37 thoughts on “THE 13TH STEP: THE FILM”

1. What’s up, the whole thing is going well here and ofcourse every one is sharing information, that’s genuinely fine, keep up
   writing.

   Reply ↓

2. you’re truly a good webmaster. The website loading velocity is amazing.
   It seems that you’re doing any unique trick. Also, The contents are
   masterpiece. you have performed a great activity in this topic!

   Reply ↓

3. whoah this weblog is magnificent i love reading your articles.

   Keep up the good work! You already know, many individuals are looking round
   for this info, you aid them greatly helping them leave AA and NA. A horrid cult.

   Reply ↓

4. My brother recommended I might like this blog. He was totally
   right. This truly made my day. You can not imagine simply how so much time I had spent reading this anti AA blog
   info! Thank you!

   Reply ↓

5. Please let me know if you’re looking for a article author
   for your weblog. You have some really great articles and I believe I would be a good asset.

   If you ever want to take some of the load off, I’d absolutely love to write some articles for
   your blog. AA is finally being exposed for all the criminals mandated by the courts.
   Thanks!

   Reply ↓

6. Hi,I check your new stuff named “THE 13TH STEP: THE FILM | NA DAYTONA” like every week.Your humoristic style is awesome, keep doing what you’re doing! And you can look our website about proxy server list.

   Reply ↓

7. I must say you have hi quality articles here.

   Reply ↓

8. @Andrew: You certainly have an interesting vocabulary…
   However, while the site is based in Florida, new stories on the site are from all over the U.S., and I think there have been a couple from Canada, too.
   I, personally, don’t have an opinion on Florida, but the crimes described on this site are far from limited to the site owner’s state.

   Reply ↓

   • excuse me, I meant NEWS stories.
     (hey AD, this site needs an edit option!!)

     Reply ↓

     • That would be cool!

       Reply ↓

9. I can’t figure out how to “sign in”

   Reply ↓

   • Not sure if it is still available for sale. It is in the midst of getting distribution. I will double check.

     Reply ↓

     • It’s listed here: http://www.the13thstepfilm.com/

       Reply ↓

10. http://www.zazzle.com/12stepcults

    Reply ↓

11. I just need to vent. In the late 1970s I was sent to AA. I was a troubled, morbidly quiet, shy male teenager who drank. An established female AA member was asked to 12-Step me. She was over twice my age. She did the 13th Step on me; did the rehab hustle and connvinced my parents to waste $$$ on rehabs. The four-year “affair” was worse than my “alcoholism.” There was no “group consciousness.”

    Luckily I broke away from her (she began drinking and died). I broke away from AA decades ago. My worst day drunk is better than my best day sober.

    I recall many gay predators, too, that caused other young men in AA trouble.

    Reply ↓

12. Watch the NEW 13th Step Trailer on YouTube! It just keeps getting better.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYqFHNfLbm8

    Reply ↓

13. Check out this new article by Juliet Abram!

    Gender Bias in AA
    The Fix Q&A with Stephanie Covington about women and the rooms.

    By Juliet Abram
    11/12/14

    http://www.thefix.com/content/interview-dr-stephanie-covington

    Reply ↓

    • I read it and it seems that Dr. Covington is somewhat of an AA sympathizer when it comes to the efficacy of the 12 steps. I wasn’t really sure where she stood on the issue of women’s safety other than to say the women should go to women’s meetings only and have a spiritual guide in early recovery. I think the important take I got was that she did admit that the misogynistic language in the bb was problematic.

      I saw that Cyndy the galoot was there too. Geeze, she’s everywhere spouting her nonsensical opinions.

      Reply ↓

      • Right, DR. Covington gave a little as far as admitting that the misogynistic language was a problem and danced around the dangers. Even womens meetings can be dangerous too. I saw miss attention seeker cyndy was all over the map making absurd nonsensical statements. She obviously seeks attention.

