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AA is a minefield of identity politics. Mom/CBS
Even people who have never had a drinking problem know that Alcoholics Anonymous has 12 steps. You admit you’re powerless over alcohol (Step One), for instance, and apologise to people who’ve been harmed by your drinking (Step Nine). But fewer people know about AA’s 12 Traditions, the glue that holds a motley crew of recovering drunks together. The 12 steps keep your life in order; the 12 traditions keep the group in order — or so it is said in AA.
Arguably the most important tradition is Tradition 10: “Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the AA name ought never be drawn into public controversy.” The Washingtonians, a group of recovering alcoholics that preceded AA by about a century, disbanded due to infighting over its involvement in social reforms like prohibition, religion and slavery abolition. AA’s founders, William Wilson and Dr Robert Smith (Bill and Dr Bob), didn’t want AA to suffer the same fate. Best their organisation remain neutral, they thought, so as to be welcoming for alcoholics from every walk of life. For nearly 88 years, AA has never weighed in on foreign or domestic policies, nor has it endorsed political candidates or legislative proposals. And so desperate drunks of every race, colour and creed have kept on coming and — together — got sober.
It is up to every individual AA meeting to uphold the programme principles. (Tradition 4: “Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or AA as a whole”). But where many struggle, I’ve found, over the 20 years I’ve been going to meetings, is with Tradition 10. In AA, alcoholics are free to share about anything they like, so long as it pertains to alcoholism; politics and the culture wars, they can leave at the door. And yet, a lot of recovering alcoholics can’t resist hot takes when they’ve been handed a mic. I noticed this particularly after Donald Trump was elected, and especially in New York City. Members started sharing about a fight they’d had that day with their idiotic, MAGA-hat-wearing uncle on Facebook — apparently unaware of newcomers, desperate to get sober, who might now feel unwelcome because they had voted for the wrong guy.
In 2020, violations of Tradition 10 reached a fever pitch. After George Floyd’s murder, institutions across the nation absorbed progressive ideals into their mission statements. I was finishing my last year of study at Columbia University. Having entered the university in 2017 as a self-described radical progressive planning a career in LGBT activism, I was graduating an exile. I had become disillusioned with, and spoken out against, my fellow progressives’ tactics: suppressing free speech, purity policing and reducing every individual to his or her skin colour, gender and sexual orientation. During my last semester, which was moved online due to the pandemic, I’d sign on to virtual AA meetings after class, and immediately be struck by how similar the two spaces had become. Pronouns lit up the screen. Whereas opening readings once consisted of the AA preamble, the 12 Steps and 12 traditions, and details about the meeting, now some groups chose to add a thinly veiled threat: “We will not tolerate racist, homophobic, sexist or transphobic rhetoric in this space.”
From my experience of post-Trump academia, I knew these proclamations wouldn’t so much prevent inappropriate speech as put everyone on high alert, encouraging an atmosphere of self-censorship. Recovering alcoholics carry a lot of guilt about the harm their drinking has caused others; they are often irrationally fearful of causing any more. If they feel like they’re traversing a mine field of potential triggers that could set off listeners in the room, they may be reluctant to admit shameful details about the past, which they want and need to get off their chests. Recovering alcoholics’ lives depend on their ability to share honestly, and to feel like they will be accepted by AA no matter their histories or their personal views. Increasingly, certain opinions — although you could never be totally sure which ones — were no longer worthy of respect in a democratic society. Meetings were not unlike my university classes, where the silence during discussions would extend for what felt like an eternity, as so many students stayed quiet rather than risk transgressing.
But even silence could get alcoholics in trouble. In June 2020, Toby N. had been in the programme in New York for six years. He was raised in the Mormon church, but left it when he was 24 and came out as gay a couple of years later. On #BlackoutTuesday, when white people committed to posting nothing but a black square on Instagram for a full 24 hours, Toby decided not to partake. “I didn’t feel like it was going to do anything,” he said. Then he got a direct message from a friend — another gay man in AA — who asked: why hadn’t Toby posted anything about racial justice on social media? He accused Toby of inadequate allyship. (Toby had donated to Black Lives Matter.) In meetings, he would hear people whispering about other members’ “white privilege”.
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SubscribeThis is 100% wrong. G*d doesn’t despise you. The original meaning of sin is ‘to miss the mark’ i.e. to get things wrong. When we sin it’s not G*d we’re hurting but ourselves. Sin, when viewed in this way, leads to personal dysfunction. On an individual level we all sin in some way and often need to self-correct. However, when many e.g. thousands or millions of people engage in a particular sin the dysfunction becomes systemic and eventually leads to societal collapse due to internal contradictions.
The reason LGBQT ideology is starting to become despised by the mainstream is that at an inchoate level we are aware that it is not promoting functional behavior. It is more a form of self-idolatry that leads to narcissistic behaviors like individuals insisting on being continuously affirmed (worship), being granted privileges denied to most other people (nepotism) and insisting that all their actions are above reproach (infallibility). The glittery allure of LGBQTism is rapidly wearing off, particularly amongst the young who are becoming fatigued by it and starting to find it abhorrent.
I agree with much of your analysis but is LGBQT ideology becoming despised? Do we not still see its official incorporation in social institutions and organisations? It will require great effort to see it eradicate I fear despite the fact that at its core it contains nothing but the lie that people can change their sex.
Do we not still see its official incorporation in social institutions and organisations?
Which is precisely why it may well become dispised.
Yes indeed – the natural inclination to assume power structures exist to do harm and allow economic extraction for their operators! Plus anyone who assumes power without authority is always right can easily be programmed to homophobia or its opposite. Our feeble minded elite need to be careful what they wish for.
Yes indeed – the natural inclination to assume power structures exist to do harm and allow economic extraction for their operators! Plus anyone who assumes power without authority is always right can easily be programmed to homophobia or its opposite. Our feeble minded elite need to be careful what they wish for.
Yes i think it is…. i was used to homophobia from regular working men in our town – majority Muslim but with a significant Afro-Caribbean community. That used to get shouted down by us bourgeoisie and many women in the communities above. This is far less evident now. As which gender you prefer to sleep with has been hijacked by socialists the lines are being re-drawn. Most non hetero people don’t have a beef with the world, one reason why they are fertile ground for socialists to use as leverage to cause fear, hate and violence. Good queers will likely suffer with the bad lefties. As for civil servants (powers, not authorities – no-one elected them!) and their “social institutions” – small wonder they pile on – privilege and nepotism does not create critical or independent thinking and they will soon forget that gays are their pride and joy when they find another toy.
I think that’s the precise intent of all this Queer Theory stuff. It’s not actual LGB people doing this per se, but those who use them as a ’cause’ to make money off or as a platform to promote unsavory practices.
I wonder where you are Mike. I am in the UK and have never understood homophobia or acceptance to be a political issue. I would be interested to learn how and why.
Socialists are not a homogenous group of people anymore than any other group is. I am proud to be a socialist. I can and do think independently. I have friends from across the political landscape, done are even Tory voters! But whenever people want to blame the bogey man, socialists or the far-right get the blame! Maybe start thinking a bit more and see that people in general don’t like difference and it is not one group that needs to shoulder responsibility, no matter how easy it is to try to make the label take the blame for the hard of thinking.
I think that’s the precise intent of all this Queer Theory stuff. It’s not actual LGB people doing this per se, but those who use them as a ’cause’ to make money off or as a platform to promote unsavory practices.
I wonder where you are Mike. I am in the UK and have never understood homophobia or acceptance to be a political issue. I would be interested to learn how and why.
Socialists are not a homogenous group of people anymore than any other group is. I am proud to be a socialist. I can and do think independently. I have friends from across the political landscape, done are even Tory voters! But whenever people want to blame the bogey man, socialists or the far-right get the blame! Maybe start thinking a bit more and see that people in general don’t like difference and it is not one group that needs to shoulder responsibility, no matter how easy it is to try to make the label take the blame for the hard of thinking.
The LGB folks will be fine once they manage to free themselves from Q, which is a political project to overthrow the patriarchy and capitalism. T contains two valid subgroups, those with actual gender dysphoria, and guys who are turned on by dressing as women. Both of these are fine as long as they don’t demand to be recognized as women or allowed into women’s spaces. Bring back transsexuals and transvestites, while kicking trans to the curb.
Do we not still see its official incorporation in social institutions and organisations?
Which is precisely why it may well become dispised.
Yes i think it is…. i was used to homophobia from regular working men in our town – majority Muslim but with a significant Afro-Caribbean community. That used to get shouted down by us bourgeoisie and many women in the communities above. This is far less evident now. As which gender you prefer to sleep with has been hijacked by socialists the lines are being re-drawn. Most non hetero people don’t have a beef with the world, one reason why they are fertile ground for socialists to use as leverage to cause fear, hate and violence. Good queers will likely suffer with the bad lefties. As for civil servants (powers, not authorities – no-one elected them!) and their “social institutions” – small wonder they pile on – privilege and nepotism does not create critical or independent thinking and they will soon forget that gays are their pride and joy when they find another toy.
The LGB folks will be fine once they manage to free themselves from Q, which is a political project to overthrow the patriarchy and capitalism. T contains two valid subgroups, those with actual gender dysphoria, and guys who are turned on by dressing as women. Both of these are fine as long as they don’t demand to be recognized as women or allowed into women’s spaces. Bring back transsexuals and transvestites, while kicking trans to the curb.
Thank you for bringing this very important topic up. Their sin is no different than mine or yours. We are all sinners. The Left ruins everything that they touch. Now even AA, apparently.
I agree that we are all sinners but disagree that the left ruins everything it touches any more than does the right. We are expressing opinions rather than facts!
I agree that we are all sinners but disagree that the left ruins everything it touches any more than does the right. We are expressing opinions rather than facts!
Lesbianism and homosexuality are NOT ideology! Bisexuality to a degree because it is so muddy and most of them are not truly gay, and trans definitely, ARE ideology.
excellent comment . Personally i hate the kind of brainwashing that goes in meetings. I feel its essential that my probably uncouth and uncool feelings and thoughts should not be blanketed out by the new rulers. theyre all part of me , theyre all markers of my alko ( and sober ) self. Repression and denial are very unhealthy especially for us ! I need them ‘ out there ‘ so i can be cleansed !
You are right in part but if the authority of the self has become increasingly important for many people as you suggest, another form of self-idolatry will replace gender politics some time soon.
People who are LGB are born not made. If people are made in god’s likeness, it is not sinful to be lesbian, gay or bisexual. But since god is a social construct not actual fact, it doesn’t really matter. The higher being in AA philosophy can be whoever or whatever you want it to be, as AA recognises all religions and none. QT are completely different and should not be put together with LGB which is about sexual preference; QT is about gender preference. QT should never take preference over any other minority, although as the article says, it now does and people don’t want to be rude, no matter how rude these people are to others. Always the minority gives a bad name to the majority, no matter the subject.
I agree with much of your analysis but is LGBQT ideology becoming despised? Do we not still see its official incorporation in social institutions and organisations? It will require great effort to see it eradicate I fear despite the fact that at its core it contains nothing but the lie that people can change their sex.
Thank you for bringing this very important topic up. Their sin is no different than mine or yours. We are all sinners. The Left ruins everything that they touch. Now even AA, apparently.
Lesbianism and homosexuality are NOT ideology! Bisexuality to a degree because it is so muddy and most of them are not truly gay, and trans definitely, ARE ideology.
excellent comment . Personally i hate the kind of brainwashing that goes in meetings. I feel its essential that my probably uncouth and uncool feelings and thoughts should not be blanketed out by the new rulers. theyre all part of me , theyre all markers of my alko ( and sober ) self. Repression and denial are very unhealthy especially for us ! I need them ‘ out there ‘ so i can be cleansed !
You are right in part but if the authority of the self has become increasingly important for many people as you suggest, another form of self-idolatry will replace gender politics some time soon.
People who are LGB are born not made. If people are made in god’s likeness, it is not sinful to be lesbian, gay or bisexual. But since god is a social construct not actual fact, it doesn’t really matter. The higher being in AA philosophy can be whoever or whatever you want it to be, as AA recognises all religions and none. QT are completely different and should not be put together with LGB which is about sexual preference; QT is about gender preference. QT should never take preference over any other minority, although as the article says, it now does and people don’t want to be rude, no matter how rude these people are to others. Always the minority gives a bad name to the majority, no matter the subject.
