The AA Cult
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fudge fudgepatter...@yahoo.com
The "alcoholism cult." That's what Sheldon Bacon, for many years the director of the Rutgers Center for Alcohol Studies, called overly avid supporters of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Alcoholics Anonymous - AA as it is generally known - was started in the 1930s as a spinoff from the Oxford Group, a religious movement whose ideas were sometimes alleged to help chronic drinkers. With the aid and approval of key members of the power elite such as John D.
Rockefeller, Jr., AA grew from an obscure idea to what many have come to regard as a national treasure: society's premier (practically only) way of treating alcohol, drug, and related addiction problems. By now, AA certainly must have more than a million members, with groups organized in virtually every city, town, and village, along with numerous foreign countries. Moreover, AA's core doctrine, the famous Twelve Steps, has been adopted by hundreds of parallel organizations with programs that address problems such as gambling, overeating, emotional troubles, and related family issues. Without question, AA and the Twelve Steps are among America's most well known and revered institutions.
Nonetheless, ***ertions that AA may be a cult have been present from practically the beginning. Bacon's chiding dates from the 1940s. By the 1960s, harsher evaluations had emerged. Evaluations that were absolutely meant to be taken quite seriously and literally. "Why has AA become a cult that many men and women reverently call 'the greatest movement since the birth of Christianity'?" AA critic Arthur Cain asked in 1963. "AA has become a dogmatic cult whose chapters too often turn sobriety into slavery to AA," he alleged a year later.
Cult or What?
Cain, a writer and psychologist whose skirmishes with AA were documented in national magazines such as Harper's and the Saturday Evening Post, was perhaps the loudest, but not necessarily the first, to notice AA's resemblance to an organized cult. "We are struck by the sect or cult-like aspects of AA," alcohologists Morris E. Chafetz and Harold W. Demone, Jr. observed in 1962. "This is true in terms of its history, structure, and the charisma surrounding its leader, Bill W[ilson]." Furthermore, Chafetz and Demone ***erted that: "In our opinion AA is really not interested in alcoholics in general, but only as they relate to AA itself." Nor were Chafetz and Demone indisputably the first to take AA's cult-
like characteristics seriously. Nearly two decades earlier, in 1944, sociologist Robert Freed Bales noted "potentially disturbing structural features of Alcoholics Anonymous." Features that, in the opinion of some, might suggest a cult mentality. Foreshadowing Chafetz and Demone, Bales found that AA had little appreciation for its individual members: "it mattered little just who thought the thoughts, felt the sentiments, and performed the functions characteristic of the [group's] structure," he noted, "as long as somebody did." The very perceptive Bales also saw how the charismatic quality of the Program would be retained beyond the inevitable p***ing of its founders. More than a quarter of a century before the death of Wilson, AA's last surviving cofounder, Bales observed that, "the 'magic' has been transferred to 'The Book,' Alcoholics Anonymous, apparently with a considerable degree of success." In 1964, AA again faced the charge that it harbored covert cult-like attitudes when Jerome Ellison, writing for The Nation magazine, reiterated Cain's analyses: "Arthur H. Cain pointed out [AA's] tendencies toward cultism and narrow orthodoxy that limited the fellowship's therapeutic effectiveness." Ellison also quoted from letters to the editor inspired by the Cain critique: "The fanatics who prevail in some groups seem bent on making AA into a hostile, fundamentalist religion," one letter writer avowed.
Writing in 1989, alcohologist and cult researcher Marc Galanter found that: "From the start AA displayed characteristics of a charismatic sect: strongly felt shared belief, intense cohesiveness, experiences of altered consciousness, and a potent influence on members' behavior. . . . As in the Unification Church workshops, most of those attending AA chapter meetings are deeply involved in the group ethos, and the expression of views opposed to the group's model of treatment is subtly or expressly discouraged." The Twelve Step Alcoholism Movement In 1979, sociologist Robert Tournier raised a ruckus in professional circles when he noted that "Alcoholics Anonymous has come to dominate alcoholism both as ideology and as method. . . . So successful have AA members been in proselytizing their ideas that their ***umptions about the nature of alcohol dependence have virtually been accepted as fact by most of those in the field." In making this ***ertion, Tournier touched on an important point. AA cannot be viewed as existing in a vacuum. It is not now, and never has been, an independent standalone organization. It has always covertly supported, and been supported by, a powerful cartel of organizations that make up what historians and sociologists call the Alcoholism Movement. The original triumvirate leading this movement was AA, the National Council on Alcoholism, and the Yale Center for Alcohol Studies. Like all successful social movements, it has expanded to include many additional organizations.
