ACOA (Adult Citizens of Alcoholics) Meeting: Minutes of July 11 mtg.

Facilitator: Who has something up right now?
Jones: I'm concerned that the President said global warmings are debatable on whether it's caused by humans or naturally occurring, and that we need to decrease our reliance on foreign sources of oil.
Facilitatior: What bothers you about that statement?
Jones: It doesn't make any sense.
Facilitator: Anyone else? Bob?
Bob: The President keeps saying Iraq is going well and it actually looks like holy hell over there, with people being dragged out of their houses and cars and shot, and American skinheads with personality disorders raping and murdering civilians...
Facilitator: Take a moment and breathe.
Bob: It just seems so fucked up.
Facilitator: Okay, good. That's your truth then. Yeah, Nancy?
Nancy: North Korea is firing off missiles like the 4th of July or something, and that nut case has actual bombs, but Bush seems obsessed with Iran, which maybe could have a bomb in 10 years or so. I just don't get it.
Facilitator: Good, Nancy. Be with that feeling.
Jones: So what's going on? How come everything he says is so way off the mark?
Facilitator: What makes you say it's off the mark?
Jones: Whaddya think? It's not happening that way!
Facilitator: And this distresses you?
Jones: Well, yeeaaaahhhhh.
Facilitator: Anyone else feeling the same way? What comes up for the rest of you?
Nancy: It's like he's living in another world or something.
Facilitator: You think you're seeing things very differently, you're saying.
Nancy: Right.
Bob: Check.
Facilitator: It's why you're all here. You are all Adult Citizens of an Alcoholic, and reality distortion is probably the common denominator behind all of your troubling reactions. Mr. Bush is an untreated alkie who habitually lies and distorts reality, and who is actually so far gone that he doesn't even know the difference anymore.
Nancy: Is that why I don't see what he says I ought to be seeing?
Facilitator: Precisely. He always has excuses, for example, obviously with global warming there is no serious scientific debate; however, to admit now that this has been a serious problem for the 5 and a half years he has been in office, while he has done nothing about it, would cause a deep shaming reaction which his weak ego cannot allow. He has led the world to the precipice of disaster and so he has to pretend that he failed to act because of the uncertainty, although none exists.
Bob: Sometimes he says he's actually doing something about it.
Facilitator: Yet it can't be both, which is symptomatic of his denial. In moments of relative clarity, even Bush would recognize the difference between an aggressive, proactive program to deal with the problem versus a few calls to limit "foreign imports" or develop a hydrogen car 10 years from now with about the same money he spends every week in Iraq.
Jones: Then Iraq is a fiasco?
Facilitator: Of course it is. What the Alcoholic-in-Chief is asking you to buy into is his sense of pervasive denial, necessary to support his debilitated ego structure, and to deny the authority of your own senses, to not see what is so plainly right in front of you. This, of course, causes tremendous problems in everyday living.
Bob: What can we do?
Facilitator: For now, simply don't believe a word he says, ever. He can't be trusted on anything.
Nancy: And then?
Facilitator: I would suggest we have another meeting in 2 and half years. Things might improve by then.