Alcoholics Anonymous and the emphasis on spirituality

[Rozlee]

My step-daughter's live-in boyfriend recently made the decision to quit drinking. He's mostly a non-believer, although he's "dabbled" in Buddhism (not a nod to Christine O'Donnell). I never really paid much attention to the process of sobering up used by alcohol dependent people outside of an inpatient hospital setting. As a former Army RN, we'd sometimes get retired military or homeless vets who came in with severe life threatening withdrawals that had to be treated as inpatients, but never functional alcoholics like my step-daughter's boyfriend so I've never known AA's method of a religious-based 12-step program. After reading the web page below, I've been left reeling.


http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-RobertWarner.html

I filched this following story from CNN today:

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/28/my-take-an-atheist-at-aa/?hpt=hp_c2

The writer of that op-ed is lucky the counselors of the program only looked at her in "despair." We atheists rank down there in popularity with herpes.

I've heard AA rhapsodized by many and I know they've done a great service as well, but it's still kind of creeps me out. I would still recommend their services if they really are as good as their press says they are. But, I really think my step-daughter should convince her boyfriend's parents to spring for a good rehab center instead.

[Kerrytravelers]

1. They are notoriously religious.

They dry you out and then get you drunk on "the Lord".

Terrifying that they are even legitimate in the eyes of so many people.

[laconicsax]

2. AA's long-term success rate is the same as that for who just quit.

Round about 5% IIRC.

[Deep13]

5. Success = AA did it. Failure = ...

they're just not working the steps. The program can never be at fault.

[Stuckinthebush]

3. Exchange one addiction for another

That is how my good friend who is an alcohol and drug recovery professional described AA. He says that if done correctly the "higher power" spoken of in AA should be described as anything bigger than self. For the atheist, family works as the higher power. However, there are many religious zealots in rehab so you get the Bible beat down sometimes.

[Deep13]

4. It doesn't work.

People credit AA for quitting drinking (they concede it does not cure them). But they really cured themselves. Maybe people benefit from the emotional support of other similarly situated people, but the 12 steps and the rest of the "program" just replaces one dysfunctional mentality with another. AA has never been clinically tested. It has never been improved since its inception in the 1930s. What other diseases are treated the exact same way as they were in the '30s? Would you want '30s dentistry? cancer treatment? And what other diseases are treated with divine intervention? So the "it works" mantra is bullshit. As someone else noted, their success rate is abysmal and their salvation doctrine is counterproductive.

[yellerpup]

6. The actress, Carole Kane

founded (adapted or customized) a non-religious AA group in Manhattan a few years back that was very well attended. I know people who would have gone to AA if the religion was omitted. I don't know why Kane's model hasn't been more widely adapted, but it was successful for her and many others.

[Arugula Latte]

7. I thought they instructed non-believers to pick "something greater than themselves" to "believe" in.

If I ever did a 12-step program, I guess I could substitute "Nature" for "God."

On edit: Not that I have an addiction requiring rehab, as far as I know. ;)

[Deep13]

10. It has to be something capable of restoring one to sanity...

...which begs the question. How can one be sure he or she is even at an AA meeting if one is insane?

Plus the overall context of the steps and the doctrine of personal redemption by admitting one is a sinner strongly implies that they have the xtian god in mind.

[Warpy]

8. It depends on the meeting and often depends on where the meeting is

Back in Boston, the whole thing was very secular whether it was in a church basement or elsewhere. Out here in NM, the Baptist god squad has intruded into every offshoot with their Protestant Christian prayers before and after meetings.

I'm glad I don't have a drinking problem to overcome here in NM. I'd have to drive for an hour to find a secular meeting up in Santa Fe because the Christers have taken over the ones here in the big city. Those people just have no clue what a barrier it is to non Protestant Christians, let alone atheists.

Still, the secular meetings do a huge amount of good. My ex and my family members who managed to get sober and stay sober did it largely as a result of the social support they found at AA.

You just have to be able to find them.

[BrendaBrick]

11. I think thats true.

Boston is a very liberal town and I can understand how a secular approach might be helpful. Social support is vital...and I feel, the last thing anyone needs to feel about their addiction/dependence in ANY external substance for that matter, is shame beating at the very heart of it! (Because my sense is that it is this very sense of shame to begin with in which we are trying to escape or alleviate, at least momentarily)!