For greater clarification, the Alcoholism Movement could be called the Twelve Step Alcoholism Movement, after the fact that its basic philosophy is closely aligned with, and in many cases openly expressed by AA's recovery program, the venerated Twelve Steps.
To speak of AA outside of the context of the Twelve Step Alcoholism Movement is almost certainly to invite confusion. It is not just a coincidence that many organizations adhere to the same view of alcoholism and the same Twelve Step creed. It is the result of a coordinated social movement.
Viewed as the Twelve Step Alcoholism Movement, rather than as a single isolated organization, the Program actually looks more cult-like and sinister. For example, AA per se does not seem to exploit its members financially, but AA-styled treatment facilities sometimes do. Witness the case of a family faced with having to sell their home in order to pay for the mother's long-term addiction treatment - after she had already been through nine expensive Twelve Step treatment regimens in just two years. In a similar vein, Twelve Step treatment units and professional addiction counselors may routinely advertise their wares without giving the slightest hint that the basic treatment they are offering is an indoctrination into AA.
In 1991, Harper's Magazine printed a modernistic article on the Twelve Step Movement by David Rieff, "Victims All? Recovery, Co-dependency, and the Art of Blaming Somebody Else." By this time, the Movement had burgeoned to include scores of "anonymous" programs that recommended AA's Twelve Steps for practically everyone, from compulsive workaholics to those who were told that they loved too much. As Rieff observed, "any conduct that can be engaged in enthusiastically, never mind compulsively - from stamp collecting to the missionary position -
would be one around which a recovery group could be organized." These other Twelve Step organizations are patterned after AA and share many of its characteristics. Innocuous alternatives to AA are not to be found in me-too programs such as Codependents Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Cocaine Anonymous, Adult Children of Alcoholics, Al-Anon, and so on through dozens of other anonymous/anon groups that adhere to the basic Twelve Step ethos. To the degree that they mimic AA, what is said regarding AA may be universalized to apply to other Twelve Step programs.
Mind Control Two book-length polemics directly addressing the AA-as-cult issue appeared in 1991 and 1992. The more strongly written of the two, the enigmatically titled More Revealed by Ken Ragge, bluntly portrayed AA as a mind-control cult. "The Twelve Step 'support' groups . . . will make every effort to convince the person he is powerless, insane, incompetent, the group is God and he must 'work the program one day at a time,'" Ragged noted. "The most outstanding characteristic of these [AA] people is their intensely held belief in the goodness of AA and the badness of self." The other publication, Alcoholics Anonymous: Cult or Cure by Charles Bufe, was more moderate. Bufe concluded that AA is not a cult, "though it does have dangerous cult-like tendencies." Neither Ragge nor Bufe seems to have been aware of a very pertinent article written in 1984 by two astute Californians, Francesca Alexander and Michele Rollins. Alexander and Rollins, both sociologists, went underground in order to understand the world of the Steps as seen through the eyes of actual group participants. "[B]oth investigators attended AA meetings over a period of several months," they recounted. "In addition, one of the investigators actively ***umed the role of an alcoholic . . . she admitted to members of an AA gathering that she was ostensibly an alcoholic in need of help. She then chose a 'sponsor' and began to attend both official meetings and informal social gatherings." The result of this clandestine effort was a decisive study published in California Sociologist, "Alcoholics Anonymous: The Unseen Cult." Essentially, Alexander and Rollins measured AA against criteria developed by Robert J. Lifton, whose 1961 work, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, is a cl***ic work on thought reform or brainwashing. Measured against Lifton's standards, Alexander and Rollins concluded that AA is indeed a cult. "AA uses all the methods of brain washing, which are also the methods employed by cults," they found. "It is our contention that AA is a cult." Based on their field notes of actual meetings, Alexander and Rollins provided illustrations of AA's use of the thought reform techniques identified by Lifton. The specific techniques ...
"freek" freekbok...@hotmail.com
...
"Fred G. Mackey" d...@not.spam
And yet you expected people to scroll all the way down to see your reply?
fudge fudgepatter...@yahoo.com
sorry it was a bit long but comprehensive, course I cut and paste it, ya think I wrote it myselfLOL Fudge
"Alt.Drugs.Hard" doneganm...@hawaii.rr.com
I didn't, and I did.
Mike
"Fred G. Mackey" d...@not.spam
But very interesting and accurate - I read the whole thing.
Steady Eddy nonsmoki...@comcast.net
Translated: I am still using so I decided to blame AA/NA.
On May 27, 1:22 pm, fudge <fudgepatter...@yahoo.com> wrote: ...
THE GLASS PRISON dream...@gmail.com
Sorry, I forgot to delete the pasted text first.
