Alcoholics Anonymous

Alcoholics Anonymous (known commonly as "A.A." or "AA") is a world-wide fellowship of alcoholics whose primary purpose is to stay sober and carry the message of recovery from alcoholism through the Twelve Steps. A.A. is the original twelve-step program and has been the source and model for all subsequent and separate ones, such as Gamblers Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Sexaholics Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, and Al-Anon/Alateen.

Controversial system

Supporters and some detractors want to find the best way to help those struggling with alcohol addictions. Various sides also harbor fears that people with other points of view are causing real harm to the very people they seek to assist. Because of the sincerity on several sides, and the potentially grave threat posed by either denying effective treatment or causing more harm through ineffective methods, those seeking to help people recover from alcohol addictions may wish to thoroughly investigate any program for recovery.

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(Note: in this section, BB refers to The Big Book, aka Alcoholics Anonymous, 3rd Edition, by William G. Wilson, and 12x12 refers to Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, by William G. Wilson)

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AA's Supporters

On one hand, supporters claim that AA is an indispensable support group for people seeking to free themselves of an addiction to alcohol. Some things they cite include:

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• The American Medical Association supports the disease model of alcoholism that was developed by AA seventy years ago.
• A large amount of anecdotal evidence in which people assert that joining AA saved their lives http://www.aa-uk.org.uk/alcoholics-anonymous-reviews/2005/05/lot-of-bottle.html http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/addiction/my-story-20644.htm http://www.aa-uk.org.uk/alcoholics-anonymous-reviews/2005/05/i-was-taught-to-take-my-life-one-day.html http://www.aa.org/default/en_about_aa_sub.cfm?subpageid=68&pageid=12 http://www.aamolly.org.uk/alexg.htm
• Long-term sobriety lengths of 20, 30, or 40 or more years are not uncommon in AA.
• Many members find that AA is fun. While meetings can be serious, they can also be filled with laughter. Social activities such as dances, picnics, and conventions are enjoyed by great numbers of AAs. Many members discover that their fears of never again having fun after quitting drinking have proven false. Many AA's believe that engaging in therapeutic recreation that does not include alcohol helps them to stay away from drinking.
• Because of the large number of AA groups (over 100,000 worldwide as of 2001), AA members are free to try different groups until they find groups that they enjoy. Because AA members come from all walks of life and every segment of society, there is a tremendous amount of variety within the fellowship. Not only do these facts make it difficult to generalize about AA groups, but these circumstances allow for a level of flexibility that accommodates the sobriety needs of a large spectrum of recovering alcoholics.
• The fact that AA does not require a belief in any specific higher power means that AA is not a religion. Since members are free to choose any higher power they like--including higher powers that are not spiritually based--and since members are allowed to change higher powers whenever they like, this agility facilitates a kind of transference that aids in recovery from alcoholism. By this definition, an alcoholic is a person who has turned alcohol into a higher power. By selecting an alternate higher power of his or her own choice and/or design, the alcoholic is able to achieve the psychological transference that topples alcohol as a higher power. As the alcoholic progresses in recovery over months and years, this same flexibility allows the recovering alcoholic to switch to higher powers that are more individually appropriate to that AA member at that given time.
