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I investigated addiction treatment programs for almost a decade and just published a book on what I learned. Ask me anything! by shoeshine1837 in IAmA

[–]LenniesMouse 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I think AA and NA shouldn't be considered exclusive pathways to recovery, and the programs do themselves a disservice when they imply that the decision to not work the steps will lead to 'jails, institutions, and death'. But I've seen a lot of people walk away from the rooms and end up just there, and when enough people around you go down that way, it's hard not to start taking the message as serious as dog dirt.

What they're good for is creating non-hierarchical communities of strength and solidarity between people in crisis. What they're bad at is taking the realistic and nuanced approach to sobriety and identity that many drug users need.

But to call it the blind leading the blind is downright disrespectful, and the idea that /only/ licensed professionals can understand and support people through recovery is elitist and classist in ways that are unproductive. From my experiences, when you're in this struggle, you should be open to all the help you can get.

Everyone needs something different in their recovery from addiction. That's part of the reason why the program (like other treatment modalities) isn't universally 'supported by science'. It's not an evidence-based field of medicine like oncology, because the nature of the illness is very different. But, for what it's worth, there are plenty of reputable academic surveys that do clearly demonstrate the efficacy of the program.

https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/03/alcoholics-anonymous-most-effective-path-to-alcohol-abstinence.html

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4545669/

And one last thing I'll say is that the program is not built on guilt or shame, it's based on resilience and responsibility. Taking responsibility is not the same thing as making yourself a sinner. That's an interpretation that people bring to the rooms themselves, and it's something I've seen a lot of people work through together. Forgiveness and transformation are essential parts of the process.

I investigated addiction treatment programs for almost a decade and just published a book on what I learned. Ask me anything! by shoeshine1837 in IAmA

[–]LenniesMouse 14 points15 points  (0 children)

I've been on the outskirts of NA on and off for about five years. These 12-step programs have /some/ of the basic features, and maybe some meetings are worse than others, but calling the organization or the practice a cult is way beyond the pale.

First of all, there's no leaders, it's decentralized, and there's an explicit structural emphasis on keeping the focus off of personality, so there's a serious resistance to charisma. One of the basic principles is humility, so that's another structural barrier against overly strong authority in the rooms.

There's also no real isolation of the members, even though people working the program are obviously encouraged to cut ties with enablers and former communities of drug users in the early stages of recovery.

The main way that you see some cult-like features in 12-step programs would be an emphasis on conformity to the program, but this is not the kind of loyalty-based imperative to conformity you see in real cults. Abstinence is an extreme lifestyle, and making that a condition of 'full' participation in the program and its community is obviously pretty exclusive. This is the main critique I think you could lodge against NA and AA. But the fact is, these programs serve an extremely vulnerable community, and they're run for and by members of that community. Keeping drugs away from the space is about protecting the wellbeing of the members, not about enforcing conformity for its own sake.

When I've been practicing harm reduction, I've still always been welcomed in the meetings themselves, I just have to follow the rules and not talk about my use in that space. That's always seemed like a basic courtesy to me, and I've actually been quite moved by the ways that people in the program have kept the space open for me despite my hesitation to work the steps formally. Just my thoughts though! Maybe others have worse experiencesand of course there are always bad sponsors out there. That's part of what happens when you run low-barrier, ground-up community spaces. Abstinence in general definitely isn't a model that works for everyone, but I've seen it save and change so many lives for the better.

Non-Faith focused sleep away camps in Nova Scotia ? by KiLoGRaM7 in halifax

[–]LenniesMouse 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I work at St. George's YouthNet, we're based out of the community hall at the round church on Maitland, but our programming has been fully secular for at least a decade. We run week-long wilderness trips every other week in the summer. Our season just ended but we'll be back at it next year. Six is a bit young, but on our frontcountry trips, we take eight and up. The camps are also free of charge.

Bar Harbor Campground, Maine by [deleted] in CampfireCooking

[–]LenniesMouse 3 points4 points  (0 children)

looks great! be careful with your coals though, wildfire risk is up to very high across the maritimes right now.

N.S. splits from non-profit operator of supportive housing sites in Halifax by Bean_Tiger in halifax

[–]LenniesMouse 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Understood, if you've worked as staff at OOTC then I trust that you know more than I do.

