Fornits attitudes on AA border on the absurd....

[Anonymous]

Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run

Postby psy » 01 Dec 2008, 23:32

Interesting you include "some other group". If you're referring to what I think you are, i'd tend to agree. Institutionalized 12 steppery performs a forced conversion function as a front group for the 12 step religion as a whole. You might find this chapter of this book (link) by Charles Bufe interesting. It's a controversial viewpoint that some are very opposed to but personally I think it makes a lot of sense.

 :shamrock:

 Posted by Danny Bennison >> 03 March 2010,  23:27
Interesting thoughts here from folks that I don't believe have ever been a member or they were and probably left because they chose to drink or get high. Which if you read the literature of the twelve traditions Tradition 3 states, "The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking." So what am I saying here. Well I have a big ole group think here (fornits) to contend with. Which i've noticed that the "Orange Papers" and this article below is your reference to AA being a cult or "group think". I also noticed that when you folks think your overwhelming right you will not engage.
I have talked with a few of you off line about A.A. and found a huge ocean of ignorance when it comes to what is A.A., how A.A. operates and how A.A. members conduct themselves.
 :shamrock:

Posted by psy.. 01 Dec 2008, 23:32
AA: Cult or Cure?

    * Home
    * The Library


AA Cult or Cure?

    * Preface II
    * Chapter 1
    * Chapter 2
    * Chapter 3
    * Chapter 4
    * Chapter 5
    * Chapter 6
    * Chapter 7
    * Chapter 8
    * Chapter 9
    * Chapter 10
    * Chapter 11
    * Alternatives
    * Bibliography
    * Index

   
Is A.A. a Cult?
(conclusions)

Is Alcoholics Anonymous a cult? That's almost as difficult to answer as the question, "What is a cult?" The difficulty is compounded by the fact that AA has very close ties—indeed, incestuous relationships—with a large number of "related facilit[ies]" and "outside enterprise." These include the NCADD, ASAM, and the 93% of all inpatient alcoholism treatment facilities that utilize AA indoctrination as part—usually the centerpiece—of their programs, and that are for the most part staffed and controlled by 12-stepping "professionals." I believe that these front groups should be considered part of, or at least extensions of, AA, just as I believe that groups that are staffed and controlled by Communist Party members, and that advance Communist Party ideology, should be considered part of, or at least ex-tensions of, the Communist Party.

Both AA and the Communists learned long ago that the setting up of front groups is a convenient means of attracting or influencing the unwary, advancing their own agendas, and avoiding both criticism and responsibility (for the actions of their front groups). Here, I intend to hold AA responsible for the actions of its front groups. I will, however, at times maintain a distinction between what Vince Fox refers to as "communal AA" (free meetings and fellowship of the type described in Chapter 1) and what he refers to as "institutional AA" (the 12-step treatment industry). Where I make no distinction between the two, my remarks apply equally to both.

Rather than attempt to determine whether AA (communal or institutional) fits the very broad definitions of a "cult" offered at the beginning of the previous chapter—definitions which fit many mainstream religions and political organizations, as well as groups generally conceded to be cults—it seems more appropriate to determine how many of the characteristics of the destructive cults can be found in AA.

Considering in order the 21 criteria listed in the previous chapter:
 
 
   

1) Is AA religiously oriented? Unequivocally yes .
   

While many AA members would assert that AA is a "spiritual" organization rather than a religious one, there is little doubt that they are simply parroting a rote assertion common in AA. In fact, AA's religiosity is so obvious that even the courts have taken note of it and appeals courts have consistently ruled (in cases challenging mandated attendance) that AA is a religious organization. One lower-court case is illustrative; as the court stated in a 1984 Wisconsin ruling (Grandberg V. Ashland County):
   

Alcoholics Anonymous materials . . . and the testimony of the witness established beyond a doubt that religious activities, as defined in constitutional law, were a part of the treatment program. The distinction between religion and spirituality is meaningless, and serves merely to confuse the issue.
   

It's also important to remember that AA was founded by Bill Wilson, an enthusiastic member of the evangelical Christian Oxford Group Movement, and by Dr. Bob Smith (also a member of the Oxford Groups) who insisted that new members get down on their knees and pray Christian prayers with him. In addition, and significantly, AA (before it adopted its name) operated as part of the Oxford Groups in both New York and Akron; and in Akron, birthplace of AA, members of what was to become AA identified themselves as the "alcoholic squadron of the Akron Oxford Group" during AA's formative years.

As well, AA literature is filled with references to "God" and a "Higher Power," and the so-called Big Book's chapter, "We Agnostics," concludes with the words, "God restored us to our right minds . . . When we drew near to Him He disclosed Himself to us!" Further, the 12 steps, the core of AA's program, are simply a codification of Oxford Group principles; and fully half of the steps mention "God," "Him," or a "Power greater than ourselves."

In the early days of AA, the religious nature of the AA "program," as outlined in the "Big Book," was openly acknowledged. Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick's review of the "Big Book," which AA submitted unsuccessfully to the New York Herald Tribune, and later managed to have printed in several religious

periodicals, states, "the core of their whole procedure is religious." Even today, a large majority of AA meetings end with the Lord's Prayer.

In every respect, AA's orientation passes the "duck" test: If it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck. In this case, the "duck" is AA's religious nature.
   
   
   

2) Is AA irrational, does it discourage skepticism and rational thinking? Again, yes.
   

AA's emphasis is primarily on emotional experience ("spiritual awakening") and "overcoming" doubts en route to spiritual "knowledge." In the "We Agnostics" chapter of the "Big Book," Bill Wilson approvingly cites a former agnostic who "humbly offered himself to his Maker—then he knew."

AA aphorisms are even more revealing. Two common ones are "Your best thinking got you here" and "Utilize, don't analyze." It would be hard to think of more virulently anti-intellectual epigrams. They're all too similar to the Moonie slogan, "You Think Too Much." The distance between these slogans and their more famous counterpart, "Ignorance Is Strength," from Orwell's 1984, is frighteningly short.

Another popular AA saying is "Fake it until you make it." In other words, members should sit on their doubts and mouth accepted AA wisdom until they feel comfortable doing it. This sounds more like a recipe for brainwashing than a recipe for "spiritual awakening."

Any doubts about this matter can be quickly resolved by a visit to almost any AA meeting. Newcomers who express doubts are normally assailed with bits of wisdom such as those just cited, and are almost always assured that doubting leads to drinking.
   

3) Is AA dogmatic? Unfortunately, yes.
   

It's difficult to label as dogmatic an organization in which the most important guiding principles (the 12 steps) are only "suggestions." But despite this disclaimer, a great many AA members are extremely dogmatic. They regard the 12 steps with the reverence that a fundamentalist has for the Ten Commandments, and they regard the "Big Book" as a funda-mentalist would the Bible.

Anyone doubting this should attend a few AA meetings. At most meetings, even mild criticism of the steps or the "Big Book" will be met with sarcasm, anger, and put-downs. For AA true believers, the steps and the "Big Book" are received wisdom (which, indeed, Bill Wilson believed them to be); and they are to be blindly followed, not questioned.

Further confirmation of AA's dogmatism is provided by its attitude toward the very many alcohol abusers who investigate AA but can't stomach its program. Rather than attempt to see why so many alcohol abusers reject AA (remember, these are oftentimes desperate individuals urgently seeking help), and whether anything—changes in the AA program, referral to the many existing alternative programs—can be done to help them, AA does nothing to help these vulnerable people, and instead blames them for rejecting AA, maintaining that the reason they can't stand AA is their "character defects," their lack of "ho

nesty," or their lack of a genuine desire to stop drinking. This happens In every single case. And there have been millions. To its dogmatic members, the AA program is perfect; the problem lies solely with those who reject it.

