Fan Connection = Big Cash

by La Shawn on January 3, 2008

in Technology

Thom YorkeUpdate: “Renowned” and hot, eh? According to blogger Dave Lucas, I’m tied in 8th place with some Japanese chick on his 10 Hottest Blogging Babes To Watch in 2008 list.

Dave writes: “Talk about a ‘180′ - renowned A-lister LaShawn Barber went from politics to music in a bold move to take her blog where she wanted it to go. The result is delightful.”

I’m glad somebody digs my music-digital-tech-stuff blogging. Cheers, Dave. A link from LBC won’t bring you the kind of traffic it used to (those were the days!), but accept it as a token of my appreciation. ;)
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Long-time readers know that short posts just aren’t my thing. I can’t do it. I’m neither pithy nor truncated nor brief. In fact, I have to force myself to wrap things up. Depending on who (whom?) you ask, it’s a good thing or a bad thing. Either way, Happy Thursday!

Digital Madness

Thom Yorke, lead singer for Radiohead, the British band that offered its latest album, In Rainbows, to fans in a pay-what-you-want gimmick last October, complained on BBC radio that artists don’t make money from digital downloads. Dig the irony! (Hat tip: Ars Technica)

Eighty percent of people, he claimed, still buy “physical releases” (don’t know where he got that figure) and that it’s important for the band to put out a physical version of the album. To do otherwise would have been “madness.” Not sure about the 80 percent figure, but I agree that some people want to possess hard copies. They may not own nor have the desire to own MP3 players, or they can’t live without liner notes and album art. Whatever the reason, there’s still a (dwindling?) market for physical albums.

Yorke said this about releasing In Rainbows online:

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Evangelism in the New Year

by La Shawn on January 2, 2008

in Faith

personal evangelismHappy New Year, everybody!

Let’s make this a productive year personally, professionally, and spiritually. Make all the resolutions you want. Write them down if you need to. But whatever you want to accomplish this year, make it count. Don’t over-plan or try to finesse too much. Just do it.

What Evangelism Isn’t

One of my resolutions is to do more evangelizing in 2008. I’ve been evangelizing on this blog for four years, but I want to do a lot more.

What is evangelism? Some make it seem more complicated than it really is. Simply stated, evangelism is telling people about Christ, why he came, what he requires of us, and what happens if we reject him.

Christianity Today published an excerpt of a book called The Gospel and Personal Evangelism, by Pastor Mark Dever of Capitol Hill Baptist Church here in DC. In “What Evangelism Isn’t,” he explains why some Christians don’t evangelize:

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RIAA Brief: Washington Post Gets It Wrong

by La Shawn on December 31, 2007

in Media Bias, Technology

drudge screenshot

I’ve got to hand it to Matt Drudge. He’s a born sensationalist. This morning, he took a brief diversion from his usual muckraking political headlines to write an equally muckraking one about a case I told you about a couple of weeks ago.

Download Uproar: Recording industry says illegal to transfer music from CD onto computer….

…screamed the headline, linking to a Washington Post article titled, “Download Uproar: Record Industry Goes After Personal Use.” An excerpt (emphasis in original):

[I]n an unusual case in which an Arizona recipient of an RIAA [Recording Industry Association of America] letter has fought back in court rather than write a check to avoid hefty legal fees, the industry is taking its argument against music sharing one step further: In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.

The industry’s lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are “unauthorized copies” of copyrighted recordings.

Shocking, isn’t it? If only it were true…

Just to be clear, I’m assuming that the brief referred to in the story is the 21-page supplemental brief filed by the RIAA in Atlantic Recording Corporation v. Pamela and Jeffrey Howell, which I wrote about earlier this month. (Note: The reporter confirmed that was the brief to which he was referring.)

In Stop, Thief! Before You Rip That CD… I told you that music and tech bloggers were in an uproar about a supplemental brief the RIAA (a trade organization for the recording industry) filed December 7 in a case called Atlantic Recording Corporation v. Pamela and Jeffrey Howell. A couple was sued for illegally transferring digital music files to a peer-to-peer network called Kazaa. I even linked to the 21-page brief (PDF) so you could read it and make your own assessment.

