Talk:Twelve-step program

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What's unclear about APA summary?

@LLarson: looking at these recent edits of American Psychological Association, not sure what context your looking for here. Does anything have objective meaning outside of context? Kind of a philosophical question. At any rate, can you give us more of an idea of what you were looking for here? "don't objectively mean anything with out context." - Scarpy (talk)

Hi Scarpy: I was confined by the limits of the Edit Summary box. “Higher power” needs to be defined prior to its introduction in the APA summary: “Higher Power” and “Power” are celebrated for their ambiguity within the scope of a twelve‑step program, but the ambiguity is duplicitous or obfuscatory when AA’s eponymous book, also sourced in this article, says that He is God.^[1]

@LLarson: higher power, okay, there would be value to defining this outside of the APA summary. Removing the clarification tags around "errors" and "past errors" which still strikes me as ridiculously pedantic. "Errors" are not twelve-step specific terminology, and we have to assume our English-speaking readers know basic English words like "error." - Scarpy (talk) 22:11, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with implies as in “Completing the Twelve Steps implies being competent to sponsor newcomers in recovery”^[1] is manifold: the source doesn’t say that; the source is a pamphlet published by the non‑NPOV organization that this article is attempting to describe; and the pamphlet actually says both that a sponsor must only have “made some progress”; but that no working of steps was required for the founders to begin sponsoring.^[2]

Thanks, —LLarson (said & done) 20:23, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There are plenty of circumstances where self-published sources are acceptable, but agree that the citation does not directly support the material. - Scarpy (talk) 22:11, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ "We Agnostics". Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous World Services. p. 46. We found that as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice and express even a willingness to believe in a Power greater than ourselves, we commenced to get results, even though it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that Power, which is God.
^ "What is Sponsorship?". Questions & Answers on Sponsorship. Alcoholics Anonymous World Services. p. 7. He found Dr. Bob, who had been trying desperately and unsuccessfully to stop drinking ... the Twelve Steps had not been written; but Bill carried the message to Dr. Bob, who in turn safeguarded his own sobriety by sponsoring countless other alcoholics. ... Essentially, the process of sponsorship is this: An alcoholic who has made some progress in the recovery program shares that experience on a continuous, individual basis with another alcoholic....

"Further reading" section

I made a bunch of edits just recently. For one of these edits, there wasn't enough room in the edit summary box to explain why I made it. My edit summary included the words "Please see talk". In case you're curious, here's an explanation of why I made the edit.

At the bottom of our Wikipedia article, there's a section with links to some scholarly journal articles about twelve-step programs. As of yesterday, it was headed "Bibliography", which was an ambiguous section heading. I wondered: Was it full of general references which someone added at the same time that they added otherwise-unsourced text? Or was it simply a list of items for recommended further reading? Well, today, I took a look. It turns out that every single item listed in our section was inserted as part of a February '08 edit by an anonymous IP user who has never added any body text to the main body of our article. So it's clear that they're definitely just recommended further reading.

The original contributor called the section "Further reading". At some point since then, someone renamed it to "Bibliography". WP:LAYOUT doesn't seem to really recommend naming such sections "Bibliography". To avoid ambiguity, I have now renamed the section back to "Further reading".

Regards, TealHill (talk) 20:58, 29 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Starting

I would like to join OA on line and maybe get some help please Grammapam02 (talk) 18:53, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

[1] "We Agnostics". Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous World Services. p. 46. We found that as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice and express even a willingness to believe in a Power greater than ourselves, we commenced to get results, even though it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that Power, which is God.

[2] "What is Sponsorship?". Questions & Answers on Sponsorship. Alcoholics Anonymous World Services. p. 7. He found Dr. Bob, who had been trying desperately and unsuccessfully to stop drinking ... the Twelve Steps had not been written; but Bill carried the message to Dr. Bob, who in turn safeguarded his own sobriety by sponsoring countless other alcoholics. ... Essentially, the process of sponsorship is this: An alcoholic who has made some progress in the recovery program shares that experience on a continuous, individual basis with another alcoholic....

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