Americans that "Support our troops." None does it quite as well as Mr. Stein.

Semper Fidelis
-- William R. Costantini
Lieutenant Colonel
United States Marines

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