A really beautiful and serious thing

[Ray Smith]

There's been some talk above in this thread as I've talked about rewriting things that this would be a useless thing to do becuase it would not impact the way AA does business. That perception, it has seemed to me, is a misperception. I never thought that AA could be 'reformed' from within by outsiders. Rather, a revised set of steps could form the basis for other people wanting to form an AA like group (or at least a group based on steps) which was not AA; which fit their values better and therefore would be more supportive for them.

People on the inside couldn't change it even if they wanted to, the first 164 pages are holy text.

And why would you want to attempt to fix something that never worked in the first place?

[jennifer]

I understand exactly what you mean,for it is like a generalization, which many in society do. If you call a child no good all there lives, than that is going to affect them. There should be no labels on anyone person. Children that are born hyper and unable to function at the "normal" level, are considered to have Attention deficit disorder, and put on medication. We need to accept people for who they are. That is where I don't agree with A.A., for I, myself, who used alcohol as a way to self medicate,but steered myself away from that for it was affecting my life negatively. I know I wouldn't want to call myself an alcolohlic my whole life because I am more than that, and I feel that even though I can't handle alcohol anymore, I would like to think that I am in control over that aspect of my life and that is not who I am. Respect and honesty is definitely the answer.

[John Rutledge]

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Edited October 29, 2009 by John Rutledge

[xenophon]

Alternatives do exist.

The first, and best, method is the most common. Do it yourself. Happens every day. People quit entirely or successfully cut back every day. And, little is known of people who solve the problem on their own. With good reason.

The alternatives are small because all are fairly new and a person is supposed to leave when finished with the job. AA wants to be huge -- empire building -- and does not want people to leave.

I am in favor of mentalhelpnet setting up a face to face group for their clients. It would be like any other therapy group that mentalhelpnet has. Science and common sense.

AA lives by coercion. Coercion is the prime recruitment tool for AA. never forget that.

[Abbadun]

Hi Jennifer

I find AA lacking because too many times its literature states that one must find a Higher Power to get sober. I dislike that AA Doctrine always portrays secular people as bad people. I am sorry but ideas like this do not belong in a program that is supposed to be about helping people.

AA Literature mentions the respect and tolerance that the program has for the beliefs of others, well in practice the Literature never shows the least bit of common decency toward Secular people.

AA does not have to get rid of Higher Power, but it can no longer say that it is the only way, there are too many sober secular people out there for such a lie to continue in AA.

Another problem is that the literature intentionally or unintentionally contradicts itself many times. It is problems like these that attracts objections toward AA.

This is not about Higher Power, but is about the teachings of AA showing at least a lowest level of common decency towards people of all types of spiritual beliefs.

AB

Why do people find A.A. so offensive? I,like others, go back and forth on this issue. Why the problem with finding a "higher power?" I understand that no one needs rules and regulations to have spirituallity, but as an addict of any sorts, chaos is huge factor in one's life. The twelve steps try to break that down, so there can be structure and clarity.

Snip

[JohnD]

I share my story of the advice given to me about moving from London occasionally at meetings. On one occasion a woman came up to me afterwards and said she had got into a relationship when six months sober and it was a disaster. The matter of AAs making relationships and marrying/living together is covered in the 12 x 12. Bill W. compares two different cases. One is where the couple are long-established AAs with a secure sobriety which he writes have a better than average success rate. "It is only where boy meets girl on AA campus and love follows at first sight that difficulties may develop." The long-established members will know that passage and need no warning but what do we do with the newcomers?