This is the attitude of a callous, dogmatic religious sect, not that of a rational, humanistic organization concerned with helping those afflicted by what it insists is a deadly "illness."
   

4) Do AA members have a "chosen people" mentality? Yes.
   

Given that AA members believe that they alone have The Truth as regards overcoming alcoholism, it would be surprising if they didn't have such a mentality. The callous put-downs of those who come to AA for help and reject it provide confirmation of this, as do the common put-downs of sober former alcohol abusers who reject AA as "dry drunks." Further, one often hears comments at meetings about being "better than well" or the like —testimony to the miraculous effects of working the steps in producing human beings happier and more spiritually developed than "normies."

Granted, the "chosen people" mentality of AA members is relatively mild in comparison with that of members of cults such as the Moonies and Hare Krishnas, but it's still undeniably there.
   

5) Does AA elevate its own ideology over experience, observation and logic? Again, unquestionably yes.
   

AA has The Truth, and it assiduously ignores the mountain of evidence that AA is quite probably entirely ineffective as a means of alcoholism treatment, and that AA may actually do more harm than good. This evidence comes from the controlled studies of AA's effectiveness, as well as from AA's own analysis of its triennial membership surveys. (See Chapter 9 for a detailed discussion of these matters.)

The alarm bells would have gone off inside any rational organization when the first controlled study was published in 1961. But AA ignored it, and has continued to ignore it, just as it ignored the more sophisticated, more convincing controlled study published in 1980. AA has also ignored its own analysis of its triennial membership surveys, which shows that the rate of recovery via AA is almost certainly no better than the rate of spontaneous remission, and may in fact be worse. Instead of taking a serious look at all of this data, AA and its supporters ignore it while hypocritically presenting AA as the only road to recovery.i This, quite obviously, is the posture of an ideology-driven cult.
   

6) Is AA separatist? Yes, but only somewhat more so than other special interest groups.
   

AA members are self-selected "alcoholics," as opposed to the supposedly 90% of the population who are non-alcoholics. The more extreme outward signs of separatism—the taking of new names and the adoption of distinctive dress or other alterations in personal appearance—are, however, absent.

The one area in which AA members definitely show signs of separatism is in their use of jargon. As Ken Ragge points out, in AA terms often take on meanings different from their standard English meanings—for instance, "sobriety," rather than merely meaning "unintoxicated," means "a special state of Grace gained by working the Steps and maintaining absolute abstinence. It is characterized by feelings of Serenity and Gratitude. It is a state of living according to God's will, not one's own. It is sanity."ii
   

7) Does AA see itself as the exclusive holder of the truth? Unfortunately, yes—at least in regard to the treatment of alcohol abuse.
   

If AA didn't believe this, it wouldn't ignore the evidence pointing to its ineffectiveness (see Chapter 9). As well, while there are a few scattered and unimportant acknowledgements in AA literature that at least the occasional alcohol abuser can recover without AA, at the vast majority of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings newcomers are routinely told that participation in AA and acceptance of the AA "program" (basically the 12 steps) is the only way to overcome an alcohol problem. Compounding this, the same message is frequently delivered by alcoholism "professionals" and "para-professionals" (who are often zealous AA members, some with little if any medical or psychological training) and by the mass media, which uncritically relies upon these "experts" for much of its information on alcoholism.
   

Does AA claim to have special knowledge that will only be revealed to the initiated? A qualified no.
   

AA makes no claims that it has special knowledge that will be revealed only to those who are "ready for it." But AA does claim that "working a good program" or "working the steps" leads to "serenity" and (at least often) "a spiritual awakening." Thus, these promises are used to induce members to stay in AA and to immerse themselves in its indoctrination program. This seems at least somewhat manipulative, but it's a far cry from the practice of one well-known cult which charges its members tens, sometimes hundreds, of thousands of dollars for ever more "advanced" courses, the eventual payoff of which is that they will be "cleared" of "body thetans"—the evil spirits of beings blown up by hydrogen bombs in volcanos 85 million years ago.
   

9) Does AA employ mind control techniques? For the most part, in communal AA, no. In institutional AA, yes.
   

While communal AA does employ threats (of jails, institutions, and death), prayer, and innocuous rituals, such as the chanting of "Keep coming back, it works!" at the end of meetings, these things should not be confused with severe mind control techniques such as exhaustion, mal-nourishment, and hypnotic chanting. Communal AA does nothing to alter its members' consciousness beyond the serving of a mild drug (caffeine) at its meetings, and, beyond admonitions, the use of low-key rituals, sacred texts, and group pressure, it does nothing to control their thoughts—with the significant exception of the use of thought-stopping jargon.

In institutional AA, however, coerced participants are kept very busy, given little time alone, deprived of outside contacts, allowed to read only approved (that is, indoctrination) literature, forced into making false confessions, subjected to attacks, threats, and ridicule for raising questions or making critical comments, and subjected to extreme pressure by a unanimous majority to change their belief systems. Clearly, mind-control is the essence of institutional AA's indoctrination program.
   

10) Does AA employ thought-stopping language? Yes, but its employment is less stringent than in many religious cults.
   

As Ken Ragge points out, the function of many AA slogans, cliches and aphorisms is to short-circuit critical thinking.iii The purpose of such slogans as "Keep It Simple, Stupid," "Utilize, don't analyze," "Your best thinking got you here," and "Let go and let God," is to get AA members to stop thinking for themselves and, instead, to accept divine guidance (that is, guidance from AA). And the function of the in-reality-meaningless term "dry drunk" is to discredit critics and apostates. By labeling such troublesome persons "dry drunks," AA members devalue them as persons and can thus conveniently ignore what they say as merely the ravings of "insanity."

But as insidious as this is, it's not to be compared with the hypnotic chanting employed by the Moonies and Hare Krishnas, which in combination with other mind control techniques render their members so debilitated that it requires months if not years for them to fully recover their critical faculties after leaving these cults.
   

11) Does AA manipulate its members through guilt? Yes.
   

Guilt is inherent in AA dogma. It's enshrined in the 12 steps with their references to "our wrongs," "our shortcomings," "defects of character" and a "moral inventory." As well, AA members almost invariably suffer intense guilt when they drink or go on benders (as a great many do at one time or another), and are quite penitent when they return, and thus very likely to embrace accepted AA wisdom as their one and only hope of "sobriety." (Such "slips" lead to a considerable loss of prestige—whether the "slip" involves a single beer or two fifths of whiskey—which amplifies the unpleasant effects of the guilt incurred by not "working a good program" and drinking.)

But there is no guru-figure or authoritarian hierarchy to manipulate AA's members, no matter how guilty they might feel. So, the AA "program" fosters guilt in abundance, but there is no one to manipulate it for personal advantage. It should be added, though, that AA-induced (or reinforced) guilt does make members feel sinful and fearful, and thus tends to tie them to AA, because temporary relief from their unpleasant feelings is available at meetings.
   

12) Does AA employ "the cult of confession"? Does it use confession for purification and to tie its members to it? Yes.
   

Confession in AA comes in four forms: 1) private confession from "pigeon" to sponsor (as "suggest[ed]" in the fifth step); 2) public confession by speakers at AA meetings; 3) public confession ("sharing") by participants at AA meetings; and 4) in institutional AA, false confession.

The purpose of the first type of confession is almost certainly to tie the new member to AA, as it deepens the pigeon's involvement in "working the steps," that is, it deepens his or her participation in AA's sequential indoctrination program. It leads to the next step, and it also (at least often) deepens the relationship with his or her sponsor, the person responsible for over-seeing the indoctrination process.

