Even though Newt Gingrich has denied having an alcohol problem,he says the Big Book saved his life. He might of even committed suicide without it. Rather strange for someone to turn to the Big Book who does not have a drinking problem, or admit to some form of addiction. Yet he does not offer any explanation. But based on his statements accusing our government of ‘ secular bigotry’ gives a hint to his radical views. This country actually routinely denies Americans secular alternatives in recovery, going against what our constitution states.
Newt Gingrich on the first day of office wants to wipe away every policy that adversely impacts religion. Wow. We are in big trouble for the small gains we have made in this country in separation of church and state issues. Newt wants to reverse all such gains.
Here is an in depth article about Newt and AA, including Newt’s position on the Drug War. He once believed in mass executions of drug dealers in this country. Really hard core stuff. The Fix is a pro-AA site, yet they do not seem impressed with Gingrich.
Newt Gingrich: ‘AA Saved My Life’
The much-maligned Republican front-runner says the Big Book made him see the light. But his critics are not convinced.
12/12/11
When presidential candidates—especially the current crop of Republican hopefuls—need to cite a text on spirituality, they usually thumb through carefully selected Bible passages or the Ten Commandments. But Newt Gingrich has always liked defying convention. A startling video of the former House Speaker, who’s enjoying a widening double-digit lead over Mitt Romney just three weeks before the Iowa Caucuses, shows the Roman Catholic convert speaking not of God or Jesus, but of a “greater authority,” as described in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Although careful to avoid official AA language like a “higher power,” Gingrich offers plenty of clues that in the two decades since he left the House of Representatives, he’s acquired a more than passing familiarity of Bill W.’s spiritual treatise.
In late November, at a televised GOP candidate forum in Iowa hosted by a Christian evangelical group—a “Thanksgiving Family Forum”—Gingrich stole the show. Asked to elaborate on his religious beliefs, he told an anecdote about “a doctor friend in Atlanta” who gave him “the two books that make up Alcoholics Anonymous”—the Big Book and the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions—and spoke movingly about how AA’s principles had saved him from a professional and personal crisis two decades before.
“I wasn’t drinking, but I had precisely the symptoms of somebody who was collapsing from under its weight,” he said, skirting discussion of his divorces and infidelities. ‘My life was full of accomplishments and achievements,” but “there was part of me that was truly hollow. I had to recognize how limited I was and how much I had to depend on the spiritual.”
And then he discovered AA: “Had I not had that intervention, I might have collapsed totally. That was the beginning of turning my life around,” Gingrich said.
Rick Santorum and Michelle Bachman, who claim a direct line to Jesus Christ Himself, could only stare at the prop pumpkin at the center of the cozy wooden table, their frozen smiles melting into consternation and confusion, as if wondering for the first time, Is the drunks-in-recovery vote big enough to court?
snip
Last June, with his campaign floundering, Gingrich started to once again talk up his affection for AA. On Fox and Friends, he defended President Obama against host Gretchen Carlson’s charges of hypocrisy for invoking “God” and “prayer” in a speech despite the fact that the president does not attend church every Sunday. Gingrich said, “Look, in my new book To Save America: Stopping Obama’s Secular-Socialist Machine, I reprint the entire 12-step program from Alcoholics Anonymous. Six of the 12 steps involve a higher authority…” The relevance of his statement to the issue at hand was less then exact, apart from it being a plug for his book. But it was notable, nonetheless, because Gingrich, never hesitant to heap forgiveness of himself, struck this tone of forgiveness toward the president, and forgiveness is an ethic central to AA.
snip
And for a man who says he was saved by the Big Book and the Twelve And Twelve, he seems deficient in the very quality—empathy—that drives the thriving fellowship in the rooms. Gingrich may have found his Higher Power, but he seems to have missed AA’s deeper point as articulated in the Twelfth Step: “the art of helping others and selfless service.” “Addictive drugs deprive you of full citizenship and they lead you to a dependency which is antithetical to being an American,” he said in November, laying on the stigma pretty thick.
http://www.thefix.com/content/video-new-gingrich-thumps-big-book8787?page=1
I have noticed, (not sure if this is good or bad) but when Newt is interviewed in his office, a AA Big Book is in plain sight on his bookshelf.
Is anyone hearing this absurd talk from Dr Drew and Jane Velez-Mitchell about addiction? She is the one with “issues”. It makes me sick listening to so much misinformation they are spewing to the public as if it is fact. Jane tonight said addicts are not accountable for their actions, trying to blame everyone but the addict for their problem. Dr Drew is practically hyperventilating his pile of crap. You are an addict for life! You are powerless! You have to go to AA meetings or you are in denial! It’s is genetic, and all the children of addicts are destined to be addicts as well. On and On and On…….
Good for Anderson Cooper is challenging Dr Drew. You go Anderson-challenge him. Anderson actually asked Dr Drew if he was calling him an addict because he took an ambien and has an occasional glass of wine. Dr Drew backed off and said -no he was not calling Anderson an addict.