        Reply ↓

14. Yes! I hear the film is finished! Great news! Thanks Monica!

    Reply ↓

15. Thank you soo much for posting the dangers of going to AA and NA meetings..I can relate to the murders and pedifiles as well as convicted sex offender’s who aren’t simply attending meetings but make prey of the young men and women in the meetings..I joined NA 30yrs ago..i served on every level as far as the groups are concerned. I BELIEVED so whole heartedly in the program that I became one of Na’s convention speaker’s early on during my recovery process..I’ve spoken all over the country lifting up Na until I couldn’t live with the hypocrites any longer.,while I had yet 90days clean one of the older member’s of na seemed to genuinely want to help me stay clean.. he recites all the slogans and I believed he wanted to help.i’d no idea he was a rapist..i invited him to my home for sunday dinner and he tried to RAPE ME. I had my two young children at home and fought him off with a baseball bat..when I returned to the meeting and told other member’s I was told that talking about whatg he did would bring harm to the group and I never mentioned it again.. soon after another women was raped by this same man..i was sent a notice to come to court on her behalf and was threatened by other member’s not to tell what he’d done.that brave women sent his ass to jail for 5yrs..Today in NA SO MANY YOUNG MEN WHO ARE LOOKING FOR HELP are being abused by other men its a damn shame..these young men think they are going to the movies with a mentor and end up performing sexual acts in movie theaters..Or in the case of the young man in Newark who left the GANG JUST TO COME TO Na and find a different kind of a gang..An older member told this young man he can stay at his home and had sex with the minor..needless to say that this teen is more screwed up now than ever before..I’ve seen pedepfiles move in with women and rape they’re children ONLY FOR THE ENTIRE NA FELLOWSHIP TO SHOW UP IN COURT TO SUPPORT THIS PIECE OF FILTH.As for myself I’ve been threatened with violence by men and GAY WOMEN SIMPLY FOR SAYING NO TO SEX WITH THEM..On several occasions I had to call for police assistance just to leave an NA meeting..however, when I dare attempt to address these issues and how they make me feel as a women the comments around the room are mean and hateful towards me..I’M called sick and other demeaning names for not going along with sex play. At one point the stalker even found my 70yr old mother’s house and told her if I didn’t drop my restraining order he would hurt her child , ME..anything other than Na is a caring and loving place is practically shunned.I’M SLOWLY BUT SURELY GETTING AWAY FROM THE NA WAY..Thank you so much for the great work your doing..this will surely save some lives. Some one needs to check these meetings before more people get hurt and even die..and not from the horrors of addiction but from the horror’s of being raped and harassed by other member’s

    Reply ↓

16. Please assist us here in Portland OR. I have been in the rooms since 1984 at the tender age of 15. I now only attend Women’s meetings. I speak about safety all the time. I would like to gather stories of local members experiences. I know that women, single moms and children are preyed upon, groomed and systematically abused raped shamed and silenced, while the fellowship is complicit in these crimes. I am determined to bring this secret out and create IP’s and protocol for Sponsors, groups, service structure. Build support resources, awareness in meetings, literature, warnings etc.. Even if it takes Guerilla tactics. I have operated as a Policy Chair in a statewide Org and also on the grassroots level in my own Org using unsanctioned Guerilla action to effect change and force discourse. I am fierce and bold I am unafraid; this is necessary but brave action is not enough, to be most efficient we must be strategic . This is why I am reaching out to you. I do not want to reinvent the wheel. Also I know the power of social media and video, blogs etc to document the project. I just last week completed my term as Policy Chair and now have the capacity to engage the apparatus(Lol- sense of humor is indespensible in this tireless undertaking) our most vulnerable members will be protected no matter what. No other issue strikes closer home than the life and death struggle of members being exploited by untreated offenders operating under the umbrella of Fellowship. I commit to speaking out and standing up in Recovery, n the Rooms and serving notice. We are each others eyes and ears.

