Chump don't want the help, chump don't get the help

I recently heard about a post on Surviving Infidelity where they had discovered the SiteJabber webpage that lists reviews of SI and of the 57 reviews total so far, they get a 1.46 star rating out of 5! Needless to say, the reviews are not good, and the overwhelming majority all complain of the same basic thing: If you don’t agree with the people on the site, you will be lambasted like a child and treated as though you’re an idiot.

The reviews are – in my opinion – accurate. There is a whole other post on our blog that talks about the “advice” they gave my wife and how they treated her during her short tenor on SurvivingInfidelity. Look that one up if you have not read it yet, it’s sad but funny.

Anyway, my philosophy has always been try to make a point, but don’t belabor the point to a group that doesn’t want to hear what you have to say. My wife and I had several interactions on SI where I described my views on 12-step, and being a sex addict once, what I thought about current treatments, etc. Not only was I met with hostility, but they attacked my wife, just for staying with me. “See you on your next D-Day” was one of the responses I believe. Nice, right? How is that “A safe place to come and share your pain…”?

Now, there are all kinds of people on SI, and not all were bad. There were others who chimed in and agreed with us, or simply stated this was a place of discussion. They were quickly lambasted as well. It’s a bully pulpit for moderators and those who kiss the arse of the mods.

Funny if you think about it: What they are doing is creating a bubble of safety around them, which they can all wallow and moan about what has happened to them, all without discussing HOW to get out of that bubble. What is horrible to realize, I believe, is that addicts do the same thing! They create false narratives and ridiculous lies and believe them without critical thinking or examination. They must believe these lies, otherwise it would be too difficult to go about day to day life.

So, when confronted with the SiteJabber information that SI is a breeding ground of intolerance and bullies, did they step back and examine themselves and say, “Is this possible”? No. One of the best responses I saw, and I’ll quote the overall gist of the message, “Fuck em”.

What they believe is that most, if not all of the negative reviews are made by the same person or small group of people. There is no possible way that those reviews could contain even a shred of truth.

Nothing must get through the bubble. Do you hear me? NOTHING!!!!

And how about this, in one of the posts on SI dealing with the Sitejabber reviews, was someone bringing up my wife and I, and how out ideas were…well, you read it:

“And I know one response was someone (a couple) who hadn’t been banned but their ideas on Sex Addiction we’re so whackadoo that they couldn’t post without getting so much resistance they left SI in a huff.”

My ideas are a tad bit whackadoo in comparison with today’s beliefs I’ll admit. It was also whackadoo to believe the Earth wasn’t flat, or that the Earth revolved around the Sun. Ideas change, evolve, grow. The point I was making to them (to generate the whackadoo idea comment) was that 12-step doesn’t really cure anyone. What 12-step can do, at best, is provide a means to cover-up or suppress the urges or feelings deep inside the addict. 12 step was started by an alcoholic, who remained an alcoholic until death.

There are some new sources regarding 12-step that you might want to look more into. This is a good one:

https://www.npr.org/2014/03/23/291405829/with-sobering-science-doctor-debunks-12-step-recovery

For saying 12 step is not as effective as you might think, and that maybe forcing your cheating spouse to read SI for an hour a day (That was “advice” given out) is not the best use of your precious time, they scoffed. Also, they grew quite irate over my stance that “Once an addict, always an addict” is dead-wrong. I explained that I, and most noted psychologists believe that alcohol, drug use, sex addiction, whatever the addiction, is simply an external symptom of a much deeper issue. Alcoholics drink to numb. Drug addicts do drugs to run away from reality. Sex addicts seek power. At each of them is a root cause. A seed planted at childhood that sprouts the external behaviors manifesting in addiction.

It’s my belief that if you dig down and remove the root, that is the seed that was planted, you have a fresh and clean bed of dirt with no contamination where nothing like that seed of addiction can grow again. Now, I know fully that I’m not a doctor or psychiatrist, but most doctors and psychiatrists aren’t addicts, so what do they really know? Some of the smartest people I know do not have a degree. And some of the dumbest people I know have multiple degrees. The school of life taught me and formed my beliefs. I lived it. I know what it is like to be on either side of the fence, and I know that once my root was removed, I could start over free of the weight of addiction.

So, to me there IS such a thing as a “former addict” because I am a former addict. There aren’t many of us because there just isn’t a proper cure yet available to the masses!

My brain needed to relearn some behaviors, but that was simply from years of thinking like a child.

This belief, however, did not meet the SI community with enthusiasm. They told me how I had no clue what I was talking about, how I was a liar and still an addict, and under no circumstances were they going to not monitor their husbands because they could never again be trusted.

We were “driven off” by the mob at that point. It’s a shame, because at its core, SI is people who have been hurt. And everyone deserves better than that.

It makes me think of the classic movie ‘Airplane’ where Barbara Billingsly says, “Chump don’t want the help, chump don’t get the help”.