This is 100% wrong. G*d doesn’t despise you. The original meaning of sin is ‘to miss the mark’ i.e. to get things wrong. When we sin it’s not G*d we’re hurting but ourselves. Sin, when viewed in this way, leads to personal dysfunction. On an individual level we all sin in some way and often need to self-correct. However, when many e.g. thousands or millions of people engage in a particular sin the dysfunction becomes systemic and eventually leads to societal collapse due to internal contradictions.
The reason LGBQT ideology is starting to become despised by the mainstream is that at an inchoate level we are aware that it is not promoting functional behavior. It is more a form of self-idolatry that leads to narcissistic behaviors like individuals insisting on being continuously affirmed (worship), being granted privileges denied to most other people (nepotism) and insisting that all their actions are above reproach (infallibility). The glittery allure of LGBQTism is rapidly wearing off, particularly amongst the young who are becoming fatigued by it and starting to find it abhorrent.
You can always just ignore the tw@ts, Ben.
But I agree – there have been some very worrying developments over the past two decades, mainly originating in the States and then carried around the world by young Americans.
The area I got sober in 30 years ago had a motley collection of very different but incredibly warm-hearted people that became like a rowdy, good-humoured family. No bullshit – it was wonderful. Then new arrivals from the US started introducing their odd little ideas piecemeal which ended up in a full-blown schism. It’s never been the same since, and people have died as a result.
I personally think that none of the current generation of alkies should be able to amend incrementally the wisdom that was handed down to us. As you rightly say, this has saved millions of lives – mine and many of my friends included – and we all take an incredibly dim view of any woke fool messing with it.
For the real alcoholic there has simply been no other way of getting sober and living a free and beautiful life.
Mess with it at your peril.
But the peril is not necessarily to the messers, is it?
What consequences do they suffer?
It’s the neutrals who are being hurt by the activists.
They are being hurt as well, but they don’t know it.
They are being hurt as well, but they don’t know it.
AA is in no danger of disappearing or losing prominence as a route to recovery. However, the One True Path aspect of the program, fiercely advanced by the most zealous members, is more an article of insistent faith than one based on evidence.
Treating the Big Book like an infallible revelation that should never be amended or re-interpreted is an approach I’m quite sure that co-founder Bill Wilson himself–he of the LSD trips and retreat from programmatic adulation–would disagree with. And there have always been huge variations in the approach of specific longstanding (and short-lived) meetings.
Many individuals have had profound conversions apart from AA that supported their long-term, prevailing sobriety, with or without a relapse or two (something most faithful Friends of Bill W. also experience). The fellowship and outreach that are indispensable to AA are not its exclusive possession.
I reject the idea that anyone who achieves sobriety outside the program is, by definition, not a “true” alcoholic, or remains merely a “dry drunk”. The other wrong part of such an orthodox exceptionalism is to make any non-successful attempt to stay sober through AA into the exclusive, indisputable fault of the individual, though some can never receive its God-centered approach (unless they evade it by making their higher power “Good Orderly Direction” or whatever), especially when it is mandated by the courts.
I acknowledge that it is a wonderful program that sometimes works even for those who are compelled to attend meetings, but it is not flawless and it does not hold a sacred monopoly on hope for true addicts, people for whom long-term or uninterrupted recovery is always a long shot.
Fair enough.
Quite so. I languished in AA focused detoxes and rehabs for 12 years being frequently reminded that it was either AA or death. I watched many a fellow addict enthusiastically engage with AA, doing their ’90 in 90′ (meetings in days) and struggling to align non-theistic beliefs with the necessity of finding a Higher Power, only to see them turn up at meetings some weeks after the rehabs finished, clearly pissed but desperate to get back on the program. My doubts about the process were always frowned upon and never discussed and the group mentality was such that dissent or disagreement quickly became awkward and embarrassing. Consequently I soon learned to sit down and shut up. For me the whole experience was stiflingly repressive and unhelpful and I endured a number of relapses whilst under its umbrella. The nine years of sobriety I have now achieved owe absolutely nothing to AA and I regard my whole experience there as being nothing but a regretful episode of acquiescence to an authority that demanded nothing less and dismissively and instinctively scorned those who questioned it. I believe it is an organisation that self-promotes it’s efficacy to such an extent that in any sizeable meeting there will be a number of individuals sat there who only attend because they are so scared of the oft repeated alternative (death or dishonour) that they feel compelled to be there.
I concede that AA can work for those who are perhaps predisposed to it’s methodology, but for anyone who is not (which in my experience of meeting hundreds of people in recovery, constitute a majority), and who are deemed “Constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves” as Chapter 5 of The Big Book proclaims, it can become a significant obstacle to their recovery.
Thank you for this heterodox account. You are an example of someone who is not supposed to exist, according to a doctrinaire 12-step faith.
Thank you for this heterodox account. You are an example of someone who is not supposed to exist, according to a doctrinaire 12-step faith.
For what it’s worth, I have found my own way around the “God centered“ aspect of AA which gives so many newcomers great pause and drives many away.
Consider “there is a God, and you’re not it,“ one of my favorites among the many sayings of AA.
To me, the critical part of that sentence is the second half, not the first. AA teaches me that all my problems came from self-centeredness and neurotic self absorption. I am not God, I have no power over anyone, and all my troubles came from acting as if I did.
I don’t go out of my way to describe myself as atheistic in AA meetings, but when it has come up, I have always found AA people to be accepting of that approach. And when describing it to newcomers who have a problem with “God“, they find great relief in that viewpoint. AA is a broad church, and hopefully will remain so, free from the secular political debates that rage on outside it.
Brilliant! When independent thinking (“stinking” or not) is tolerated, AA is an even stronger net force for good.
Brilliant! When independent thinking (“stinking” or not) is tolerated, AA is an even stronger net force for good.
I agree that Bill W would never suggest that his work never be amended. At the same time, I feel sure that Bill W would also say that whether or not the language was changed, it was not something he was about to drink over. And I think that is the more powerful of his two messages.
Changes like moving from “men and women“ to “people“ run the danger of suggesting that our sobriety is dependent on political language (or on any language, for that matter). It isn’t, and shouldn’t be. It amounts to nothing more than virtue signaling, and opens the door to thinking that our autonomous sobriety is dependent on others’ attitudes.
There may be a case for amending the language of the Big Book, but this isn’t it.
I fully agree with that. I was responding to the comments of Mr. Phillips–with whom I concur for the most part, but not in the absolute degree–not the terminology-focused bullshit addressed in the article.
I fully agree with that. I was responding to the comments of Mr. Phillips–with whom I concur for the most part, but not in the absolute degree–not the terminology-focused bullshit addressed in the article.
Worth considering?
1. Differences of opinion and approach have come and gone over many decades of 12 Step, none of them really detracting from the central tenets of the programme: to help the still suffering alcoholic/addict/eating disorder/love addict/compulsive gambler/whatever; turning such discussion points/differences of opinion (in arguably unhealthy groups) into outside issues and painting an (incorrectly) divisive picture of a fellowship that has helped and continues to help millions is not helpful to potential newcomers. “We have no opinion on outside issues.”
2. Yellow card: “Who you see here, what you hear here, when you leave here, let it stay here.”
3. Tradition 11: “We need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and films.”
4. Tradition 12: “Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions.”
5. There are thousands of groups, all with autonomy under an overall structure. If the ethos or tendencies of one group doesn’t suit, the still suffering addict can find another group.
6. If 12 Step doesn’t suit, there are plenty of other ways to recover, with varying degrees of success
Thank you for these thoughtful and fairminded remarks. I’ve attended many different meeting groups and noted major variations, although reading all Twelve Traditions–from which you judiciously quoted–word for word every time is, in my opinion, wearisome and too commonly observed. Even so, you have pinpointed the language within them that continues to effectively address this problem. As you know, the AA pioneers encountered similar problems during an era that was pre-television, let alone internet (“press, radio, and films”) and added this cautionary language after hard experience.
I recognize that there are pockets of the openness you express in your final item (6), but I wish that perspective were more common and robust within the program at large. My main objection is to One True Path orthodoxy and court-mandated attendance.
Incidentally, if it’s not too rude to ask: Are you connected with the commenter Mr. Harry Phillips in some way?
Thank you for these thoughtful and fairminded remarks. I’ve attended many different meeting groups and noted major variations, although reading all Twelve Traditions–from which you judiciously quoted–word for word every time is, in my opinion, wearisome and too commonly observed. Even so, you have pinpointed the language within them that continues to effectively address this problem. As you know, the AA pioneers encountered similar problems during an era that was pre-television, let alone internet (“press, radio, and films”) and added this cautionary language after hard experience.
I recognize that there are pockets of the openness you express in your final item (6), but I wish that perspective were more common and robust within the program at large. My main objection is to One True Path orthodoxy and court-mandated attendance.
Incidentally, if it’s not too rude to ask: Are you connected with the commenter Mr. Harry Phillips in some way?
Fair enough.
Quite so. I languished in AA focused detoxes and rehabs for 12 years being frequently reminded that it was either AA or death. I watched many a fellow addict enthusiastically engage with AA, doing their ’90 in 90′ (meetings in days) and struggling to align non-theistic beliefs with the necessity of finding a Higher Power, only to see them turn up at meetings some weeks after the rehabs finished, clearly pissed but desperate to get back on the program. My doubts about the process were always frowned upon and never discussed and the group mentality was such that dissent or disagreement quickly became awkward and embarrassing. Consequently I soon learned to sit down and shut up. For me the whole experience was stiflingly repressive and unhelpful and I endured a number of relapses whilst under its umbrella. The nine years of sobriety I have now achieved owe absolutely nothing to AA and I regard my whole experience there as being nothing but a regretful episode of acquiescence to an authority that demanded nothing less and dismissively and instinctively scorned those who questioned it. I believe it is an organisation that self-promotes it’s efficacy to such an extent that in any sizeable meeting there will be a number of individuals sat there who only attend because they are so scared of the oft repeated alternative (death or dishonour) that they feel compelled to be there.
I concede that AA can work for those who are perhaps predisposed to it’s methodology, but for anyone who is not (which in my experience of meeting hundreds of people in recovery, constitute a majority), and who are deemed “Constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves” as Chapter 5 of The Big Book proclaims, it can become a significant obstacle to their recovery.
For what it’s worth, I have found my own way around the “God centered“ aspect of AA which gives so many newcomers great pause and drives many away.
Consider “there is a God, and you’re not it,“ one of my favorites among the many sayings of AA.
To me, the critical part of that sentence is the second half, not the first. AA teaches me that all my problems came from self-centeredness and neurotic self absorption. I am not God, I have no power over anyone, and all my troubles came from acting as if I did.
I don’t go out of my way to describe myself as atheistic in AA meetings, but when it has come up, I have always found AA people to be accepting of that approach. And when describing it to newcomers who have a problem with “God“, they find great relief in that viewpoint. AA is a broad church, and hopefully will remain so, free from the secular political debates that rage on outside it.
I agree that Bill W would never suggest that his work never be amended. At the same time, I feel sure that Bill W would also say that whether or not the language was changed, it was not something he was about to drink over. And I think that is the more powerful of his two messages.
Changes like moving from “men and women“ to “people“ run the danger of suggesting that our sobriety is dependent on political language (or on any language, for that matter). It isn’t, and shouldn’t be. It amounts to nothing more than virtue signaling, and opens the door to thinking that our autonomous sobriety is dependent on others’ attitudes.
There may be a case for amending the language of the Big Book, but this isn’t it.
Worth considering?
1. Differences of opinion and approach have come and gone over many decades of 12 Step, none of them really detracting from the central tenets of the programme: to help the still suffering alcoholic/addict/eating disorder/love addict/compulsive gambler/whatever; turning such discussion points/differences of opinion (in arguably unhealthy groups) into outside issues and painting an (incorrectly) divisive picture of a fellowship that has helped and continues to help millions is not helpful to potential newcomers. “We have no opinion on outside issues.”
2. Yellow card: “Who you see here, what you hear here, when you leave here, let it stay here.”
3. Tradition 11: “We need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and films.”
4. Tradition 12: “Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions.”
5. There are thousands of groups, all with autonomy under an overall structure. If the ethos or tendencies of one group doesn’t suit, the still suffering addict can find another group.