Some bloggers said the RIAA argued that ripping your own CD to your computer’s hard drive was illegal. I knew that couldn’t be right, so I read the brief. Sure enough, they were wrong. This is the RIAA’s actual contention, which can be found on page 15 (emphasis added):

It is undisputed that Defendant possessed unauthorized copies of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted sound recordings on his computer…Defendant admitted that he converted these sound recordings from their original format to the .mp3 format for his and his wife’s use…Once Defendant converted Plaintiffs’ recording into the compressed .mp3 format and they are in his shared folder, they are no longer the authorized copies distributed by Plaintiffs.

According to the brief, the authorized copies Howell made became unauthorized copies once Howell put them in a shared folder, presumably the Kazaa shared folder. I mentioned in the previous post that a “consummated transfer” wasn’t necessary for a violation to have occurred, according to the RIAA. If you rip a CD and place the MP3s into a folder to which only you have access, the copies are authorized. If the files are in a shared folder, they’re “available” to third parties, which is a copyright violation.

But the issues of “consummated transfer” and files made “available” are moot. Howell in fact transferred the files over the Kazaa network. If you clear away the smoke and ignore the underreported Washington Post story, it becomes obvious that the defendant is being sued for illegal file sharing, not for ripping CDs.

This is how I understand it: Making copies for personal use is OK. Sharing copies with others, even for non-commercial use, is not OK.

CDAre the RIAA’s arguments nitpicky? Darn right! I’m no fan of the RIAA. I think its position is wrongheaded. It’s scandalous that the music industry has declared war on fans. Scandalous.

But…if you’re going to write a major news story about all this mess, at least be accurate so as not to add to the mess. Then again, the reporter knew the story wouldn’t be half as interesting if he’d reported what’s actually going on.

The RIAA indeed might hold the opinion that copying your own CD for personal use is a copyright violation, but it didn’t make that argument in the brief. In fact, here’s what I found on the RIAA’s web site:

“Record companies have never objected to someone making a copy of a CD for their own personal use. We want fans to enjoy the music they bought legally. But both copying CDs to give to friends and downloading music illegally rob the people who created that music of compensation for their work.”

And a link to this (emphasis added):

It’s okay to copy music onto an analog cassette, but not for commercial purposes…It’s also okay to copy music onto special Audio CD-R’s, mini-discs, and digital tapes (because royalties have been paid on them) – but, again, not for commercial purposes…Beyond that, there’s no legal “right” to copy the copyrighted music on a CD onto a CD-R. However, burning a copy of CD onto a CD-R, or transferring a copy onto your computer hard drive or your portable music player, won’t usually raise concerns so long as…The copy is made from an authorized original CD that you legitimately own…The copy is just for your personal use. It’s not a personal use – in fact, it’s illegal – to give away the copy or lend it to others for copying.

Reading the Washington Post story yesterday, I got the impression that the reporter hadn’t read the 21-page brief and wasn’t interested in writing an objective news story. So what else is new?

Update: In a quick response to an e-mail I sent this morning, Marc Fisher, who wrote the WP story, said:

“Yes, the story is based in part on that brief: The industry found the Howells by searching for computers that were sharing files through Kazaa. That’s true of thousands of cases–hardly news. But the news here is the novel argument that the industry lawyer makes in his brief. In this case, the defendant claimed he had no idea he was sharing files, but that’s irrelevant to the argument advanced by the recording companies’ lawyer, who makes the case that the act of transferring music from a legally-purchased CD is in and of itself illegal, even if the file is not being shared.”

In the 21-page brief I read, the RIAA did not argue that ripping a CD you legally own is illegal or that “the act of transferring music from a legally-purchased CD is in and of itself illegal, even if the file is not being shared.” I asked Fisher if he read the brief. He didn’t respond to that question.

