This "you have to go through the program" argument is pretty commonplace in recovering-alcoholic circles. There are some who think you're not really safe in your sobriety unless you've done a 12-step program and go to the meetings religiously, drinking gallons of bitter coffee and chain-smoking unfiltered cigarettes while proclaiming how dry you are. There are other recovering-alcoholic types (a far, far smaller group) who think the 12-step meetings are unnecessary.

Similarly there is a debate in the same circles about whether you have to give up booze entirely, or can learn to drink in moderation (the latter opinion being tantamount to blasphemy, heresy, and treason all in one according to the majority).

This is a long-raging (and not likely to be "solved" any time soon) argument between two sides of a group (recovering alcoholics) most of us don't belong to.

Making political hay out of it is shameful, IMHO.

But what do I know? I *like* kim-chee.

Alex
O..O
=o=