The second type of confession is an odd one in that speaker's confession is normally boastful and carries not a trace of remorse. The purpose of such a confession is to establish credibility with listeners, thus making them more receptive to the speaker's message. So, this type of confession also serves the purpose of tying both listeners and the speaker (who receives enjoyable positive attention from the audience) to AA.

The third type serves both the "purification" and "tying" functions. It allows the confessing member to bare his soul and relieve his guilt feelings; and the acceptance that those making such confessions find binds them more closely to AA.

The fourth type is common in institutional AA. Many unwilling individuals are coerced into attending 12-step treatment centers (usually by the courts, their employers, or professional organizations to which they belong). When such unwilling persons are in treatment, tremendous pressure is often brought to bear to force them to confess that they are "alcoholics," even though they often do not believe themselves to be. Many of the persons so pressured have little choice but to knuckle under and make false confessions.

They are also often forced to exaggerate the bad incidents in their drinking histories, or to make up incidents out of whole cloth. The purpose of these confessions is exactly the same as the false confessions obtained by Red Chinese "thought reformers": the confessions signify the submission of the clients/prisoners to their coercers, and they confirm the coercers' ideology.
   

13) Does AA have a charismatic leader? No, although it does have dead saints.
   

To his credit, Bill Wilson never sought dictatorial control of AA, and in fact—through devising AA's anarchist form of organization—did much to ensure that no individual could ever take control of AA. Wilson was content to be a first among equals while alive, though especially toward the end of his life he was the object of unsought veneration.

At present, Bill Wilson and, to a lesser extent, "Dr. Bob" are revered by most AA members, and Wilson's writings have attained the status of scripture in the minds of many. But, thanks largely to Bill Wilson, there is no charismatic leader of Alcoholics Anonymous, and it is exceedingly unlikely that there ever will be.
   

14) Does AA have an authoritarian, hierarchical structure? As for communal AA, definitely no. As for institutional AA, yes.
   

Thanks largely to the 12 traditions, communal AA is a model of anarchist organization. All AA groups are autonomous. There is no hierarchy giving orders to members, and it is very clear that the relatively few paid staffers are there to "serve," not to rule. Significantly, the structure of AA is often pictured as an inverted pyramid, with the members on top and the paid staff on the bottom.

The situation is different in institutional AA. There, almost all entities are corporations or government agencies, which, of course, are hierarchically organized and authoritarian in nature, with some giving orders and others taking them. In institutional AA, the staffers are there to rule (i.e., to force clients to accept AA and its premises), not to serve; they hold a great deal of power over their coerced clients.
   

15) Does AA insist on submission of the individual to the "will of God"? As for communal AA, yes and no. As for institutional AA, yes.
   

A quick reading of the 12 steps leaves little doubt about AA's position. Step 3 states, "[We] made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God," although it does add the qualifying phrase, "as we understood Him." Another important qualification is that making this decision is officially only a "suggestion," as are the other steps. In practice, however, at a very large majority of AA meetings a great deal of pressure is placed on members to embrace this and the other "suggestions." (And in institutional AA, the steps—with their submission of the individual to the will of God—are simply crammed down clients' throats.) Those who do not accept the 12 steps are frequently made to feel unwelcome at meetings. There is even a common put-down term for such members: "one steppers." This is a bad situation, though it would be far worse but for the official AA positions that the steps are only suggestions and that the only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking.

Another very important limiting factor is the fact that there is no charismatic leader, authoritarian hierarchy, or priest caste in AA to act as interpreter(s) of "God's will." There are many members who attempt to take on the priest's role, but, fortunately, thanks to AA's structure and official positions, their influence is somewhat limited. (Of course, in institutional AA, the paid staff often take on this role—at least to the extent of demanding acceptance of the 12 steps and other AA doctrines, and using coercion to force that acceptance—given that a great many of them are true believers and are in positions of authority over their institutions' clients.)
   

16) Is AA self-absorbed? Absolutely.
   

In his discussion of the failure of the Washingtonian Society (a 19thcentury self-help organization similar in some ways to AA) in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Bill Wilson states, "Had they been left to themselves, and had they stuck to their one goal, they might have found the rest of the answer."iv The implication, of course, is that AA has the answer.

Because AA believes that it has the answer to alcoholism, AA has shown a marked disinterest in experimental and clinical studies of alcoholism and alcoholism treatment, and in the many non-12-step approaches to alcohol abuse, some of which show considerable promise. Significantly, none of the dozens of books and pamphlets published by AA deal with these important topics. They all deal with AA itself, or, in a few cases, with day-by-day ways to remain sober.

Because of its organizational principles, AA has never contributed a dime toward medical research on the causes and the treatment of alcoholism. Further, because Alcoholics has the answer, AA as a whole has not only shown no interest in alternative alcohol-abuse treatments, but many AA members and front groups have shown marked hostility to both professional, non-12-step treatment and to nonreligious self-help programs such as Moderation Management, Rational Recovery, S.M.A.R.T. Recovery, and Secular Organizations for Sobriety.

While I was living in San Francisco in the late 1980s, S.O.S. members who put up flyers at AA hangouts told me that the flyers were ripped down very quickly. (None of the flyers attacked AA; they all simply advertised S.O.S. meetings.) One S.O.S. member told me that before finding S.O.S., he had phoned the local AA intergroup office to see if they could refer him to S.O.S., and the AA volunteer who answered told him, "I don't know how to contact them, and I wouldn't tell you if I did." The S.O.S. newsletter is filled with reports of similar and even more offensive incidents. This type of petty harassment evidently continues to the present, as a few days before sending this book to press I read on S.M.A.R.T. Recovery's web site of similar recent incidents involving SMART flyers.

As for institutional AA, for many years its "medical" experts have conducted a jihad against controlled drinking programs for alcohol abusers (and against researchers who advocate such programs—see Chapter 8 for details), despite a great deal of evidence that such programs work well—almost certainly better than AA.v One still frequently hears 12-stepping "experts" piously proclaiming, without a shred of evidence, that mere advocacy of controlled drinking causes alcoholics to drink themselves to death.vi

What makes all of this especially harmful is that (as was shown in Chapter 7) AA is, at best, an effective treatment program for only a tiny fraction of alcohol abusers. Through its self-absorption (and the ofttrumpeted claim that AA is not only effective, but the only effective treatment program for alcoholism), AA is contributing nothing toward the understanding of alcohol abuse, and, under its own terms, is engaging in a vicious game of blame-the-victim (of what it insists is a deadly "illness") with the approximately 95% of "alcoholics" who are not members of AA. (According to AA, the reasons that they are not members of AA are their "shortcomings," "defects of character," and lack of "honesty.")

The attitudes and behaviors exhibited by AA toward clinical and experimental research and toward alternative treatment programs are not those of a rational organization dedicated to the effective treatment of alcoholism. Rather, AA's attitudes and behaviors are those of a dogmatic, self-absorbed religious cult.

Another facet of AA's self-absorption is seen in its members' attitudes toward the high aspirations some of their number held before they joined AA. Within AA, members generally view such aspirations as contributing to alcoholism, because they believe that lofty goals lead to frustration and feelings of failure, which in turn lead to drinking. Because of this, AA members normally offer very little encouragement of each others' interests and pursuits outside of AA, and sometimes actively discourage non-AA-related aspirations, as Dr. Margaret Bean comments, "This can set up a regressive spiral in which no one suggests that a member can or should strive for anything more challenging or interesting than sobriety."vii And the proper way to strive for sobriety is within, and only within, AA itself.
   

17) Does AA have dual purposes? As for both communal and institutional AA, yes.
   

