The first step being an admission or confession of powerlessness is troublesome, to say the least.

Some of The 12 Suggested Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous

1 We admitted we were powerless over alcohol--that our lives had become unmanageable.

2 Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3 Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

11 Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12 Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

****************************************

Read these over and imagine that you are a lonely, sick, desperate alcoholic, willing to do anything to get sober.

Now, imagine that you are a narcissistic, power/sex/opportunity-seeking sociopath in a room peppered with at least a few trusting and desperate alcoholics, (look for them among the hipper ones), many of them of the opposite sex.

Picture yourself 5 years down the road after you have gotten the lay of the land, so to speak, and learned how to work your particular group efficiently.

Better yet, imagine that you are a good-looking fast talking hustler, of either gender, new to town, and well aware of the possibilities for personal gratification available in a AA newcomer's group.

It may or may not be a cult, but it's a risky business. The risk lies in the steps. And the fact that a large proportion of "members" are not voluntary, but court-ordered. And the fact that nobody meets you at the door with that little tidbit of information.

Like I said, most people live through it. You learn real fast what it's all about. It's a great learning experience.

I don't think a person is ever powerless, since (IMHO) they can always [i:b529966b05]choose[/i:b529966b05] whether and what to eat, drink, smoke, shoot, snort or do whatever. What I'm saying is that nobody can force an addiction upon you; only you can do that.

I don't deny that 12 Step programs do help some people, but I'm sure it isn't the only way.

Some 12-step groups like AA have a rule of not dating or becoming emotionally involved with people who are new to the program. They tell you not to date another AA member in your first year of recovery because you are in a very emotional, childlike state and can be easily taken advantage of. The slang term for dating a newbie is "13 stepping".

But even though it's frowned upon, it does happen, and people do get hurt. It happened to a friend of mine. He became bitter toward AA as a result and went back to drinking.

There is an alternative to AA that does help people. It is called Rational Recovery. It doesn't accept addiction as a disease that keeps people hooked on AA meetings, always wary of a relapse.

In my work with the homeless, many complained of the specific meetings that were held in their local area. It could be that some of the con artists, psychopaths, hookers, etc. that attended these meetings wanted to prey on the weakest population they could find - people with really nothing to lose.

A few of my homeless addicts recovered with RR after doing AA. AA, in my opinion, is based on spotlighting weakness, while RR focuses on an individual's strengths.

What I find disturbing with AA is that it is being touted as THE only method. A large percentage of medical and social services base all their recovery methods on AA. Courts sentence people to meetings. I don't particularly like the way AA has infiltrated these systems and is being taken as the last word in recovery.

Yep, Hope, that is the problem, isn't it?

I always hated it whenever anyone said AA was the last house at the end of the road, the last hope, all they had left. (To be honest, for a while I almost, but not quite, believed it).

The only truth... the only way...the only hope...
Kind of sounds like a Cult, doesn't it?

So let's send all our miscreants and hopeless drunken reprobates there!

(It really improves the quality of a meeting to have several resentful, reluctant, non-repentent alkies there who have been forced to go and pretend to be grateful.)

Just for the record, Gulab, there are no rules (besides those for how to conduct yourself at actual meetings). Members can do whatever they want Outside of meetings. The steps etc. are only suggestions, according to the "messiah", Bill.

Quote
Hope
There is an alternative to AA that does help people. It is called Rational Recovery. It doesn't accept addiction as a disease that keeps people hooked on AA meetings, always wary of a relapse.

Yes, I read a book about Rational Recovery several years ago, when a church I attended gave meeting space to every 12 step group in town. (I no longer attend [i:3e2c883366]any[/i:3e2c883366] church, that being one 'addiction' I outgrew. ;) ) I also read a book critical of AA at the time, though I can't recall the title, and I read a couple of pro-AA books on the history of that movement. Frankly, I wanted to understand what was going on within what I now realize was a cult organization itself (the Unity church).

I realized that alcoholism (or any other substance abuse) is not a [i:3e2c883366]disease[/i:3e2c883366] but a [i:3e2c883366]choice[/i:3e2c883366]. I cannot accept that an act of [i:3e2c883366]choosing[/i:3e2c883366] to put a certain substance into your body could be anything other than a [i:3e2c883366]choice[/i:3e2c883366] (unless someone is holding a gun to your head, which they aren't).

Another thing I found rather odd was that I knew a person who made a point of telling everyone he met that he was an alcoholic. It's almost like whenever he was introduced to a new person, he'd say, "Hi, I'm so-and-so, and I'm an alcoholic." And he would grin gleefully when saying this. So one day I asked him how long it had been asince he had a drink, and he said "Thirty-five years." You could have knocked me over with a feather! So I responded, "Then I think you've recovered and can call yourself an ex-alcoholic, or better yet, just don't keep bringing it up, because it's in the distant past." But no. He's an alcoholic, and he wears that on his sleeve.

AA has a bit of language, too, that I find disturbing.

A few weeks ago, when at the end of my rope in mentoring a formerly homeless man who was having problems being in housing, I called a state addiction hotline, one for caregivers. The woman actually yelled at me and wanted to know why I was ENABLING this man to drink. She wouldn't let me speak and said I was in denial every time I tried to interrupt her. Well - if I was in DENIAL, I would not have been calling. She wound up her tirade by asking me what was wrong with me.

This particular man I was working with started drinking at age 12, has had head injuries and is emotionally immature. He had been drinking nearly 24/7, would get drunk, pass out, get up and do it again, and now has a beer a few times a week. I networked and got him into housing (The YMCA), food stamps, and got donations of a small fridge and microwave. All that, according to hotline lady, was enabling. She would not answer my questions as to HOW this was enabling, nor what it was enabling him to do. I suppose it's the fact that he still drinks at all which is the thing that enraged her.

I don't know if AA is a cult or just cultish. This hotline woman seemed to be on quite a power trip. Just who benefits by having AA's tentacles in all these social arenas is a mystery.

The AA "vocabulary" is deeply woven through many churches and various spiritual/religious organizations. In the Unity church, for example, a lot of church members (and indeed many of the ministers!) are 12 steppers, and so the AA lingo is already a part of Unity-speak.

I've observed over the years that a group does not need a single leader to be a cult. The [i:0622f3644b]groupthink[/i:0622f3644b] takes on a life all its own in many "leaderless" groups, where the creed or rules of the organization are held above all. Anyone not in accord with the [i:0622f3644b]groupthink[/i:0622f3644b] is in trouble.

The courts often send alkies to a program at the county guidance clinic that is not strictly AA, but still permeated by AA thought.

The whole thing about enabling is that it allows you to feel righteous about never lifting a hand in kindness, if that's what you want. Like tough love.

There is a lot of cold-heartedness and cruelty that can be justified as "tough-love" and a desire not to "enable" others. This goes on constantly in AA meetings.
So does lay diagnosis of mental disorders, advice about what medications to take or not take, etc., etc.

The bad thing is, a newcomer to AA is led to believe that the group is expert in all matters alcoholic and can give expert advice, and this is NOT TRUE!
There are no rules and regulations in AA, no professionally trained, unbiased watchdogs checking up on meetings.