Barry A. Hazle Jr.
I would think that even believers would be alarmed by this intrusion of government in personal religious decisions.
The judge had a point. If I had to go through counseling, I sure as heck wouldn’t want to be obliged to be under the sway of a Muslim counselor, who would let me go if I banged my head on the floor a few dozen times and shouted “Allah Akbar!”, or send me back to jail if I refused.
And the way things are going, you know that is going to happen—or worse. A lot of these counselors have “control issues”, which can be a major problem if they have you on a leash. I can rightly imagine several Christians I know having fantods as soon as one such counselor decided to pull some New Age bulldada on them.
Heck, I know one woman who was so disgusted with a counselor that she and her husband gave up their US citizens and migrated to New Zealand. He seemed to think that he was a counselor “with benefits”, and that turned into a he said-she said ugly court fight.
No, I think the judge had a point.
program based on Alcoholics Anonymous. Almost ALL rehab programs are based on the 12 steps, because it works better than any other program before or since.
Yes.. it mentions GOD, or a HIGHER POWER. It is so far from a Religious Organization.
Good Luck Mr. Hazle with your quest.. but be forewarned.. you’ll probably die with a needle in your arm.
Have to agree with the ruling here... you cannot force someone to submit to religious beliefs with which he does not agree.
If the courts give him a big chunk of taxpayer money he will just use it to pay for his next drug deal. This scumbag is not a victim, his rights were not violated. He is just one more sleazy punk who has learned to take advantage of the screwed up system.
Apparently the terms of this guy's original probation required that he remain drug/alcohol free for the period of his probation. That didn't work for Mr. Hazel. A term in prison for many addicts is the best rehabilitation program they can experience because its stark reality ends their denial and forces them into hard choices.
AA is legally and medically defined as a “religious” course of treatment because the terms “God” and “higher power” are used in its therapy and literature. However, AA stresses that the meaning of these terms is totally subjective and that “God” can be any entity the individual chooses from Jesus Christ to Yahweh or Allah, to a group of people, a garden gnome or a door knob.
Alcoholics and drug addicts are egocentric. The exercise of seeking a “higher power” outside themselves helps them move from an ego centered world, where the addict is God, to a community centered world where recovery is possible through the interaction with others.
California is not the Bible Belt. The success of AA, NA and more secular therapies, that rely on spiritual exercises as a path to recovery, is the likely benchmark used by the department of corrections.
Untreated drunks, junkies, meth-heads, etc. will always lay the blame for their pathological behavior on everyone and everything but themselves.
http://www.redding.com/news/2008/sep/29/redding-many-sues-state-over-religious-drug-treatm/