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Overview:

Welcome

If you have stumbled across this site and you are a member of A.A. then please read the following statement before entering. I am not against A.A. if it truly works for you. If you can safely say A.A. is working for you then I would suggest you close your browser and move on, although being aware of these concerns may place you in a better position to deal with them. One thing I would ask you however, is that you do not adopt the belief that A.A. is the only way in which to recover and force this down the throats of vulnerable problem drinkers that come to your fellowships in the hope of a solution. Telling them this may cause them harm – this is the fundamental objection I have to A.A.

If you are a member of A.A. and are finding that the program is not working for you and that none of the promises are coming true then please read these pages. In the Big Book Bill Wilson accuses anyone who disagrees with his program of being guilty of ‘contempt prior to investigation.’ For years I was guilty of the exact opposite; I was guilty of admiration prior to investigation, which is an equally dangerous mindset. If this is your first time here, you may find it hard to keep an open-mind having been subjected to nothing but positive messages about the program. Don’t worry this is normal. When I was a member of A.A. I had been brainwashed into believing that anyone who doubted this program was ignorant and evil. In fact I used to accuse them of murder because instilling doubt of the program in an alcoholic could lead to relapse, and in A.A. to drink is to die. If the slogan ‘don’t quit before the miracle’ is wearing thin to you then you are in the right place. I am not going to make any empty promises about spiritual awakenings or serenity, but I assure you what you read here is my experience of ‘recovery’. Depending how far you are into the program, your self will have been shattered and you will be full of fear, and sites like this may increase that fear because they threaten the one thing that thus far has offered itself as a solution. A.A. says its program works if you work it. Of course the program works if you work it because it is part of the program not to take a drink. How can that not work for anyone who wants to remain sober? You are not powerless over alcohol. If you take a drink it is because you choose to do so, and you are responsible for anything you choose to do regardless of whether you are drunk or sober. I no longer have a drink problem and my solution does not involve a belief in something outside of myself, but rather in myself. That is not to say I do not believe in anything outside of me, of course I do; we all do, but when it comes to a problem that is in me, created by my choices, I have found that turning to myself and empowering myself is a far more helpful solution than any other.

Many people argue that airing these concerns I may be contributing to the relapse of an individual. Initially the fear of that made me think, and then think again. My conclusion was very simple: if this program can only work if people are kept in ignorance and protected from the same freedoms the rest of us enjoy, then the program is dangerous. If all it takes is someone like myself and a few words to cast doubt over this program, then surely that should ring more alarm bells than anything I actually have to say, regardless of whether I am right or wrong. AA has used the fear inducing tactic of death for too long now to halt any reasonable and rational look into its principles. This practice must stop before AA is so established that it becomes untouchable; perhaps it is already too late.

I get a lot of messages from current members of A.A. and other 12 step fellowships suggesting that I am able to stay sober by criticising A.A. and that they are happy that by maintaining this site I am able to achieve some form of sobriety. As I said above, the only thing that keeps my drinking problem at bay is myself. I would ask anyone in the fellowship to practice one of your slogans, ‘Live and let live’. You are allowed to indoctrinate ‘newcomers’ with your beliefs, please allow me to share my experience and let these people make a decision based on both positive and negative information. A.A. has controlled the flow of information at its meetings for too long only allowing approved literature. This smacks of something commonly called, ‘The Thought Police.’ If the 12 steps cannot withstand any scrutiny, perhaps they are not suitable to be ‘sold’ as the only solution to alcoholism and other addictions.  There are other ways in which to recover.