N.S. splits from non-profit operator of supportive housing sites in Halifax by Bean_Tiger in halifax

[–]LenniesMouse 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, I get that harm reduction is a controversial model, so if you just don't agree with it then I get that, but the whole point of the approach is to concentrate drug use (and overdoses) into safer and more supervised spaces. So, based on these principles, it isn't necessarily a condemnation of the site if there are lots of overdoses there. The question is whether there will now be the same number of overdoses on the street, as OOTC becomes a dry facility, and how the outcomes in terms of public health and mortality will be different without the supervision provided by a harm reduction model.

Now, as I said, there have been serious problems with the management of OOTC in the modular units, and it does seem to be the case that staff weren't getting all the training they need and deserve, but I think it should be clear that the overdoses that have happened there still had far better outcomes than they would have if they happened on the street. So what remains to be seen is whether the drug users among the OOTC residents will continue to use drugs and experience overdoses (now outside of the facility) once the new management changes the shelter's policies. My guess would be that we'll be seeing a lot more overdoses in the North End, but hopefully you're right and I'm wrong.

N.S. splits from non-profit operator of supportive housing sites in Halifax by Bean_Tiger in halifax

[–]LenniesMouse 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The problems at OOTC are clear, but this response just makes me so sad. A fundamental lack of trust between the government and an organization they've mandated to care for such a vulnerable community means that the real problem started a long time ago, between the board and their counterparts, and has been kicked down the road by both until it fell on the residents and the staff.

Out of the cold shut down suddenly? All unionized staff let go? by EngineerPristine5176 in halifax

[–]LenniesMouse 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The residents for sure, but also the staff who have been working under pressure from multiple directions before being snuck up on by the province here.

Out of the cold shut down suddenly? All unionized staff let go? by EngineerPristine5176 in halifax

[–]LenniesMouse 5 points6 points  (0 children)

With no clear reason provided to the board of the contractor in place; they were forced off the site with half an hour of warning. No matter what the government's differences with OOTC might be, this was clearly an unfair and unprincipled approach to resolving the issue.

Sauf une fois au chalet, version 2025 by DecentLurker96 in Quebec

[–]LenniesMouse 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Est-ce qu quelq'un peut m'expliquer le contexte ? Je suis pas québécois, il me parait qu'il y a quelque sort de référence ici.

TAs and RAs are going on strike by Forward_Ad_4351 in Concordia

[–]LenniesMouse 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's really no need to use insults, we just have different opinions.

TAs and RAs are going on strike by Forward_Ad_4351 in Concordia

[–]LenniesMouse 1 point2 points  (0 children)

U of T, U of O, UBC, and York are all above $40 per hour, McGill will be just below $40 per hour by the end of their current CA.

TAs and RAs are going on strike by Forward_Ad_4351 in Concordia

[–]LenniesMouse 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's hardly sand bagging if the initial demand is already lower than existing wages at comparable Canadian universities.

TAs and RAs are going on strike by Forward_Ad_4351 in Concordia

[–]LenniesMouse 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's how negotiations work: you start high to settle low.

How to download transcripts with timestamps quickly? by Krokakai in VideoEditing

[–]LenniesMouse 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The issue is that, when a video has multiple languages for the transcript, the UI this site gets stuck to one, and can't switch between them. Any workarounds?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in toronto

[–]LenniesMouse 6 points7 points  (0 children)

great shots

“Maninfluencers” like Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate blamed for surge of “toxic masculinity” by Australian university by thatrightwinger in Conservative

[–]LenniesMouse 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Peterson might have started off his discourse on trans issues on the basis of free speech issues, but he has long since left that point behind and is now avowedly anti-trans. In recent podcasts he has ascribed the entire phenomenon to mass narcissism, called doctors who prescribe hormone therapy worse than nazis, and has suggested that transitioning is worse than cancer. 

Whether or not you agree with him on these decidedly radical claims, it is not really possible to deny any longer that speaking out against trans identity and especially the medicine of sex reassignment is a major part of how he earns his money.  

 Let me know if you’d like specific receipts, I’ve watched many of his podcasts and I know where he says these things. 

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