Join Motorholics Anonymous
Do you have an addiction to petrol? We’re here to help. Join Motorholics Anonymous.
Our famous and long-established twelve-step program is a proven course of action for recovery from addiction, compulsion, and other behavioural problems associated with Motor Dependence. The process involves the following:
Admitting that one cannot control one’s compulsion to drive everywhere FFS
Recognising that cornflakes is also a source of power
Examining past errors with the help of a experienced member (i.e. walk or bike buddy)
Making amends for these errors
Learning to live a new life with a new code of behaviour
Helping others who suffer from the same compulsion to drive absolutely everywhere
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Our programme is light on hair-shirts; you will still be able to watch BBC’s Top Gear but you will see it, as the producers do, as an entertaining comedy for those with a mental age of nine rather than a petrolheadist prescription for life.
THE TWELVE STEPS
1. We accept the fact that all our efforts to stop driving everywhere – even down to the newsagents 300 metres away – have failed.
2. We believe that we must turn elsewhere for help.
3. We turn to our fellow men and women, particularly those who have struggled with the same dependence on petrol.
4. We have made a list of the situations in which we are most likely to drive when there are plenty of better options available.
5. We ask our friends to help us avoid these motor-dependent situations.
6. We are ready to accept the help they give us.
7. We earnestly hope that they will help, especially if they can get us a discount in the local bike shop.
8. We have made a list of the persons – including pedestrians, cyclists, other drivers, bus passengers and so forth – we have harmed and to whom we hope to make amends.
9. We shall do all we can to make amends, in any way that will not cause further harm.
10. We will continue to make such lists and revise them as needed.
11. We appreciate what our friends have done and are doing to help us.
12. We, in turn, are ready to help others who may come to us in the same way.
Unlike other addiction programmes ours is in no way religious except, of course, there’s a recognition that Jeremy Clarkson is The Devil-in-a-car, mate.
Hat-tip to:
B.F. Skinner, The Humanist, July/August, 1987.