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this is the home where Carla Mendes brada lived and died it serves as sort of a ground zero for all the very
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important issues that this week's show addresses with the case that we focus in on women who drink women who are bravely
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coming out of the Shadows looking for help with that problem domestic violence the shame and the blame behind it and
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the fact that many of our courts in this country use support groups like Alcoholics Anonymous as a sentencing
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tool in instead of holding violent criminal offenders accountable for their actions even and regardless if they were
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drunk when they committed the offense one of the groups as I mentioned that we often see trying to help in all these
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situations is alcoholic synonymous it was founded in the 1930s and millions and millions of people across the entire
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planet have been helped to get sober by AA but AA is not a reabilitation group it is a support group in fact it says
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right here on their website that it is a Fellowship that it is a nonprofessional
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self-supporting group and what we found out really means is there is a dramatic lack of oversight it is self-supporting
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and many of those who voluntarily go to AA are all too often sitting alongside a
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predator somebody who has been mandated to go there by the courts or somebody who has a violent criminal past now to
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me there seems like there's a pretty easy solution to that why not separate the groups why can't you have two
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meetings instead of one well AA says that that violates the very Spirit of anonymity perhaps but it begs a very
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important question is it more important to protect the identity of a predator or
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to protect the innocent person and potential victim that is sitting next to them we tried to pose that question to
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Alcoholics Anonymous tune in for this week's show to see what their comment on that was I know this is a fairly cont
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controversial topic because it is very important to get help especially if your time has come that you really want that
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help you need to seek it but you also need to find out who you're going to be doing and getting that help with and
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from if you want to join the conversation or you have a comment I strongly encourage you to join us live
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during and after the show on Twitter and Facebook