Monthly Archives: January 2017

Alcoholics Anonymous, Destructive Cults, Fraud / Malpractice, Government / Law, Junk Science, Social Work Ethics

Deceased Patient Records – HIPAA Concerns and Rights for Substance Abuse Treatment

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I am sure many parents whose children have died after drug rehab become curious to know what exactly happened. I am concerned that dissent in rehab is not being correctly documented, perhaps even censored. I know this is possible because I have unsuccessfully attempted to get my complaints amended to my therapy records from Samaritan Counseling Center of the Capital Region (which is a HIPAA right). These included detailed accounts of my own experience which did not necessarily put all the professionals in a very positive light. Instead, I found that without these complaints, it looks like I was no more than tragically non-compliant and personality disordered due to ‘untreated alcoholism’. The two letters he sent me was the one telling me I could resume therapy if I went to 12-step programs, and the termination letter saying that I was no longer under any circumstances to contact anyone at Samaritan because I hand-delivered my complaint.

“Q: Is access to a deceased person’s psychiatric or substance abuse records treated any differently than access to other medical records?
A: HIPAA governs most healthcare providers and the records they keep; however, a different federal law governs many substance abuse programs (42 CFR Part 2). A substance abuse program can be covered under one, both, or neither regulation, depending on how it is funded.”

“In your complaint, you allege that on or about July 18, 2015, the Center denied your request that your medical records be amended to include complaints, the content of which are available on your online blog”

Accessing Deceased Patient Records—FAQOCR

Alcoholics Anonymous, Destructive Cults, Government / Law, Junk Science

New MedScape Article on Important 1st Amendment Case – Appeal Being Made to Massachusetts Supreme Court

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New details have emerged in the apparent refusal by the Mass Board of Medicine to fairly settle OR prosecute a case involving clear evidence of forensic fraud and Establishment Clause / human rights violations, and professional extortion.

The patterns are clear and have been widely ignored by professionals and state-related authorities who are themselves subject to these patterns of regulatory capture. It is likely that adequate resolution will need to involve the US Supreme Court and or an FBI RICO investigation.

Embattled Doc Suffers Another Setback in PHS Fight (Medscape Jan 2017)

Physicians Health Programs: More Harm than Good? (earlier Medscape article by Pauline Anderson, Aug 2015)

“Dr Recupero also notes that “almost without exception,” Dr Langan’s test findings have been below the minimum level to declare a test positive and that positive findings “are not a sign of relapse.”

“Dr Langan said that since it suspended his medical license, the board has “engaged in a persistent pattern of ignoring my every reasonable effort at trying to be reinstated” and has “abused the administrative law process to accomplish this.”

“A memorandum to the Supreme Judicial Court, filed May 13, 2016, proposed a settlement between Dr Langan and the board. In return for the immediate reinstatement of Dr Langan’s license, he would be monitored for a maximum of 3 months by Dr Recupero and Timothy E. Wilens, MD, codirector of the Center for Addiction Medicine at MGH.”

“That memorandum was accompanied by letters from Dr Recupero and Dr Wilens agreeing to the terms, but according to Dr Langan, it has been “ignored.””

“The board did not acknowledge or address the proposals in any way,” said Dr Langan.”

Alcoholics Anonymous, Destructive Cults, Fraud / Malpractice, Government / Law, Social Work Ethics

Is Complaint About Alcoholics Anonymous a Mental Illness?

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Nobody knows why I was taken out of my home by Oakland CA police to spend 5 days at a mental institution, including the mental institution itself. But they still asked the government to pay for it. The government refused to pay for it because the mental institution did not have any good reasons for me being there.

This coincided with my complaint to the NYS Justice Center about how the Department of Education investigator said it was their policy to not look into ‘the AA thing’, which I told them made me feel suicidal because there is plenty of reason to look into it.

The Clinical Director of Samaritan Counseling at the time, Jenness Clairmont, happens to be on the NYS DoE Office of Professions licensing board. She is a consultant for the 12-step group NYCPG (problem gambling). I am not allowed to speak with her because I didn’t use a stamp when I delivered a letter about AA coercion. The letter telling me that I was not allowed to speak to her was signed by her and David Olsen, the Executive Director of Samaritan Counseling, and it referred me back to a 12-step interventionist. I thought this was strange because in the one meeting I had with her, she said that most Samaritan Counseling therapists don’t agree with the 12-step approach. The Office of Professions first investigator told me “nothing you are saying now makes any sense” and the second one told me “we don’t look into the AA stuff“.