    Reply ↓

    • Oh my goodness Layna Lewis it is so good to hear someone so determined to expose AA and want to see changes made. It is even better coming from some like yourself that has been in AA for so long and served in different capacities. Do you have people in your area willing to tell you their stories? Do you have some blog ideas? Fierce and bold that is what is needed to see radical necessary changes in AA and other 12 step programs. Please let us know anything we can do to help, Please! For starters documenting any abuses is helpful, sending letters to AA districts and World Services putting them on notice, see if local newspapers will write stories about the crime going on in your meetings. You could submit a story to this website as well for consideration to publish. Local police and politicians can be contacted as well, including the landlord of the building the meetings are being held in. They could be held liable if they are notifies of abuses and fail to do nothing. Their insurance carriers would not be too happy either. What are thoughts on moving forward so far?

      Reply ↓

17. Check this out update-

    http://stop13stepinaa.wordpress.com/2014/04/24/the-13th-step-a-film-demanding-safe-recovery/

    Reply ↓

    • Thank you for the link to this update! I’d been wondering what stage the project was in, but couldn’t find any info.

      Reply ↓

      • No problem Sunkist, it is really exciting that this film is being made about 13 stepping and crime in AA.

        Reply ↓

18. the AA response to the stalking of the l3 year old seems like a PR attempt. If the stalkee was a middle-aged woman, would they have gone to the trouble of protecting her? Probably not, the meetings are so sexist; they really want to keep the good-looking young girls around, make the meetings safe for them. And keep some handy eye candy around for the old-timers.

    Reply ↓

19. OMG! Jodie Foster Joins Alcoholics Anonymous!

    Wednesday, April 16, 2014

    JODIE Foster has given up booze!

    The actress has ditched the drinking in a bid to show her lover Alexandra Hedison – a recovered alcoholic herself — how committed she is to the relationship.

    “Jodie has joined Alcoholics Anonymous and has embraced a 12-step program,” a source told Star magazine.

    “Now Alex has no reservations about spending their lives together … now they are both sober.”

    Jodie, 51, was persuaded by Hedison — a 44-year-old recovering alcoholic with more than a decade of sobriety under her belt — to make the moves after Foster’s casual drinking became a tangible issue between the two, Star reported.

    “She’s finally found the woman of her dreams,” the source told Star, ”so giving up alcohol was nothing for her.”

    “Alex wants Jodie to be sober for at least a year before they tie the knot and then it’s full-speed ahead with the nuptials. They’re crazy in love.”

    http://www.showbizspy.com/article/271057/omg-jodie-foster-joins-alcoholics-anonymous.html

    Reply ↓

20. SECRETS KEPT! Check out this link to an article about an AA man who murdered a woman and was keeping her body in a basement. His sponsor knew about it yet helped him cover it up for some time. Knowing this, the AA chairperson turned away police who came looking for the man even though the murderer was sitting right there at the meeting. He was literally given advice by a sponsor on how to cover up the smell of the decomposing body by using baking soda.

    Reply ↓

21. Here is an eye opening article!

    Alcoholics Anonymous vs. the Doctors

    By Brian Palmer 1/15/2014
    Could new addiction medications replace mutual-help groups?

    Alcoholics Anonymous is, by far, the largest and most venerable addiction recovery group in the world. Founded nearly 80 years ago, AA now boasts 2.1 million worldwide members, many of whom attribute their very survival to the organization. In the United States, where the 12-step program originated, AA is viewed by many as a national treasure of sorts. Social workers send patients to AA meetings. Judges condition people’s freedom on meeting attendance. Desperate spouses condition marriages on it. Everyone loves Alcoholics Anonymous. Or almost everyone.

    Many patients and doctors have grumbled for years about the religion inherent in the Alcoholics Anonymous process: Half of the 12 steps involve God or “a Power greater than ourselves.”

