A story, from someone still on the 'Programme'.

 

"Do yeh remember ‘Ironing Board' Albert?"

"I am afraid I don’t recall..."                                                              

"He was a friend of ‘Jump On’ Jimmy."

‘’Jump On’ Jimmy...?"

“Well, he’s back on the booze.”

“Really, you don’t say.”

“He’s never been the same since that accident coming down the mountain.”

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

“...well all of them were in this car...”

“All of them?”

“Yeah, you know, there was ‘Irish Michael’...”

(But weren’t they all Irish?)

 ‘Ironing Board’; ‘Sweet Tooth’, Seamus, and ‘Umbrella’ John, you know that fellah who used to work in the City?"

‘Right, right...” (What is he talking about?).

“And ‘Jump On ‘Jimmy was there as well. And they went up this Mountain in Wales in this 'four wheel drive' banger to scatter the ashes of ‘Five card Phil', do you remember him? He came in from Gamblers Anonymous, so he was doubly addicted.”  
"I never...you could knock me down with a feather." (Well, you have to say something!)

"Anyway they all stand there each taking a handful of the ashes, ...he was a big lad was ‘Five Card’ and they say their prayers to their 'higher powers', and then get in the banger to go back down...well, it’s quicker going down than up...ha ha ha...”

(Please.. leave the mind boggling physics and cut to the chase).

“So go on with the story.”

"Well ‘Dartmoor Dave’ is driving, you know he used to do that...was a driver for the ‘lads’... back in his criminal days

...before he got the ‘programme; became a 'friend of Bill’s.'

(Cut the John Le Carre and get on with it.) "Yes, quite."

Well they start back down and ‘Dartmoor Dave’, who hasn’t been driving for years ever since his last stretch in...”

(Yes, yes, in Dartmoor).

"...and would you believe it the brakes fail... it was as if ‘Five Card’ Phil’s ‘higher power’ didn’t want them to leave."

  “Yes...and...what happenned ...you said they were speeding down this mountain....and?"

"Well ‘Dartmoor Dave’ decides to take evasive action, you know he was an ace driver for gangs back in...”

“Yes..yes, so what action did he take?”

“ Well give him his due, he tried everything to stop the car .. even tried throwing the gear stick into reverse.”

“So what evasive action did he finally take?”

“He crashed the car into the largest tree he could see and ends up in these bushes.”

“Right, right,  well were they injured badly.”

“No, their ‘higher power’ must have been looking after them...all they got was whiplash.”

(I don’t want to be unkind but what essential difference would that make to them...as people?). “Sorry to hear that.”

Did you hear about ‘Rick the Tick'? ....well he’s been involved in some sort of  .....

(For fuck's sake! Give me a break).

God Bless America for exporting their 12 step template. We have been fed the disease model; drug abuse, sex addiction, compulsive eating, compulsive lying, compulsive shopping, compulsive gambling - now they are all deemed 'diseases'.

By the way if you are in healthy and loving relationship and you want to come on one of these more extremes self-help programmes, then you better start questioning that relationship, for you have to forsake this excessive or unhealthy concern for others - for in the twelve-step universe, such excessive concern for one other person constitutes the pitiable emotional quagmire of 'co-dependency'. if you think that is rubbish then ‘you guys are...in denial’.

So do 12 step programmes just champion the selfish self? Discuss.

And I do, with a sympathetic soul who wishes first to define the 'self'.

"The self...I have suspicions about the whole mind body division... probably a result of reading too much bloody Heidegger!  What do I think? Well, I am not a mind who has a body, nor a body with a mind ‘in’ it.  My mind does have a point of view, even if it has no location...well, I will stop there."

Needless to say I am in,  "My two penny worth is: I have an embodied brain which is mine. As to 'my mind' I believe it is language/culture which is my 'mind', 'subjectivity', 'agency', 'monad', 'homunculus' etc.

You see as Metzinger argues,the consensus among contemporary philosophers and mind scientists is that the 'self' is a forensic concept. (Using the word forensic in the sense of relating to, or used in public debate or argument.)

However the  concept of 'self' is not a scientific one, and therefore not a member of the ontological (our reality league)  table of elements."

"Not sure I agree with that...not sure if I bloody well even understand it. But...something to think about." .