• "Doing the footwork and turning over the results." Contrary to occasional criticism, the AA program encourages members to act as individuals and to think for themselves. Not only must they design the pace of their own programs and choose their own higher powers with which to supplant alcohol, but they must do their own "footwork" in all areas of their lives. The individual in AA is fully empowered to do his or her own footwork. When the AA program speaks of "powerlessness," this applies to the results of the footwork. This distinction is expressed in the words, "Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." In life, footwork is always changeable by the individual, while results are often uncertain, unpredictable, and/or out of the individual's control.
• The "Toolbox Principal." Many AA's see the program as a large "toolbox." Not everyone feels comfortable with all of the tools all of the time. Many AA's find that they can stay sober while using some tools and not others, or using different tools at different times. This flexibility allows members to reach for the specific help they need at specific times, then use a different kind of help as circumstances fluctuate.
• Enlightened self-interest: Many AA's believe that in order for an alcoholic to stay sober, he or she must be in the program for him- or herself. According to this perspective, an AA member does not work the program for the sake of his family, his job, his community, or for the sake of any AA group or AA as a whole. An alcoholic works the program for himself, and helps others primarily because it helps oneself.
• Every AA member is free to have a sponsor of his or her own choice or not to have a sponsor at all. Some AA's have more than one sponsor at one time. Some AA's have a sponsor or sponsors at the beginning of sobriety, then choose not to have sponsors later on. A member may "fire" a sponsor at any time, and vice versa. Because AA members are learning to become individually empowered, it is their responsibility to select approprate sponsors and change sponsors when necessary. The great variety of available sponsors is another aspect of the program's flexibility in terms of the shifting needs of individual members.
• Many members and groups acknowledge that AA isn't the right program for everyone, and that there are effective alternatives for other individuals.
• The 12 steps are suggestions rather than requirements (though "they are 'suggested' in the same way that, if you jump out of an airplane with a parachute, it is 'suggested' that you pull the ripcord" (Daily Reflections; A Book of Reflections by A.A. members for A.A. members, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., pg. 344))
• There are no official membership records, allowing members to come and go as they choose (see above for the exception to this, which AA itself does not sanction)
• Despite Bill W.'s claim that members are "impersonally and severely disciplined from without" in a letter to Dr. Harry Tiebout (quoted in Not-God: A History of Alcoholics Anonymous, Ernest Kurtz, page 129, a book put out by a publisher which publishes much addiction literature), AA lacks any sort of formal disciplinary measures against members who fail to adhere strictly to the program
• The claim that AA is spiritual, not religious, and that the requisite Higher Power can be anything including God (as the individual understands Him, according to the 3rd Step), the group itself (one slogan: "G.O.D.=Group Of Drunks), a philosophical system, a dead person, the universe, nature, or anything the individual member chooses to invent. AA philosophy acknowledges that all rational people admit the existence of powers greater than themselves, and that this is in fact one of the definitions of a rational person.
• The slogan that says to "Take what you can use and leave the rest." Members are also reminded that AA will work for them only if they work the program.
• The lack of a guru-like figure rising to fill the late Bill Wilson's shoes, lending credibility to the slogan that says "principles before personalities"
• According to the BB, "Our primary purpose is to stay sober and to help others to achieve sobriety." Thus, AA is not a social movement and is not involved in trying to reshape society or to affect communities or their values. AA prefers to appeal to potential members through "attraction rather than promotion."