Bottom line, the article is misleading, but what does it all matter in the scheme of things anyway? :?

Wednesday, January 2: Happy New Year, and welcome to LBC! This post has been linked in several discussion forums, and I appreciate the acknowledgement. The Washington Post ought to issue a correction, or at least a clarification, for this story. But it won’t. The story is being cited as the gospel and retold all over the web, but it is intentionally misleading at worst and poorly written/researched at best.

My letter to the editor might be published on January 5. Check back for updates.

Later…The blogger at Coolfer writes (emphasis added):

“When read in context of the entire brief, the Post’s interpretation of that sentence just doesn’t work…This difference in interpretations reflects what William Patry calls a “calculated rhetorical shift” on the part of the press. The Patry Copyright Blog has a post titled “The Establishment Press Takes On The RIAA” on the subject. It’s good reading because it boils the issue down to its basic elements: a (debatable) fight against copyright, journalists acting as activists and the impacts of subtle, semantic twists.”

Thursday, January 3: This post got a brief mention in this news story.

Tuesday, January 8: Finally, the Washington Post sets the record straight, although quite late (emphasis added):

“A Dec. 30 Style & Arts column incorrectly said that the recording industry ‘maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.’ In a copyright-infringement lawsuit, the industry’s lawyer argued that the actions of an Arizona man, the defendant, were illegal because the songs were located in a ’shared folder’ on his computer for distribution on a peer-to-peer network.”

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bhuttoUpdate (12:27 p.m.): Speaking of Islamofascism, Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto, first female PM of a Muslim country, has been assassinated. Read more at Hot Air and Michelle Malkin’s.

Later…On a lighter note, my review of Net, Blogs and Rock ‘n’ Roll has been posted.
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attackedJeff Jarvis, blogger, journalist, and media critic I credit for my appearances on MSNBC a couple years ago, points to an article about an American author sued in an English court for libeling a Saudi.

Rachel Ehrenfeld wrote in Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed – and How to Stop It accused a rich Saudi named Khalid Salim A. Bin Mahfouz of funding Islamofascist groups like al-Qaida.

Ehrenfeld sought protection under New York state law and asked that the judgment against her be rendered unenforceable, but the courts contend Bin Mahfouz is not subject to New York jurisdiction. It’s a procedural matter, but substantive to Ehrenfeld all the same.

Jeff is concerned, perhaps rightly so, that such a judgment chills free speech and postulates that such actions could extend to speech that merely criticizes Islamofascists. It’s not so far-farfetched, once you consider that Islam is incompatible with the West, given its propensity toward free expression, which includes the right to offend. But are we talking about libel, censorship, or both? Ehrenfeld accused the man of funding terrorism. What “free speech” right does she have to do that?

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Moment of Salvation

by La Shawn on December 27, 2007

in Faith

A common question Christians often ask one another is, “When did you become saved?” Although I say my “moment of salvation” occurred on December 23, 1999, it was an evolution of sorts, a gradual attraction to “godly” things that led me to Christ. I believe I was in the process of being saved years before that date.

In an article titled “Hour of Decision” in the December issue of Christianity Today, theology professor Erik Thoennes explains what being saved means and what the Bible teaches about the process. An excerpt:

The term saved is popularly used to refer to regeneration and justification. But when the Bible uses the word salvation in a spiritual sense, it describes the broad range of God’s activity in rescuing people from sin and restoring them to a right relationship with himself. Salvation in the Bible thus has past, present, and future tenses. A believer has been saved from the guilt of sin (justification, see Eph. 2:8), is being saved from the power of sin (sanctification, see 1 Cor. 1:18), and will be saved from the judgment and presence of sin (glorification, see Acts 15:11).

While the subjective experience of being saved may look very different from person to person, the objective state of being saved is definite and absolute. From God’s perspective, there is a definitive point in time when those who have trusted in Christ pass from death into life (1 John 3:14).

Indeed, all you have to do is believe Jesus is Lord and Savior, that he died for your sins, and that he rose from the dead. The saved person may give in to doubt from time to time and question his salvation, but he will never lose it. If the blood of Christ has washed away his sins, he is saved for all eternity, even if he backslides.

