My initial complaint to the Office of Professions was less than satisfying, and I tried to get some information about what the Office of Professions did to investigate. But then I also found out that 12-steppers can pretty much ruin the career of anyone who wants to complain about this. I sent a petition of over 140 signatures and 9 letters to the Commissioner of Education of NY, NASW, Samaritan Counseling, Samaritan Institute, and the Department of Health and Human Services of NY, and have received no response from anybody.

update Jan 20 2020: Samaritan Institute is now called Solihten Institute.

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We have over 140 complaint notes, petition signatures, and letters asking health workers to acknowledge the problems with 12-step coercion in therapy, the rehab industry, and Alcoholics Anonymous itself as the ‘preferred mode of treatment’. It has proven all too often to cause psychological damage. Samaritan Counseling Center of the Capital Region has not acknowledged any of this. The worst part is that there is seemingly no way to complain about it, which reinforces a sense of powerlessness and is actually part of the 12-step so-called treatment. The tactic of ‘professionals who are also members of Alcoholics Anonymous’, also known as ‘two-hatters‘ is to go silent and refuse to respond, much like AA itself tried to do in response to requests for safety guidelines and transparency about third-level sex offenders being plea-dealed to the meetings, the same meetings where honest people are unknowingly sent after paying big money to rehabs for ‘treatment’. A recent lawsuit brings the problems into legal focus.

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Petition to Health Workers and Academics About Alcoholics Anonymous (148 current signatures and comments)

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Here are the letters we sent, and we will send these, and more, to more and more government agencies, law firms, and health workers until this is resolved completely.

Check out, especially, the admission to 4 days of drinking that led to 3 more YEARS of “monitoring” for a nurse who is mandated to AA to keep her license.

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Here’s a very brief description of the case this blog is based on (by me):

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Here is a letter explaining the legal issues with Samaritan Counseling coercing AA attendance:

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Here is a letter from a Pilot whose license been terminated because he voluntarily entered into the HIMS program and found no real help, but a lot of bills:

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Here is a letter from a woman who has pinpointed AA as a retraumatizing influence:

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Here is a letter from a nurse being extorted into AA to keep her medical license:

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Here is a letter from someone who found AA completely incompatible with his religion and it took him 13 years to escape the AA ‘treatment’ system.
Full PDF

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Here is a letter by a woman who found 12-step rehab unhelpful and made her suicidal, and like me, she feels compelled to tell about it:
“Didn’t have the right God”

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Here is a letter from an Operation Iraqi Freedom combat veteran who found AA worsened her PTSD:

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Here is a letter from someone who, like me, found it impossible to complain about the abusive treatment he was getting (ARISE Intervention):

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Here is another example of the AA extortion contracts that have been revealed in the HIMS program, Physicians Health Programs, and in therapeutic contexts (this last link is to a book about the emotional extortionist method devised and promoted by my own ARISE interventionist and related to one letter above).

Check out, especially, the admission to 4 days of drinking that led to 3 more YEARS of “monitoring” (meaning any positive test would result in ‘consequences’)

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Here is a letter that Silver Damsen sent to Samaritan Counseling requesting to have a discussion, including my signature. It was completely ignored.

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Here is a letter from someone who grew up with the 12-steps and saw disaster all around him, and started connecting the dots:
Growing Up In a 12-step home (PDF)

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140 petition signatures and letters like this should not be ignored. There are more, and the complaints will continue to be collected, sent, and documented.

Here is the Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights’ response.

The first wave of lawsuits was against mandated AA. This continues.

The next wave is coercion within the professions, as seen started here, and with the Physician’s Health Programs, and EAPs.

And that will prepare for the third wave of lawsuits for coerced AA by two-hatters in state-licensed therapy and health services.

And it will happen. Many hospitals have already changed their ways based on science.

But so-called ‘faith-based’ places like Samaritan Counseling are the ones who will get sued eventually.

Washington Post

Does the Delmar Reformed Church in Delmar NY really not want me on their property just because I complained about 12-step coercion in therapy (which they provide an office to as a ‘sponsor church’)? If so, that doesn’t seem like such an open minded church at all. I wonder if they know that their sponsee counseling center is banning people from the property for writing a letter about 12-step alternatives. I find it hard to believe that they would approve of that, but you never know.