this thread has touched a lot of notes for me.

Our flamer, first, has had some experience with 12 step programs, as he is aware that members are not to identify themselves publicly.

I'll go on to say that my experience in Al-Anon has taught me that 12stepping is a very valuable program, AND that there is a hell of a lot of bad program out there.

since program has been quoted all over the place, another slogan is, "Take what you like, and leave the rest."

The best bet is to find a Very Large group (hopefully you are in a city) where there is a wide variety of opinion; then you don't get cooped up with bad programmers who insist on reciting the Lord's Prayer (in violation of program principles, I might add).

"Ecstasy" came up somewhere above; it is a designer drug, and those who have told me to try it should the opportunity present itself are without exception the most fucked up people I have ever met.

And those who insisted they had to use -- whatever -- because it helped their music, or writing, were just plain hooked.

Would Coleridge have given us "Kubla Khan" without opium? Maybe not, but he would have given us other poems, and lived longer to give us more of them.

Off my soapbox now.

MA