"~xy~" ByRequestO...@cyber-rights.net
<snip> ...silly me, I thought I was going to learn all about home-baking...
pencils joycemof...@yahoo.com
I have said this before a long time ago, but for those who didn't know, and to carry this 12 step thing to to truly preposterous...is everybody aware that there are actually 12 step programs for people with nothing wrong with them...I mean, sure, everybody has "problems." but I am just saying they have 12 step programs for non drinkers, non dopers, non gamblers, non fat people, non overly zealous sex addicts, just ordinary people with no particular vices. THAT is how 12 stepping is taking over the country!
Just try to find a detox hospital that isnt 12 step, or at least 12 step optional. The 12 steppers, who claim to be anonymous organizations have taken over every single psychological and now just ordinary peoples lives. 12 steppers interestingly enough are NOT against SSRIs, EVERY other DRUG is WRONG, according to 12 steppers, BUT SSRIs are just fine. I wonder if 12 stepper leadership has a thing going with the pharmaceutical companies that make those ridiculously overpriced shitty drugs. No No...they wont take you if you are on some other drug at the drug or alkie rehabs, or diet rehabs, but they will give you a big hug if you are zombied out on those ****ING SSRIs.
Thats what they want ...a bunch of lobotomized, non thinking cult members taking it "one step at a time." "Easy does it" you 12 steppers, as a lot of people are on to your gig.
Joyce
"Alt.Drugs.Hard" doneganm...@hawaii.rr.com
In truth, not a single AA group ever turns anybody away, unless they're starting fights..I've been annoyed by drunks in the audience who just wouldn't stop mumbling to themselves, arguing with everything the speaker says,I WISHED they would be kicked out. But some of the older sober members merely took him aside and tried to calm him down. The only thing necessary for attendance at an AA meetimg is the belief that you even just "might" be an alcoholic. The only written down suggestion is: If you've used any mood altering drugs over the last 24 hours, please don't speak, but grab a member after the meeting and speak with him. Of course, if your use isn't obvious, you can speak and they won't even know. As much misinformation shown in movies and TV shows as it relates to drug use, the stuff we always complain,or at the least,make jokes about, I've heard even greater misinformation posted here about AA. I've no problem if you've tried AA, and it didn't work for you.Even after you tried your best. But at least don't make up stories about how AA operates. or repeat stories that your cousins uncles brother heard from his frined sho went to one meeting.....
Most of what is posted here about AA is just outright lies.
Mike
pencils joycemof...@yahoo.com
When I was in my early 20s, I turned to AA for help. After someone spiked a joint with a powerful psychodelic, totally unbeknowst to me, when I was just 19, I suffered years of chronic, constant, terrifying anxiety, that never let up. In an attempt to keep this "all the time" nightmare at bay, I was taking valium, and drinking. I was not a druggie, I was not an alcoholic, I was simply the victim of someone who did something to me by spiking that joint, that has affected me all my life, although to a much lesser extent after I got through my 20s. But, there I was, a young, attractive woman, and, the things those bastards at AA did to me, and I will never forget what they did to this "homeless girl" (back in those days I don't really believe we had homeless people, just really, really poor and vulnerable people).
In any case, I went to this AA meeting. No professional had been able to figure out what was wrong with me, or what all this anxiety was all about. I HATED drinking and taking the valium, and thought, being extremely naive, that AA just might be the answer. WRONG!!! First of all, the AA people told me to immediately stop taking the valium, cold turkey. Well, everybody today knows how dangerous THAT is. I went into convulsions. Thank god they didn't kill me! No one had a clue as to what they told me to do could have killed me. Then there was all the so-called "13 Stepping," otherwise known as some old AA predator pretending to "care" about the "newcomer," when all they wanted was to **** a very scared, and vulnerable person as I was. As some people know, I used to be rather well off financially, and this one ***hole, who had been on "The Program" for seven years of sobriety. I drove a brand new 1971 white Mercedes 450 SL, and, BOY, did this guy LOVE driving it and ****ing me in between. Finally, after about a week of shacking up at his place, and not feeling better, clean and sober, on the contrary, feeling I was losing my mind, somehow, I got home, how I don't remember. The first thing I did was call my psychiatrist, and tell him of my "adventures" with AA, and he, and I can picture this whole thing as if it were happening now said to me very calmly, "Joyce, take one of the valiums right now." I took the valium, with him still on the phone, and said "will I be ok now, doctor?" (I was feeling sooooooooooo strange, as I had been that whole week), and the doctor said (and I will NEVER forget what he said) "I don't know." I remember that I also wasn't sure I would come back to earth....I didn't have hallucinations or hear voices, I just, psychicly felt soooooooooooo weird, in a way I have never been able to articulate, sort of dissosiation, like I was outside my body, is as close as I can describe it.