    In recent years, however, the complaints have turned scientific. Some doctors who specialize in treating alcoholism have leveled a pair of accusations against the organization. First, they claim that AA has obstructed the spread of medications to treat alcoholism. Second, they claim that the group stubbornly resists evidence that some alcoholics are better suited to a life of moderate drinking than to complete abstinence. Domenic Ciraulo, chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine and an advocate of the medication and moderation approach for some alcoholics, said in 2010, “We have nothing against AA, but they have something against us.” Writing in the Washington Post earlier this year, National Institutes of Health clinical researcher Markus Heilig attacked AA’s “uncompromising” philosophy of “once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.”

    The spat has significant ramifications. Alcohol abuse causes 79,000 premature deaths annually. It’s one of the leading causes of morbidity, trailing closely behind tobacco, and it costs the economy more than $220 billion annually—that’s $1.90 for every serving of alcohol consumed in the United States. The government alone spends $94 billion dealing with the fallout from alcohol abuse. To put that in perspective, the federal government spends about $138 billion on education. This is a big deal.

    At first glance, the showdown appears serious. On one side are doctors favoring pharmaceutical solutions and moderate drinking. On the other side are mutual-help groups like AA, with their abiding faith in 12-step programs and total abstinence. But the situation is nuanced.

    First, the battle lines aren’t clearly drawn. Addiction-medicine physicians who prescribe medications still encourage their patients to seek out support groups. In addition, abstinence remains the goal for the overwhelming majority of alcoholics. Only a select group appears capable of handling moderate drinking without relapsing into full-blown addiction.

    Alcoholics Anonymous has taken no official stand on the use of prescription drugs for recovery, other than to say the issue is between a patient and her doctor. Nor does AA have an official position on whether moderation could be the solution for some. (“We’re clear on what we suggest, but if people find other directions that work for them, more power to them,” an AA spokesman told me.)

    That said, AA has more than 1 million members in the United States alone, and surveys suggest that about 20 percent of them oppose the use of prescription medications to control addiction. The objectors may be the most vocal portion of the organization, and AA does nothing to prevent them from speaking their minds. Anecdotes about AA’s opposition to medication may not be representative of the group as a whole, but they aren’t fiction, either.

    As recently as the 1970s and ’80s, treatments by doctors backfired spectacularly.
    “When I first came to Boston 30 years ago, we recruited candidates from AA meetings for our medication studies,” says Boston University’s Ciraulo. “My poor post-docs were run out of the meetings.” Ciraulo acknowledges, however, that times have changed, and he has softened his criticism of the organization. “Today there are a lot of doctors and psychiatrists in AA,” he adds, who are part of the organization’s leadership or provide scientific guidance, indicating that the group has opened up to the evidence-based model that now dominates the medical profession.

    Mutual-help groups have long had an instinctive distrust for medical solutions. The history of medical treatment of alcoholism is checkered, at best. The earliest “drugs” prescribed to treat alcoholism were pure quackery. Dr. Leslie Keeley gained fame in the late 19th century with his “double chloride of gold cure,” which he injected into patients four times daily. The injections cured nothing, and a startling number of Keeley cure recipients descended into insanity. Other 19th-century clinicians experimented with morphine, marijuana, and cocaine for the treatment of alcoholism. Early 20th-century physicians tried steroids, again with little benefit, on the theory that a malfunctioning endocrine system was responsible for alcoholism.

    As recently as the 1970s and ’80s, treatments by doctors backfired spectacularly. Many doctors prescribed barbiturates or benzodiazepines for medium-term alcohol-withdrawal symptoms like anxiety, agitation, and sleeplessness.

    “Valium was considered harmless and nonaddictive at the time,” notes John Kelly, director of the Recovery Research Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital and associate professor at Harvard Medical School. “These doctors were well-meaning, but many of them overprescribed and failed to monitor the outcomes.”

    The outcome, for a large number of patients, was a second layer of addiction and/or relapse into alcoholism. Groups such as AA have an institutional memory of this period, and the individual members who oppose medical treatment for alcoholism may have had personal experience with the overprescription of barbiturates.