I once attended a meeting where two newcomers who didn't know each other, both without a drink that day, arrived together early at the meeting. There was only one other person there, and as he was setting up the meeting the two newcomers got chatting. They returned the next week together and on the third week it was clear that there was more than just friendship between them. One of the older members (a female) decided to have a word with them and, taking them aside, suggested that it wasn't a good idea for them to start a relationship just at present, that they should wait till they had longer sobriety. In another case a man who had been sober three months, who was attending meetings regularly, had a sponsor and had started studying the 12 steps, met a woman outside the fellowship and they started a relationship. Other AAs went to his sponsor and said the recent AA shouldn't start a relationship until he was a year sober and that the sponsor should put a stop to it. The sponsor thought about it, decided he didn't know whether this relationship would work out well or badly and that on that basis he didn't have the right to break up the relationship. He contented himself that if things went wrong he would be there to help pick up the pieces and so did nothing. Which of the two, the female advisor or the male sponsor, if either, got it right, and which got it wrong?

[JohnD]

The couple who met at their first meeting never returned after their third. They believed that AA members would try to split them up and they felt they had to choose between AA and each other. They got a flat and moved in together. After a few months he started drinking again and she threw him out. After that I lost track of them. So what did our intrepid AA member achieve with her advice? She may well have signed someone's death warrant. How much better it would have been if we had all been able to welcome them into the fellowship as a couple and support them if all went wrong. In the second case the relationship proved to be very supportive and the couple have been together now for over 15 years. I know them well. I was his sponsor. I think that for me to have given in to the coercion of others and to have attempted to break up that relationship would have been downright wicked.

The "rule" that AAs should not start relationships until they are a year sober is another that comes from treatment centres. It is easy to see why. Treatment centres are full of desperately distressed and confused individuals and some seek comfort in the arms of others. This gets the centres very bad publicity and it can be even worse when someone like Elizabeth Taylor marries someone she met at a Betty Ford clinic, a match that so many felt inappropriate. Given that he ended in jail for beating up a subsequent girlfriend the many may have been right. The "rule" has more to do with public relations than recovery. Having treatment centres telling people when they can start relationships and having AAs do so are different matters. If it happens in AA then there are people outside, academics, doctors, researchers for governments etc. equating AA with sects like the Moonies. This inevitably brings AA into disrepute. It should never happen, as it is not part of the AA program, but some mistakenly think it is. For people who drift in and out of relationships at the drop of a hat it may be a good idea for them to restrain themselves. For those who are more circumspect and choosy about their potential partners finding one is a big deal. For a sponsor to fob them off by telling them to wait till they are a year sober is a dereliction of duty. The sponsee needs help in deciding if they are getting into it just to make them feel better, in which case they are better off out of it, or whether this is a potentially good relationship which deserves further investigation. By the way, the woman who told me she got into a bad relationship at six months sober got into another one several years into sobriety. That was a disaster as well.

I indicated in my last post what Bill W. had written about it in the 12 x 12. He suggests strong AAs have a GOOD chance of making a good relationship and newcomers MAY be in trouble. He doesn't say they are. You may think he is sitting on the fence. He is - of course he is. He has the humility to recognise that he doesn't know, and that he can't legislate on the matter. It is unfortunate that some in the fellowship think they know better.

[xenophon]

The last two posts have laid it out clearly.

Do not go visiting in another man's life.

The issue is: adult leadership.

[Ray Smith]

So - here JR is again suggesting that I'm an uncritical promoter of AA. To which I will admit to being a few years ago, but to slap that label on me today produces an ill fit. JR, Ray and others probabably won't be happy until I have gone through the site and scrubbed away all the words they don't agree with. I don't intend to do that, however, prefering the other alternative which is to show that people's attitudes and knowledge can change over time, and that is okay.

Just because you're a professional, I don't expect you to instinctively know everything, but be able to change and adapt when faced with new information; a real professional doesn't stop learning. You'd be amazed at how many people won't listen to any negativity about AA at all.

And BTW, I've listened to several of your podcasts in order to learn more. I never finished my degree in Human Services, but was hired by an ACT team a while back for my substance abuse and alternative treatment knowledge.

[Abbadun]

It is common knowledge that most people fail at Sobriety a few times. AA Doctrine (customs) is quick to point out to a person that relapsed what AA suggestion that they have ignored.