Alcoholics Anonymous and its sister fellowship Narcotics Anonymous have a monopoly over the treatment of addiction in both America and the United Kingdom. Few people ever question their methods assuming that they mean well and anything that might help cannot be bad for those alcoholics or addicts that society has no solution to offer. For the most part what the layperson knows about addiction appears to be ‘facts’ that have trickled down from these groups. Without even realising it, as a society, we have given tremendous power and influence to AA and NA. After being in ‘recovery’ over a year for the second time, I decided I needed to question the principles that were supposedly keeping me alive, and indeed would keep me alive, provided I practiced them. I had never really questioned their origins, or done any research into the claims I heard in the rooms of AA and NA. I had always assumed they were the ‘experts’ and I was the one in need; I knew nothing and they knew everything. I was the one with the problem, and they had the solution.  It should be pointed out that it is very much frowned upon to question the 12 steps or any of the fellowships that endorse them as ‘suggestions’. AA has slogans designed to stem any such desires but it was one in particular that ignited a very uncomfortable feeling in me when I heard it. ‘There are none too stupid for this program, but there are plenty too smart.’ I am someone that believes in the process of research as a method of learning and growing, and that is blatantly anti-intellectualism. People in AA openly admit that they may be being brainwashed by this program, but then go on to justify this by stating that their brains need washing. You only ever really hear positive ‘shares’ in the meetings which makes it very hard to consider the negative attributes to this program, especially if you are in you are a newcomer as it is suggested you attend 90 meetings in 90 days. It is very hard to explain just how hard it is to be open about any concerns within AA and NA. Most people have a conditioned response regardless of whether they are ‘in’ the rooms or out of them. What they say is, ‘If it helps them, who cares?’ Of course this is a fair response, provided it is actually helping alcoholics and addicts, but I am not sure it is, in fact I know that for the majority, it does not. Where does this assumption come from? I am not saying people are silly for believing this, but all I want to know is how this belief has come about. It quite simply is not true. The fact is that A.A. only works for 5% of people, but there is evidence to suggest that those 5% may not actually be helped by A.A. but by themselves. I found it even harder to accept that I was the first person to question it. I wasn’t, but why did I feel like I was? Why did it feel so wrong, so dirty, so dangerous, so frightening to stand up against this so called ‘suggested’ way of recovery? To do so felt like I was being evil and as though I was destroying myself. From the age of 19 I have believed in this program despite the fact that I have not always adhered to its principles which has left me feeling less than good about myself throughout that time. Even when I was living this program, I felt bad – if you work this program it makes damn sure you continue to need it. Why do the majority of people believe that AA is so good despite the fact they know so little about it and its principles? This is the question I ultimately set out to answer when I began this research.

But before I could do this I had to go through the process of opening my mind up again. It has been closed to any alternative form of recovery from the very first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous I attended.  As soon as I heard anything remotely negative about this program my instinct was not to listen to the arguments and weigh them up, but rather set about proving them wrong before I had even heard the rationale behind them. AA had to be right, no ifs or buts. AA is very good at stopping anyone criticising its program openly by using fear tactics that involve death. They instil the belief that to drink is to die, and with that make those of us that question the program feel as though we may contribute to someone’s death should we air our concerns publicly.  This combined with the fact that as individuals who are pressured into accepting that we are insane in Step 2, makes it very hard for anyone to believe in their own thoughts, let alone scrutinise AA. Alcoholics by their very nature and in part due to the consequences of their drinking are not credible, so it is highly unlikely anyone outside or in AA will listen to their concerns. Many of us are forced into accepting this way of life because we are reduced to nothing in Step 1. Our egos are deflated to such an extent that we have no faith in our own thoughts or abilities, and we surrender to everything before us because we are beat. I believe those who are indoctrinated into A.A.’s program of recovery go through two battles: Firstly they battle with alcohol (or drugs) and secondly they try to fight A.A.’s attempts to take control of their lives. The latter attempt is undertaken at a time in people’s lives when they are at their worst, most vulnerable and most weak. The battle is short lived, and for a time there is a certain sweetness in the inevitable surrender that ensues. Step One states that we admit we are powerless over alcohol. As an outsider one may argue that this makes sense based on the alcoholics previous attempts to control their drinking, or we may think this is self-defeating. However A.A. does not believe the alcoholic is only powerless over alcohol once they take the first drink, but at any time. In the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous it states very clearly that at times there is no human defence against the first drink. Once it has got you to believe this it then offers the solution of a higher power. Having reduced the alcoholic’s will to nothing short of useless, if not destructive, A.A. then attempts to replace it. In other words Step One’s ultimate purpose is to make the alcoholic receptive to the solution, which is God. The conditioned response usually offered by anyone who is pro the program is that this higher power can be anything the alcoholic chooses. I am afraid this does not wash. The words ‘Higher Power’ may as well be replaced with Alcoholics Anonymous because regardless of what you believe in you are induced into believing it works through the rooms, or the steps, of Alcoholics Anonymous – which effectively makes A.A. that power. Once A.A. has you believing this it won’t be long before it has you believing in it’s version of a micro managing God that has chosen us to be alcoholics that carry the message of His will for one another. Any outsider may find this hard to believe, but as someone that has attended many meetings I assure you this is the purpose of everything that happens in the rooms, even above sobriety itself. Only one of the 12 Steps mentions alcohol. This is not a program of recovery from alcoholism, but a program of conversion into believing in Bill Wilson’s (A.A. co-founder) and Frank Buchman’s (Founder of the Oxford Group) version of God. It is a program that wins the war on self by completely destroying it. A.A. has been very clever in fending off critics by assuring them that people are free to choose their version of God. You only have to read the chapter ‘We Agnostics’ in the Big Book to see how untrue this is. I grant that in the first few weeks of recovery there is little pressure on what to believe in, but no member of A.A. will ever feel a part of the group if he or she remains an agnostic. In fact they cannot even do Step 11 which encourages prayer because how can someone pray to something other than God?