Communal AA presents itself as the answer to alcoholism, and thus a great many persons come to it for help in overcoming alcohol problems. But AA's purpose is not to help individuals overcome alcohol problems; rather, it's to indoctrinate them into AA's 12-step religious program. If the true purpose of AA was to help problem drinkers to overcome alcohol problems, AA would be greatly concerned about the research evidence indicating that AA is ineffective. One would further expect that AA would initiate studies of its own effectiveness versus that of other self-help groups and versus that of various forms of professional treatment. As well, one would expect that AA would recognize that one size does not fit all and would gladly refer individuals who come to it, but who don't like it, to other self-help groups. AA does none of these things. AA's sole purpose is to "carry this [religious] message to alcoholics."

Institutional AA goes even further. Many of its members make a great deal of money from utilizing AA's religious indoctrination program in a medical setting. The costliness and very questionable effectiveness of this kind of "treatment" seems not to bother them a whit. The evidence that 12-step inpatient treatment does no good and may in fact be harmful (see Chapters 7 and is of no matter to them. They have The Truth, and they're quite content to go on making money from it.
   

18) Does Alcoholics Anonymous economically exploit its members? As for communal AA, no. As for institutional AA, yes.
   

All donations to communal AA are purely voluntary; there are no membership dues; and AA even places a cap of $1000 per year on individual donations to the organization by its members; and it will not accept any donations by non-members. Another example of communal AA's nonexploitive economic practices is provided by its literature: its books are very cheaply priced, with most selling for less than half of what comparable commercially published books would sell for, and its pamphlets are freely given away at meetings.

Institutional AA, on the other hand, charges many thousands of dollars to its clients for what was once so freely given (the AA program). That program is the centerpiece of most inpatient alcoholism treatment programs, and though they do provide some additional services, the high prices that they charge hardly seem justified.viii The insurance industry apparently agrees with this assessment, and it has become increasingly reluctant to pay for 12-step inpatient treatment in recent years, with the result that occupancy rates and length of stay have both declined considerably over the last decade. This is hardly surprising given that the costs for a 28-day stay at a cheap facility run to about $10,000, and most institutions charge considerably more than that. For example, two swank Tucson-area 12-step treatment centers both charge approximately $20,000 for a 28-day stayix; and others charge far more.
   

19) Does AA employ deceptive recruiting techniques? Yes, arguably.
   

AA does no recruiting whatsoever in the normal sense of the word, that of actively seeking new members. But it could be argued that AA (or at least many of its members) does engage in deceptive recruiting by falsely representing AA as the only effective treatment for alcoholism. At newcomers' meetings, AA members almost invariably repeat the lies that alcoholism is a progressive, fatal disease, that alcohol abusers have no control after they take the first drink, and that AA is the only alternative to jails, institutions, or death. It should be emphasized, though, that most if not all of those who present this misinformation believe what they say, and are not engaging in deliberate deception as a recruiting tool.

As for 12-step treatment facilities, their ads commonly downplay or don't even mention that their primary focus is introduction to and participation in AA. This is understandable given that most people would be reluctant to pay $15,000 or $20,000 for something that is readily available for free. Newcomers lured through such advertising now form a large part of AA's membership. According to AA's 1996 membership survey brochure, 40% of AA members now list introduction at a treatment facility as one of the three "factors most responsible for [their] coming to A.A."
   

20) Is AA possessive? Does it go to lengths to retain members? No, absolutely not.
   

AA makes no organizational attempts whatsoever to retain members, and individual members normally do nothing beyond making a few friendly phone calls to other members who haven't shown up at meetings for a few days. In fact, AA's tendency in this area is so contrary to that of most cults that it creates serious problems for researchers attempting to gauge the effectiveness of AA, because of the difficulty of determining membership status. In AA, membership is purely a matter of self-definition; those who say they're members are members. Similarly, due to the extreme and unnecessary emphasis on anonymity within AA, it is next to impossible for anyone (including researchers and service workers within AA) to accurately track AA members.
   

21) Does AA provide a closed, all-encompassing environment? As for communal AA, no. As for institutional AA, yes.
   

Communal AA has no live-in facilities, though it does provide a social milieu into which many members plunge when first introduced to AA. This is entirely understandable. Many new members are quite lonely (having driven off friends, lovers, and family while drinking heavily), so the friendliness and acceptance provided by AA is quite attractive to them; in addition, AA provides a "safe" environment (at least at meetings and AA hangouts) in which they won't be tempted to drink.

The closest that communal AA comes to providing a closed, allencompassing environment is the traditional "90 meetings in 90 days" recommendation. Newcomers who follow this recommendation spend many of their waking hours at AA meetings. Additionally, in the larger cities, there is usually at least one AA hangout, and there are often several clubs and other meeting places. Finally, there is an endless amount of AA volunteer work available to those who want to do it—answering the office phone, making 12th-step calls (to "carry the message" to other alcohol abusers), serving as meeting officers or as group service representatives, etc. So, those who want to can easily spend their entire social lives in the world of AA. In fact, members receive much encouragement to immerse themselves in this manner in "the A.A. way of life."

One anonymous member, in a Mensa special interest group publication, describes his plunge into the world of Alcoholics Anonymous:
   

After sixty days in the hospital, I was permitted to go back to my job . . . There I became an A.A. addict. I went to a meeting almost every night. I volunteered for the intergroup desk so my Saturdays were spent talking to drunks on the phone.

During this time, I progressed from closet atheist, to passive acceptance, to starry-eyed faith and entered that strange world where the creator of the universe was looking after minor problems like my sex life and auto battery.

It occurred to me one day with a jolt that I had begun a life of superstitious ritual. It was a sort of magic formula of prayers, meetings, and shallow talk that was "keeping me sober."
   

As bad as this is, institutional AA is worse. In its guise as 12-step inpatient treatment facilities, institutional AA provides a textbook example of a closed, all-encompassing environment. As in all such environments, its purpose is ideological indoctrination—in this case, getting clients to embrace the AA "program" and its attendant baggage (the disease model, loss of control, etc.); patients' activities are to a very large extent dictated by the staff; many patients are coerced into being there (as an alternative to job loss, imprisonment, or professional decertification) and must at least feign acceptance of the prescribed ideology; institutions routinely restrict what patients may read to AA materials and related 12-step books and pamphlets; TV-viewing and radio-listening are routinely prohibited or greatly restricted; and clients' contact with those outside the institution is normally prohibited or greatly restricted. The only redeeming feature of the closed, allencompassing environment of institutional AA is that the individuals subjected to it must endure it for a relatively short time—though for some that "short time" can seem like an eternity.
   

22) Is AA Millenarian? In short, no.
   

There is not a trace of millenarianism in AA.
   

23) Does AA employ violence, coercion, and harassment? As for communal AA, no. As for institutional AA, yes—at least as regards coercion.
   

The use of violence by communal AA is so contrary to AA traditions as to be unthinkable. Communal AA employs no coercion. And to the best of my knowledge, the relatively few incidents of harassment directed against groups such as SMART, which are often perceived as rivals to AA, have been mild—verbal rudeness and the ripping down of flyers—and all of them have been committed by over-zealous individual AA members. As far as I know, not a single incident of harassment of "rival" groups or outside critics has been committed by a paid AA service worker.

The case of dissidents within AA is somewhat different. Within the organization, dissident members (especially atheists) are very much secondclass citizens; they're often scorned and belittled; and they find it virtually impossible to have their views presented in AA's literature. But these things are as nothing compared with the violence, coercion, and harassment em-ployed by many cults.

In institutional AA, matters are very different. Institutional AA does not employ violence, but, within its own precincts, it does employ coercion and harassment. In this regard, it's important to remember that most patients are coerced into attendance. In many cases, their alternative to submitting to institutional AA is job loss, imprisonment, suspension or expulsion (from teams/leagues, in the case of sports figures), or decertification (in the case of medical personnel). In a very real sense, such persons are prisoners of the 12-step treatment ind

ustry. This gives their warders (the paid staff) tremendous leverage over them, and the warders usually take full advantage of that leverage; they customarily exert a great deal of pressure on such unwilling patients, the purpose of which is to break their resistance to AA. If this sounds like a scenario from The Manchurian Candidate, it's hardly surprising.
   

