The newcomer, on the advice of the Elder, quit his medication, had a stroke, and is now crippled for life. The members of the groups are so restricted in their ability to think that they often engage in dishonest behavior without even being aware of it. Members' subservience to the group causes them to cut ties with family, friends, and personal pre-group goals and interests. The most outstanding public example of this is Rosanne Barr, who publicly denounces her parents. The group's leadership induces guilt feelings in members in order to control them.
Guilt is only secondary to fear as a motivating factor for group members.
Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group. Even when not required, the results of indoctrination are usually a narrowing of a grouper's relationships to only other groupers. It's nice to see someone else has devoted time to reading the literature which is out there, and is, I hope, becoming more plentiful. That AA is a cult is clear. That it has succeded in entrenching itself in the health care system and as an instrument of public policy, is frightening.