About half our original fellowship were of exactly that type. At first some of us tried to avoid the issue, hoping against hope we were not true alcoholics. But after a while we had to face the fact that we must find a spiritual basis of life --or else. Perhaps it is going to be that way with you. But cheer up, something like half of us thought we were atheists or agnostics. Our experience shows that you need not be disconcerted. (A.A. Big Book Chapter 4 pg. 44)

Notice how that paragraph attempts to destroy atheism or agnosticism as being wrong. ‘Most of us thought we were atheists or agnostics.’ That is typical of the tactics used by A.A. to tell people that their beliefs are wrong without actually coming out and saying it.  And what of those two words, ‘…or else’? Death tactics again. (I once heard someone say there are only two institutions you can never leave, A.A. and The Mafia – both threaten you with death. How true.)

Therefore I would encourage anyone wanting to take a rational and reasonable look at A.A. to listen to what it does not say as much as what it says. It is what it does not say that makes it so dangerous to so many people. I do believe there are good aspects to A.A but these are very much acknowledged already and force the majority of us to ignore A.A.s very real primary purpose which is to guide the alcoholic into believing in God as Bill Wilson understood him. If this helps people stay sober then I am all for it, but sadly I have seen too many people leave A.A. or N.A. with the belief that adherence to the 12 Steps is the only way in which to recover from alcoholism simply to die with this belief. Before I joined A.A. I had never known anyone who had died of alcoholism or drug addiction, but I have lost count of the number that have made A.A.s message that to drink is to die a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Messages with undertones of, ‘Do it our way or die’ is tantamount to putting a gun to a vulnerable person’s head. A.A. has confused all of us involved in the arena of addiction so much that I am not sure we have any real notion of what constitutes an alcoholic anymore. If you believe A.A.’s stereotype of the alcoholic, all you have to do to be deemed an out and out alcoholic is show up at an A.A. meeting. Once you are at a meeting there is no question of whether you are one or not, you quite simply are. I quote, ‘No one ends up here by mistake.’ A.A. did not only come up with what it regards as the only solution to alcoholism but A.A. also defined the alcoholic, the problem, and continues to diagnose alcoholics by telling anyone who comes to them that they are powerless over alcohol regardless of any supporting evidence. I think it is time we investigated these claims and this fellowship before it is too late.

 

I have a problem. There is nothing new there, I assure you. However this one concerns society as a whole and not merely myself.  It is hard to know where to start. I have some serious issues and concerns with the current norm for the treatment of alcohol and drug addiction, namely the 12 steps. Again, I am hardly unique in this respect. Am I just another ‘junkie’ or ‘drunk’ showing resistance to change, driven by something we have all come to know as ‘denial’? I have battled with that question for the last 9 years, attempting to be open-minded and accept a new way of thinking, but somewhere inside me there is a voice that won’t quiet. Since admitting having a problem with heroin when I was 19, I have been through 4 rehabilitation centres, attended countless A.A. and N.A. meetings, as well as being a guinea pig for the opiate blocker Naltrexone. I have worked through the steps twice (you can never do the steps). I have done three Step 4 and 5s. I have had three sponsors, and I have been sober for 2 years in all the nine years I have been involved in this program. I have ‘helped’ many people get sober and I have given talks in both schools and prisons as a member of A.A. and N.A. The people in AA have attempted to disarm my concerns with the standard conditioned responses I used to use to hush the doubts of the ‘newcomer.’ The responses include accusations of being a ‘dry drunk’, of being in denial, of being closed-minded, of being constitutionally incapable of being honest, and last but not least, I have been labelled as the guy that suffers from ‘contempt prior to investigation.’ Of all these assaults on my character, it is the last one that sits least well with me. Considering my involvement in the program over the last 9 years, and the support I have shown it over this time, I think this knee-jerk response usually reserved for the ‘newcomer’ is somewhat unfair. Most people leave A.A. after a slip, or a relapse, as I did when I was 20. This time however, I left A.A. a sober man. Perhaps it is this fact that separates me from many others.