There’s more to the salvation story, of course, but that’s the gist. The experience is different for each Christian, but the effect is the same. It doesn’t matter whether the story of how you came to Christ was dramatic or subtle; it’s a story worth telling over and over.

Are you doubting your salvation? The Bible admonishes us to become more Christ-like even as we work out our salvation “with fear and trembling.” As Thoennes writes, “[T]he ongoing work of the Holy Spirit in making a person more like Jesus is the clearest indicator that one has been made a new creation in Christ.”

What’s your salvation story? If you’re not a Christian, are you drawn to Christ in some way? I assume you’re a little curious if you’re reading a Christian’s blog. Erroneous assumption, perhaps.

Update: As a point of clarification, the Bible also teaches that we must repent of, or turn away from, our sins. It’s what I believe, but I neglected to say so in the post.

Related posts:

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A Savior has been born to you…

by La Shawn on December 24, 2007

in Faith

nephews watching Sponge BobI think I'm overdosing on Sponge Bob and Hannah Montana! But that's what family time is all about, yes? Here's a message for you:

“In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register.

“So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

“And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.’”
(Luke 2: 1-12)

Letting the Days Go By

by La Shawn on December 20, 2007

in Administrative

Merry Christmas, readers!In some ways, I'm starting over with this blog. After I stopped covering politics, a few loyal fans stuck around. For the most part, however, I’m reinventing myself and the readership is shifting.

Many people started reading my blog because of the way I covered political and “controversial” topics. Since I’m phasing out those topics, it makes sense that some of those readers are phasing out LBC. But it doesn’t feel scary. I’m treading new-to-me territory, and it feels like a fresh start. I feel re freshed.

When I first started blogging, I followed veteran bloggers’ advice: comment on and trackback to other blogs, send post links to established, like-minded bloggers, etc. I did all that. I even visited small blogs - really small blogs - and commented on those sites. This consequently led the bloggers to blogroll me, and things picked up from there.

Should I do the same with digital music blogging? Later, perhaps. LBC, with four years worth of backlinks and indexed pages, has got enough Google juice to show up high in search results under certain digital music terms. That’s good enough for now. I’ve returned to my roots, in a way. Blogging for the pure pleasure of it and being genuinely surprised that people are reading the blog at all. It’s still amazing after all these years. :shock:

In the meantime, I’m taking notes and journaling my somewhat dramatic shift in tone and recording the hits and misses. The plan is to turn the notes into an instructional (and inspirational?) essay for established bloggers longing to do the same.

Many blessings to you!

(Clip art from EternalChristmas.com)

David ByrneI wanted to point you to what I consider a must-read article written by musician David “Letting the days go by” Byrne, formerly of the 1980s-era Talking Heads.

In a Wired magazine article titled “David Byrne’s Survival Strategies for Emerging Artists — and Megastars,” the veteran offers advice to new artists and other veterans on how to distribute music and make money in the digital age.

Check out his blog, too.

Technology set music loose from its social settings. With no ability to record music, consumers had to go where the music was: concert halls, clubs, opera houses, etc. After recording technology was developed, music became a product, says Byrne. We could take it home with us, and, with today’s portable music players, literally everywhere we go. Although the music “package” may have changed, we still have an urge (instinct?) to listen to it in social settings with other people.

Byrne douses a bucket of cold reality on the old music-making model: Back in the day, artists toured to promote new albums. To survive in the music business these days, artists must change their attitudes about concerts. Performing for fans is an important part of the music, and, as I mentioned in The Long Tail of Independence, sales from concert tickets and merchandise can compensate for low album sales.

