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• The cult's recruitment techniques are often deceptive.

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• The cult weakens the follower psychologically by making him or her depend upon the group to solve his or her problems.

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• The cults manipulate guilt to their advantage.

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• Cults are antiwoman,

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I find it ironic that alcoholics who spend their lives in bars and/or with dubious moraly lax individuals would be concerned about "horny" people at an AA meeting.

There are women only meetings for the irresistibly beautiful to go to.

When I was referring to "irresistibly beautiful" I was being tongue in cheek kidding . It was a reference to the EGO's of women who use the "their all men" excuse to avoid getting honest with themselves.

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•Cults are apocalyptic and believe themselves to be the remnant who will survive the soon-approaching end of the world.

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• Many cults follow an "ends justify the means" philosophy.

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AA is accountable in the event of serious complaints?

AA is not exclusively the only option available to alcoholics?

The twelve steps of AA are not "secret" knowledge

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barabara
Personally, I don't care whether or not anyone believes AA is a "cult".

I am more interested in discussing the damage some people claim to have suffered in AA, ( some of us believe we and our loved ones suffered damage in AA).

[b:f7f9b91557]I believe we are attempting to understand and possibly remedy that damage.[/b:f7f9b91557]

All of this tedious haggling over semantics is merely an obfuscation of those issues.

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The worshipful communion of an AA meeting

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barabara
I prefer not to get into the argument about the meaning of the word "cult"

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barabara
Isn't insisting that AA "is not a cult" really intended to silence detractors of the organization?
So it seems to me.

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barabara
What exactly is your point?

OK, I think AA is a cult.
I can go into great detail if you'd like.
Does that satisfy you?

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If there was a story to report regarding profts from AA or NA making someone rich, gross abuses with a growing number of hurt people, "brainwahsing" and destroyed families, there would be press articles and other media investigative reports.

When I said media reports this means mainsteam media such as Associated Press, Reuters. Television News Networks such as NBC, CBS or CNN. Perhaps some newspaper investigative pieces such as NY Times, Washington Post or Chicago Tribune.

Have you posted something substantial from such mainsteam sources?

I don't recall seeing anything in the mainstream media that supports your conclusions or Stanton Peele specifically regarding AA or NA.

I do watch the media closely to collect and archive articles about brainwashing, destructive groups and cults.

Maybe I missed news reports about the destructiveness and repeated problems reported about AA and NA.

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Alcoholics Anonymous is a Cult ?
Mark Dombeck, Ph.D.
Updated: Jun 1st 2006

We've got a comment system on Mental Help Net, and lately we've been getting a lot of comments regarding an old essay I wrote concerning Alcoholics Anonymous. The essay, titled "AA is to shame as a hot knife is to butter", presents a generally positive view of the Alcoholic's Anonymous fellowship and twelve step programs in general. The positive view expressed in that essay came out of my experience working for a year (during my postdoctoral fellowship) in a partial hospital program (otherwise known as an IOP or Intensive Outpatient Program) for dually diagnosed people.
My positive impression of AA came out of that year of experience; watching the patients rise and fall and noting when people were able to keep it together and when they weren't.
My experience with AA was never very much first hand. I have been to exactly two AA meetings in my life. Both were observational in nature, a "field trip" if you will, so that I could see what I was recommending to my patients. What I saw during those two meetings was non-remarkable.

Its no secret that AA's focus on submission to a higher power has broad potential for abuse. That focus on submission and making ammends is there for a very important reason - it encourages the growth of empathy and social solidarity in participant addicts; qualities which help them resist the lure of their drugs. And yet, that very submission also comes with a terrible vulnerability. it is important that anyone teaching submission as a way of life also be a kind and loving person, because otherwise, that submission becomes the basis for cult-like cohesion, as the commenter points out. Sociopathic types who also tend to be addicts are very likely to get themselves into AA and then use it for their selfish purposes. At any given moment within AA, there are going to be people who are honestly struggling with remaining sober and people who are using and not admitting it, or not taking the steps necessary to end it; people who understand hurt and who want to help others stop hurting and people who are all too willing to use other people for selfish purposes.