    The debate over moderation or complete abstinence goes back even further than the argument over prescription drugs. Early temperance societies were clubs of men who agreed to avoid strong spirits and to drink beer and wine only in moderation. In the 1830s, however, prohibitionists began to dominate the temperance movement. (That development explains our bizarre use of the word temperance, which suggests moderation, to describe groups of people who won’t drink a single drop of alcohol.) Temperance societies developed a religious zeal for teetotalism. The Washingtonian movement in mid-19th-century America, the forerunner to AA, held revival-style meetings, trotting out recovered alcoholics to tell the story of their deliverance from booze. Their slogan, “every man brings a man,” foreshadowed the AA sponsorship model of recovery. The groups built in-patient recovery centers in isolated areas where patients would have to walk miles to find a bottle of alcohol. Some were even built on islands. The total commitment to abstinence probably drove away many who enjoyed an afternoon warmer, and it set the stage for the interminable argument over moderation and abstinence.

    That long history helps explain the controversy surrounding modern treatment options for alcoholism. There are now three Food and Drug Administration–approved drugs. The oldest and best known is disulfiram, which blocks an enzyme that helps break down alcohol. If a patient on disulfiram drinks alcohol, acetaldehyde accumulates in her body, leading to nausea, palpitations, and a general feeling of ill health. The experience creates a strong aversion to drinking and is extremely effective at preventing relapse—that is, if the patient actually takes it. Many true addicts simply stop using the medication when they want to drink and end up back on the bottle.

    Acamprosate, a newer medication, helps patients deal with the symptoms of withdrawal. Think of it as a safer, nonaddictive form of the barbiturates that doctors overprescribed in the 1970s and ’80s. It still has side effects, including a tingling or burning sensation, but it is supposed to help smooth the path from heavy drinking to abstinence.

    Finally, there is naltrexone, which is thought to block brain receptors that make drunkenness feel good. This is where the debate over pharmaceutical therapy for alcoholism meets up with the argument over abstinence and moderation. Some addiction doctors permit patients on naltrexone to drink in moderation, in hopes that the lack of high will prevent them from drinking to excess. A slightly more radical approach, called the Sinclair Method after the Finland-based doctor who pioneered it, encourages patients on naltrexone to continue normal social drinking. The idea is that the alcoholic will become deconditioned to the formerly pleasurable effects of drinking.

    Do the drugs work? Eh, sort of. In a large study published in 2006, for example, patients taking naltrexone abstained from drinking during 81 percent of the days in the study period. The placebo patients managed to stay clear of alcohol 75 percent of the time. That difference was statistically significant, but it also shows that naltrexone is hardly a magic bullet against alcoholism. In addition, several studies have shown no naltrexone benefit whatsoever. Acamprosate has achieved the same mixed results. The 2006 study that trumpeted the benefits of naltrexone declared acamprosate ineffective, while other studies seem to suggest a slight advantage for acamprosate.

    It should be noted that certain medications originally prescribed for epileptics, such as gabapentin, are showing more promise, but the studies aren’t quite large enough yet to compare them to the approved drugs.

    Do 12-step programs work? Again, sort of. A 10-year-long study published last year claimed to show a significant benefit for those attending AA meetings, while critics of the organization often point to a 2006 review article that found no quantifiable benefit from AA or other 12-step programs. In fact, researchers have been complaining for decades about the lack of data on 12-step programs. The group has released internal data on membership attrition rates, but it hasn’t done enough to satisfy the demands of an evidence-based medical culture.

    People looking for clear data will probably never be satisfied, because studies of prescription drugs can’t really be compared to studies of AA. Pills are tested against placebo, and neither the patients nor the doctors know who’s on the real medications. You can’t placebo-control and blind an AA trial, because it’s fairly obvious to a patient whether he has attended a support group meeting. That means people in AA benefit from the expectation that the treatment will work in addition to any benefit from the actual process of participating in the meetings.