6. If 12 Step doesn’t suit, there are plenty of other ways to recover, with varying degrees of success
But the peril is not necessarily to the messers, is it?
What consequences do they suffer?
It’s the neutrals who are being hurt by the activists.
AA is in no danger of disappearing or losing prominence as a route to recovery. However, the One True Path aspect of the program, fiercely advanced by the most zealous members, is more an article of insistent faith than one based on evidence.
Treating the Big Book like an infallible revelation that should never be amended or re-interpreted is an approach I’m quite sure that co-founder Bill Wilson himself–he of the LSD trips and retreat from programmatic adulation–would disagree with. And there have always been huge variations in the approach of specific longstanding (and short-lived) meetings.
Many individuals have had profound conversions apart from AA that supported their long-term, prevailing sobriety, with or without a relapse or two (something most faithful Friends of Bill W. also experience). The fellowship and outreach that are indispensable to AA are not its exclusive possession.
I reject the idea that anyone who achieves sobriety outside the program is, by definition, not a “true” alcoholic, or remains merely a “dry drunk”. The other wrong part of such an orthodox exceptionalism is to make any non-successful attempt to stay sober through AA into the exclusive, indisputable fault of the individual, though some can never receive its God-centered approach (unless they evade it by making their higher power “Good Orderly Direction” or whatever), especially when it is mandated by the courts.
I acknowledge that it is a wonderful program that sometimes works even for those who are compelled to attend meetings, but it is not flawless and it does not hold a sacred monopoly on hope for true addicts, people for whom long-term or uninterrupted recovery is always a long shot.
You can always just ignore the tw@ts, Ben.
But I agree – there have been some very worrying developments over the past two decades, mainly originating in the States and then carried around the world by young Americans.
The area I got sober in 30 years ago had a motley collection of very different but incredibly warm-hearted people that became like a rowdy, good-humoured family. No bullshit – it was wonderful. Then new arrivals from the US started introducing their odd little ideas piecemeal which ended up in a full-blown schism. It’s never been the same since, and people have died as a result.
I personally think that none of the current generation of alkies should be able to amend incrementally the wisdom that was handed down to us. As you rightly say, this has saved millions of lives – mine and many of my friends included – and we all take an incredibly dim view of any woke fool messing with it.
For the real alcoholic there has simply been no other way of getting sober and living a free and beautiful life.
Mess with it at your peril.
This is awful, the more so because it is predictable that this would happen to the 12step program the same as any other organisation.
It has to be emphasised that the 12 step system is the best treatment for addiction yet devised, but it is still not particularly effective: the process is hard, frustrating and often requires a lifetime commitment in order to conquer the hell of active addiction.
Huge numbers of newcomers to AA and the other varieties of 12step programs will exit the process and relapse. This is because addiction is highly resistant to attempts to destroy it, and for that reason it is essential that the fellowship – that is the social dimension that emerges from regular meetings – does not itself repel newcomers in any way.
This has to be emphasised: it is hard enough as it is to enter the 12step program and try to deal with addiction and its consequences. To do so and then face a potentially hostile political agenda will, for many people, be the thing that keeps them out of the program.
This, in short, will kill people.
It’s killing people already, John.
But you are absolutely right. It’s difficult enough holding together a contrary group of people – and addicts are inherently difficult to deal with – without any additional nonsense such as this.
To be quite clear, what I mean is that this nasty politics will lead to a greater number of addiction deaths than would otherwise occur without it.
I am of course aware that many addicts will die in any case – like I said, the program is nowhere close to 100% effective.
To be quite clear, what I mean is that this nasty politics will lead to a greater number of addiction deaths than would otherwise occur without it.
I am of course aware that many addicts will die in any case – like I said, the program is nowhere close to 100% effective.
Clive G,
“Alcoholics Anonymous has one primary purpose, to help *others recover from alcoholism”
(*others means Everybody, no stupid distinctions.)
What do I know? Well, 41 years happy sobriety .
How? By keeping it simple Stupid!
I have been to so many meetings, going backs 35 years, and have many years of sobriety. My experience of contentious or disruptive speakers in the meetings is that they were quickly shut down by other, more experienced members. I think that is most cases, “AA Law” will prevail, and these people will either shut up and get the message, or quietly stop coming. Or, of course, the meeting members will go elsewhere.
I have been to so many meetings, going backs 35 years, and have many years of sobriety. My experience of contentious or disruptive speakers in the meetings is that they were quickly shut down by other, more experienced members. I think that is most cases, “AA Law” will prevail, and these people will either shut up and get the message, or quietly stop coming. Or, of course, the meeting members will go elsewhere.
No it is not the best – where on earth did you get that idea from? Individual focused help and counselling works best, not the 12 step bullshit. I have not met one single person who has gone to AA or NA and managed to stay clean.
I meet hundreds every week. Maybe you should try a different meeting.
“I have not met one single person who has gone to AA or NA and managed to stay clean.”
You are simply not informed on this subject.
I meet hundreds every week. Maybe you should try a different meeting.
“I have not met one single person who has gone to AA or NA and managed to stay clean.”
You are simply not informed on this subject.
It’s killing people already, John.
But you are absolutely right. It’s difficult enough holding together a contrary group of people – and addicts are inherently difficult to deal with – without any additional nonsense such as this.
Clive G,
“Alcoholics Anonymous has one primary purpose, to help *others recover from alcoholism”
(*others means Everybody, no stupid distinctions.)
What do I know? Well, 41 years happy sobriety .
How? By keeping it simple Stupid!
No it is not the best – where on earth did you get that idea from? Individual focused help and counselling works best, not the 12 step bullshit. I have not met one single person who has gone to AA or NA and managed to stay clean.
This is awful, the more so because it is predictable that this would happen to the 12step program the same as any other organisation.
It has to be emphasised that the 12 step system is the best treatment for addiction yet devised, but it is still not particularly effective: the process is hard, frustrating and often requires a lifetime commitment in order to conquer the hell of active addiction.
Huge numbers of newcomers to AA and the other varieties of 12step programs will exit the process and relapse. This is because addiction is highly resistant to attempts to destroy it, and for that reason it is essential that the fellowship – that is the social dimension that emerges from regular meetings – does not itself repel newcomers in any way.
This has to be emphasised: it is hard enough as it is to enter the 12step program and try to deal with addiction and its consequences. To do so and then face a potentially hostile political agenda will, for many people, be the thing that keeps them out of the program.
This, in short, will kill people.
Another example of Robert Conquest’s Law:
How do you account for the Conservative Party, then? 🙂
The tories have not been ‘explicitly right-wing’ since Margaret Thatcher.
I hope Jacob Rees-Mogg doesn’t read your comment!! He would be appalled!
The exception that proves the rule. Besides, aside from a handful of standard Catholic positions he holds he’s barely even right wing.
The exception that proves the rule. Besides, aside from a handful of standard Catholic positions he holds he’s barely even right wing.
I hope Jacob Rees-Mogg doesn’t read your comment!! He would be appalled!
The tories have not been ‘explicitly right-wing’ since Margaret Thatcher.
How do you account for the Conservative Party, then? 🙂
Another example of Robert Conquest’s Law:
AA is a good organization, as are its many offshoots, such as Gamblers Anonymous, etc. But an organization, ultimately, cannot be better than the people that comprise its membership. Be the founding documents ever so noble, be the principles ever so great – if the membership does not carry these principles in their hearts and minds, the group cannot stand and be perpetuated. Ultimately, we need people to inscribe these words on their hearts in indelible ink: “God created me and I was created to be a Godly human. I am worthwhile for this reason alone.”
To the extent that Godliness is centered in compassion and duty toward one’s fellow men and women living on Earth right now, I agree with you.
And by sheer coincidence, you’re exactly right about the definition of Godliness. God created us to be like Him – kind, truthful, and responsible for our own creations.
Well thanks. I accept your overview of Godliness-in -practice, which (for what I consider to be non-coincidental reasons) has innate and remarkably similar perceived properties across different individuals, populations, and centuries. Of course there’s also a malevolent or superficial thing that wears the cloak or name of Godliness, but that’s a microcosm of this world in general.
Well thanks. I accept your overview of Godliness-in -practice, which (for what I consider to be non-coincidental reasons) has innate and remarkably similar perceived properties across different individuals, populations, and centuries. Of course there’s also a malevolent or superficial thing that wears the cloak or name of Godliness, but that’s a microcosm of this world in general.
And by sheer coincidence, you’re exactly right about the definition of Godliness. God created us to be like Him – kind, truthful, and responsible for our own creations.
To the extent that Godliness is centered in compassion and duty toward one’s fellow men and women living on Earth right now, I agree with you.
AA is a good organization, as are its many offshoots, such as Gamblers Anonymous, etc. But an organization, ultimately, cannot be better than the people that comprise its membership. Be the founding documents ever so noble, be the principles ever so great – if the membership does not carry these principles in their hearts and minds, the group cannot stand and be perpetuated. Ultimately, we need people to inscribe these words on their hearts in indelible ink: “God created me and I was created to be a Godly human. I am worthwhile for this reason alone.”
Alcoholics Anonymous encourages virtue in the wretched to allow them to redeem themselves, and it is hard to imagine a more noble purpose.
Unfortunately that nobility is exactly what makes it a target in the culture war, which is entirely the result of revolutionaries promoting vices like inertia, impulsivity, ego-identification, and delusion.
The Woke will probably be protesting against Drunk-shaming next.
AA
AA
Good analysis – wherever there is a noble or virtuous enterprise it attracts activists like flies to fresh dung. It has affected so many charities and benevolent societies and other avowedly non-political organisations. Look at what happened to Amnesty and Oxfam.
TBH i think scamnesty has always supported torturous powers if they are left wing and Oxfam was a business when my parents used to moan about them in the 60s.
The Left ruins everything it touches.
This statement is a generalisation to the point of looking foolish.
This statement is a generalisation to the point of looking foolish.
Like a malodorous creeping fungus, this ghastliness gets in everywhere
Lefty activists entering benevolent societies is almost a perfect analogy with trans predators entering female prisons. They see easy prey.
Lefty activists entering benevolent societies is almost a perfect analogy with trans predators entering female prisons. They see easy prey.
TBH i think scamnesty has always supported torturous powers if they are left wing and Oxfam was a business when my parents used to moan about them in the 60s.
The Left ruins everything it touches.
Like a malodorous creeping fungus, this ghastliness gets in everywhere
Wretched? I have had issues with alcohol, and still do, although not technically an alcoholic. I am not wretched and I find that term offensive to be honest. I also do not need redemption and, if I did, I would not look to some pious rigid group for it. Redemption comes from within, or from god if that is what you believe (I do not), it is not something others can gift to you.
Wretched was meant entirely compassionately, and if you read Bill’s book, the wretchedness of alcoholism is the very motive behind the 12-step program, and the objective of the program is best described as redemption.
The article is about Alcoholics Anonymous, and if you found the word wretched offensive, the comment was not meant for you. As mentioned above, ego-identification is a vice.
Wretchedness and redemption can be described in purely personal, secular ways, as you suggest. The words take on religious connotations only when people insist on interpreting them in that context. Which, unfortunately, many AA meetings do. Though in my view, AA itself, in its pure form, does not make such proclamations.
Personally, I choose to describe my state of being pre-AA as wretched, and I consider myself personally redeemed by the lessons I learned in AA. I don’t attach any religious connotation to those words, however, being like you, an atheist. They are words that work for me in my own personal terms.
AA is supposed to tout no religion nor belief system other than that a) you are an alcoholic, you have no power to stop being addicted to alcholol, b) you must let go control and admit that only a power greater than yourself can get you out of the hole, and c) decide to commit to getting out of your own way and let some help in. Before this new threat to the Traditions, there was the threat of groups actively promoting a Christian god. There’s always something.
Wretched was meant entirely compassionately, and if you read Bill’s book, the wretchedness of alcoholism is the very motive behind the 12-step program, and the objective of the program is best described as redemption.
The article is about Alcoholics Anonymous, and if you found the word wretched offensive, the comment was not meant for you. As mentioned above, ego-identification is a vice.
