I did appeal and never got any response from Mary Ellen Elia.

Check this out. I found 12-step extortion written into NYS Law on professional licensing.

§6510-b Temporary surrender of licenses during treatment for drug or alcohol abuse.

There is a section that enables 12-step professional extortion, point for point [my interpretations]

1. Your license can be voluntarily surrendered when someone alleges (or you feel) that you are incapacitated. (You can do this without ‘getting into trouble’…don’t worry…). Your license shall be restored when you satisfy the Department’s ‘reasonable conditions’.

2. There will be a committee with ‘expertise in problems of drug and alcohol abuse’.

3. A treatment or rehab program will be identified. Don’t worry, this will all be done without anyone knowing about it… “Approval of a treatment or rehabilitation program by the committee shall not constitute a representation as to the probability of success of the program or any assumption of financial responsibility for its costs.”

4. “The immunity from disciplinary action conferred by this section may be revoked by the committee upon a finding that the licensee has failed to successfully complete the program or that the incapacity to practice has not been eliminated. ”

6. Exemption of any liability for people involved in the intervention.

This is how many state-licensed professionals in NY have an AA gun behind their backs.

Interesting fact: Jenness Clairmont, the former Clinical Director of Samaritan Counseling who banned me from ‘any further contact‘ with employees or Samaritan Counseling offices ‘under any circumstances’ directly after I complained about 12-step coercion and emotional extortion via the ARISE Intervention (the creator of which was at the time charged with five felonies for fraud)…she is ON the Office of Professions board (the licensing board whose ‘investigator’ told me ‘nothing you are saying makes any sense’. You can see in the video above this Office of Professions is not averse to extorting its licensees into 12-step treatment. She’s also an NASW member, and a consultant for the 12-step group New York Council on Problem Gambling, which is PAID by OASAS (illegally it seems) and who’ve introduced inpatient gambling rehab and GA meetings to OASAS rehabs (also illegally). This idea of ‘boundaries’ against people who are not engaged in 12-step programs is also called ‘cult shunning‘, and even though the Executive Director David Olsen of Samaritan Counseling recommends these boundaries ‘to help the ministry flourish‘ and to avoid ‘scapegoating’ pastors (he’s a sex therapist/pastor who makes nearly 200K/year at his non-profit), I find it very odd that Samaritan Counseling has effectively shunned me or anyone representing me from any communication with state licensed ‘social workers’ who are supposedly interested in helping resolve social problems.

Watch Jenness Clairmont talk about ‘male depression’ and ‘not wanting to talk about it’. LOL.