I have also asked for verification that my complaint was received and understood by my therapist Oona Edmands, who seemed compelled by addiction specialists to ignore me, and there has been no response.

denial

Alcoholics Anonymous, Destructive Cults, Government / Law

An Inquisition – Alcoholics Anonymous in Higher Education

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AA has been preventing AA criticism in colleges for a long time.

“He asked, Do you think it’s a cult? I replied, I do, and I’ve given evidence to support my position. I’m not demanding that my students agree with this, but I am asking them to look at the evidence. He then said, Well, you can’t teach here. I said, Are you telling me I can’t use peer-reviewed articles from sociological journals and similar academic materials in a graduate course in psychology? Are you telling me I have to toe the line according to Alcoholics Anonymous? He replied, That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”

An Inquisition

Alcoholics Anonymous, Destructive Cults, Government / Law

ACLU’s History of Not Defending the Establishment Clause when it comes to AA

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It’s time to stop seeing Anti-AA activists as government conspiracy theorists and take a close look at how government works.

This is the HHS OCR’s notice at the beginning of the Surgeon General’s report:

or religion

When I filed my complaint, I saw this:

hhsocr

and then when I asked about it, i got this weird response that it depended on who funded it.

Government is staffed by people with ideological and financial interests. They create laws that regulate or refuse to regulate industries based on private interests. The purpose of checks and balances is to protect the public from unjust law.

The US Constitution states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

The anecdote in this article is significant in that there was a clear case to be made that the state was establishing religious indoctrination by mandating Alcoholics Anonymous attendance, but due to personal and group political interests, eyes were averted from this violation of the Establishment Clause.

It is expected and understandable that people entrusted to wisely allocate public funds, and with the regulatory power to license or de-license professionals endorsed by the state will bring their personal beliefs into the equation.

The judicial branch of government protects the public from policy-makers acting unfairly in their own interests to the detriment of society. Judges can only get involved if the case is brought to their attention. A group like the ACLU is obligated by their own promises to bring these cases to the courts. In this case, it is fairly clear that the opportunity was missed, and the consequence has been the increasing ability for government agencies to protect, promote, and fund the establishment of the 12-step cult religion.

Atheist Challenges Order to Attend Alcoholics Anonymous Meetings

One ACLU lawyer neglected to attack AA under the the Establishment clause and later admitted she was an AA member.

“[Ellen, that’s when we first began to disagree. You wanted to stick with a free exercise clause argument. I wanted you to include the establishment clause. I felt some satisfaction when Jack Schwartz, the AG’s assistant, asked you why you weren’t arguing the establishment clause. You got mad at me and became stubborn. I later realized you didn’t want to endanger people’s access to AA. Later you told me, as if in a confession, that you’d gone to AA for quite a while. You seemed surprised that I didn’t care. We disagreed on a lot of things after that. That’s something I always valued in our relationship. That we could disagree and get angry at one another and still be friends.]” -Jeffrey A. Schaler, Ph.D.

“As an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union in Maryland, Ms. Luff successfully argued in 1988 that court-ordered attendance at meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous violated the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees religious freedom.”
– From the Washington Post Obit.

Elements of the Surgeon General’s report on Facing Addiction suggest that the Department of Health and Human Services needs to be brought to court for neglecting concern for civil rights related to religion.

Alcoholics Anonymous, Destructive Cults, Fraud / Malpractice, Government / Law, Junk Science

Disrupted Physician

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Disrupted Physician is one of my favorite whistleblower sites. Michael Langan is exposing nationwide fraud in Physicians Health Programs, and his work has inspired many other doctors and nurses subjected to medical license extortion to speak up and speak out against irrational authority — a pretty hot topic these days!

His case involves fraudulent drug test results and suppression of evidence in addition to the clear Establishment Clause violation described in this document: BRM_and_PHS_Must_Offer_Secular_Alternatives_to_AA_NA_in_Disciplinary_Contracts.pdf.

Alcoholics Anonymous, Fraud / Malpractice, Junk Science, Social Work Ethics

Marty Mann and the Disease Theory

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Here’s a really interesting article in The Atlantic about how Marty Mann promoted the disease concept of addiction in order to get doctors to promote AA.

“Mann’s reply to Armstrong was both fascinating and revealing. She agreed with Armstrong regarding the inefficacy of conventional medicine regarding alcoholism; she also vouchsafed her commitment to AA and its less-than-generous opinion of conventional treatment enterprises. “Not that I, as a dyed-in-the-wool AA,” she wrote to Armstrong in reply, “believe that clinics, or any other medical or psychiatric means can straighten out very many “alkies” (although I know it can in some instances, here and there) but I do believe that the average individual will more readily go into a clinic to find out what to do for what ails them than they will investigate a layman’s organization such as ours [AA]. And also I believe that the very presence of a clinic will emphasize and advertise to the uninitiated that alcoholism is a disease which is to be treated, not hidden or punished.”