There is a therapist by the name of Bruce Levine who touched on this in this candid interview. For some, (he says) AA is the perfect solution...just what they were looking for. For others, aka *critical thinkers* its just plain stupid, in this regard.

Though this is a bit long at around 45 minutes...I think it is well worth the watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLNPQDdopFw

I know from personal experience that there was a time in my life several years ago in which I would binge drink. In fact, I live in an area in which you can not go to the store and purchase alcohol on Sunday. So, what I *found myself* doing was to purchase enough beer on Saturday to *make it through* until Monday...and I even resorted to actually hiding bottles in different areas of the fridge. Then it dawned on me! I live alone for crying out loud....who am I really fooling here???? (ya know?)

What IS my REAL motivation here???? (The hard question that I had to eventually ask myself)?

Though this is not meant to sound like an excuse, truth be told, in many ways, back then I just could not find any other viable alternative to going from say, emotional point A to emotional point B without alcohol. Alcohol seemed to temporarily bypass all of the intellectual jargon/internal sound bites in my head...but it wasn't really serving me well, in the end.

Bottom line: Getting honest with myself. Not just honest....but I mean to tell ya - brutally HONEST in just WHY I was trying to numb myself out from the inevitable, stubborn and tenacious pain from my past that I was trying to drown out. What was my REAL motivation here?

I personally didn't like this whole idea of AA of having to stop drinking completely and surrendering said power over to a *higher source* because you know somethin' what....I still enjoy a nice glass of red Cab with a steak dinner and a few ice cold ones with pizza or hot wings and I wasn't about to give that prudent indulgence up!

It really was up to me, in the end...(aka - within *my power*) to arduously distinguish and decipher between the two and in the end, it is all about regaining a sense of personal power and getting to the very root cause as to why this propensity to numb yourself out exists in the first place and even broader than that, learn the hard lesson that mine is not a unique story/tale.

In fact, if it has taught me anything...it is in the area of prevention. That neglect, abuse and anything else along these lines can have some pretty heavy-duty, long-term detrimental effects upon a person in this imperfect world of ours and I guess that I would suppose that being aware of this has led me to be much more mindful of the impact I have on others and they on me along these sordid lines.

[onager]

9. I ran into that.

Many years ago, I got a DUI in Los Angeles County. This is not exactly a shining page in my Book Of Memories, so I've tried to forget the whole thing as much as possible.

But I sure remember the AA part! DU...I'ers...heh...were required to attend 12 AA meetings and get proof of attendance.

At my very first meeting, some asshat seized the podium and "witnessed" to all of us. At length.

I got enough of that pretty quickly, and asked one of the Group Leaders about a secular AA meeting.

A young woman standing nearby looked at me as if I had just bitten the head off a live cat. She said something like:

"There IS a non-religious group I've heard about. But you don't want to go there. They're Satanists and witches. They even meet outdoors like witches, at Amelia Earhart Park in North Hollywood. And I heard that they pray to the Devil before their meetings."

Well, that sounded okay to me. I probably wasn't a Fundamentalist Atheist back then.

But I never did find the group. At the time I lived pretty close to Earhart Park. (So did Amelia Earhart herself, back in the 1930s, which is why the place is named for her.) The park is also the location of an L.A. Library branch, and in pre-internet times I often walked down to the library and hung out. In a non-Catholic-Priest sort of way, that is.

So I went to 11 more meetings, where it was usually Bible-Thumping Asshat #1 handing off the podium to #2, and on and on.

For criminologists - all that Jesus-hogging sure was a deterrent in my case. I've never even come close to getting another DUI.

[backscatter712]

12. I'm so glad that I've never felt or been compelled to go to AA. n/t

[Iggo]

13. NA is as good a place as any to get clean and stay clean.

And with that said...

:hide:

[Kolesar]

14. I think they were reasonably respectful of Ms. Hornbacher

Curious and lost, but they didn't treat her like "herpes".

[roody]

15. I dabbled in NA decades ago. My sponsor told me if

I wanted a fire hydrant for my higher power that was just fine. It worked for me.