Wretchedness and redemption can be described in purely personal, secular ways, as you suggest. The words take on religious connotations only when people insist on interpreting them in that context. Which, unfortunately, many AA meetings do. Though in my view, AA itself, in its pure form, does not make such proclamations.
Personally, I choose to describe my state of being pre-AA as wretched, and I consider myself personally redeemed by the lessons I learned in AA. I don’t attach any religious connotation to those words, however, being like you, an atheist. They are words that work for me in my own personal terms.
AA is supposed to tout no religion nor belief system other than that a) you are an alcoholic, you have no power to stop being addicted to alcholol, b) you must let go control and admit that only a power greater than yourself can get you out of the hole, and c) decide to commit to getting out of your own way and let some help in. Before this new threat to the Traditions, there was the threat of groups actively promoting a Christian god. There’s always something.
The Woke will probably be protesting against Drunk-shaming next.
Good analysis – wherever there is a noble or virtuous enterprise it attracts activists like flies to fresh dung. It has affected so many charities and benevolent societies and other avowedly non-political organisations. Look at what happened to Amnesty and Oxfam.
Wretched? I have had issues with alcohol, and still do, although not technically an alcoholic. I am not wretched and I find that term offensive to be honest. I also do not need redemption and, if I did, I would not look to some pious rigid group for it. Redemption comes from within, or from god if that is what you believe (I do not), it is not something others can gift to you.
Alcoholics Anonymous encourages virtue in the wretched to allow them to redeem themselves, and it is hard to imagine a more noble purpose.
Unfortunately that nobility is exactly what makes it a target in the culture war, which is entirely the result of revolutionaries promoting vices like inertia, impulsivity, ego-identification, and delusion.
The majority of AA meetings of this type will fail and fold. Meetings that are true to the original vision will thrive.
Its the same with churches and charities. Once the primary teaching changes, people fall away.
The difference with AA and other 12 step fellowships is that many people will needlessly die in their addiction because of this nonsense.
Historically you are right, Peter.
Dangerous these fools.
Meddling with something proven to work (if the sufferer Really wants it)
As you rightly say, the terrible sadness of all this stupid interfering
will be the deaths of genuine ‘people’
who want to get sober.
Clive G.
The Left will not be content unless they destroy every last institution.
Rubbish!
Rubbish!
Historically you are right, Peter.
Dangerous these fools.
Meddling with something proven to work (if the sufferer Really wants it)
As you rightly say, the terrible sadness of all this stupid interfering
will be the deaths of genuine ‘people’
who want to get sober.
Clive G.
The Left will not be content unless they destroy every last institution.
The majority of AA meetings of this type will fail and fold. Meetings that are true to the original vision will thrive.
Its the same with churches and charities. Once the primary teaching changes, people fall away.
The difference with AA and other 12 step fellowships is that many people will needlessly die in their addiction because of this nonsense.
haha….
”I was finishing my last year of study at Columbia University. Having entered the university in 2017 as a self-described radical progressive planning a career in LGBT activism,”
Man it must be hard to even leave the house in the morning, or open the computer, or pick up a book when every last single bit, All of it, every last thought, from waking in the morning to falling asleep at night, and likely the dreams between those – when your every molecule of existence and conscious thought – is about who you – and everyone else – want to F** k.
Man – you guys are nuts…..
Christopher Lasch wrote about this descent into narcissism way back in the seventies. Everything he described has come true.
GK Chesterton wrote about it in 1908.
Which of Lasch’s books are you referring to?
Philip Reiff gets into this too, if you can read him!!
GK Chesterton wrote about it in 1908.
Which of Lasch’s books are you referring to?
Philip Reiff gets into this too, if you can read him!!
Christopher Lasch wrote about this descent into narcissism way back in the seventies. Everything he described has come true.
haha….
”I was finishing my last year of study at Columbia University. Having entered the university in 2017 as a self-described radical progressive planning a career in LGBT activism,”
Man it must be hard to even leave the house in the morning, or open the computer, or pick up a book when every last single bit, All of it, every last thought, from waking in the morning to falling asleep at night, and likely the dreams between those – when your every molecule of existence and conscious thought – is about who you – and everyone else – want to F** k.
Man – you guys are nuts…..
‘Woke harms my health too. I’m not an alcoholic, but suffer from high blood pressure, and woke makes me very angry very quickly.
‘Woke harms my health too. I’m not an alcoholic, but suffer from high blood pressure, and woke makes me very angry very quickly.
So, one ‘plans a career in LGBT activism…’ That would have floored the careers master at my secondary modern back in the day; gas engineer? brickie? tool maker? sparkie? no, gardener!
Our career master at school (completely untrained and uninterested in it – he was actually the maths master), used to recommend to everybody that they become divers off North Sea rigs because the money was so good. If you showed reluctance on the basis of the high risk of injury or death, he then suggested accountancy.
Divers have mostly been replaced by ROVs or just remote or auto activated “smart” subsea equipment that doesn’t even need ROVs. Divers still operate in the margins but the money has gone out of it since at least 35 years ago
I’m pleased to hear this. And yes, I’m quite old now.
I’m pleased to hear this. And yes, I’m quite old now.
Divers have mostly been replaced by ROVs or just remote or auto activated “smart” subsea equipment that doesn’t even need ROVs. Divers still operate in the margins but the money has gone out of it since at least 35 years ago
LGBT activism promotes uphill gardening.
You got it!
You got it!
Our career master at school (completely untrained and uninterested in it – he was actually the maths master), used to recommend to everybody that they become divers off North Sea rigs because the money was so good. If you showed reluctance on the basis of the high risk of injury or death, he then suggested accountancy.
LGBT activism promotes uphill gardening.
So, one ‘plans a career in LGBT activism…’ That would have floored the careers master at my secondary modern back in the day; gas engineer? brickie? tool maker? sparkie? no, gardener!
Time to create an alternative AA movement then.
troon anonymous? I would love to see the 12 steps and 10 traditions…hahahaaa every meeting would end in a melee…..
Attn Mods, pls ban the above poster…haha (saving someone else the effort)
Manys the time that I do not actually understand what you are posting. I’m not saying that it is you, it could well be me, but I rarely have a problem with others on this site.
Agreed. No idea what he’s trying to say.
Agreed. No idea what he’s trying to say.
Manys the time that I do not actually understand what you are posting. I’m not saying that it is you, it could well be me, but I rarely have a problem with others on this site.
Attn Mods, pls ban the above poster…haha (saving someone else the effort)
It’s been tried. Nothing else has worked.
Refuge Recovery–a quasi-Buddhist approach–and Rational Recovery–to a lesser extent, I think–have helped some people “save themselves through fellowship”. Their success rates are not great but neither is AA’s (estimated at 5 percent or less long-term).
The thing no one ever talks about is how AA or any other anonymous program is able to get good data on success rates. Treatment programs are also problematic. Anything that relies on self-reporting is problematic for an issue like addiction. One of the hallmarks of addiction is a persistent tendency to deny and lie about use.
Fair point. And those rare (but not imaginary) folks who recover or at least abstain on their own might be both less inclined to talk about in lives less focused on abstaining, and wary of incurring blowback from AA zealots by broadcasting their clean time: “I white-knuckled it for 3 years then had a profound spiritual conversion; been sober for 20 years without meetings”–again, not typical, but possible.
Fair point. And those rare (but not imaginary) folks who recover or at least abstain on their own might be both less inclined to talk about in lives less focused on abstaining, and wary of incurring blowback from AA zealots by broadcasting their clean time: “I white-knuckled it for 3 years then had a profound spiritual conversion; been sober for 20 years without meetings”–again, not typical, but possible.
The thing no one ever talks about is how AA or any other anonymous program is able to get good data on success rates. Treatment programs are also problematic. Anything that relies on self-reporting is problematic for an issue like addiction. One of the hallmarks of addiction is a persistent tendency to deny and lie about use.
Cold turkey works a treat and probably accounts for most of AA’s pitiful 5% long term success rate. The reality is that the “steps” are short-term cultish psycho-crutches.
Pitiful 5%? Those are lives SAVED. I suppose the 11th step reliance on meditation is a cultish psych-crutch somewhat like 2500 years of Buddhist practice. Haddaway and shite ye get walla loon.
Google translate can do nothing with your last sentence. I’m guessing from your surname and your ref. to walloon that you are from Wallonia in northern France.
Google translate can do nothing with your last sentence. I’m guessing from your surname and your ref. to walloon that you are from Wallonia in northern France.
Pitiful 5%? Those are lives SAVED. I suppose the 11th step reliance on meditation is a cultish psych-crutch somewhat like 2500 years of Buddhist practice. Haddaway and shite ye get walla loon.
Don’t be ridiculous – individual personalised help and counselling is far better than AA. Whether it is easily available is another matter – as I said earlier I have not met one single person who has succeeded via AA or NA, in comparison to GP led individual treatment in conjuction with local drug/alcohol services. The higher power crap puts a lot of people off for a start.
I suspect you are primed to ignore AA success stories and one to one counselling failures . Perhaps you hang out with active drunks rather than people who no longer drink .
Individual, personalized help is expensive. So no one wants to pay for it. It would be funny if it weren’t so appalling, that so many treatment centers offer nothing more than AA in dress-up, with some movies about brain chemistry and an hour of personalized therapy once a week. Great profit margin there, for sure.
I suspect you are primed to ignore AA success stories and one to one counselling failures . Perhaps you hang out with active drunks rather than people who no longer drink .
Individual, personalized help is expensive. So no one wants to pay for it. It would be funny if it weren’t so appalling, that so many treatment centers offer nothing more than AA in dress-up, with some movies about brain chemistry and an hour of personalized therapy once a week. Great profit margin there, for sure.
Refuge Recovery–a quasi-Buddhist approach–and Rational Recovery–to a lesser extent, I think–have helped some people “save themselves through fellowship”. Their success rates are not great but neither is AA’s (estimated at 5 percent or less long-term).
Cold turkey works a treat and probably accounts for most of AA’s pitiful 5% long term success rate. The reality is that the “steps” are short-term cultish psycho-crutches.
Don’t be ridiculous – individual personalised help and counselling is far better than AA. Whether it is easily available is another matter – as I said earlier I have not met one single person who has succeeded via AA or NA, in comparison to GP led individual treatment in conjuction with local drug/alcohol services. The higher power crap puts a lot of people off for a start.
troon anonymous? I would love to see the 12 steps and 10 traditions…hahahaaa every meeting would end in a melee…..
It’s been tried. Nothing else has worked.
Time to create an alternative AA movement then.
Masonry is an organisation that draws men in from a wide variety of backgrounds, races and personal beliefs and one of the injunctions is that politics and religion should not be discussed to ensure harmony in the Lodge.
The objects of Masonry are not as potentially life saving as AA but its founders appreciated that the strong ideological beliefs engendered by politics and religion can be inimical to the conviviality and brotherhood that is part of the purpose of the organisation and their discussion should therefore be excluded.
Unfortunately too many organisations have forgotten this important truth and have permitted the fanaticism of quasi-religious beliefs such as LGBT+ and DEI to intrude into spaces that should promote harmony and cooperation, ironically on the grounds that such fanatical beliefs actually promote a greater love of one’s fellow rather than divide as they in fact do.
Amusingly a few years back advice was circulated to Masonic Lodges emphasising that we should be welcoming to any brother who started to turn up in a dress but at the same time emphasising that the principal that the organisation was for men only remained.
another profoundly lower middle class polydraylon uniformed tribe….
I find politics and religion do get discussed but at the festive board. There’s little trouble doing so, because the whole point is that if you engage on those things in that environment, you do actually get a proper and respectful kind of discussion, one you can learn from.
Master of my lodge is I believe, somewhat woke in her views, but she doesn’t let that disrupt the lodge and there’s no pressure to rewrite the rituals to accommodate these concepts. I think we should no more do that, than put in a belief in a supreme being. It’s just not needed . . . if you aren’t interested in spiritual stuff, you wouldn’t come to a masonic meeting anyway.
We have other male-only groups and I’m really appreciating the value of having that kind of companionship as lots of men I know who are not in a lodge or active in some other group, seem to be without a stable group of friends.
another profoundly lower middle class polydraylon uniformed tribe….
