Visual Aids for the Sane profile picture

Visual Aids for the Sane

It is most absurdly said, in popular language, of any man, that he is disguised in liquor; for, on t

About Me


"Forms that have ceased to facilitate and have become obstructive - have to be swept away. Signs are not wanting that some change is at hand. A host of satirists, led on by Thackeray, have long been engaged in bringing our sham-festivities, and our fashionable follies, into contempt; and in their candid moods, most men laugh at the frivolities with which they and the world in general are deluded. Ridicule has always been a revolutionary agent. Institutions that have lost their roots in men's respect and faith are doomed; and the day of their dissolution is not far off."

~ Herbert Spencer. Manners and Fashion (1854). "Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative". Vol. III. D. Appleton & Co. New York. 1901.


Welcome to the MySpace version of Visual Aids for the Sane.
Be sure to visit my home page: http://www.geocities.com/sanegallery/
I was a devoted member of Alcoholics Anonymous for 14 years. I left the movement in 1998 when I started realizing that the Twelve Step philosophy itself was my largest personal problem. I had to leave A.A. in order to protect my sanity. It really did come down to that.
My Visual Aids are a satirical retrospective of A.A. It was all pretty foolish, and I'm glad I see that now. But it was also pretty scary, and I'm thankful for those persons on the Internet who roused me and helped me to "deprogram" from all the fear and misinformation I had acquired as a young man in A.A.
I started creating A.A. satire in late 2002, opened the home page in January of 2003, and ceased creating new comics sometime in 2004.
I hope you enjoy the Visual Aids, and I look forward to building an interesting network of MySpace friends.
I do recognize that addiction of any sort can be a very serious personal and social issue. I'm simply an apostate of the monopolistic faith-based addiction care system that has dominated in America for the past several decades, and I have come to disagree with their beliefs about addiction and its solution. Please see my blogs for links to other recovery organizations and persons with divergent views.
Best Wishes,
Michael X.
26 March 2007
All artwork copyright 2003-2007 Michael X.
McRecovery comic conceived by Donna Gore

My Interests

Heroes:



What others are saying about Twelve Step programs.

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Yes, there are plenty of alternatives.

My Blog

Animation: Dont Break the Ice

The only reason it's so much easier to avoid breaking the ice with Jehovah's Witnesses is that they don't have the ability to touch you on a personal level. AA members are different in that they appea...
Posted by Visual Aids for the Sane on Sat, 01 Sep 2007 08:45:00 PST

Liars: A Review of the Big Book for Amazon.com

[A long time ago I wrote a review of the Big Book for Amazon.com. Here it is expanded and edited for MySpace ranting blog purposes...] The title of this book is itself illuminating: "Alcoholics A...
Posted by Visual Aids for the Sane on Sun, 27 May 2007 12:04:00 PST

U.S. Declares War on Canada

Marc Emery, Michelle Rainey, and Greg Williams are Canadian citizens facing life sentences in a U.S. federal prison for conducting a peaceful campaign of civil disobedience against marijuana laws for ...
Posted by Visual Aids for the Sane on Sat, 12 May 2007 08:36:00 PST

The Bill Wilson Spiritual Experience

[This slightly edited essay and accompanying artwork first appeared in 2003 on my homepage at http://www.geocities.com/sanegallery/ .] Are You Experienced? "One of the founders of Alcoholics ...
Posted by Visual Aids for the Sane on Sun, 22 Apr 2007 05:33:00 PST

Learning to Rant Again

There's actually a genre of music akin to Contemporary Christian and Gospel called Recovery Music. The beautiful thing about this music is that it so masterfully encapsulates the atmosphere in AA meet...
Posted by Visual Aids for the Sane on Fri, 30 Mar 2007 07:03:00 PST

What others are saying about Twelve Step programs

Twelve Step Free Since 1998 this message board has been an invaluable resource for people who are seriously questioning the Twelve Step ideology. There are many long-standing and well-infor...
Posted by Visual Aids for the Sane on Sun, 05 Nov 2006 05:50:00 PST

A list of recovery organizations and other resources

An important population study financed by the NIAAA and executed by the US Census Bureau found that most people eventually overcome addictive drinking on their own without any treatment or A.A. a...
Posted by Visual Aids for the Sane on Sun, 12 Nov 2006 08:12:00 PST