AA IS NOT THE ONLY WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Newt Gingrich is catering to the Catholics, now that he has also converted to Catholicism. Considering Newts past, it looks like he is trying to make up for lost time.
The Bishops, Obama and Religious Freedom
The Catholic Hierarchy’s Bold New Church-State Lobbying Blitz – And How It Might Affect Your Rights
February 2012
Featured
By Rob Boston
Last fall, Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York City unleashed a stinging attack on President Barack Obama.
Dolan, who serves as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), issued a Sept. 30 press release asserting that religious liberty is “increasingly and in unprecedented ways under assault in America” thanks to the Obama administration. He announced that the bishops would form a new Washington lobbying unit to fight Obama’s policies on reproductive justice, gay rights and other social issues affecting church-affiliated schools and ministries.
A few weeks later, Dolan received an invitation to the White House. A detailed account of the Nov. 8 meeting has not been issued, but Dolan later reported to his fellow bishops that he left the meeting feeling upbeat.
“I found the president of the United States to be very open to the sensitivities of the Catholic community,” Dolan remarked. “I left there feeling a bit more at peace about this issue than when I entered.”
Shortly after that, Obama gave Dolan another reason to smile: Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that she was rejecting a recommendation from the Food and Drug Administration to make emergency contraception more broadly available without a prescription.
The Obama-Dolan exchange underscores the political power of the U.S. bishops, a group of men who stand much more to the right on social issues than the church membership does.
Rest of article-
http://au.org/church-state/february-2012-church-state/featured/the-bishops-obama-and-religious
Newt Gingrich Claims Ron Paul Supporters Are All Stoners
Gingrich goes negative during an interview on a conservative talk radio show.
Newt Gingrich, who’s pledged to keep his candidacy “positive”, slammed Ron Paul during a radio interview, claiming that Paul’s supporters consisted only of “people who want to legalize drugs”—a surprising angle for Gingrich, himself a former pot smoker who proclaimed two weeks ago that the main text of Alcoholics Anonymous, the Big Book, “saved his life.” During the interview with conservative commentator John McCaslin, Gingrich suggested that Paul’s base was comprised of pot smoking hippies and degenerates, and then portrayed Paul as a “naïve” statesmen who would allow Iran to bomb Israel and coddle Al-Qaeda. “This is a guy who basically says, if the United States were only nice, it wouldn’t have had 9/11,” Gingrich said. “He doesn’t want to blame the bad guys… And as I said, I think the key to his volunteer base is people who want to legalize drugs.”
http://www.thefix.com/content/newt-gingrich-claims-ron-pauls-base-composed-druggies7060
A recent interview last November with the pro draconian Gingrich drug views.
Gingrich Praises Singapore’s ‘Very Draconian’ Laws That Mandate Executions For Drug Possession
By Zaid Jilani on Nov 29, 2011 at 2:40 pm
GOP presidential candidate and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich recently sat down for an interview with Yahoo! News’s The Ticket.
At one point, the interviewer, Chris Moody, asked Gingrich if he still supports a bill he introduced in the ’90s that would’ve given capital punishment to drug smugglers. Gingrich responded that he does support this policy for cartel leaders and that he wants to see a new drug strategy overall. He then went on to praise Singapore for its “very draconian” approach to the drug war:
MOODY: In 1996, you introduced a bill that would have given the death penalty to drug smugglers. Do you still stand by that?
GINGRICH: I think if you are, for example, the leader of a cartel, sure. Look at the level of violence they’ve done to society. You can either be in the Ron Paul tradition and say there’s nothing wrong with heroin and cocaine or you can be in the tradition that says, ‘These kind of addictive drugs are terrible, they deprive you of full citizenship and they lead you to a dependency which is antithetical to being an American.’ If you’re serious about the latter view, then we need to think through a strategy that makes it radically less likely that we’re going to have drugs in this country. Places like Singapore have been the most successful at doing that. They’ve been very draconian. And they have communicated with great intention that they intend to stop drugs from coming into their country.
Gingrich’s endorsement of Singapore’s drug war is stunning. The country’s “drug laws are among the world’s harshest. Anyone aged 18 or over convicted of carrying more than 15 grams of heroin faces mandatory execution by hanging.” In 2005, Singapore infamously executed an Australian citizen for possession of .4 kilograms of heroin.
Gingrich’s praise of a Singapore-style drug policy is also yet another example of the GOP frontrunner’s contempt for the Constitution. In Kennedy v. Louisiana, the Supreme Court held that “[a]s it relates to crimes against individuals . . . the death penalty should not be expanded to instances where the victim’s life was not taken.” Although Kennedy left open to possibility of execution for “treason, espionage, terrorism, and drug kingpin activity, which are offenses against the State,” Singapore-style drug policy is clearly unconstitutional.
Then again, it probably doesn’t matter to Gingrich whether his proposal is constitutional or not. After all, he recently pledged to simply ignore court decisions he disagrees with.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/11/29/377716/gingrich-praises-singapores-very-draconian-laws-that-mandate-executions-for-drug-possession/?mobile=nc