I find politics and religion do get discussed but at the festive board. There’s little trouble doing so, because the whole point is that if you engage on those things in that environment, you do actually get a proper and respectful kind of discussion, one you can learn from.
Master of my lodge is I believe, somewhat woke in her views, but she doesn’t let that disrupt the lodge and there’s no pressure to rewrite the rituals to accommodate these concepts. I think we should no more do that, than put in a belief in a supreme being. It’s just not needed . . . if you aren’t interested in spiritual stuff, you wouldn’t come to a masonic meeting anyway.
We have other male-only groups and I’m really appreciating the value of having that kind of companionship as lots of men I know who are not in a lodge or active in some other group, seem to be without a stable group of friends.
Masonry is an organisation that draws men in from a wide variety of backgrounds, races and personal beliefs and one of the injunctions is that politics and religion should not be discussed to ensure harmony in the Lodge.
The objects of Masonry are not as potentially life saving as AA but its founders appreciated that the strong ideological beliefs engendered by politics and religion can be inimical to the conviviality and brotherhood that is part of the purpose of the organisation and their discussion should therefore be excluded.
Unfortunately too many organisations have forgotten this important truth and have permitted the fanaticism of quasi-religious beliefs such as LGBT+ and DEI to intrude into spaces that should promote harmony and cooperation, ironically on the grounds that such fanatical beliefs actually promote a greater love of one’s fellow rather than divide as they in fact do.
Amusingly a few years back advice was circulated to Masonic Lodges emphasising that we should be welcoming to any brother who started to turn up in a dress but at the same time emphasising that the principal that the organisation was for men only remained.
In the UK readers of Melissa Kite in The Spectator will have seen her chronicle of the persecution and eviction of working class male from her to posh to care Surrey group. It’s the same basic story but without the QT+-ers.
We think of young students (Oxford this week) as being too fragile for the real world but these examples show that there is a much deeper cultural malaise.
Good piece.
Yes, I thought of M.Kite’s article too.
Yes, the Surrey AA Committee appears to be intent on revising the 12 step plan to bring it up to date. Unfortunately, there are only too many narcissists who want to “improve” successful institutions instead of going off and starting their own and seeing if anyone wants their new and improved version. Instead, Surrey AA men who prefer the original formula have to travel across the border to get it.
No one in Surrey is ” posh” merely petit bourgeois who use ‘toilet stationary’ get stuck in ‘traffic preserves’ and instead of shampoo wash their hair with ‘ fauxstool’.
As the word posh is normally used in England as a form of insult suggesting an unwarranted pretentiousness the More-Molyneux family will be relieved to know you don’t think anyone in Surrey is posh.
I thought petit bourgeois was merely a Marxist/socialist insult as for the rest you may know someone who use such rare and amusing phrases but do they come from Surrey?
I know, I went out with one of them in the 1980s…
PS greatest insult nickname used by other Foot Guards against The Scots Guards is…. “The Surrey Highlanders”,… as they prefer ” Norfolk Highlanders”…
Michael M-M’s niece as it happens….
Presumably you were able to avoid living in Surrey during this liaison to avoid having to buy fauxstool from the local chemist.
Presumably you were able to avoid living in Surrey during this liaison to avoid having to buy fauxstool from the local chemist.
PS greatest insult nickname used by other Foot Guards against The Scots Guards is…. “The Surrey Highlanders”,… as they prefer ” Norfolk Highlanders”…
Michael M-M’s niece as it happens….
I know, I went out with one of them in the 1980s…
Haha!
As the word posh is normally used in England as a form of insult suggesting an unwarranted pretentiousness the More-Molyneux family will be relieved to know you don’t think anyone in Surrey is posh.
I thought petit bourgeois was merely a Marxist/socialist insult as for the rest you may know someone who use such rare and amusing phrases but do they come from Surrey?
Haha!
Yes, I thought of M.Kite’s article too.
Yes, the Surrey AA Committee appears to be intent on revising the 12 step plan to bring it up to date. Unfortunately, there are only too many narcissists who want to “improve” successful institutions instead of going off and starting their own and seeing if anyone wants their new and improved version. Instead, Surrey AA men who prefer the original formula have to travel across the border to get it.
No one in Surrey is ” posh” merely petit bourgeois who use ‘toilet stationary’ get stuck in ‘traffic preserves’ and instead of shampoo wash their hair with ‘ fauxstool’.
In the UK readers of Melissa Kite in The Spectator will have seen her chronicle of the persecution and eviction of working class male from her to posh to care Surrey group. It’s the same basic story but without the QT+-ers.
We think of young students (Oxford this week) as being too fragile for the real world but these examples show that there is a much deeper cultural malaise.
Good piece.
Yet more proof that “critical social justice ideology” is a religion, a totalitarian religion. In 12 step groups, the “higher power” can mean anything that participants can recognize as a source of help: “God as we understood God.”
But transgress against THIS thinking? Out!
Yet more proof that “critical social justice ideology” is a religion, a totalitarian religion. In 12 step groups, the “higher power” can mean anything that participants can recognize as a source of help: “God as we understood God.”
But transgress against THIS thinking? Out!
“planning a career in LGBT activism”
I stopped reading when I got to this point in the article.
Yes that caught my eye as well. Connectedly does anybody know when “activism” and “activist” became common terms? They weren’t around when I was young. “campaigner” was used then I think. We didn’t talk about the Greenham Common activists.
This won’t address “common” usage, but with a shared curiosity I found this at OED:
(sense 1b.) That advocates or engages in action, spec. that undertakes vigorous political or social campaigning.
1917 Times 24 Aug. 4/1 The home of the activist group of Irish Labour.
1949 Theology 52 363 American Christianity has tended traditionally to express itself in an activist form.
1968 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 16 Jan. 9/1 (advt.) Careers Today is a bold, new, activist magazine for people who care about what they do.
1976 D. Dawn Woman-work (1978) i. 32 Plays with emancipated activist heroines were put on.
2002 S. Home 69 Things to do with Dead Princess viii. 107 This activist hipster had notched up seven porn books against only two ‘serious’ novels.
Thanks – interesting.
Thanks – interesting.
Quite. I used to be a lay trade union official. In later years I was often referred to as an ‘activist’; a word and concept that I loathe. My response was that I was a representative. I was there to act on behalf of members and represent their views. I was not there to tell them how to think. That role is no longer understood, either by union reps or by politicians.
Women or wimmin were the usual terms depending on whether you supported them .
This won’t address “common” usage, but with a shared curiosity I found this at OED:
(sense 1b.) That advocates or engages in action, spec. that undertakes vigorous political or social campaigning.
1917 Times 24 Aug. 4/1 The home of the activist group of Irish Labour.
1949 Theology 52 363 American Christianity has tended traditionally to express itself in an activist form.
1968 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 16 Jan. 9/1 (advt.) Careers Today is a bold, new, activist magazine for people who care about what they do.
1976 D. Dawn Woman-work (1978) i. 32 Plays with emancipated activist heroines were put on.
2002 S. Home 69 Things to do with Dead Princess viii. 107 This activist hipster had notched up seven porn books against only two ‘serious’ novels.
Quite. I used to be a lay trade union official. In later years I was often referred to as an ‘activist’; a word and concept that I loathe. My response was that I was a representative. I was there to act on behalf of members and represent their views. I was not there to tell them how to think. That role is no longer understood, either by union reps or by politicians.
Women or wimmin were the usual terms depending on whether you supported them .
Don’t bother commenting if you’re too intellectually lazy to read a fairly short article.
Yes that caught my eye as well. Connectedly does anybody know when “activism” and “activist” became common terms? They weren’t around when I was young. “campaigner” was used then I think. We didn’t talk about the Greenham Common activists.
Don’t bother commenting if you’re too intellectually lazy to read a fairly short article.
“planning a career in LGBT activism”
I stopped reading when I got to this point in the article.
Now over 20 years sober, I owe so much to AA, mosly Newmarket AA, and I cannot find words to accurately portray my contempt of that that this piece describes, which fits with Spectator correspondent Melissa Kite’s partners experience of AA in some part of Surrey.
Unless citizens and their elected politicians stand up and fight the National Socialist LBGT/Racism/ climate change takeover of this country, now streaming out of the internet Trojan Horse, from the US, we will be a dystopian fascist state within years.
It is the single greatest threat to our way of life since 1939.
Crikey! What’s going on in Surrey?
Crikey! What’s going on in Surrey?
Now over 20 years sober, I owe so much to AA, mosly Newmarket AA, and I cannot find words to accurately portray my contempt of that that this piece describes, which fits with Spectator correspondent Melissa Kite’s partners experience of AA in some part of Surrey.
Unless citizens and their elected politicians stand up and fight the National Socialist LBGT/Racism/ climate change takeover of this country, now streaming out of the internet Trojan Horse, from the US, we will be a dystopian fascist state within years.
It is the single greatest threat to our way of life since 1939.
I’m going to say quite a bit here in more draft form, because I’m very, very familiar with these issues and perhaps you can take something from this.
I appreciate your doing this, but don’t you feel uncomfortable violating the Tradition that “We must always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films?” As a radical feminist well-versed in feminist epistemology and critical theory, I’m someone who went to my first meeting in 1988, I have been disturbed since then at the increase of people violating this tradition–particularly celebrities. Perhaps you do so because Members no longer follow this? I’ve wondered what the Internet would do to this, given how it flattens anonymity. Perhaps this is my answer
During the late 80s and 90s I had many issues w/ the implicit sexism of the Big Book and the 13th stepping I encountered in most meetings (I was a young blonde woman) but was told by various leaders that I needed to “focus on my sobriety” and how trivial my issues were–that these were my issues that I needed to address, rather than the ongoing sexism and harassment I faced. I also questioned the racial self-segregation I saw between NA and AA–and particularly Al-Anon–which seemed to be dominated by older white women and by its particular nature of buttoned up, discursive self-analysis. You might already know that NA runs like an old-school Black church, with lots of call and response, which is why most white drug addicts go to AA and Black alcoholics go to NA. The very literacy-based, CBT-type self-reflection in Al-Anon in particular seemed not to be consistent with the “secondary orality-based” nature of low-income Black culture in this country (see Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word,” or MIT Labs work on the hx of communication technologies.)
Up until 2012, I would often read substitute gender inclusive language if chosen to read the Steps out loud, and I literally quit all of it for good after an Al-Anon self-appointed female busybody called me out for it during a meeting. Through the years, though, esp in AA, a few young female newcomers appreciated it. I even wrote an original intro to our long-time women’s group that I developed, which I’ve seen years later pop up in online fora on the west coast 20 years later. I had scholarly manuscripts in the 1990s about various 12 step/cultural issues ready to go (anonymously) and then dropped it. More on that later….
But see, the challenges posed by radical feminist understanding were much greater than just substituting language. They had to do with, in particular, the recognition of the permeation of sexual violence and assault within “alcoholic families.” Many of the issues faced by abused women, in particular in Al-Anon, weren’t just of “changing attitudes” but of developing feminist self-awareness that they didn’t owe their male partner obedience and that the pervasive blame they experienced from institutions–which was very real until recently–wasn’t their fault. The 12 steps were a literally a backdoor way for feminist strength to come through, though never explicitly called as such in meetings.
I was simultaneously working w/ battered women through a feminist volunteer organization and saw the permeation of male dominance throughout society and institutions at the time—how women were blamed for their own victimization. I’d experienced this first hand by vicious sexist magistrates blaming me or my clients for our own abuse, even in a famous college town. And of course I’d experienced it growing up–“what police will help you, you s**t!” said my drunken violent father. But I noticed as a well-versed Dworkin-MacKinnon feminist that radical feminist rage that emanated from the staff at the battered women’s center sometimes exculpated women from ANY personal responsibility and blamed all men, which I found even then to another version of sexism (though understandable) and spiritually dishonest, and lazy. But then I’d go to a 12 step meeting and see formerly battered women internalizing that locus of control and suggesting that they just weren’t “working a program” when they were with that guy and blaming themselves for always “chosing bad men,” when I knew the stats were so high that they’d likely find another man who seemed non-abusive but would turn out to abuse them all over again.
