Hampton Wick (Friday)

Extracts from the aacultwatch forum (old): 

“I've visited the Hampton Wick meeting and my impression is that it meets all the criteria of a cult meeting. As to a description of what constitutes such a meeting is I suggest you go the aacultwatch website. There is more than sufficient information there covering that particular topic. Or are you merely being disingenuous?  

…...... There is no mention of “sponsor” or “sponsorship” in the Big Book. So what book are you referring to? And what leads you believe that an AA meeting is “proper” simply because it is “by the book”. According to Tradition 5 (which you quote) each group is responsible only for carrying “its” message to the still suffering alcoholic (a message which incidentally may or may not be “by the book”). The only important criterion to be met as far as I'm concerned - within the context of an AA meeting - is that it provides a format where members may share their “experience, strength and hope” to the desired end. There is no requirement for conformity to - or the adoption of - any particular “template” of recovery, a fact of which cult groups and members seem to be largely unaware. One indicator of a cult meeting is the apparent bland conformity of the members' sharing. Real “spiritual” evolution is inevitably accompanied by the development of an independently minded individual who is able to communicate directly from their own experience as opposed to the mimicry which so frequently masquerades as such in cult meetings. The former is in fact “carrying their message”; the latter is merely “faking” it! (Incidentally there is no contradiction between a group having “its” message but individual members providing their own unique expression of it). With regard to “exchanging phone numbers” my experience in AA is that you MAY offer your phone number to someone else and they MAY take it if they wish. They are under NO obligation to respond in kind nor should they be manipulated into that position. AA offers a solution, it does not bargain for one (as in “Give freely of what you find and join us” etc). The tactic of asking for newcomers' phone numbers is something systematically employed by the cult (as is the practice of ringing two newcomers a day) to promote their pyramid selling scheme. With reference to your quotes from the Big Book (and yes I've read it as well) “brimming over....”, “something indefinable …..” can just as easily be signs of arrogance and even madness. The cult leaders I have met (and I've met a few) can all be said to be “brimming over” with something but it certainly wasn't with those particular qualities! As for “happy, joyous and free” (a much mangled quote employed widely within cult circles (along with the superficial rendering - “Misery is Optional” – yet another misquote from the book - and also the “Just for Today” card)) the actual context indicates that this is a supposition made as to what God's intention might be! Interestingly the following reference directly contradicts orthodox Christian values and indeed opposes these. viz. “We cannot subscribe to the belief that this life is a vale of tears,.....” Simply because the writers did not support a belief does not render it untrue. Personally (and I'm not even a Christian) I would tend to place more reliance (though not necessarily) on a perspective that's been tested for two millennia than the opinion (and it is an opinion!) of someone who's just got sober!. As for the remainder of the quotes they are valid (insofar as they are accurately represented (and even occasionally put into practice by a minority of cult sponsors) but not that they cannot be faked!). Again the “Step Nine promises” you refer to are something of a cult fetish (and a cult invention - until a few years ago they were never referred to!) Anyone who has actually studied the basic text will know that “promises” as such are indicated throughout the book (including the title page). The obsession with the “Step Nine promises” is simply a tactic to “keep people in line” and under the control of their sponsor until they have been sufficiently well “indoctrinated” in cult 'sponsorship idolatry'.

The Hampton Wick (Friday) meeting as I understand it was set up by the guy alluded to previously by ….... ie. John B (a bully and a thug by all accounts, and who still attends the meeting). A friend of mine who visits the group on a semi-regular basis reports that this tendency is still very much in operation. They observed an incident there recently which indicates that all is sweetness and light UNTIL someone dares to steps out of line – then the boot comes down! In this case the person concerned was told to “toe the party line” in no uncertain terms by an individual called Billy M (another regular at the group – and with the same thuggish tendencies as demonstrated by John B - the former also associated with the Richmond Tuesday Ormond Road meeting). Moreover the group has “sponsorship co-ordinators” (whatever they might be) with the overall charge of female sponsorship being run by someone called Alex R (Plymouth R2R “reared” which in itself is hardly a recommendation given their documented record of trouble-making and abusive conduct in south west region). I've been told by a member that she instructs her sponsees not to even meet members of the opposite sex for coffee until they have reached a certain point in recovery. I'm curious to know by what 'right' she “instructs” anyone to do anything? Such a mode of conduct would seem to contradict your list of qualities ascribed to a “strong” (?) sponsor (or do you mean bully?) and this coming from the main female sponsor at the Hampton Wick meeting. Of course cult groups are all about image. Scratch the surface and the 'disease' laying just below is quickly exposed.

Your posts are indicative of the kind of dependency that is fostered by the cult group ie. dependency only nominally on a Higher Power but in practice on a sponsor, and which 'addiction' is propagated down the line by the sponsorship 'hierarchy system', which is then further replicated (quite incestuously) both within the group and then across the network of other cult groups in Great Britain. A sponsor is not essential or even necessary to “work the steps”. The notion (implied) that you cannot proceed through these until you have acquired such is self-evidently absurd. If that were the case then no one at all would have got sober in AA. If you are going to quote the book might I suggest you re-read it (and preferably without the 'guidance' of a sponsor) and apply some independent judgement to your analysis. You might be surprised to discover that little of what is presented as the “programme” at Hampton Wick in fact may actually be found in the basic text, and certainly not what passes for 'sponsorship' within that group!

Finally (and to quote David B – founder of the cult movement in Great Britain): “If it quacks like a duck, has feathers like a duck, paddles around in ponds like a duck, then it probably is a duck!” “

The Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)

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