From: rdh@Veritas.COM (Robert Hartman)
Newsgroups: alt.recovery,talk.politics.drugs
Subject: Re: AA beliefs?
Date: 11 Sep 92 21:19:47 GMT
Followup-To: talk.poltics.drugs
Distribution: na
Organization: VERITAS Software

[ This one also cross-posted.  Followups to t.p.d only.  Note, I
don't read t.p.d., so please send any responses from there by
e-mail.  Please don't add a.r back into the followup line.  -r ]

In article <1992Sep10.230222.7042@zip.eecs.umich.edu> carnes@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Richard Carnes) writes:
> ... Instead of trying to understand why a
>person who is desperate for help would reject the AA program, many AA
>members would blame him for his alleged pride or lack of honesty or
>lack of genuine desire to overcome his addiction.  The program is
>never at fault, only the individual who rejects AA.  I.e., blame the
>victim. 

I find this attitude to be very harmful, and speak against it whenever
I hear it in a meeting.  There is a specific passage in the Big Book
that talks about people who are "incapable of honesty" and other such
faults that prevent them from succeeding in the program.  I don't buy
it.  It is the one thing that I would change about the program if I
could.  It seems entirely unnecessary and incongruous.  But it's in
there, and people who appear to have a need to retain some slight sense
of superiority swear by it, and so this, to me, is an imperfection in
the program that I have to put up with.

Insofar as that passage appears to sanction that judgemental attitude,
I feel it doesn't belong in the Big Book.  And since it has the
potential to turn away people who might otherwise benefit from the
program, personally, I despise it.

>In this respect AA resembles a dogmatic religious sect.  Although the
>12 Steps are officially only "suggestions", many AA members seem to
>regard them and the Big Book in same the way a fundamentalist regards
>the Bible: as infallible or nearly so, rather than the product of
>fallible and limited human beings.

This is true.  But once again, this is not entirely the fault of the
program.  I'd tend to have a strong loyalty to anything that
brought me some semblance of peace-of-mind.  As someone who's
had to do a fair bit of work to recover from the bad influences
of an early teen-age fundamentalist affiliation, I would prefer
it if the zealots in the program would take their own inventories.

>The 12 Steps, however, were not
>handed to Bill Wilson on Mt. Sinai.  For the early stages of his
>recovery he depended on the Oxford Group, a weird, reactionary
>evangelical Protestant sect which later became known as Moral
>Re-Armament; the 12 Steps were derived directly from Oxford Group
>principles, with alcoholism taking the place of sin.  

Well, if you take sin as "chronic alienation" rather than "inherent
unworthiness,"  ... yes.

>It doesn't take
>much hard thinking to improve on the 12 Steps, but we are talking
>about dogma.

And this seems entirely out-of-line.  Stating your opinion is
one thing.  Taking a cheap shot like this is quite another.
Please stop it.

>AA and the 12 Steps replace alcohol dependence with dependence on a
>rigid belief system and on AA itself.  Nearly everything about AA and
>other 12-step programs encourages dependence (for a useful corrective
>from a sympathetic position, see _The *Real* Thirteenth Step_; I'll
>look up the author's name if anyone wants it).

No.  From my experience, what they encourage is _trust._  At first, a
recovering person must recognize her or his existing dependency--on
something that cannot possibly work over the long run.  Next, this
dependency is transferred from the bottle to the Steps.  --not to the
leaders, but to a method that appears to work for those actually
use it.  The Steps are a fairly reliable method for re-learning how to
get honest and stay honest, and in so doing, to rely increasingly
on oneself.

But yes, for the first year, a person tends to be highly dependent on
her or his program.  Still, considering the rigors of withdrawal and
its aftermath, it's a good thing that the program is there, and can be
relied upon during such a particularly vulnerable period.  A person
could otherwise burn out his or her family and friends otherwise.

>Again, I'm not say
>that such programs cannot be helpful; some people whose lives have
>been disrupted by addiction seem genuinely to benefit from having a
>prefabricated belief system around which to structure their lives.

Well, yes.  Some people do take the program as that.  Others take
it as a methodology.  Those for whom the program functions as a
substitute addiction are still better off than when they were
drinking.  Those for whom the program serves as a framework for
honesty are very much better off than when they were drinking.

>But others just can't stomach religious dogmatism and anti-
>intellectualism.  There's no telling how many thousands of people have
>gone to AA meetings a few times, been turned off by the religiosity,
>the irrationality, the self-abasement, the smoke-filled air, and the
>prospect of endless meetings, and gone back home and poured themselves
>a tall drink...

No there isn't.  And that's why I despise that one particular passage.
I feel quite fortunate that the program I found doesn't use that
particular passage.

>The admittedly sparse empirical evidence (it's extremely difficult to
>do reliable research on AA) indicates that the AA program is an
>effective treatment for a small minority of problem drinkers
>(something like 5-10 percent); the great majority would be better off
>with different recovery methods.  Unfortunately the more effective
>methods don't get a tenth of the publicity that AA gets, and AA isn't
>interested in telling anyone about them, so most people don't know
>about them.

Hmmm...  If you have the statistics then please cite them.  If not,
then please don't allude to them.  If you know of programs that have a
better track record over the long run, I for one would like to know
what they are!

>These statements don't say: "We try help alcoholics sober up
>regardless of whether they accept AA's message".  Instead, they talk
>about "carrying the message", implying that AA has *the* answer for
>alcoholics, and if they don't buy the message, to hell with them.
>Since AA has The Answer, none of its numerous publications deal with
>the medical and physiological aspects of alcohol abuse, nor has AA
>shown any friendly interest in alternative programs.

Again, this does not match my experience.  In my program, at any rate,
every single new development in psychological theory and practice gets
discussed--because a lot of us are in therapy.  I don't believe that
people in AA throw away any useful tool or method.  I do believe that
they tend to try to fit them in within the 12-Step framework.  I'm not
sure there's much wrong with that.

>I think that Wilson was in many respects an admirable and wise leader,
>but he also laid the foundations for the dogmatism, self-absorption,
>and hostility to other methods that has limited AA's usefulness,
>although it has undoubtedly helped many people.

I do believe that the dogmatism practiced by some AA members, and the
passages in the Big Book that appear to justify it, are harmful.
However, my main interest was in getting better.  Since focusing on
those aspects of the program didn't help me to get better, I focused
instead on those that did.  Once it became clear to me that certain
things were intolerable to me (the Lord's Prayer, for instance), I
brought them up in the meetings I attended and either got them changed
or reached a compromise.  I don't say the English version of
that prayer.  When it is said, I am silent.

I didn't have to bring the other members in line with my views to get
better, so I didn't waste my time or theirs.  Since they didn't speak
for AA, I didn't have to follow their example.  But I'd rather have
them dogmatic-as-hell and sober, than openminded but dead.  And since
that's the choice some people in AA have had to make, well, I'm glad
they're there--even when the things they say might irritate the shit
out of me.

With all of that, being in their presence in a meeting it doesn't do me
any real harm.  Since there is no crosstalk in meetings, they can't do
much to humiliate me.  Even with them there, it's still safe for me to
speak my mind without interruption or crosstalk.  And to me, that alone
is a significant benefit that I've yet to find outside of a 12-step
group.

>Richard Carnes

-r