And here is a fascinating intellectual history of addiction as disease, Addiction as Accomplishment: The Discursive Construction of Disease by CRAIG REINARMAN —

“In 1942, the Alcoholism Movement was founded by Marty Mann, a public relations executive and former ‘‘drunk’’, and others. By 1944, she joined with Dr. E.M. Jellinek at Yale to create an organization whose purpose was to popularize the disease concept by putting it on a scientific footing. Note the chronology: science was not the source of the concept but a resource for promoting it. This organization later became the National Council on Alcoholism (NCA). Their goal was to create a new ‘‘scientific’’ approach that would allow them to get beyond the old, moralistic ‘‘wet’’ versus ‘‘dry’’ battle lines of the Temperance and Prohibition period (Roizen, 1991). While there were a few scientists doing research on alcohol in the 1930s, the bulk of the scientific research that Mann and her allies hoped would be the basis for their new disease concept had not yet been done. Indeed, they hoped the NCA would generate contributions needed to fund that research. The 1942 ‘‘Manifesto’’ of the Alcoholism Movement clearly stated that they sought to ‘‘inculcate’’ into public opinion the idea that alcoholics were ‘‘sick’’, and therefore ‘‘not responsible’’ for their drinking and its consequences, and were thus deserving of medical treatment (Anderson, 1942; Roizen, 1991; Room & Collins, 1983).”

Fraud / Malpractice, Government / Law, Social Work Ethics

Involuntarily Institutionalized, No Stated Reason

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Last month I talked about how the police came to my house at around 5am and handcuffed me, taking me to a mental institution where I spent five days. I told the police that I did not want to go.

Today I find that Medi-Cal is not going to pay for this, because there was no medical or psychiatric reason for me to be there. The police would not tell me who made the call. I have been filing complaints for nearly three years and they have not been addressed. A New York State DoE investigator specifically told me that they “don’t look into the AA thing”, so I filed a complaint with the Justice Center against the NYS Department of Education. Two days later, I am involuntarily institutionalized.

How do I get my 5 days back, and who had me committed in the first place? All questions that cannot be answered by anyone, apparently.

denial

Alcoholics Anonymous, Government / Law, Social Work Ethics

More Misuse of OASAS Money to Promote 12-Step Goals

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If you follow OASAS’ Facebook feed, you’ll see that they are constantly promoting and funding Alcoholics Anonymous-based rehabs and “outreach” programs. This is most likely illegal and the public needs to know that OASAS is suppressing informed consent when they do this, not to mention violating the First Amendment by using government funds to establish religion.

Impact of Federal Court Decision Concerning Alcoholics Anonymous On Government Funded Providers

Here’s a recent one: NEW YORK OASAS LAUNCHES NEW INITIATIVE TO HELP CONNECT MORE NEW YORKERS TO ADDICTION SERVICES IN NEW YORK CITY

What they don’t mention is that this is going to promote this 12-step agenda. Notice “favorable outcomes, such as increased participation in 12-step meetings”, as if that is the REAL goal via abstinence. This proves that it is Twelve Step Facilitation with 2 goals: acceptance of powerlessness, and surrender to God (the stated goals of TSF)

“There isn’t a lot of research in the field of recovery, Provet admitted. But there is still evidence that promoting some of its components is effective in preventing relapse. “Although quantitative research on the overall efficacy of recovery coaching and personal recovery plans is sparse, many of its components and effects have been researched and supports using this approach with our target population,” said Provet, citing in particular the work of Bill White. “Recovery coaches, 12-step programs, spirituality, and social and community support are integral to sustaining recovery. Increased goal-oriented thinking was positively correlated to length of time abstinent, quality of life, and self-efficacy,” he said. Maintaining motivation and self-efficacy for abstinence and increasing active coping post treatment were predictive of more favorable outcomes, such as increased participation in 12-step meetings.

“Asked how long people will stay in the recovery support program, Provet said the goal will be for each mentee to receive services over a period of six to 12 months to accomplish the goals set forth in the individual recovery plan. “Accomplishing each goal will, over time, build each mentee’s recovery capital to help sustain their recovery,” he said. “Our goal is also to provide each mentee, based on their progress in their recovery, with the opportunity to become mentors in the OHROCS program further sustaining their recovery support, this time through their mentoring of others in early recovery.”