If one stays in AA with open eyes you will see people who know how to "talk the talk" quietly relapse over and over without other members seeing the need to dissect their behaviors or lack of behavior. All they get is a "welcome back, keep coming"

AB

The couple who met at their first meeting never returned after their third. They believed that AA members would try to split them up and they felt they had to choose between AA and each other. They got a flat and moved in together. After a few months he started drinking again and she threw him out. After that I lost track of them. So what did our intrepid AA member achieve with her advice

Snip

[xenophon]

It is clear that opinions regarding AA are polarized. A useful and verifiable truth may lie somewhere in the center. AA is useful to some people. AA is not useful to others. AA is such that actual psychic harm may insue.

It is not impossible that the clientele of AA are such that a solution is very difficult to implement. That is, for some who are very dependent upon alcohol, the prognosis is poor. I accept that. That may be a reason for the low success rate of AA.

For many, the drinking is the tip of the iceburg. They also suffer from mental disorders. The drinking is a serious obstacle; the drinking really compicates matters.

The key, I think, is getting a grip early in the process. I think that the professionals here may agree with that. A possible approach is motivational interviewing and helping people find reality based options to drinking to assuage mental suffering. Many people do drink for that reason -- assuage mental suffering.

There are viable options to AA. All are much smaller than AA.

They include: SMART Recovery; SOS; LifeRing; Women for Sobriety; Moderation Mangement and HAMS. The last two are harm reduction.

[Abbadun]

Hi

Lifeline meetings are just starting to come into my area, still too far away to visit often. Even if Secular meetings were in my area I think that is would still be important to point out the gross ethical problems in AA because too many addiction workers are far too embedded in AA to be fair and of any help to Secular people coming to them for help.

I have sat in meeting with Addiction Counselors paid by the state and listen to them state that clients have to get a higher power, but not to say this in front of Case Workers from the Dept. of Social services.

Abbadun

It is clear that opinions regarding AA are polarized. A useful and verifiable truth may lie somewhere in the center. AA is useful to some people. AA is not useful to others. AA is such that actual psychic harm may insue.

It is not impossible that the clientele of AA are such that a solution is very difficult to implement. That is, for some who are very dependent upon alcohol, the prognosis is poor. I accept that. That may be a reason for the low success rate of AA.

For many, the drinking is the tip of the iceburg. They also suffer from mental disorders. The drinking is a serious obstacle; the drinking really compicates matters.

The key, I think, is getting a grip early in the process. I think that the professionals here may agree with that. A possible approach is motivational interviewing and helping people find reality based options to drinking to assuage mental suffering. Many people do drink for that reason -- assuage mental suffering.

There are viable options to AA. All are much smaller than AA.

They include: SMART Recovery; SOS; LifeRing; Women for Sobriety; Moderation Mangement and HAMS. The last two are harm reduction.

[xenophon]

AA does greatly benefit from the inertia of unconsidered good opinion. It is the automatic option. Chosen by many, owing to that inertia.

That opinion will not change quickly or soon. But, people vote with their feet every day. 95% are gone within one year. And, there are no exit polls. Denial does not answer the question of why do these people leave? The concept of denial is an evasion of the question of why do people leave in such numbers.

Denial is a convenient idea. It allows the avoidance of the difficult matter of: Am I doing something wrong?

Something is wrong here. If alcohol dependence and alcohol abuse are to be taken seriously, changes in the methods have to be revisited.

In this life, one is either the hammer or the anvil.

[Abbadun]

Hi

Does anyone think that many Churches other than the Unitarian Universalist would house a Secular Recovery Group? The Secular Groups on the fringes of my area all seems to be housed in Hospitals, Community Centers or Foundations.

Marketing place (store location) is just as important as price and advertising to the success of a product. Well AA has a monopoly on the greatest locations for Self-Help Recovery Groups

AB

AA does greatly benefit from the inertia of unconsidered good opinion. It is the automatic option. Chosen by many, owing to that inertia.