Conclusions

So, is AA a cult? As seems obvious from the foregoing, the answer will differ if you consider communal AA separately from institutional AA, or if you consider them as a single entity. As regards communal AA, the number of definite "yes" matches to the 23 characteristics listed above was 11, while the number of definite "nos" was 7; as for institutional AA, the number of definite "yeses" was 16, and the number of definite "nos" was only 3.

To put these results in context, I compared the scores achieved by communal and institutional AA with the scores based on my evaluation of five groups often labeled as cults: the Church of Scientology; the People's Temple; Unification Church (the Moonies); Synanon; and Kerista Village. None of these groups scored a "perfect" 23, but some came close. The Moonies came in at 22 "yeses"; the Church of Scientology and the People's Temple came in at 21 "yeses"; and Synanon came in with 20 "yeses." In contrast, the low scorer was Kerista Village, which had a score of 14.

To put these results further in perspective, I chose the ten cult attributes that I consider most important, and for those ten attributes I compared the scores of communal and institutional AA with those of the Church of Scientology, the Moonies, and Kerista Village. The attributes I consider most important are religious orientation; irrationality; dogmatism; mind control techniques; a charismatic leader; a hierarchical, authoritarian structure; submission of the individual to the will of God; economic exploitation; a closed, all-encompassing environment; and the use of violence, coercion, and/or harassment. I assigned the Moonies a score of a "perfect" 10 for these attributes and the Scientologists a score of 9 (their charismatic leader is dead), while Kerista Village came in with a score of 6, institutional AA with a score of 9, and communal AA with a score of 4.

Thus, if you consider communal AA separately from institutional AA, you're left with little choice but to conclude that AA isn't a cult—though it comes close, and does have many dangerous, cult-like tendencies. But if you regard institutional AA as an extension of communal AA and consider them as one, you're inexorably drawn to the conclusion that AA is a cult. Communal/institutional AA definitely isn't in the same league with vicious, destructive cults such as the Moonies and the People's Temple, but it does display an alarmingly high number of similarities to such groups. All in all, communal/institutional AA merits the description given to it by Stanton Peele: "Cult Lite."x

Finally,it's worth noting that while brazenly destructive cults such as the People's Temple and Heaven's Gate have considerably worse effects upon their individual members than AA has upon its individual members, the commonly cited religious cults have very limited numbers of followers (despite self-serving gross over estimates) and have very little influence in society at large, while AA is a mass organization with a very extensive hidden structure that has tremendous influence in society. Thus, it could well be that AA does more harm to society—and to far greater numbers of people—than all other religious cults combined.
   
   

1. A good example of this is provided by George Vaillant, in his influential The Natural History of Alcoholism (London: Harvard University Press, 1983). In his book, Vaillant strongly recommends that alcohol abusers be referred to AA, despite his own research evidence which indicates that AA participation at best does no good, and that relapse rates are higher for AA participants than for those who quit on their own.
   

2. More Revealed, by Ken Ragge. Henderson, Nevada: Alert Publishing, 1992, p. 137.
i

3. Ibid., pp. 127-138.
ii4. Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, by Bill Wilson. New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, 1982, p. 178.
iii5. For an enlightening discussion of this holy war against controlled drinking and its advocates, see "Denial—of Reality and Freedom—in Addiction Research and Treatment," by Stanton Peele. Bulletin of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors, 5(4): 149-166, 1986. Also available at http://www.frw.uva.nl/cedro/peele/lib/denial.html with a 1996 ad-dendum.

 
 

6. See, for instance, "The American Psychiatric Association's attacks on Moderation Management—does the APA oppose moderate drinking treatment goals?," by Stanton Peele, at http://www..frw.uva.cedro/peele/debate/woody.html
iv7. "Alcoholics Anonymous," by Dr. Margaret Bean. Psychiatric Annals/5:3 March 1975, p. 10/86.

 
 

8. One expensive service commonly assumed necessary, detoxification, is actually necessary only to a small percentage of long-term, heavy drinkers. According to researcher Vince Fox, only 15% of heavy drinkers experience significant physical withdrawal symptoms when they stop drinking; and withdrawal symptoms are life threatening in only about 25% of those cases. In other words, only about 4% of long-term heavy drinkers experience life-threatening physical withdrawal symptoms. See Addiction, Change & Choice: The New View of Alcoholism, by Vince Fox. Tucson, Arizona: See Sharp Press, 1993, p. 191.
v9. Telephone quotations to the author, July 7, 1997.
vi10. The term is used in Stanton Peele's "Online Library" web site's "Controversy" page:

http://www.frw.uva.nl/cedro/peele/debate

 :shamrock:  :shamrock:
Danny.............

[Joel]

Edited: Wednesday, October 06, 2010

[Anonymous]

What would be a good treatment model for alcoholics, provided it does not involve mind control techniques by past/present members of the communist party?

You just proved my point....A ocean of ignorance based upon no first hand knowledge. Keep reading and drinking my man...lol :shamrock:  :shamrock:
Danny,....

[Anonymous]

What would be a good treatment model for alcoholics, provided it does not involve mind control techniques by past/present members of the communist party?

12 steps programs 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tPNgHrI ... re=related

12 steps programs 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uwx2P5L ... re=related

12 steps programs 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PjpOsE3 ... re=related

Why AA doesn't work for over 97% of people who join
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ_6flmL ... re=related

Bill W Cult leader speaks of "The only way" AA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNmFjszz ... re=related

:shamrock:  :shamrock:
Yeah,  that's what I want to do discuss A.A. with you Joel with the premise of your argument is the relevance of"you tube" skits.
Just shows your motives towards discussing A.A. Like I said keep reading and drinking, you'll find it.
Danny........

[Joel]

Edited: Wednesday, October 06, 2010

[Joel]

Edited: Wednesday, October 06, 2010

[Anonymous]

http://www.spiritualriver.com/what-is-the-success-rate-of-recovery-in-aa/

What is the Success Rate of Recovery in AA?

What is the success rate of recovery in AA? That depends entirely on who you ask, and on exactly what you are measuring.

For example, there is documentation that proves “early AA” had a success rate of about 75 percent.

On the other hand, there are some people who claim that AA actually has a negative rate of recovery, and that people actually relapse in AA who might have recovered “spontaneously” through spontaneous remission of the disease.

Finally, there are a large number of estimates out there that put the success rate of recovery at around 3 to 5 percent.

But it is indeed a tricky thing to measure. For one, what exactly are we measuring? Complete abstinence for life? Alcoholics who successfully make it to one year sober? What exactly determines “success” when we are talking about success rates? This is the first half of the measuring problem.

The other half of the problem is that it is very difficult to obtain truly accurate results across a large sample. There are a number of reasons for this, not the least of which is the anonymity that the program is based on. Add that to the shame and guilt associated with relapse, and you have the potential to seriously overestimate the success rate based on an anonymous survey.
What does AA themselves have to say? Here is a piece of an actual memo from the Alcoholics Anonymous GSO (General Services Office), based on an analysis of a survey period that ran for 12 years:



 :shamrock:
Who is saying this was done by the GSO A.A. this is a inaccurate statement Joel. A.A. I promise has never conducted a survey on this, it would totally go against it's principles. Kolenda, 2003, Golden Text Publishing Company is full of shit. This was definitely a independent survey. Which they tried to tie to the GSO, which many have done before.
 :shamrock:


 
“After just one month in the Fellowship, 81% of the new members have already dropped out. After three months, 90% have left, and 95% have discontinued attendance inside one year.” (Kolenda, 2003, Golden Text Publishing Company).

