Hey, that guy meant well. But I would suggest that his real point was this:
It's a waste of time and actually damaging (not to mention annoying) to bog addicts down in philosophic issues you have with addiction recovery - particularly if none of it is definitely relevant for you since you may not be an addict yourself. It makes the entire thing a theoretical matter. Not worth the heartache of debating...and it turns people off.
Does that apply to you? I have no clue!
Just a thought.
But what I think happens so often is that well-meaning people argue and get into complex and very deep discussions about the philosophy of 12 steps and addiction/recovery...while they haven't any serious intention of actually trying to live without drinking/porn/sexing right now. They were just masturbating last night - and now here they are judging with many ra'ayos and deep thoughts about things like: 'Bill and the AA's', the topic of 'Torah vs 12 steps', 'Is there really sex with the wife that isn't lust' (and they are often not even married yet themselves!), or other deep things. That is just all so much BS. It leads nowhere.
The Brisker Rov asked a talmid who went off the derch in America why he did it. He said that he was sad to report that while living here in America he realized a lot of inconsistencies within yiddishkeit, and these concerns caused him to lose the taste for yiddishkeit. The Rov asked the former talmid to think back and then answer whether the shaylos came AFTER he began letting go of some mitzva practices - or before.
He answered that the shaylos actually built up over time after he had already begun subtle 'compromises' in Torah practice.
The Brisker then said: "This is what the ba'al haHagoda meant when he said about the rosho: "uL'fi shehotzi atzmo min haKlal (since he left the fold), kofar b'Ikkar (he became an apostate)". We'd think it should be the opposite way around, and read "He became an apostate and left the fold," no?
Rather, the ba'al hHagoda means to say that the reason a person leaves the fold and stops keeping the mitzvos is because he wants to argue with the faith. Otherwise he looks like an idiot to himself and to others!
Same here, lehavdil. People sometimes debate endlessly about 'big' hashkofa problems they have - and that they insist everyone perhaps should have - with recovery. But all they are doing is fighting with the last straw they have against the most threatening thing in their way: a path that allows them to admit they are just fools when it comes to porn and lust. Like Par'oh was a fool when it came to Jewish slaves. It's disgusting to them.
And they sense that joining with these people on that humble path would jeopardize the one thing they trust as the crazy glue holding them together (while they balance a crazy life of giving shiurim, raising 6 Torah-children, making a living, masturbating to the (truly) sweet and precious porn for relief, doing Teshuvah and getting some geshmak, and the rest of life)...and they know that thing is not Hashem and not Torah, but our true hidden god: erotica and the good sex they deserve with our wives (or b'dieved with someone else).
It's terrifying. But silent. It only gets heard in the endless debates.