I observed then that 12 steps, like non-dualism in general, encapsulate the challenge facing activists of faith–the radical freedom of liberation theology (per Friere et al)–and also, how the internalization of the locus of control seems to functionally empower people, though can also cause us to self-blame and thereby hinder larger social change. I noticed how it often came down to choosing your battles–choosing peace and letting go of what you couldn’t control, which then paradoxically made you much more successful in addressing those small parts of injustice and slowly improving the world. Balancing those issues was fascinating to me, but I rarely found anyone–except a few years later in academia and in the early Internet group Moderation Management–who explicitly articulated this tension about internalization vs externalization of locus of control.
I actually noticed as an aspiring scholar, at the time in the late 80s, that the romance literature for which some women had fan fiction meetings (pre-internet) followed a psychological dynamic of restoring disrupted locus of control. Unfortunately I was in a grad program full of limited, logical positivist, midwit people (the kind who now call themselves DEI experts)….While I actually had an original manuscript ready to go w/ that analysis, and a female professor encouarging me, the leading prof in the grad program was a misogynistic gay male who singled me out so much for public torment and deliberate low grading (because I was a fluffy blonde feminist, a twofer for an old school woman-hating gay man) that I gave up, afraid of more abuse like I’d grown up with. Even another lesbian faculty member in that same program constantly hammered me too–they didn’t understand feminist epistemology and assumed because I was pretty that I must be stupid instead of more aware than they were. And in their arrogance neither they nor the bullying students (who’d simply heard I was a radical feminist–they never even talked to me) couldn’t grasp how critical theory called out journalistic bullshit at all.
Ironically, that grad program has been in the national news over the past few years, w/ faculty who now claim they’re experts on sexism and racism and understand critical theory, making a big deal about how one of their new DEI hires was treated. I still have the original papers I submitted to them w/ their nasty comments– I’ve often wondered about photographing and posting all over social media and detailing their sexist abuse, which would today have won me a lawsuit.
Re the Program, I’ve wanted to go back to 12 step meetings–even today, as a matter of fact, because I’ve started daily drinking again to deal w/ a serious chronic illness–and wondered if woke-ism had infiltrated it. It’s infuriating ironic that 30 years ago I was the only person I knew within a 300 mile radius openly speaking about the sexual harassment I faced or, w/ members outside of meetings, the unintentional sexist erasure of women, but was dismissed as “babe” who was “crazy and oversensitive.” Now, I’m immediately, smugly dismissed as a middle aged white woman who’s blind to my white privilege. Yet, on the other hand, the Program helped me “become peace you wish to see” and accomplish a great deal over the ensuing two decades on behalf of disadvantaged minority aspiring scholars. And it taught me gratitude, balance, so much, despite its limitations.
What I’ve appreciated about the Traditions was how incremental they required change to be, though that drove me nuts at the time as a feminist. I was a daily meeting attendee “newcomer” in the late 80s in the height of the “Satanic panic” and several new, spoiled, childless, teddybear-clutching women suddenly “recovered memories of Satanic ritual abuse” –one was so sensitive that we couldn’t even have a candlelight meeting because the “light triggered her traumatic memories.” I’m glad that AA and Al-Anon explicitly exclude the discussion of therapy, self-help, or other literature in the context of meetings, precisely because they haven’t until now at least wanted the latest self-help craze to overtake the literature of the program and the main focus.
The essence of the Program is developing an active relationship with a Power Greater than Yourself (and to knee-jerk athiests, it’s well-known among members that this could be the Universe or a Doorknob–it’s up to each member. It entails working the steps through observing and interacting with others doing the same. This enables us to take responsibility for changing our ATTITUDES about life and thereby not blaming or trying to control people, places, and things we can’t control. We thus thereby rely less on addicting substances that falsely, immediately change those attitudes–we instead work on facing the Present, one day at a time, head on. In fact, the 12 steps and meeting culture, 90 years ago, already expressed principles Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, as well as Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and contemporary non-dualist literature, well before the self-help industry and psychology establishment “discovered” and monetized these principles. That makes sense, given that Carl Jung & William James were very involved in its inception and had been influenced by Eastern non-dualist principles. Per Ernst Kurtz (a wonderful Harvard-based religious historian of the program), AA quite originally, powerfully syncretized elements of evangelicalism, Calvinist notions of hard work, and Eastern non-dualist principles. This helped Americans at the height of the depression and has slowly seeped into the culture ever since. By providing a “disease metaphor,” however problematic to us now, he enabled many people, post-Prohibition, to learn a new language of managing the pain in their lives and slowly moving toward greater emotional intelligence in their personal lives.
I’m very disappointed if the WSO caved into this institutional DEI crap–and egoically irritated, I guess, because my entire life I’ve called out issues 20-30 years before they happened and I’m so sick of seeing others get credit for suddenly discovering something for which I was harassed at the time (and for which I’m too terrified to publish, particularly today). My prediction now is that the inevitable mass understanding w/in 5-10 years about how humans need to integrate a recognition of their incessant ego needs into whatever world view they have, will result in some slow radical cultural improvement (probably rendered even more humble if current scientific UAP disocveries pan out and scientism is more properly understood as the fundamentalist evil it is). Yet, once again grifters and cowards will take even that and monetize it or use it as an ideological system w/ which to compete with and control other humans.
I feared in the early 90s that AA would be imposed on the culture as a whole like DEI now is–I’m amazed that it hasn’t. AA HAS been wrongly imposed w/ court-ordered treatment, as Stanton P and others recognized early on. At MM, we used to discuss how such the movement could have been forced on the culture writ large and then ruined as a result. Generally, the structure itself has been kept out of public adoption.
That’s why I’d ultimately ask the author–are you sure you want us to hash out AA in a public forum? It’s one thing to write about it as an example of a larger cultural problem, but should we ADJUDICATE AA IN A GROUP CONSCIENCE MEETING VIA A PUBLIC, NON-CONFERENCE APPROVED FORUM? Funny that as a radical feminist I’m one to follow their old-boy rules, but those rules actually protected the Program from the various self-help movements that have come since. I had no idea that they’d weighed in on the culture wars–I’d feared it but thought of all groups they would have held out.
Here’s what I suspect, though. Despite any new rules, there will ALWAYS be AA and NA meetings where contrarian people, especially older men, call out the DEI bullshit. I know those guys too well. DEI is inherently–like the tensions I described 30 years before–about EXTERNALIZING LOCUS OF CONTROL, and therefore it INHERENTLY VIOLATES THE CORE PRINCIPLES OF THE PROGRAM, HOWEVER SEXIST, RACIST, LOGICAL POSITIVIST, CLASSIST, or GENERALLY SOCIALLY CONSTRUCTED ITS INCEPTION. I’d write about it, but like in the 90s when I wouldn’t publish some six articles about the Program due to adherence to Traditions and my own fears, I’m afraid to have that discussion now. Old habits die hard, I guess.
Thank you for an interesting comment, albeit a very long one that was not easy to read. I agree with about half of what you say and disagree with the other half, however I thank you for taking the time to set out your thoughts and experiences in such a comprehensive manner for us to digest. I wish you well with your current issues – I have never been an alcholic per se, problem drinker is the term my counsellor uses, but I too have started drinking daily again to deal with issues of severe depression stemming from bereavement. I have an appointment with my GP next week and will discuss it with her x
I’m sorry for your recent loss and I sympathize with your coping strategy, so to speak. As someone who’s been both a daily maintenance drinker and binger, and experienced long-tern severe depressions, I find alcohol provides major temporary relief. But perhaps you’d agree that it doesn’t heal the underlying sadness or anger and tends to come at a huge bodily cost. Good health to you.
I’m sorry for your recent loss and I sympathize with your coping strategy, so to speak. As someone who’s been both a daily maintenance drinker and binger, and experienced long-tern severe depressions, I find alcohol provides major temporary relief. But perhaps you’d agree that it doesn’t heal the underlying sadness or anger and tends to come at a huge bodily cost. Good health to you.
A long-winded but very interesting comment.
A thought-provoking compendium of observations and reflections, most of which I think I understand. In terms of “externalizing the locus of control” doesn’t Step 1 do that?: “Admitted we were powerless over alcohol; that our lives had become unmanageable”? I realize that AA recovery happens here on earth, for individuals-in-fellowship working the steps. But the First Step seems like a fundamental externalization, except in the to-me-quite-real sense that God is within us. Surrender to a Higher Power (Steps Two and Three) is usually a factor in successful non-AA recovery too (through church or inward spiritual awakening), in my estimation.
Please don’t use your considerable rational and analytical power, nor your legitimate dissatisfaction with the ÁA Program, to punish your body and brain with drink until the end. As a binge drinker with pockets of real clean time, who is sober about 6 in every 7 days, I think I often use my (uneven) learning and rhetorical skill to create excuses for drunken indulgence–which is something I pray that I will put behind me. May even nonconformists avoid “terminal uniqueness”. Good luck to both of us.
Thank you for an interesting comment, albeit a very long one that was not easy to read. I agree with about half of what you say and disagree with the other half, however I thank you for taking the time to set out your thoughts and experiences in such a comprehensive manner for us to digest. I wish you well with your current issues – I have never been an alcholic per se, problem drinker is the term my counsellor uses, but I too have started drinking daily again to deal with issues of severe depression stemming from bereavement. I have an appointment with my GP next week and will discuss it with her x
A long-winded but very interesting comment.
A thought-provoking compendium of observations and reflections, most of which I think I understand. In terms of “externalizing the locus of control” doesn’t Step 1 do that?: “Admitted we were powerless over alcohol; that our lives had become unmanageable”? I realize that AA recovery happens here on earth, for individuals-in-fellowship working the steps. But the First Step seems like a fundamental externalization, except in the to-me-quite-real sense that God is within us. Surrender to a Higher Power (Steps Two and Three) is usually a factor in successful non-AA recovery too (through church or inward spiritual awakening), in my estimation.
Please don’t use your considerable rational and analytical power, nor your legitimate dissatisfaction with the ÁA Program, to punish your body and brain with drink until the end. As a binge drinker with pockets of real clean time, who is sober about 6 in every 7 days, I think I often use my (uneven) learning and rhetorical skill to create excuses for drunken indulgence–which is something I pray that I will put behind me. May even nonconformists avoid “terminal uniqueness”. Good luck to both of us.
I’m going to say quite a bit here in more draft form, because I’m very, very familiar with these issues and perhaps you can take something from this.
I appreciate your doing this, but don’t you feel uncomfortable violating the Tradition that “We must always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films?” As a radical feminist well-versed in feminist epistemology and critical theory, I’m someone who went to my first meeting in 1988, I have been disturbed since then at the increase of people violating this tradition–particularly celebrities. Perhaps you do so because Members no longer follow this? I’ve wondered what the Internet would do to this, given how it flattens anonymity. Perhaps this is my answer
During the late 80s and 90s I had many issues w/ the implicit sexism of the Big Book and the 13th stepping I encountered in most meetings (I was a young blonde woman) but was told by various leaders that I needed to “focus on my sobriety” and how trivial my issues were–that these were my issues that I needed to address, rather than the ongoing sexism and harassment I faced. I also questioned the racial self-segregation I saw between NA and AA–and particularly Al-Anon–which seemed to be dominated by older white women and by its particular nature of buttoned up, discursive self-analysis. You might already know that NA runs like an old-school Black church, with lots of call and response, which is why most white drug addicts go to AA and Black alcoholics go to NA. The very literacy-based, CBT-type self-reflection in Al-Anon in particular seemed not to be consistent with the “secondary orality-based” nature of low-income Black culture in this country (see Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word,” or MIT Labs work on the hx of communication technologies.)
Up until 2012, I would often read substitute gender inclusive language if chosen to read the Steps out loud, and I literally quit all of it for good after an Al-Anon self-appointed female busybody called me out for it during a meeting. Through the years, though, esp in AA, a few young female newcomers appreciated it. I even wrote an original intro to our long-time women’s group that I developed, which I’ve seen years later pop up in online fora on the west coast 20 years later. I had scholarly manuscripts in the 1990s about various 12 step/cultural issues ready to go (anonymously) and then dropped it. More on that later….
But see, the challenges posed by radical feminist understanding were much greater than just substituting language. They had to do with, in particular, the recognition of the permeation of sexual violence and assault within “alcoholic families.” Many of the issues faced by abused women, in particular in Al-Anon, weren’t just of “changing attitudes” but of developing feminist self-awareness that they didn’t owe their male partner obedience and that the pervasive blame they experienced from institutions–which was very real until recently–wasn’t their fault. The 12 steps were a literally a backdoor way for feminist strength to come through, though never explicitly called as such in meetings.