Of course, this doesn’t really tell the whole story, as many people will leave after AA after being first introduced to it, and then later return once they have truly been beaten by their alcoholism. Most people who are a success story in AA tell of how they struggled–sometimes for years–going in and out of AA before they finally “got it.”
On both sides of this issue, people are very passionate

If you follow the 2 links at the beginning of this article, you’ll see that one is definitely pro-AA, and the other is vehemently anti-AA. One is claiming up to a 95% success rate, while the other is claiming AA is actually detrimental and has a negative success rate (lower than spontaneous remission). And you’ll also notice that both people are very passionate and firm believers in the stance they are taking. Why such a discrepancy here?

I believe the reason is that AA is effective for some, but it is clearly not for everyone. It is not a one-size-fits-all program. There are plenty of people who have achieved success and meaningful sobriety in AA. There are also those who have honestly gave it there best shot, only to eventually relapse and die. This is unfortunate, and it begs the question: “What are the alternatives?”

Unfortunately, there aren’t a whole lot. Yes, there are a few out there, but they are spread few and far between, and there are many disadvantages with all of them. While many of the alternatives to AA claim to have superior success rates, their method of measurement suffers from the same flaws as AA, and their is very little widespread support in these programs.

If you are on the fence about going to AA, here is what I suggest you do: Ignore the success rates you hear about and give it a chance. Do this knowing that AA is the single biggest support system of recovery in the world. The program may not be perfect, but it’s the best our planet has. The alternatives might talk a big game, but they don’t have meetings in every city in the world. AA does. You can find support just about anywhere. And it’s technically free to boot.

Here’s another suggestion: find someone in AA who has multiple years of sobriety and ask them what the success rate is for AA. They will likely tell you that they don’t care. It works for them.
Action items – What does all this mean for you?

1) Give AA a chance, because the meetings are everywhere and therefore the level of support is mind-boggling.

2) Don’t get stuck in thinking there is only one path to recovery – that is NOT TRUE. There are many paths.

3) Stay open. Regardless of what you choose, implement the spiritual principles into your life. Practice gratitude.

 :shamrock:
 Who is more successful with recovery we (A.A.) have never been concerned with debating that issue, it is trivial at best to hash out who is the big man on the hill of recovery. If you really want to know who has the most success it is organized
church. Baptist, Catholics, Methodists....ect. Look it up.....for all you God un-fearing folks...lol

Danny.....

[Anonymous]

Danny,

I am trying to present both viewpoints from those who oppose AA and those who support AA.  Ask me what I personally think about AA.  You might be surprised.

OK I can dig that. Why are you playing both sides I put the topic out there and I'm asking people for their honest experience or I'll settle for their opinion.  Because I'll tell ya there is a lot of misinformation out there on fornits from people that don't even have one clue about what their talking about. Sure I can, "cut, copy, paste and post" my ass off. But what I am posting is not my opinion or experience it is someone else. AA is not some opinion pole, most of the folks that come to AA have been through the treatment regimen. They are beat up in so many ways, what they are looking for is a place to land. That is safe, no pressure. I don't know what"AA" you folks are talking about but keep drinking that "Group Think, Communist, Brainwashing Kool- Aid".
I sit with through-out a month at least 60 members that have come from our industry and our making something with their lives
which AA had a part in their happiness.
 AA is nothing more then a Design for Living. AA (GSO) does not hold itself responsible for the actions of its members.
Tradition 2, " For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority-a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders (GSO and rotating committees @ local levels) are but trusted servants; they do not govern.
 :shamrock:
Danny.....

[Joel]

Edited: Wednesday, October 06, 2010

[Anonymous]

Danny, I offer my apologies.   My approach may have not been the best but I was trying to present viewpoints on both sides.  I will keep my personal beliefs short and simple.  When I was working in Galveston Texas, I knew a man who was sober for more than 15 years.  He spoke highly of AA.  He took advantage of an opportunity to take on a new perspective through AA and become successful.  This person was also working at a treatment center helping those with alcohol addictions.  In addition, he was running his own business.  There are many success stories like these.  People, not all on this website, have negative views towards religion.  As a result, they focus on the negative and don't acknowledge the success stories.  It takes allot of will power to stay sober, especially those who are going through recovery.

Thanks Joel,
I am not looking necessarily looking for endorsements or opposing views like I said just honest debate. AA is based upon Christian Judea principles yet it takes a more spiritual tack then a religious. You develop your own concept of a God (higher power) which is why there are Catholics, Muslims, Baptists, Christians, Buddhas, Hindus, Jews ect......attending. Why was it based on the Judea principles because in 1934 there was no book yet just ideas from various sources so Bill, his wife and Bob decided to use the Bible. Well as time went on they wanted to be sure not to exclude anybody for any reason so they put the Bible down and proceeded on. I am glad they did we would not be what we are today.
Folks nothing is perfect, but it is a large stretch to compare AA or categorize AA as brainwashing. Because then why don't we  say our parents, bosses, politicians, fathers, mothers, families when does it stop. Why I am having a hard time with AA and my other examples I could walk away. I wasn't forced to listen or participate.
 :shamrock:
Danny.....

[Joel]

Edited: Wednesday, October 06, 2010

[Anonymous]

http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-intro.html
Introduction
by A. Orange

These essays, which have ended up pretty much making up a whole book, began as my attempt to clarify my own thinking about A.A., and to explain to others why I felt that there was something wrong with people trying to shove Alcoholics Anonymous on patients. I had signed up for a course of outpatient "alcoholism treatment", but ended up getting something more like "Introduction to Cult Religion 101," where most of the "course of treatment" consisted of compulsory attendance of Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous 12-Step meetings, and "group therapy" sessions where xeroxed copies of A.A. and N.A. literature was handed out and discussed by a 12-Step true-believer group leader, someone who just assumed that of course everyone who recovers will do it at 12-Step meetings...

I started out with a very positive view of Alcoholics Anonymous. Like most people, I had only heard good things about A.A., and thought that it was just a wonderful self-help group where alcoholics got together to give each other moral support and advice in quitting drinking.

I began to get the funny feeling that there was something wrong, that something didn't quite add up right. For instance, in a "group therapy" session, I mentioned the fact that a dozen years earlier, I had quit drinking, all on my own, and stayed quit for over three years. The counselor declared that I had not had a period of "recovery," that I had only been "abstaining," because "I had not been dealing with any issues." The counselor had not bothered to ask about my past, other than to ask how many A.A. meetings I had gone to before (only 4, ever), so he had no way of knowing whether I had dealt with any "issues." He simply assumed that I had not, and declared that I had not. He was wrong, totally wrong. You don't just quit and stay quit for three years without dealing with all of the issues, problems, and hassles of real life. Nobody gets a free 3-year vacation from all of their problems just by abstaining from both beer and A.A. meetings. (Heck, that would be a great recovery program if you could do that...) Then, when I wanted to debate that point, he changed the subject and wouldn't discuss it.

Only later did I learn that such behavior is typical of properly-indoctrinated A.A. true believers. They will always declare that you are not "in recovery" if you are not attending their Twelve-Step meetings and doing their Twelve Steps. You are "only abstaining" from drinking alcohol, or "only dry", but not "sober".

That may seem like a minor point, but when you are fighting for your life, you don't want to find out, half-way through the treatment program, that the counselor is an irrational religious fanatic with his own agenda. That feels like being in a jet airliner, cruising at 40,000 feet, and suddenly discovering that the pilots are drunk and crazy, and that you are on your own when it comes to safely flying that airplane.