Well, about 25 minutes p***ed, and slowly I started feeling normal again. If I had remained with those ****ing AA ***holes god only knows what back ward of some mental institution I would have ended up in.
Then there is another little story I would like to share. This "sober for years" AAer, who happened to be a lawyer, and was always saying he studied and p***ed the California Bar Exam drunk out of his mind.
Anyway, he was a good friend of my 13 stepper who was so fond of my little sports car. Now he was sooooooooooo well thought of by other members of AA. He was a sponsor to several other AA members. He was filthy rich, with a huge beach house in Laguna Beach. He had picked up the homeless girl that I mentioned earlier. This girl was about 25 or so, but she was very petite, she couldnt have weighed more than 90 lbs if that, and she looked much younger than her years. Well, this rich sober and clean AA lawyer prick may have been sober from booze, but in the process of becoming clean and sober, he seemed to pick up a perchant for perversion. What he did was give this homeless girl, who was his latest conquest in the 13 step game some money which he instructed her to spend on buying a Girl Scout Uniform, he also told her to shave off her pubic hair, and to tie her long hair in two pig tails so she would look like a little 12 year old girl, because this really turned him on ****ing a little pretend Girl Scout!!! It was disgusting. What is more disgusting, and less disgusting at the same time is that this perv woke up one morning, and in a fit of rage tossed her out of his house, and out of his life, because she refused to indulge in his perversions any longer. She hitch hiked to my place totally freaked out by the abuse she got from this wonderful example of AA Fellowship.
Then there is the third and last little story. There was this used car salesman whom I knew, who got me involved with AA to begin with. Oh yeah, he was sober, he had been sober for years and years and years, and I was most impressed with that. What I didnt know was that the guy was a Qualuud addict (remember this was way back in the early 70s, and "luuds" were available by script. Of course this dude was alcohol-
free, as it turned out he was popping luuds like candy all day long.
Yeah, another real, upstanding AA member.
Nothing I have said here is anything but the absolute truth, with no exaggeration necessary. There are SO many MORE stories I could tell everybody about what I have witnessed with AA and NA. Due ONLY to being forced to NA comaraderie, I am now dying of liver failure!!! I wouldnt wish this even on Misfit, the symptoms are more hellish each day, and all thanks to that ****ing mandatory NA meeting.
I have nothing but seething rage for everything 12 step. It is a most dangerous cult. It can kill you. It will kill me.
Joyce
pencils joycemof...@yahoo.com
Since according to several studies I have read, and from personal experience as well, the vast, vast majority do NOT get clean or sober via the 12 step route, it seems to me that for that reason alone, and not for the cultish nature of 12 stepping, for NEVER getting involved with AA or NA. A major danger, the danger that will eventually take my life, if GW Bush doesn't start WWIII, and vaporize all of us first, is that because AA and NA has such a failure rate, as a way to permanently remain clean and sober. So, ok, you go to AA or NA, and you are sincere in your deisre to remain clean and sober.
Unfortunately, you are not one of the "lucky" 3% who do, in fact, stay straight. You go to the meetings, and make close friendships with the other 97% who will "slip." So one day your best friend slips, and it is like a domino effect, you slip too, and ...
MarkIhde MarkI...@gmail.com
Why not? I've read it and as far as I'm concerned the previous post was excellent.
http://thetruthaboutaddiction.blogspot.com
John Barleycorn Ayuahua...@yahoo.com
You want to liberate my mind? You very scary. Much scarier than 12Step.
Just for kicks, I'll respond to a portion of this screed: Mystical manipulation Well, I guess they had a self-fulfilling mission to "expose" AA as a cult. What's wrong with a good ritual or two? AA is a spiritual program and they have the nerve to pray at meetings?? Oh, my! It's tantamout to going to a church and revealing "they say prayers in there!" Nobody is *required* to say anything. I oftentimes introduce myself as "I'm John, and I'm one." Nobody gives a shit, believe me.
This statement is absolute bollocks based on my personal observation of thousands of meetings, "newcomers to AA are solemnly invited to regard the group as God." For folks who struggle with an idea of a "power greater than themselves" the idea that the ideal group conscience can be utilized prior to investigation of a personal Higher Power. Something, anything besides one's self. Believe me, if I had been required to adopt the groups or any one else's idea of God, I would have been out the door. I have literally said in a meeting that, in my opinion, god is dried shit on a stick. Does that sound like group-think? <g> If AA is brainwashing, then so are the Boy Scouts, Amway and the Marines.
With the preponderance of truly dangerous and fraudulent orgs out there, it boggles me that intelligent folks get worked up over an org that neither advertises, promotes or charges money to join.
jb
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