I was simultaneously working w/ battered women through a feminist volunteer organization and saw the permeation of male dominance throughout society and institutions at the time—how women were blamed for their own victimization. I’d experienced this first hand by vicious sexist magistrates blaming me or my clients for our own abuse, even in a famous college town. And of course I’d experienced it growing up–“what police will help you, you s**t!” said my drunken violent father. But I noticed as a well-versed Dworkin-MacKinnon feminist that radical feminist rage that emanated from the staff at the battered women’s center sometimes exculpated women from ANY personal responsibility and blamed all men, which I found even then to another version of sexism (though understandable) and spiritually dishonest, and lazy. But then I’d go to a 12 step meeting and see formerly battered women internalizing that locus of control and suggesting that they just weren’t “working a program” when they were with that guy and blaming themselves for always “chosing bad men,” when I knew the stats were so high that they’d likely find another man who seemed non-abusive but would turn out to abuse them all over again.
I observed then that 12 steps, like non-dualism in general, encapsulate the challenge facing activists of faith–the radical freedom of liberation theology (per Friere et al)–and also, how the internalization of the locus of control seems to functionally empower people, though can also cause us to self-blame and thereby hinder larger social change. I noticed how it often came down to choosing your battles–choosing peace and letting go of what you couldn’t control, which then paradoxically made you much more successful in addressing those small parts of injustice and slowly improving the world. Balancing those issues was fascinating to me, but I rarely found anyone–except a few years later in academia and in the early Internet group Moderation Management–who explicitly articulated this tension about internalization vs externalization of locus of control.
I actually noticed as an aspiring scholar, at the time in the late 80s, that the romance literature for which some women had fan fiction meetings (pre-internet) followed a psychological dynamic of restoring disrupted locus of control. Unfortunately I was in a grad program full of limited, logical positivist, midwit people (the kind who now call themselves DEI experts)….While I actually had an original manuscript ready to go w/ that analysis, and a female professor encouarging me, the leading prof in the grad program was a misogynistic gay male who singled me out so much for public torment and deliberate low grading (because I was a fluffy blonde feminist, a twofer for an old school woman-hating gay man) that I gave up, afraid of more abuse like I’d grown up with. Even another lesbian faculty member in that same program constantly hammered me too–they didn’t understand feminist epistemology and assumed because I was pretty that I must be stupid instead of more aware than they were. And in their arrogance neither they nor the bullying students (who’d simply heard I was a radical feminist–they never even talked to me) couldn’t grasp how critical theory called out journalistic bullshit at all.
Ironically, that grad program has been in the national news over the past few years, w/ faculty who now claim they’re experts on sexism and racism and understand critical theory, making a big deal about how one of their new DEI hires was treated. I still have the original papers I submitted to them w/ their nasty comments– I’ve often wondered about photographing and posting all over social media and detailing their sexist abuse, which would today have won me a lawsuit.
Re the Program, I’ve wanted to go back to 12 step meetings–even today, as a matter of fact, because I’ve started daily drinking again to deal w/ a serious chronic illness–and wondered if woke-ism had infiltrated it. It’s infuriating ironic that 30 years ago I was the only person I knew within a 300 mile radius openly speaking about the sexual harassment I faced or, w/ members outside of meetings, the unintentional sexist erasure of women, but was dismissed as “babe” who was “crazy and oversensitive.” Now, I’m immediately, smugly dismissed as a middle aged white woman who’s blind to my white privilege. Yet, on the other hand, the Program helped me “become peace you wish to see” and accomplish a great deal over the ensuing two decades on behalf of disadvantaged minority aspiring scholars. And it taught me gratitude, balance, so much, despite its limitations.
What I’ve appreciated about the Traditions was how incremental they required change to be, though that drove me nuts at the time as a feminist. I was a daily meeting attendee “newcomer” in the late 80s in the height of the “Satanic panic” and several new, spoiled, childless, teddybear-clutching women suddenly “recovered memories of Satanic ritual abuse” –one was so sensitive that we couldn’t even have a candlelight meeting because the “light triggered her traumatic memories.” I’m glad that AA and Al-Anon explicitly exclude the discussion of therapy, self-help, or other literature in the context of meetings, precisely because they haven’t until now at least wanted the latest self-help craze to overtake the literature of the program and the main focus.
The essence of the Program is developing an active relationship with a Power Greater than Yourself (and to knee-jerk athiests, it’s well-known among members that this could be the Universe or a Doorknob–it’s up to each member. It entails working the steps through observing and interacting with others doing the same. This enables us to take responsibility for changing our ATTITUDES about life and thereby not blaming or trying to control people, places, and things we can’t control. We thus thereby rely less on addicting substances that falsely, immediately change those attitudes–we instead work on facing the Present, one day at a time, head on. In fact, the 12 steps and meeting culture, 90 years ago, already expressed principles Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, as well as Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and contemporary non-dualist literature, well before the self-help industry and psychology establishment “discovered” and monetized these principles. That makes sense, given that Carl Jung & William James were very involved in its inception and had been influenced by Eastern non-dualist principles. Per Ernst Kurtz (a wonderful Harvard-based religious historian of the program), AA quite originally, powerfully syncretized elements of evangelicalism, Calvinist notions of hard work, and Eastern non-dualist principles. This helped Americans at the height of the depression and has slowly seeped into the culture ever since. By providing a “disease metaphor,” however problematic to us now, he enabled many people, post-Prohibition, to learn a new language of managing the pain in their lives and slowly moving toward greater emotional intelligence in their personal lives.
I’m very disappointed if the WSO caved into this institutional DEI crap–and egoically irritated, I guess, because my entire life I’ve called out issues 20-30 years before they happened and I’m so sick of seeing others get credit for suddenly discovering something for which I was harassed at the time (and for which I’m too terrified to publish, particularly today). My prediction now is that the inevitable mass understanding w/in 5-10 years about how humans need to integrate a recognition of their incessant ego needs into whatever world view they have, will result in some slow radical cultural improvement (probably rendered even more humble if current scientific UAP disocveries pan out and scientism is more properly understood as the fundamentalist evil it is). Yet, once again grifters and cowards will take even that and monetize it or use it as an ideological system w/ which to compete with and control other humans.
I feared in the early 90s that AA would be imposed on the culture as a whole like DEI now is–I’m amazed that it hasn’t. AA HAS been wrongly imposed w/ court-ordered treatment, as Stanton P and others recognized early on. At MM, we used to discuss how such the movement could have been forced on the culture writ large and then ruined as a result. Generally, the structure itself has been kept out of public adoption.
That’s why I’d ultimately ask the author–are you sure you want us to hash out AA in a public forum? It’s one thing to write about it as an example of a larger cultural problem, but should we ADJUDICATE AA IN A GROUP CONSCIENCE MEETING VIA A PUBLIC, NON-CONFERENCE APPROVED FORUM? Funny that as a radical feminist I’m one to follow their old-boy rules, but those rules actually protected the Program from the various self-help movements that have come since. I had no idea that they’d weighed in on the culture wars–I’d feared it but thought of all groups they would have held out.
Here’s what I suspect, though. Despite any new rules, there will ALWAYS be AA and NA meetings where contrarian people, especially older men, call out the DEI bullshit. I know those guys too well. DEI is inherently–like the tensions I described 30 years before–about EXTERNALIZING LOCUS OF CONTROL, and therefore it INHERENTLY VIOLATES THE CORE PRINCIPLES OF THE PROGRAM, HOWEVER SEXIST, RACIST, LOGICAL POSITIVIST, CLASSIST, or GENERALLY SOCIALLY CONSTRUCTED ITS INCEPTION. I’d write about it, but like in the 90s when I wouldn’t publish some six articles about the Program due to adherence to Traditions and my own fears, I’m afraid to have that discussion now. Old habits die hard, I guess.
This is why, despite some issues over the decades, I would NEVER set foot in an AA or NA meeting – these people are so up themselves and so convinced that their 12 step programme is the right way. Newflash: there are many other ways of dealing with various addictions without the rigidity of these organisations. Treatment for addiction needs to be individual, not generic and with rigid rules. The higher power bit alone would stop me in my tracks – I acknowledge no higher power of any description. I have no need to apologise to anyone either as I kept my issues well away from my family. I also don’t do groups lol, its a bad idea from past experience – I am blunt, forthright and forceful and that does not work well in a mutual help group – I tend to dominate and that is not always helpful for others so I avoid that shit like the plague. Oh and if someone told me to use gender neutral speech or pronouns then I would be telling that person exactly where they could shove their virtue signalling.
“Oh and if someone told me to use gender neutral speech or pronouns then I would be telling that person exactly where they could shove their virtue signalling.”
This is exactly what everyone needs to do. Upvote for this.
Seconded — with emphasis.
Seconded — with emphasis.
“Oh and if someone told me to use gender neutral speech or pronouns then I would be telling that person exactly where they could shove their virtue signalling.”
This is exactly what everyone needs to do. Upvote for this.
This is why, despite some issues over the decades, I would NEVER set foot in an AA or NA meeting – these people are so up themselves and so convinced that their 12 step programme is the right way. Newflash: there are many other ways of dealing with various addictions without the rigidity of these organisations. Treatment for addiction needs to be individual, not generic and with rigid rules. The higher power bit alone would stop me in my tracks – I acknowledge no higher power of any description. I have no need to apologise to anyone either as I kept my issues well away from my family. I also don’t do groups lol, its a bad idea from past experience – I am blunt, forthright and forceful and that does not work well in a mutual help group – I tend to dominate and that is not always helpful for others so I avoid that shit like the plague. Oh and if someone told me to use gender neutral speech or pronouns then I would be telling that person exactly where they could shove their virtue signalling.
I have been thinking similar thoughts for some time now, as a 28-year member of AA. Despite being an atheist, I am welcomed in AA. AA “theology” teaches both social and psychological health. Socially, if somebody requests to be treated a certain way, it is our obligation to respect them. Psychologically, AA teaches that no matter what somebody calls us, or no matter how much somebody disrespects us, nobody can take away our power and autonomy; we may be disrespected, but we don’t have to feel that way. That is up to us.
This is a powerful message, and not just for alcoholics. We should respect others, but never demand that others respect us.
To me, this has relevance for the personal pronoun issue. If somebody wants to be referred to in a certain way, it costs me nothing, and is a sign of respect, to refer to them that way.
At the same time, it is a sign of incomplete spiritual development for me to feel hurt if others don’t respect my demands. It amounts to nothing more than virtue signaling and/or a giving in to the urge to define ourselves by others’ perceptions of us, which is what led many of us to drink in the first place.
The application to drinking is clear. If others choose to drink around us, we can quietly leave, but we have no right to insist that others stop drinking around us. While in early sobriety it is wise to avoid such surroundings, ultimately, we have to recognize that alcohol is our own personal problem, and cannot be blamed on others. If our sobriety is dependent upon others’ beliefs, attitudes and behaviors, it is pretty weak sobriety.
This suggests to me that we should respect anyone who feels the need to be addressed in a certain way. At the same time, we should not, individually, demand that others address us in a certain way. This viewpoint is not something we should preach at others about, but nonetheless, it is a personal attitude we should all strive to adopt.
The culture wars have not yet afflicted my meetings here in Florida, but I can imagine them coming here. In the meantime, the pronoun debate has a clear answer from a reading of the original AA material. Respect others, and don’t allow yourself to feel disrespected by them. That lesson doesn’t require any updating of a single word from the original big book.
I have been thinking similar thoughts for some time now, as a 28-year member of AA. Despite being an atheist, I am welcomed in AA. AA “theology” teaches both social and psychological health. Socially, if somebody requests to be treated a certain way, it is our obligation to respect them. Psychologically, AA teaches that no matter what somebody calls us, or no matter how much somebody disrespects us, nobody can take away our power and autonomy; we may be disrespected, but we don’t have to feel that way. That is up to us.
This is a powerful message, and not just for alcoholics. We should respect others, but never demand that others respect us.