Byrne’s offers six “possibilities” to veteran and new artists on how to distribute their music and survive the changes in the music industry. Here are the first three:

  • 360 or “multiple rights” deal – Because of declining CD sales, record labels are trying to make money in other ways. Under a so-called 360 deal, labels take a cut of everything, from music to concert to merchandising sales. (Apparently, record companies traditionally did not take a cut of ancillary profits.) Some say such deals take the pressure off artists to produce a hit. With 360s, record labels are reasonably sure they’ll make money, whether or not CDs and digital files sell well. For an example of a 360 deal, see “The New Deal: Band as Brand.”
  • Standard Distribution Deal – Traditional deal where labels pay for everything and give artists a cut of the profits. This deal is not ideal for artists, says Byrne. “The label, in this scenario, owns the copyright to the recording. Forever.” However, the Internet has lowered the costs of recording, manufacturing, and distributing music, so the label-does-all idea isn’t as valuable to artists as it once was. Artists can finance some of these tasks themselves. Just say no to SDDs?

    Under the standard deal, artists are beholden to labels in more ways than one. “The typical pop star often lives in debt to their record company and a host of other entities, and if they hit a dry spell they can go broke,” Byrne writes.
  • License Deal – Artists retain copyright of the masters and allow record labels to use the masters for a limited period of time. Sounds like a better deal for artists. Ownership is everything, my friends. Byrne writes: “If the members of the Talking Heads held the master rights to our catalog today, we’d earn twice as much in licensing as we do now — and that’s where artists like me derive much of our income.”

Click over to Wired and read about the other three distribution models. (The comments are good, too.) And read more Byrne blogging here.

Byrne notes that all models are subject to shift and change, and no one model works for every artist. Nothing is absolute. But everyone – recording artist, visual artist, writer, or whatever – should heed this advice:

“I would personally advise artists to hold on to their publishing rights (well, as much of them as they can). Publishing royalties are how you get paid if someone covers, samples, or licenses your song for a movie or commercial. This, for a songwriter, is your pension plan.”

The music industry is in flux (other industries, too), and we, living in the ascendancy of the digital age, have prime seats to watch it unfold.

(Photo by Gilles Larrain Studios)

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Musical Mid-Life

by La Shawn on December 18, 2007

in Freewriting

Elijah WoodUpdate (12/19): The mid-life crisis topic’s a bit too depressing, eh? Sorry! I’m cheery as heck about my “crisis.” I’m working on interview questions for this guy. You may remember him from a little trilogy called “Lord of the Rings.” New movie coming out called “Day Zero.” And he has his own record label.
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hourglassOh, the wheels of traditional publishing turn slowly…

For the past few months, I’ve immersed myself in digital music and digital media news. As I brainstorm and pitch what I hope are unique story ideas that will capture the attention of busy editors, I satisfy the writing urge on my blog. I write less on the blog because I’m trying to write more off the blog. But alas, the fruits of those off-blog efforts may not show up for weeks or months, if at all. The life of a writer…

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Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

by La Shawn on December 17, 2007

in Race Preferences

mirror…who’s the blackest of them all?

You can dredge up the horrors of American slavery. You can keep stirring the Jim Crow pot, constantly reminding everyone how horrible it was that a country forcibly segregated its citizens by race and discriminated against blacks because they were black. You can wail and gnash teeth all day long, wallowing in abject bitterness because others have more than you do: looks, money, influence, opportunity, or whatever.

But you cannot, even if you lived 1,000 lifetimes, make a coherent and logically sound argument in favor of racial discrimination in the other direction. Nothing, not even the most heinous act committed against a black person by our government, justifies discriminating against other races in favor of blacks.

Let me put it this way: I have yet to read or hear a coherent and logically sound argument in favor of so-called reverse discrimination. Perhaps one exists. If you’ve read or heard such an argument, do let me know.

This post was inspired by a blogger I met last summer, John Rosenberg, who blogs about racial discrimination. John is just as anti-skin color preferences as I am. He picked apart a pro-skin color preferences editorial in the Muskogee Phoenix, a community newspaper in Oklahoma.

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For Atheists and Agnostics

by La Shawn on December 14, 2007

in Faith

…and others who don’t believe in Christianity:

  • According to your belief system (tenets of an organized religion, your own personal philosophy, etc.), how did man come to be?
  • What does your belief system teach or reveal to you about the nature of man?