[comments from readers about the preceding article]

AA has actually had a long standing tradition of cruising the courts for possible members. Check out the AA General Service guidline entitled "Cooperating with Court, DWI and similar programs" Available here: [www.alcoholics-anonymous.org];
[www.nytimes.com]
The problem of the "cult" label - Lucille - Jul 5th 2006?I am a Doctoral student in psychology and have been researching the subject of 'cults'. I am not a member of AA and have never been a member of AA. I would like to inform you about the origin and problems with the word. The word 'cult' was originally tied to the concept of 'brainwashing'. In fact it was almost entirely defined by the theory of brainwashing (i.e. a cult is group that practices brainwashing). The theory of brainwashing was in response to faulty information regarding communist indoctrination techniques. Despite it poor scientific support it was a wildly popular theory and maintained some sort of scientific backing until the American Psychiatric Association made an official statement stating that the brainwashing theory was unsupported by scientific evidence. The Supreme Court then ruled that Margaret Singer (a cult expert and widely used expert witness) could not longer testify in court because her testimony as an expert was not supported by her field (as demonstrated by the APA report). Since then Brainwashing (aka: mind control, thought control, etc.) has been widely considered a illegitimate theory and has not been used in the field of psychology for almost thirty years. Despite this awareness there were a group of people very determined to continue their war against ‘cults’ and they continued to propagate the theory and the cure ‘deprogramming’ or ‘exit counseling’. The media has always loved the idea of mind control and cults and has favored only the most extreme stories of death and insanity to support the idea. The truth is that there is no support for the brainwashing theory, and no clear or scientifically supported definition of a cult. I have read hundreds of definitions but the problem is that there is no definition that is actually based in facts rather then perceptions. For example: who decides if a leader is “charismatic”, who gets to decide how much time spent in worship is “too much”, who gets to decide where the line is between normal social indoctrination and “cult indoctrination”. If there is a scientific way to do this it has not yet been discovered. Every cohesive group will meet some of the ‘criteria’ for a cult. Cohesive groups have been shown to be very powerful and can be very beneficial to human being emotional and physical health. Unfortunately the power of social cohesion can work both ways. Where there is a cohesive group there is a way to be abused within the group or excluded from that group. When abuse occurs it can be very hard to separate from the group because one has attached her identity to the group. This abuse or pain does not define a cult- it defines a harmful group experience. Exclusion from a cohesive group (that one has been a part of) is also universally painful and can be very emotionally damaging. The hard part is that two people in the same group can have very different experiences. One can experience it as abusive and another as supportive. Sometimes abuse is clear (as in the case of physical abuse or rape) but most cases it is a subjective experience that cannot be ‘proven’ either way. This in no way makes it a less valid experience. The problem, I believe, is that people who have experienced a group as abusive feel invalidated and begin to look for support for their feelings. The word ‘cult’ has a lot of power and can feel very validating of one’s experience. Unfortunately, it often does that at the cost of invalidating another person’s experience (the one who felt helped and strengthened by the group). People who have chosen to define a group as a cult often resort to the brainwashing theory’s language and infers that members are somehow stupid, unable to think for themselves, or weak. This is often very hurtful to people who still have a positive affiliation to the group. My great hope is that everyone’s experience can be validated and honored. Issues that include violation of law such as theft, physical abuse, rape, etc. need to be dealt with seriously and with due process. The question of mandating AA is a separate question and should be dealt with in terms of the efficacy, and religious freedom questions- but I believe it should not be mixed with inferences that AA is a ‘cult’.


A Better Meeting
Mark Dombeck, Ph.D.
Updated: Jul 1st 2006

It seems to me that helping the group to self-police is important and imperative if that group is going to be maximally supportive for its members.
I have run psychotherapy groups in my work as a psychologist, and I have run an online community as well. There are always members who try to dominate groups, and there must always be an 'immune system' for any group that exists to minimize abuses. In a psychotherapy situation, that immune system is called the therapist. In an online group, it is called the moderator. In an anonymous group with no real leader, the group itself has to have a way to keep itself in check.
The question of coercion needs to be addressed. I'm thinking that this is not something that really is within AA's control (whether or not people are mandated to join them). This is a legal issue, instead. Personally, I'd like to see a whole lot more public money be put into professional treatment programs based on sound scientifically based principles, and for courts to mandate people into such programs. This isn't entirely practical, however. This money is just never made available at the level where enormous numbers of people can be helped on a daily drop-in basis, and hence AA is pushed because it is ubiquitous.
Anyway, those are my thoughts for what they are worth. I'll put the questions to you again, because I am interested in your answers to them more than my own: What would a useful alternative to AA look like? What parts of AA are useful and should be incorporated into this new alternative, and what parts need to be left behind? What reforms and innovations should be added so that the resulting program is more useful to its members?