To me, this has relevance for the personal pronoun issue. If somebody wants to be referred to in a certain way, it costs me nothing, and is a sign of respect, to refer to them that way.
At the same time, it is a sign of incomplete spiritual development for me to feel hurt if others don’t respect my demands. It amounts to nothing more than virtue signaling and/or a giving in to the urge to define ourselves by others’ perceptions of us, which is what led many of us to drink in the first place.
The application to drinking is clear. If others choose to drink around us, we can quietly leave, but we have no right to insist that others stop drinking around us. While in early sobriety it is wise to avoid such surroundings, ultimately, we have to recognize that alcohol is our own personal problem, and cannot be blamed on others. If our sobriety is dependent upon others’ beliefs, attitudes and behaviors, it is pretty weak sobriety.
This suggests to me that we should respect anyone who feels the need to be addressed in a certain way. At the same time, we should not, individually, demand that others address us in a certain way. This viewpoint is not something we should preach at others about, but nonetheless, it is a personal attitude we should all strive to adopt.
The culture wars have not yet afflicted my meetings here in Florida, but I can imagine them coming here. In the meantime, the pronoun debate has a clear answer from a reading of the original AA material. Respect others, and don’t allow yourself to feel disrespected by them. That lesson doesn’t require any updating of a single word from the original big book.
Interesting piece. Thanks for sharing. The entire fabric of society, of Western Civilisation (upon which Christianity and the roots of AA are founded) was destroyed when everyone was forced to conduct their interactions through digital screens in 2020. There was absolutely no reason to do so, this was based on hyped-up irrational fear. Online communications enable bullies, psychopaths and agenda-pushers to manipulate and control. These desires lie just under the surface of most addicts. What an absolute hot mess those 12-step meetings must have descended into given the conditions of distorted interaction that online meetings provide. Online 12-step meetings should outlawed forever. Let people sit in a room and face each other, always. That’s the only way to communicate fairly and rationally when emotions are running high. I also dread to think of groups that worshiped the jabs denying people entry unless they succumbed to the medical interventions… making an absolute mockery of the intention of the whole notion of AA. I still think we need a 12-step meeting for “pandemic” addicts. Step 1: we came to realise we are powerless over respiratory diseases. Step 9: we made amends with all people we’d harmed for shunning them as “unvaxxed” or “anti-vaxxers” etc.
Hear, hear!
Hear, hear!
Interesting piece. Thanks for sharing. The entire fabric of society, of Western Civilisation (upon which Christianity and the roots of AA are founded) was destroyed when everyone was forced to conduct their interactions through digital screens in 2020. There was absolutely no reason to do so, this was based on hyped-up irrational fear. Online communications enable bullies, psychopaths and agenda-pushers to manipulate and control. These desires lie just under the surface of most addicts. What an absolute hot mess those 12-step meetings must have descended into given the conditions of distorted interaction that online meetings provide. Online 12-step meetings should outlawed forever. Let people sit in a room and face each other, always. That’s the only way to communicate fairly and rationally when emotions are running high. I also dread to think of groups that worshiped the jabs denying people entry unless they succumbed to the medical interventions… making an absolute mockery of the intention of the whole notion of AA. I still think we need a 12-step meeting for “pandemic” addicts. Step 1: we came to realise we are powerless over respiratory diseases. Step 9: we made amends with all people we’d harmed for shunning them as “unvaxxed” or “anti-vaxxers” etc.
As a multi-addiction guy long into recovery i’d like to keep my open, mindful and positive mantra that all addicts deserve help. People bringing “student style” left wing views to meetings put this positive energy under strain. On the one hand they seem like a version of “my addiction is someone else’s fault – family, society, the dealers, Trump etc etc” – total kryptonite for recovery. On the other its worse – which political grouping seeks alliances with Barrio 18 or similar outfits? The same grouping that promotes street addiction as a fashion choice and allows fentanyl to flood our downtown areas: left wingers – be they trad commies, socialists or “social democrats” – what an oxymoron! If they really wanted community resources [for] independent peoples they’d not support drug dependence. People go to meetings to get well – so show these haters the door & let those who want to, recover. The leftists messing up meetings have very little chance of recovery, so let them give their seat to someone who deserves it.
As a multi-addiction guy long into recovery i’d like to keep my open, mindful and positive mantra that all addicts deserve help. People bringing “student style” left wing views to meetings put this positive energy under strain. On the one hand they seem like a version of “my addiction is someone else’s fault – family, society, the dealers, Trump etc etc” – total kryptonite for recovery. On the other its worse – which political grouping seeks alliances with Barrio 18 or similar outfits? The same grouping that promotes street addiction as a fashion choice and allows fentanyl to flood our downtown areas: left wingers – be they trad commies, socialists or “social democrats” – what an oxymoron! If they really wanted community resources [for] independent peoples they’d not support drug dependence. People go to meetings to get well – so show these haters the door & let those who want to, recover. The leftists messing up meetings have very little chance of recovery, so let them give their seat to someone who deserves it.
So segregating people by racial and sexual behavior traits and allowing those groups to operate as independent silos tends to promote groupthink, radicalization, and dysfunction. Who knew?
(Oh yeah, maybe every psychologist of the last 100 years, but most of them were white males, so we can ignore them.)
So segregating people by racial and sexual behavior traits and allowing those groups to operate as independent silos tends to promote groupthink, radicalization, and dysfunction. Who knew?
(Oh yeah, maybe every psychologist of the last 100 years, but most of them were white males, so we can ignore them.)
This is what happens when people are purposely marginalized by select characteristics instead of bringing everyone together through shared experiences. There was a reason that, as a society, we had turned away from labels. They are exclusive.
This is what happens when people are purposely marginalized by select characteristics instead of bringing everyone together through shared experiences. There was a reason that, as a society, we had turned away from labels. They are exclusive.
Irony abounds.
Irony abounds.
I spent some time in a -centric group, as well as other traditional groups. It was a place to go and socialize that wasn’t a bar. It was great, cheap group therapy. I met some really great people. I met some complete assholes. I never became a true believer, but what I always thought AA got is that there’s something inherently narcissistic about addiction (Rational Recovery concurs), so making things about us rather than me helps the individual refocus, getting outside of my head helps, as does service work and all those steps I never did. Even those early G&L groups were a deviation but people understood back in the day speaking honestly you could make yourself a target for ostracism at best and violence at worst. I did want to stop drinking the way I was, and I ultimately did that.
The thing is now more than ever it’s an industry, and it’s public thanks to celebrity confessionals, so it’s going to follow the big business model and succumb to whatever DEI/Social Justice thing is in vogue.
Substitute Weight Watchers for AA.
Substitute Weight Watchers for AA.
I spent some time in a -centric group, as well as other traditional groups. It was a place to go and socialize that wasn’t a bar. It was great, cheap group therapy. I met some really great people. I met some complete assholes. I never became a true believer, but what I always thought AA got is that there’s something inherently narcissistic about addiction (Rational Recovery concurs), so making things about us rather than me helps the individual refocus, getting outside of my head helps, as does service work and all those steps I never did. Even those early G&L groups were a deviation but people understood back in the day speaking honestly you could make yourself a target for ostracism at best and violence at worst. I did want to stop drinking the way I was, and I ultimately did that.
The thing is now more than ever it’s an industry, and it’s public thanks to celebrity confessionals, so it’s going to follow the big business model and succumb to whatever DEI/Social Justice thing is in vogue.
Sounds like evening classes needed to learn a foreign language before you go on to the advanced topic for which you need group therapy. I wonder how a Brit living in France attending their AA meetings would get on. Melissa Kite (Spectator) mentioned below has said it all.
Sounds like evening classes needed to learn a foreign language before you go on to the advanced topic for which you need group therapy. I wonder how a Brit living in France attending their AA meetings would get on. Melissa Kite (Spectator) mentioned below has said it all.
Like countless other old radicals, I’ve seen this coming. The Woke tactic is to join with, infiltrate, any and all groups and impose change. Even churches and synagogues. There is a struggle right now in the UU Church.
I myself had trouble with the male pronoun for the Divine. My faith is mystical Judaism.
By the way: I’m a bizarrely, extremely hyperactive person. Worse when I was younger, before O turned to alternative medicine based in diet and exercise. I’m 69, 70 in November. At around the age of 10, I became aware of the persecution of people for homosexuality. I saw that it didn’t fit the democracy of which we were taught in school and I despised it. Later on in life, I was gay baited by people who neither knew or cared what was my orientation. They simply wanted to bully. Woke is like that. Be like us or we’ll mob you.
Like countless other old radicals, I’ve seen this coming. The Woke tactic is to join with, infiltrate, any and all groups and impose change. Even churches and synagogues. There is a struggle right now in the UU Church.
I myself had trouble with the male pronoun for the Divine. My faith is mystical Judaism.
By the way: I’m a bizarrely, extremely hyperactive person. Worse when I was younger, before O turned to alternative medicine based in diet and exercise. I’m 69, 70 in November. At around the age of 10, I became aware of the persecution of people for homosexuality. I saw that it didn’t fit the democracy of which we were taught in school and I despised it. Later on in life, I was gay baited by people who neither knew or cared what was my orientation. They simply wanted to bully. Woke is like that. Be like us or we’ll mob you.
What an interesting article. It is sad to think that gender politics has intruded into AA and a pity, but understandable, that they need gay and lesbian meetings.
What an interesting article. It is sad to think that gender politics has intruded into AA and a pity, but understandable, that they need gay and lesbian meetings.
The patterns that the writer observed in AA have been gradually happening in the US since probably the early 2010s. This brand of divisive Identity politics started out in universities and was confined to niche disciplines, but it became mainstream by 2016.
I have had largely the same trajectory as a “cis white gay man” that the writer recounts having, though the catalyst for my “transition” out of “progressive” politics was my experience in and departure from a Master of Arts in Gender Studies in 2011-12. I know commenters will probably laugh at my decision to do an MA in Gender Studies, but my goal was to write about and study the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda. I was unable to find a good fit with or gain admission to any other programs. I had studied abroad in Uganda the same year the bill first came about (2009) and had written a senior undergraduate paper about it as part of my double major in African Studies and Journalism. It gradually became clear that people in the MA program thought I had no business writing about LGBT rights in Uganda because I was “cis white gay man” from the United States. Disillusioned, I completed all of the course work but then left before writing the thesis paper. I’m sure that the state of affairs in this program and others is only worse now.
I write all of this to say that I am unsurprised by the corrupting influence of identity politics on AA. And as much as I hate to say it, the “safer” spaces for gay and lesbian people as well as non-trans women seem to be on the “Center Right”; and that hasn’t always been the case. The Right used to be very antagonistic towards gay and lesbian people, promoting things like conversion therapy and opposing gay marriage; but that is no longer the case. In fact, what progressives promote as “gender affirming care” for children is really just a new form of conversion therapy for young people who would otherwise identify as gay or lesbian.
The patterns that the writer observed in AA have been gradually happening in the US since probably the early 2010s. This brand of divisive Identity politics started out in universities and was confined to niche disciplines, but it became mainstream by 2016.
I have had largely the same trajectory as a “cis white gay man” that the writer recounts having, though the catalyst for my “transition” out of “progressive” politics was my experience in and departure from a Master of Arts in Gender Studies in 2011-12. I know commenters will probably laugh at my decision to do an MA in Gender Studies, but my goal was to write about and study the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda. I was unable to find a good fit with or gain admission to any other programs. I had studied abroad in Uganda the same year the bill first came about (2009) and had written a senior undergraduate paper about it as part of my double major in African Studies and Journalism. It gradually became clear that people in the MA program thought I had no business writing about LGBT rights in Uganda because I was “cis white gay man” from the United States. Disillusioned, I completed all of the course work but then left before writing the thesis paper. I’m sure that the state of affairs in this program and others is only worse now.
I write all of this to say that I am unsurprised by the corrupting influence of identity politics on AA. And as much as I hate to say it, the “safer” spaces for gay and lesbian people as well as non-trans women seem to be on the “Center Right”; and that hasn’t always been the case. The Right used to be very antagonistic towards gay and lesbian people, promoting things like conversion therapy and opposing gay marriage; but that is no longer the case. In fact, what progressives promote as “gender affirming care” for children is really just a new form of conversion therapy for young people who would otherwise identify as gay or lesbian.