    This probably isn’t a question of either/or, but one of tailoring. Each treatment seems to have no effect on a large portion of sufferers—the trick is figuring out who can benefit from which treatment. Clinicians report, for example, that the medication-plus-moderation approach works for heavy drinkers who may not be full-blown addicts (that is, they have some control over their drinking in the face of serious consequences). Disulfiram, the aversive drug that causes drinkers to get sick, works well for an alcoholic in a long-term relationship. The spouse watches the patient take the pill every day, ensuring compliance.

    Every alcoholic can be treated. The goal should be finding the right approach, for the right patient, at the right moment. Researchers are now working toward that end, looking for markers (genetics, age, and patterns of drinking) that indicate which patients are susceptible to medication and which to behavioral therapy. AA, for its part, has made an effort to meet scientists on common ground.

    Today, the most vocal critics on either side of the debate are stuck in the bad old days, when medical treatments were untested and mutual-help groups demanded immunity from evidence. The prescription is now collaboration, not confrontation.

    http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2014/01/alcoholics_anonymous_and_addiction_doctors_are_support_groups_or_medications.single.html

    Reply ↓

22. From Monica Richardson- Great News! Please Donate for this worthy cause.
    
    We’ve been endorsed by IDA

    We hope you had a chance to visit our film on the International Documentary Association (IDA) page. It’s a huge accomplishment that we have been endorsed by IDA because they are highly respected in the film industry, and they only endorse films with an important social cause behind it. To make a tax-deductible online donation for our film, please visit the IDA website below: The 13th Step on IDA Website If you wish to contribute by check (that is not tax-deductible), please make it to Inwood Girl Productions, LCC and mail it to: 9854 National Blvd. Suite 311, Los Angeles, CA 90034 We are in the last six weeks of filming before we begin editing. We have a handful of interviews left, which will require us to travel across the states. Your contributions have been so vital to the production of this film, and we welcome your continued support. We hope you are able to make another donation for 2014. Thank you!

    http://www.documentary.org/community/sponsorship/donate?film_id=4112%20

    

    Reply ↓

23. It would appear that Alcoholics Anonymous is starting to realize that people aren’t going to put up with this stuff anymore. The September 2013 AA Grapevine entitled “Keeping AA Safe” has a very lame excuse. It has a picture of a very tiny young girl on the front cover and has an article called “Unacceptable” inside. AA’s answer to 13th Stepping is the portrayal of a 13 year old girl being stalked by one of their members. So what do they do? They don’t call the police or her parents, that would harm the reputation of AA. Instead they get together and decide to “talk too” the pervert stalking a 13 year old and the pervert doesn’t come to the meetings any more. But that doesn’t mean that he still isn’t stalking a 13 year old he met at an AA meeting. What are these idiots thinking?

    Here is an audio of the story. It is a good example of how to do nothing to protect a 13 year old girl from being targeted by one of their members. I guess they figure that if the girl is raped by the same AA member outside of a meeting it is OK and they should protect youth?
    http://www.aagrapevine.org/sites/fileuploads/isovera/drupal6core/AAGV_Sep13_6Unacceptable.mp3

    Reply ↓

24. Check out this new update! Please donate! 14 minute trailer!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-_xPU3KC5E

    Reply ↓

25. So you will be interviewed in my film ?If you say yes I am coming!!!

    Reply ↓

26. Thank you !:)

    Reply ↓

    • Thank you for your tireless efforts in this important cause! There is so much good energy happening now in reference to getting our voices heard. People are starting to listen, and this is just the tip of the ice berg of truth to be exposed about 12 step programs in particular AA and NA.

      In Daytona they are having problems with drug dealing and people packing guns in meetings along with other disruptive behaviors. They have even lost some more meeting locations.

      Reply ↓

27. This is fantastic Monica! Great Job! Come visit us in Holly Hill Florida and witness first hand what we have to deal with here!

    Reply ↓