That opinion will not change quickly or soon. But, people vote with their feet every day. 95% are gone within one year. And, there are no exit polls. Denial does not answer the question of why do these people leave? The concept of denial is an evasion of the question of why do people leave in such numbers.

Denial is a convenient idea. It allows the avoidance of the difficult matter of: Am I doing something wrong?

Something is wrong here. If alcohol dependence and alcohol abuse are to be taken seriously, changes in the methods have to be revisited.

In this life, one is either the hammer or the anvil.

[John Rutledge]

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Edited October 29, 2009 by John Rutledge

[xenophon]

No one really wants to associate very closely with drunkards. Just as no one really wants to associate with the "mentally ill". There is real stigma attached to both. I do not expect that to change.

Maybe both hit pretty close to home. No one is really immune from either.

I do not know about those who have mental suffering and want help. I expect that most are pretty much on their own. I know that I was.

Same with those who drink too much. A person in that situation is not going to get competent aid. What they will get is 12 step. That is worse than nothing.

Better to do it on your own; accept it. Read and learn all you can about how to get a grip. And, do it on your own. There really is no good option.

[Mark]

Better to do it on your own

That may work for you, but I know that is not the best method for all. Many people really need social support and guidence as to methods for not relapsing, etc. it's not as simple as you make it out to be.

[Ray Smith]

That may work for you, but I know that is not the best method for all. Many people really need social support and guidence as to methods for not relapsing, etc. it's not as simple as you make it out to be.

Bad treatment is worse than no treatment.

Why is the mortality rate in AA so high? (Vaillant) Why does being in AA result in more binge drinking? (Brandsma) Or increase the rate of rearrests for public drunkenness? (Ditman)

AA has a 5% success rate* so does quitting on your own. If a treatment method is to be considered successful, shouldn't it cure more people than no treatment?

*Rand Corp; the Sobells; Vaillant; "During Bill's stay in Akron, he and Bob calculated their success rate to be about 5 percent..." Bill W. A Biography of Alcoholics Anonymous Cofounder Bill Wilson, Francis Hartigan, pages 91-92

[xenophon]

I have come to the conclusion that AA does not really do very much of anything -- good or bad.

At best, AA is a variety of replacement therapy: go to meetings, do the steps, etc., instead of drink.

It does give people a place to hang out -- go to a meeting, instead of the bar.

The 12 steps are basically busy work.

Getting a sponsor does not accompish a lot. It can help for people who want to be told what to think, feel and do.

If a person is going to get better, they are going to get better. AA has very little to do with either getting worse or getting better.

[SuziQ]

My goodness--such carrying on about AA. I guess someone was sentenced to meetings or they would not be so upset. I just went because I had a problem and because of that I stayed and worked the steps. I saw no harm in them and they helped me look at myself and change. Should people be sentenced to AA? Just dump them on the group and let AA deal with their anger and ridiculous behavior? Probably not.

I have no clue how many stay or go or get sober or stay sober. AA doesn't keep track. And that was precisely why AA worked for me. AA doesn't have rules, it has suggestions. There were structured groups and non-structured groups. Some were religious and some weren't. I am sure it would not have worked for me in a small town so not only does AA not work for everyone, but it doesn't work everywhere. I got sober in the LA area in the sixties. What a wild time we had---all us undisciplined AA members. We went on picnics--to the beach--sat in coffee shops 'til 2am and worked to support ourselves. At first, sobriety was almost as much fun as drinking---then as time wore on---it became more fun than drinking. I unabashedly love sobriety and having control of my behavior. If I decide to be outrageous today, it is with my full knowledge and knowledge of possible consequences. Did I believe everything about AA? Of course not. And I didn't have to. No one ever asked me to leave a meeting or told me not to come back. If I followed the steps and wrote down what I did wrong (according to my own principles) told some one else and then had to make amends---then I thought about what I did. And writing down what you did wrong is a great practice. It is just too much trouble to write a bunch of lies and excuses to yourself and it is very tedious. Being helpful to others is nice and causes pleasant sensations.. I always knew that I was not the center of the universe--so a higher power was not difficult to accept. As a child I had wondered if we were like an ant colony in a universe too big to even see or understand.