AA's Critics

On the other hand, some critics maintain that AA is capable of doing more harm than good.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholics_Anonymous#Critical_links. Some go as far as calling it a cult. Some specific criticisms include:

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• While AA acknowledged in the forward to the second edition of the Big Book that "we surely have no monopoly", one of the stories following the main text of the book still claims that AA is "the only remedy" to alcohol abuse (BB, pg. 259. Emphasis added.), despite some current research which shows that high percentages of alcohol abusers recover without medical treatment (Treatment of Drug Abuse and Addiction -- Part III, The Harvard Mental Health Letter, Volume 12, Number 4, October 1995, page 3.). Another study suggests that AA may be "no better than the natural history of the disease" in keeping people alive and sober (The Natural History of Alcoholism: Causes, Patterns, and Paths to Recovery, George E. Vaillant, pgs. 283-286.)
• The claim that people who refuse to work the program thoroughly, or do but are not helped by it, are "constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves" (BB, pg. 58.), implies that, by definition, the AA program itself is incapable of failure, provided that the alcoholic is properly motivated. This seems to deny the existance of honest, motivated individuals for whom the program doesn't work.
• A lack of official checks and balances designed to keep sponsors from abusing their position (though sponsors can be fired at any time)
• Claims that alcoholics are "doomed to an alcoholic death" unless they decide to "live on a spiritual basis" (each AA member being allowed to decide for himself what "spiritual basis" means) (BB, pg 44) and "Unless each A.A. member follows to the best of his ability our suggested Twelve Steps to recovery, he almost certainly signs his own death warrant." (12x12, pg. 174).
• In the discussion of self-centerdness, statements such as "Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some point in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt." (BB, pg. 62. Emphasis added.) may be generalized so as to leave no room for instances where the victim was blameless, such as childhood sexual abuse. (Many AA members interpret this to mean that blameless victims are at fault for continuing to be hurt by a past event, and not at fault for the past event itself.)
• The claim that "If we were to live, we had to be free of anger." (BB, pg. 66) when psychologists say that while anger must be managed, it is not possible or healthy to do away with it entirely. (Some AA members interpret "free of anger" to mean that one should not be enslaved by their anger, be a "rageaholic," or engage in habitual toxic anger, not to mean that they should have no anger at all.)
• The "To Wives" chapter of the Big Book being written as advice from one wife of an alcoholic to another, when it was in fact written by Bill W. himself despite his wife Lois's desire to write it (Getting Better: Inside Alcoholics Anonymous, Nan Robertson, page 70-71)
• Bill W.'s frequent use of first-person plural giving the implication that all alcohol abusers have similar defects of character (6th Step) and past experiences (examples: "...something had to be done about our vengeful resentments, self-pity, and unwarranted pride." 12x12, pg. 47. and "We never thought of making honesty, tolerance, and true love of man and God the daily basis of living." 12x12, pg. 72. Emphasis added.)
• The contradiction between Bill W.'s claim that "We will seldom be interested in liquor. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given to us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it." (BB, pgs. 84-85) and his own admission that even co-founder Dr. Bob "was bothered very badly by the temptation to drink. He told me that he had that urge for six or seven years and that it was constant." (Bill W.'s speech at the memorial service for Dr. Bob on 15 November 1952)
• AA's heavy reliance on numerous slogans http://www.recoveryresources.org/aphorisms.html http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/Spa/2973/index11.html, including ones used to mock critics such as "Take the cotton out of your ears and put it in your mouth!" Also, some slogans can seem to advocate dishonesty (e.g., "Fake It Until You Make It" and "Act As If")

Criticisms specific to religious themes

Critics see the following points as evidence of religious themes in AA:

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• Many of the steps being adapted and altered from tenets that "came straight from Dr. Bob's and (Bill W.'s) own earlier association with the Oxford Groups" (The Language of the Heart, William G. Wilson, pg. 298), a spiritual movement with which friends of theirs had been involved and which places a large emphasis on taking individual responsibility for the harm one has done to others and confession to God and another person.
• Because "most alcoholics just wanted to find sobriety, nothing else", "The Oxford Groups' absolute concepts ... had to be fed with teaspoons rather than by buckets." (Alcoholics Anonymous Comes Of Age, William G. Wilson, pgs. 74-75.)
• The statement that "At the moment we are trying to put our lives in order. But this is not an end in itself. Our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God" ("God" or "higher power" being defined by the AA member himself, including non-spiritual, agnostic, or atheist beliefs) (BB, pg. 77)
• "Being entirely ready to have God remove these defects of character" (sixth step), "or, if you wish, our sins" (12x12, pg. 48), and "praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out" (eleventh step)

Analysis of the controversy

The non-centralized structure of AA means that while some members may adhere to many of the elements that are criticized, other members may adhere to few or none of them. The non-centralized structure also makes it difficult or impossible to know which is the standard, and which is the exception. Members who have only encountered one of these types of members may claim that the other kind is rare and non-representative of AA as a whole, especially since AA as a whole cannot be represented by any individual member or subset of members. Alternatively, some members may be incredulous about (or outright deny) the very existence of the other type of member or groups of members. While some members feel belittled if they don't subscribe to the particular interpretations of the program held by other members they know, other members use the "toolbox" approach to simply not use any aspects they don't find helpful, and choose to associate primarily with members who are supportive rather than judgemental.

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