This begs the question, why not just walk away from A.A. and let them get on with helping hopeless people get sober? There are two reasons for this:Firstly, the barriers to exit in A.A. are not that simple. What the public sees and reads about A.A. rarely refers to what is actually taught in the rooms. The public conception of A.A. is one of a fellowship of men and women that help each other remain sober. For many of us, that is all we need to know. What methods are employed are never scrutinised because the intention is perceived to be worthwhile and we tend to accept that the program must be good, believing ‘the ends justify the means’.  Take my situation for example, I wanted to leave A.A. and the general assumption was I must be ‘unwell’ and I must want to drink again. I can understand this reaction, but that does not mean it is correct. It is one thing accepting that a program is good without knowing anything about it, but assuming a person is ‘unwell’ without having any knowledge of this program is dangerous in my opinion, and has the effect of giving A.A. tremendous power over its members.  Perhaps I should not care what people think, but when those people are your family and your friends, it is hard to dismiss their opinions. It should also be pointed out that leaving A.A. is not just a case of stopping going to meetings. The program of the 12 steps is designed to create a dependence on A.A. that replaces alcohol. Severing your ties to A.A. is much like withdrawing from drugs or alcohol, especially with regards to the rituals involved. To those people close to you, even those who are not in A.A., a desire not to attend meetings is tantamount to a desire to drink or take drugs, because they have become indoctrinated by this program through the process of amends, and most frighteningly not by A.A. but by yourself. Once you speak out against the program and cease going to meetings, no-one in the rooms will want to talk to you unless they are trying to coerce you back to a meeting. If, on the off chance, some of them want to talk to you the conversations will be heavily weighted towards reminding you that you are sick, and that A.A. is the only way in which to recover.

This leads to my second reason. A.A. believes it is the only way in which to recover from Alcoholism and any other method is seen as inferior. Again, I believe this belief is extremely dangerous and effectively removes any choice from those of us that end up at our first meeting. They say in A.A. that it is the first drink that does the damage, I believe it is actually the first meeting that does. This is a serious allegation, and perhaps not true for the 5% of the people that fall through the doors of A.A. that this program works for, but for the remaining 95% I believe it is true. In this I want to put it to you that Step One does not highlight the problem, but rather creates it for the vast majority of the members of Alcoholics Anonymous. In 1935 when A.A. was founded, we have to recall that Bill W. and Dr. Bob came up with both the problem and the solution. I am not saying they created the problem in order to offer a solution, but I am not saying they didn’t either simply because I don’t know, but what I am saying is that A.A. is as much a problem as it is a solution to many people. I believe Step One has the effect of creating a greater dependence on A.A. rather than alcohol for the problem drinker. It smashes the self, leading to a reliance on the group simply to function in society. Telling a vulnerable and hopeless person that they are powerless over their problems is one thing, but having implanted that idea in them, to go on and inform them that A.A. is the only solution, is highly questionable. If that was not bad enough, if this so-called ‘powerless’ person asks any questions, they are quick to remind them that they are in denial, a sick person, and that they should ‘keep it simple, stupid’. This should add to the concerns of any onlookers. If they then turn around and reject the program, they too are rejected by all those involved and not offered any suggestions for alternative treatments, instead they are reminded that A.A. is the only way and that anyone who does not follow their path ends up in a jail, an institution or a morgue.  On the surface that might not sound like a dangerous message, but the repercussions can be huge. Imagine someone walking away from A.A. having gone to them in the hope of reconstructing their lives, but they decide it is not for them and stop attending. They will meet a lot of objection from both members and non members, including their families, their doctors, their spouses, their employers, etc. If, once having accepted Step One and thus that they are powerless over alcohol, go on to reject the introduction of God in steps 2 and 3, and leave only to drink again, imagine what happens now having had the notion of powerlessness instilled in them. I can tell you what happens from my own experience. That acceptance of powerlessness becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Once you have a drink your thoughts are quick to remind you that you have no control over alcohol, and in turn you drink more and more believing you cannot curb the desires. Each consequence of your drinking feeds the belief that you are powerless, but you get stuck in a rut because somewhere in your mind those messages that A.A. is the only way in which to recover keep whispering at you, but at the same time, you have to want the program in order to get it. I drank for years believing a) that I was powerless over alcohol and b) that A.A. was the only way in which to recover but it was no good for me because I had not suffered enough in order to desire it. I lived for 7 years with this feeling of impending doom as I slowly drunk myself into an alcoholic self-fulfilling prophecy, until one day those feelings of impending doom were no longer impending; they arrived.

J

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