Twelve-step program

A twelve-step program (or programme) is a fellowship which aims at the recovery of its members from the consequences of an addiction, a compulsion, or another harmful influence on their lives, with the help of the Twelve Steps. Also the specific program of recovery that is applied within such a fellowship, is called a twelve-step program. The fellowship, a bond of loosely organized, autonomous groups, functions on the basis of principles, formulated in the Twelve Traditions. Synonyms are anonymous program and A-program; the original twelve-step program is Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.).

Relation to religion

A primary belief of members is that their success is based on giving up on self-reliance and willpower, and instead relying on God, or a "Higher Power". Critics of these programs, however, often hold that this reliance is ineffective, and offensive or inapplicable to atheists and others who do not believe in a salvific deity. Proponents of twelve-step programs argue that many atheists have been helped by the program and that one's higher power may well be the group itself.

Related Topics:
God - Higher Power

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The role of religion in twelve-step groups is an argument of significance in some parts of the United States, where the criminal justice system has held out group participation to inmate addicts as a condition of parole or shortened sentences. Governments in the U.S. are disallowed under the First Amendment from granting privilege to religious belief. Thus, if twelve-step groups are religious (which some people believe a facial reading of the Twelve Steps makes plain) then this condition is unconstitutional. Members of twelve-step groups commonly attempt to finesse this conflict by making the semantic distinction that they are "spiritual, but not religious."

Related Topics:
Religion - United States - First Amendment

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Some critics — again, particularly atheists and humanists — also question directly the idea of giving up on self-reliance, which can be seen as a form of idealized despair. Secular alternatives to twelve-step programs, such as Rational Recovery, are for this reason in many ways opposite to the twelve-step process. Others, such as YES Recovery, acknowledge a debt to the twelve-steps movement but do not have a culture of belief in God.

Related Topics:
Rational Recovery - YES Recovery

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As with the Bible and other similar texts, there are many different ways of interpreting the intent behind twelve-step programs. And as with the Bible, there are those who argue strongly for a relatively literal adherence to program literature (often referred to as "Big Book Thumpers"), and then there are those who advise "take what you like and leave the rest" and advocate a much more liberal approach. (Note: The phrase "take what you like and leave the rest" cannot be found in the Basic Text of AA or any other A.A. literature.) Two books that look at the twelve-step literature from a more liberal point of view are The Zen of Recovery by Mel Ash and A Skeptic's Guide To The Twelve Steps by Phillip Z.

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A clear distinction needs to be drawn between the original A.A. program fashioned in Akron which was described as a Christian Fellowship, held "old fashioned prayer meetings," stressed Bible study and prayer and the reading of religious literature, and insisted on bringing people to an acceptance of Jesus Christ as the way to a relationship with God. While meetings were held by drunks and Oxford Group members, the work was said to be that of a "clandestine lodge" of the Oxford Group because its stress was on helping drunks to recovery, abstinence, resistance of temptation, old fashioned revival meetings, and conversion to Christ — which seemed to derive from the ideas, principles and practices of United Christian Endeavor Society of Dr. Bob's youth. This program achieved a 75% to 93% success rate. Its adherents said they felt the answer to their problems was in the "Good Book" (as they called the Bible). There were no Steps, no basic text, only one regular meeting. The emphasis was on Bible study, prayer, seeking God's guidance, conversion, visiting hospitalized drunks, fellowship and witnessing. In a word, it was called "love and service" — the watchwords of United Christian Endeavor.

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After the unusual cures were realized by Bob and Bill, the Akron group authorized Wilson to write a book about the program. But Wilson returned to New York and wrote an entirely different program based primarily on what he had learned from the Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr., rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in New York, and a leader of the Oxford Group people in America. To Shoemaker's ideas, which are found almost verbatim in the Twelve Steps, Bill added in his Big Book (the new basic text) ideas about alcoholism from Dr. William D. Silkworth, ideas about the necessity for a conversion from Dr. Carl G. Jung, ideas about a so-called "higher power" primarily from Professor William James and New Thought writers, thoughts from Anne Smith's (Dr. Bob's wife) Spiritual Journal, practical techniques from Richard Peabody set forth in his Common Sense of Drinking book, and a smattering of words and phrases with New Thought and New Age origin such as "Universal Mind," "Czar of the Universe," "fourth dimension of existence," and "higher power." Then Wilson declared there had been a program of recovery which consisted of Twelve Steps the pioneers had taken to find God. Bill asked Shoemaker to write the Steps, but Shoemaker declined. The Steps can be recognized in the Oxford Group teachings Wilson received from Rowland Hazard and Ebby Thacher in late 1934 and early 1935, but neither the Oxford Group nor early A.A. in New York or Akron had any "steps" at all.

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A.A. was, at its origins, most assuredly a "religion" and a "religious organization." The concept of "spiritual, not religious," seems to have derived from the church's desire to keep religion separate from A.A. even though the precepts and practices of A.A. were Biblical in roots and nature. Thus early A.A. meetings in New York were those of "A First Century Christian Fellowship" then also known as the "Oxford Group." The "spirituality" idea was originally defined by Wilson as reliance on the Creator — truly a religious idea. But as time went on, New Thought and New Age substitute words seemed to drive A.A. talk and writing more toward unbelief and substitutionary, secular, universalism than to a relationship with God — the avowed Big Book purpose of the Steps.

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