Or, after September 11, it feels like discovering that the airplane has been hijacked by crazy religious fanatics, and where they are steering the airplane isn't where you want to go. And, where the airplane is really going is not the destination that was printed on the ticket that you bought. The plane's new destination is their idea of "the Will of God" and "religious glory".

When I went to my second A.A. meeting ever, about 15 years earlier, I was in the middle of detoxing, and in very ragged shape because I had spent most of the previous night in (unexpected) D.T.s while quitting drinking for the first time. A woman there advised me to eat lots of ice cream to soothe my extremely painful stomach cramps, and to drink lots and lots of orange juice to help restore my electrolyte balance. Now, when I repeated that advice in "group therapy", the "counselor" stopped me with "Trying to get intellectual on us now, are you?" Apparently, for him, using any words more sophisticated than a sixth-grade education was apparently "getting intellectual".

The A.A. slogan is, of course, "Keep It Simple, Stupid!"
(--Which apparently really means, "Stay Simple and Stupid.")

Likewise, that 12-Step 'counselor' went non-linear when another client said that he was reading Jack Trimpey's "The Small Book".
      "What?! Isn't that the one without the Higher Power?!"
Then he told us that Rational Recovery's AVRT technique (Addictive Voice Recognition Therapy) is just so complex and difficult that you will die before you figure it out, so don't mess with it.

Not! AVRT is actually just a process of recognizing the thoughts that are the voice of the Addiction Monster, aka the Beast (the base brain, really), as it tempts you to take a drink. It is pathetically easy, once you get the hang of it. It is just like those Walt Disney cartoons with Donald Duck having a little devil on one shoulder, and a little angel on the other, and the little devil is whispering into Donald's ear, "Smoke! Drink! It will be fun!"

Children can understand that cartoon, but my A.A.-indoctrinated counselor said that recognizing that situation as it is happening is much too difficult for you or I (or him) to do, so Rational Recovery is confusing people into drinking themselves to death.


I continued going to A.A. and N.A. meetings, and continued to overlook the goofy stuff. Some people were obviously pretty far out there on the religious angle. I thought that was a bit much — I'm not into public displays of religiosity — but I could live with it, because I'm not an agnostic or an atheist. When people were saying things that were obviously crazy, I just thought, "Well, whatever. If believing that stuff helps them to keep from drinking, then okay, any port in a storm."

Then, a friend remarked that some people had accused A.A. of being a cult. That got me to thinking. Then I stumbled across Charles Bufe's book, Alcoholics Anonymous, Cult or Cure?, in the public library, and that was it. The dam burst, and a giant wall of water swept across the landscape.

So I read a lot of books and articles, both pro and con, and did a good bit of investigating, as well as attending a whole lot of those mandatory Twelve-Step meetings, both Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous.

I came to the conclusion that Alcoholics Anonymous is really just a cult religion, one that passes off its proselytizing under the guise of alcoholism treatment, in just the same way as the Church of Scientology sells its cultish psycho-babble and techno-babble nonsense as self-improving psychotherapy. And Narcotics Anonymous is just another clone of A.A.. And so are all of the other 12-Step "self-help groups."


If there is one sentence that sums up my feelings about Bill Wilson's teachings most, a feeling that keeps popping up when I examine the stupid and insane things that Bill Wilson wrote, it is this sentence from one of the essays:


"This is just so typical of Bill's insanity: everything he says almost rings true, it almost has some truth in it, you can see what he is getting at and almost agree with it, but there is just something a little bit off about all of it."
For example, Bill Wilson talks at length about the need to be freed from ego, the need to be freed from "the bondage of self." Now, liberation from ego is a great thing, if the student can accomplish it. It is a magnificent spiritual accomplishment, the culmination of a lifetime of training and preparation. Many spiritual schools teach techniques for doing it, like the Sufis, Zen Buddhists, and various yogis and swamis. But Mr. Wilson's methods are ineffective and harmful to people. He makes students wallow in guilt and shame, and grinds their faces in the mud. That doesn't work, it only makes the students neurotic. It is really just very common cultish guilt induction disguised as some kind of self-improving spiritual training. But hey, "Freeing the students from ego" sounds great on the surface.

Likewise, Wilson repeatedly declared that all alcoholics must be rid of selfishness:
"Selfishness, self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles."
"Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it kills us!"
— The Big Book, 3rd Edition, William G. Wilson, Chapter 5, page 62.
And:
"To be vital, faith must be accompanied by self sacrifice and unselfish, constructive action."
— The Big Book, 3rd Edition,, William G. Wilson, Chapter 7, page 93.

But you will find out that what Wilson really means by that is that you must spend all of your time recruiting and indoctrinating new members for Alcoholics Anonymous.

Most of the rest of the program turns out to be equally useless, or worse. It wastes the students' time with useless superstitious garbage, while telling them that it is giving them some good therapy. A.A. says that it is "Spiritual, not religious," but it is really "Superstitious, not religious."

A.A. assures the students that they will get good results from working the program, if they are willing to go to any length to get sobriety, and if they really try, but the truth is that they almost invariably will not get the promised results. A.A. has a failure rate that ranges from 95% to 100%. One of the most enthusiastic boosters of Alcoholics Anonymous is Professor George E. Vaillant of Harvard University, who is also a member of the Board of Trustees of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., which means that he is one of the leaders of Alcoholics Anonymous. Well, Professor Vaillant showed by his own 8-year-long test of A.A.-based treatment programs that A.A. was worse than useless: it didn't help the alcoholics any more than no treatment at all, and it had the highest death rate of any treatment program tested — leaving nearly one-third of the patients dead. While trying to prove that Alcoholics Anonymous treatment works, Vaillant succeeded in proving that A.A. kills. (And, unbelievable as it may seem, he still wants to send all alcoholics to A.A. anyway, "to get an attitude change by confessing their sins to a high-status healer.")


I think the thing that really gets to me the most, the thing that angers me the most, is how almost everybody connected with the drug and alcohol treatment industry just assumes that the whole 12-Step program works great, and is the answer to everything, and really does help lots of people. The so-called "counselors" are nothing but disguised cult recruiters who shove their 12-Step religion on everybody they can, and they simply assume that if you are recovering from drug or alcohol problems, then you will of course become a happily-converted member of their 12-Step religion that they won't admit is a religion. And they have the gall to charge your health insurance for their religious proselytizing.

And that is pretty much all of the "help" that people in "recovery" or "treatment" programs get. The treatment programs which are based on the Twelve-Step religion and are run by the Twelve-Step true believers — which means about 93% of all of the drug and alcohol treatment programs in the U.S.A. — do little more than xerox off Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous training (indoctrination) materials and read it to people in "group therapy" sessions, and then send the people to three or more A.A. or N.A. meetings per week (maybe even 90 meetings in 90 days for rapid indoctrination). That unethical behavior is being financed with the public's tax money and health insurance money. And that is a crime.


One young woman whom I couldn't help but like had accumulated 9 months off of alcohol when she relapsed. Her true-believer building manager (where she was housed, in a program,) sentenced her to 90 meetings in 90 days for relapsing. When she cried at a meeting that she was so tired of getting sucked back into drinking, and ending up waking up with strange guys, but she was having a problem with "giving herself completely" to the 12-Step program, one of the resident true believers announced that the answer to all such problems is


"Do The Twelve Steps, Get A Sponsor, and Read The Big Book."
Well, it didn't work. She relapsed repeatedly, and they kicked her out of the program.

The last time I saw her, she was drunk on the streets, and fishing for a guy to buy her drinks. Since she is young, tall, slim, and very pretty, she has no problem getting some guy to buy her an unlimited stream of drinks (in trade, he hopes, for getting her into bed). If she continues on that path, it's only a matter of time before she gets AIDS and dies. What a tragic waste.