Did AA keep me sober? No, but it gave me tools to use to keep myself sober. And it gave me examples of what those tools could do and how to use them. I got to choose which people I picked to watch and learn from---based on my own observation. I was assigned to no one nor told I had to be like anyone. For me, AA was a gate to freedom.

So after all these years Don't knock it until you have truly tried it and and if you don't like it---then just walk away. Do I attend AA today? No. My drinking and using was for about a five year period. I would not define my life by a five year period---and stay stuck there. I'll be 74 this summer. I loved my years in AA and it was not a bunch of drunks. There were many very bright, sober people I still love and miss. AA is about a bunch of sober people. Bars are about a bunch of drunk people.

I could go on and on, but that's enough for now.

SuziQ

[John Rutledge]

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Edited October 29, 2009 by John Rutledge

[SuziQ]

Hi John,

Sorry you had a bad experience in AA. And there are many who do. As with any approach to addiction, it does not work for everyone. And, I went many years ago. I also had been to psychological therapy and some doctors were great and some were nuts. I read many books and some helped and some didn't. For whatever reasons, I am not very worried about the opinion of others and wasn't back then either. So, the group was never my conscience and I was single and no one pressured me to do any thing. I feel the same way today.

I don't think that I am unique. I was fortunate to be in a well educated group of people who were critical --maybe skeptical--of the program and we spent many hours discussing the nuances of the program. And the general climate was different---it was the sixties--and rebellion abounded. There were cults and saffron robes, gurus and chanting, sex therapy, nude therapy, scream therapy and hippies. I lived at Venice Beach in So Calif.

Turning one's "life and will" over to the care of anyone or any group is dangerous and AA does not suggest that. It says turn your life and will over to the care of God as you understand him. I took it a step further. If I planned a picnic and the day turned out to have severe storms, then I turned my life and will over to the care of nature that day and didn't go. AA is made up of individuals and some are pretty sick and some aren't. I would never push any specific type of therapy on anyone. No one said that reasoning and logical thinking could not be my higher power. And that is generally my higher power, but that, of course, fails me at times. I do love that alcohol and/or drugs are not my higher power today and that they do not govern my behavior.

As I stated, I am not sure AA in a small town would have worked for me. Actually, that is when I stopped attending meetings--when I moved to a small town. I simply was not interested in anyone else's opinion of my sobriety or my lifestyle. And I am not a very "free actor", just a free thinker. No one would ever say I live some outrageous lifestyle---but some days I would like to. I'm too old now.

I don't have the "Big Book " around anymore so I can't debate specific passages. And, no, I am not on a dry drunk---thanks for the positive observation-- I am just living life as it presents itself on a day by day basis.

Also, thanks for your comments. I wish I had printed them so I could reference them as I write this---I blame my age for my forgetfulness--and even that is open to discussion--

SuziQ

[SuziQ]

Hi John,

One thing I did miss in my response. I did work the steps and in many ways continue to do so. Those are the tools that I talked about. And, of course, I am the one who stayed sober and I will take credit for my sobriety. If I were a mechanic and repaired a car with the help of a diagram, schooling, and certainly tools, I would say I repaired the car. I use many tools for sober living, but AA was the first tool and I am glad it was there for me. Actually, it was the first time I linked my crazy behavior to drinking. I thought there was something wrong with me. What a relief to find that most of the stuff I pulled on myself and others stopped as soon as I stopped drinking.

Have a good day. Do you live in Europe?

SuziQ

[John Rutledge]

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Edited October 29, 2009 by John Rutledge

[xenophon]

It is important to be the driver. AA may be useful to some as replacement therapy or a social group. A place to hang out until you get your act together. Then, walk away.