Update (12/15): En route to where most of the loved ones (including all the kids!) live to begin an extended Christmas holiday. Thanks for participating on this thread, and for being civil. I think it’s important to be able to articulate what you believe and why you believe, whatever you believe. I’ve always strived to make LBC a place where people could engage in civil discussions, no matter how controversial or uncomfortable the topic.

See you Monday, and rest easy this weekend.

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Stop, Thief! Before You Rip That CD…

by La Shawn on December 12, 2007

in Pop Culture, Technology

CDMonday, December 31: Read the latest on this case at RIAA Brief: Washington Post Gets It Wrong.

Update (12/12 @ 1:10 p.m.): Check out blogger Jeff Graham’s comment:

“I think the thing that gets me is the ‘All-holy’ RIAA standing on their pedestal like Jesse Jackson [Heh!] and screaming about how we’re endangering the livelihood of struggling artists everywhere. The fact is that artists only get a few cents off of every CD sold. Where does the rest of the money go? You tell me. I wish they would just stand up and say who they’re really representing.”

I remember seeing a chart that breaks down who gets what from an album’s sale, and the artist gets a small cut compared to the record label. Can’t remember where I saw the chart, though. If you find such a chart, please post the link in the comment section.
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Are you involved in the music industry in some way (artist, producer, sales clerk, whatever)? I’d love to get your feedback on this post.

If you believed yesterday’s buzz on the tech and music sides of the blogosphere, you would have been angry.

Some blogs reported that the influential Recording Industry Association of America (fondly known as the RIAA) argued in a supplemental brief filed last week in an illegal downloading case that ripping your own CDs to your own hard drive and transferring the files to your own digital music player, something I mentioned doing in Death to DRM, are illegal. (Hat tip: Mark La Roi)

Whoa…slow down, Silver.

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Merry Christmas, readers!Wednesday, December 12: Do you know any secular bands that incorporate “Christian” themes and imagery in their music? I’m taking suggestions for future “Glimpses of God” articles. Drop names in the comment section, or e-mail me at lashawn [at] lashawnbarber [dot] com.

Also see:

Later…Woo hoo! Lenny Kravitz starts touring in January. Positive thinking…visualizing what I want: Me. Backstage. Interviewing Lenny…

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photo credit Cambria Harkey

In October, I told you that independent British band Radiohead came up with a cool way to create buzz about its latest CD. The band uploaded In Rainbows to its web site and allowed fans to download it for whatever price they wanted to pay. Some paid nothing; others paid “full price.”

The music business isn’t what it used to be. Compact disk sales are down, and a lot of people download digital music illegally. That is, they acquire it without paying for it. They make copies and pass them along to friends. They download music from peer-to-peer sites that have no licensing agreements with artists and labels. The practice is so widespread, there’s no way to stop it. (This is scary, but it won’t work, either.)

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Controlled Drinking, Controlled Lies

by La Shawn on December 5, 2007

in Faith, Health

martiniUpdate (12/7): Based on comments, I need to clear up a couple of things: First, I stopped drinking cold turkey on my own. I didn’t attend AA or see a counselor. I got tired of being a drunk, so I suffered through a couple weeks of withrdrawal and anxiety to get sober. Strong willpower and an independent-minded personality, I guess. More power to the people who attend/attended AA. I have nothing against it. I just wanted people to be aware that AA is not the only way to get sober.

Second, I couldn’t care less if Levy has a beef with AA. My problem is his moderation and control angle. Alcohol controls the alcoholic’s life, not the other way around. A drunk cannot have a drink or two, and stop (unless he passes out), generally speaking. Even if he somehow manages to get through a few days “controlling” his drinking, it’s going to spiral out of control. That’s the nature of the addiction. The only way for a drunk to get control of his life is to stop drinking alcohol.

I don’t have to know any of the world’s drunks personally to know that. From my own experience, I can speak about theirs.

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