I just can't help but think that there must be some better way to handle such problems than a method that is obviously not working, the currently-used 12-Step program. I can't help but think that a lot of people might be better off if they got some other treatment or therapy besides cult religion and voodoo medicine.

So here are some essays on the subject. Enjoy.

P.S.:

This is just too much:
I just learned (mid July 2002) that my former counselor, the one who was such a fanatic at shoving the 12-Step religion on us, the guy who actually inspired this entire Orange Papers project, just got arrested in a big dramatic take-down. They arrested him for two or three counts of criminal sexual penetration of a minor — very young minors, like children. And then there was a problem with kiddie porn on the Internet.

Can you believe it? The guy who felt qualified to lecture us about the need for "spirituality" and a "Higher Power" in our personal recovery programs was actually a child pornographer and a pedophile by night.

This whole "recovery movement" is just such a bizarre parade of crazies, lunatics, and losers. When will it ever end?

(And a little voice in my head says, "What else could you expect? They hire from within. The staff are all former patients. The crazies recruit the crazies. The inmates really are running the insane asylum.")

Update: 20 September 2003:

My former 12-Step counselor was convicted on all counts of criminal sexual penetration of a minor and child pornography, and is now serving time at the Snake River Correctional Facility at Ontario, Oregon (near the Oregon/Idaho border).

Update: 17 July 2004:

It just goes on and on. It turns out that the children that the 12-Stepper "counselor" was screwing were his own step-children. And then there was the cocaine. It seems that he had relapsed big time. The police found that he had cocaine stashed in his house, in his car, and even at his place of work — the so-called "treatment center" that I went to. That's quite some drug and alcohol counselor.

The State Health Plan really got their moneys-worth when they paid that clinic to counsel the alcoholics and drug addicts, didn't they?

And can you believe that the clinic is still in business, still "helping" alcoholics and addicts, still poking the addicts with acupuncture needles and still selling the same B.S.?

[Anne Bonney]

http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-eff ... ant_deaths

What Professor Vaillant, a Trustee of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. — in other words, one of the highest-ranking A.A. leaders — is candidly, clearly describing is a zero-percent success rate for his A.A.-based treatment program.

The A.A. meetings and the Twelve Steps and all of the rest of A.A. program did not help the alcoholics at all. Zero improvement. Zilch. And it was even worse than no help:

    * Look at the "Abstinent or social drinking" and "Improved" columns of Table 8.1. You have to add the numbers together to get the over-all improvement rate for that item. So, for "A.A.", "no treatment", and "other treatment", we get 33%, 32%, and 37% over-all improvement rates, respectively. Those numbers are basically the same. There is no statistically significant difference between 33 and 32 percent, and hardly any between 33 and 37 percent. So A.A. treatment was no better than either "other treatment" or no treatment at all, and conversely, "other treatment" wasn't a whole lot better than either A.A. or "no treatment", either. After two years of A.A. treatment, "other treatment", or "no treatment", roughly two-thirds of the patients in all of those groups were still abusing alcohol. That's a dismal result.

    * Look at the "Abstinent or social drinking" and "Improved" columns of Table 8.2. Again, you have to add the numbers together to get the over-all improvement rate for that item. The A.A. "Clinic sample" scored 45 percent improved over-all, while the other programs ranged from 35 to 47 percent. Two of the programs, those in the Bratfos and Voetglin-Broz studies, seem to have been much worse than average, but all of the rest of the programs, including A.A., show approximately the same results. (The Voetglin-Broz study used something called "Conditioned Reflex Treatment". What caused the poor results in the Norwegian Bratfos study is unknown.)

    * Look at the "Dead" column of Table 8.2. The A.A.-treated group, the "Clinic sample", with the death rate of 29%, had the highest death rate of any kind of program, significantly higher than all of the other programs.

    * And those five people out of the hundred in the A.A.-treated "Clinic sample" who successfully stayed sober for 8 years are just the result of that same old five percent spontaneous remission rate at work, again.

    * As Professor Vaillant reported, the A.A. treatment program did not alter the natural history (the usual course) of alcoholism, except for yielding a higher death rate than doing nothing. A.A. did not save the alcoholics; it didn't even help them; it just killed them.

Remember that these terrible numbers were reported by a Trustee of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., by a real true believer in A.A., by one of the highest-ranking A.A. insiders, by someone who loves A.A. and was trying hard to make it look good, not by some harsh critic of A.A. who might be suspected of bias, or of fudging the numbers to make A.A. look bad...

Remember this the next time you hear somebody say "Keep coming back! It works! (If you make it work...)"

[Anne Bonney]

 :shamrock:
 Who is more successful with recovery we (A.A.) have never been concerned with debating that issue, it is trivial at best to hash out who is the big man on the hill of recovery. If you really want to know who has the most success it is organized
church. Baptist, Catholics, Methodists....ect. Look it up.....for all you God un-fearing folks...lol

Danny.....

This isn't about who's the 'big man' on the recovery hill.  It's about lying to people, saying that AA "works", that it will "save your life", that it's not religious, that people don't need their meds, that they should divorce their spouse for not supporting AA enough etc. etc. etc.

I have no problem with people using AA as a social support group.  A place to find people who are struggling with the same issue.  I DO have major problems with the Big Book, sponsors and this hero worship of Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob and AA in general.  Have you ever tried to criticize or even ask skeptical questions at an AA meeting or of a sponsor?  I have, many times and I was promptly told not to 'ask how my steak was prepared, to just enjoy it'.  I was told that to question AA or any of it's dogma was 'signing my own death warrant' (sound familiar?).  It may not be a cult, per se.....but it sure does have most of the characteristics.  Most of which use scare tactics and emotional blackmail as their weapons of choice.

I've also seen many, MANY people come into AA who, IMHO, were NOT alcoholics but were convinced by the members that they were.  Hence, when they 'slipped'...they acted according to what they'd been told they were and what they were told they would do.  Self fulfilling prophecy.  It can kill people.  WAaaaaaay back when I was put into Straight (early 80s) I was told I was an alcoholic and an addict.  Neither was true, but after two years of isolation, sleep deprivation, humiliation, degredation etc., I bought into it.  When I graduated I "stayed sober" for a couple of years but eventually 'had a slip'.  I was convinced.....absolutely CONVINCED that I would spin out of control, therefore I did.  For a while.  It wasn't until I totally rejected AA/Straight/addiction as a disease etc. that I began to gain control of my life.  When I stopped believing in all their bullshit, I got better.  My life became manageable.  It didn't revolve around drinking or drug use OR AA (because face it, many people substitute their addiction to drinking with an addiction to AA/recovery). It revolved around my family, work, playtime etc.  as it should.  

I'm not saying that nobody ever needs help in dealing with their life or problems.  I"m saying that IMO, AA is a temporary stop-gap at best and a dangerous thought reform entity at worst.

[Anne Bonney]

Have you ever tried to criticize or even ask skeptical questions at an AA meeting or of a sponsor?  I have, many times and I was promptly told not to 'ask how my steak was prepared, to just enjoy it'.  I was told that to question AA or any of it's dogma was 'signing my own death warrant' (sound familiar?).  It may not be a cult, per se.....but it sure does have most of the characteristics.  Most of which use scare tactics and emotional blackmail as their weapons of choice.

I meant to include this link with that part of the post.  It shows, better than I ever could explain, what happens when you dare criticize the great and powerful Oz.  Just start reading through the Orange Paper Letters section.  All sorts of Stepcrafters laughingly (literally) wishing or predicting death for him.  They cannot tolerate criticism of any kind.  Apparently, even from one of their own (the Valliant study proving that not only is AA ineffective, but dangerous).  Go here and pick a section out of the Letters.  Any one will do.

http://www.orange-papers.org/