We
quote:
“I
would like to tell you about what I think are the underlying motives
for the rapid expansion of AA groups branded by many as cults. These
are groups which would prefer to be known an alternative sections of
AA rather than a completely separate thing in itself with an agenda
of its own. Groups branded cults have been labelled as such I think
because of their adherence to precise specific clear cut instructions
which includes an unalterable interpretation of the Big Book program
of recovery. I will need to tell you a story first, then all should
become clear.
In
the early 1980's I stood in a massive audience at Wembley Conference
Centre in London where thousands of people were buzzing with
excitement and anticipation, they had arrived to see and hear the the
founder of a growing network marketing company tell his story. Most
people had already signed up to become distributors, they had become
business men and women who were following a precise plan to bring
about wealth, health and status within their own worlds. Mark Hughes
in 1980 started a company called Herbalife using network marketing
concepts, this type of business is also referred to as Multi Level
Marketing. We were all there to find out how such a young man had
become a multi millionaire and achieved celebrity status within his
own world which was now being offered to all who chose to follow and
copy him. It was to be one of many audiences he had created who
worshipped him all over the world as an entrepreneurial guru. I had
heard so much about this mysterious genius who had transformed the
lives of thousands of ordinary people beyond their wildest dreams. As
he arrived on stage you would have thought we were at a Beatles gig,
the crowd was very rewarding. A young handsome sun tanned Mark
Hughes, who was probably only in his early thirties stood at the
podium to address his fans. He began to tell the story of how he had
become incredibly wealthy and helped no end of people to lose weight
and lead a healthier style by consuming his health food products. Not
only that he was seemingly responsible for turning thousands of
ordinary people into successful entrepreneurs running their own
businesses selling his products, which were expensive. He told us all
how [we] had the opportunity to follow in his footsteps, to replicate what
he had done with all the hassles he had endured already removed,
there would be no need to acquire staff, computers or offices, all
the paperwork would be easy. He wasn't just a young handsome self
made millionaire bachelor selling a product, he was selling a
lifestyle and a dream which had already changed the lives of many
ordinary people beyond anything they could have imagined, at least
that was the narrative. It was a fascinating story to hear. He had
been a sales man, a fairly ordinary and unassuming person who came up
with an idea for a product he said born out of the loss of his mother
to an unhealthy lifestyle. He came up with the idea, talked a
manufacturer into producing the goods while he focused on the
selling. Apparently he started out by selling Herbalife products from
the boot of his car. We were looking at a self made millionaire who
oozed success and status, everyone in the audience carried with them
the very same obsession for profit and for status. Here was a man
prepared to show us the path he had carved out for us all to follow,
everyone wanted what he seemed to have and was willing to share. As
with most humble men he didn't want all the celebrity his mission had
brought him, that was merely a by-product.
Personally
I was not overly excited, I'd heard it all before, I was very curious
as always but I would probably not have been thereat all had I not
been people pleasing my parents who had taken the bait hook line and
sinker, they had become consumers, and distributors, and now they
were repeating the process by recruiting me and taking me to all
these impressive gatherings full of hyped up people on a money making
mission they could feel good about. They really believed in the
products and the business plan, me I would rather spend my money on
lager, the fast fix solution for all of life's problems. I had
already for a while been an unsuccessful Amway distributor selling
cleaning products but I couldn't bring myself to sell the plan in
order to recruit, I was no sales man, I liked to live on the edge,
selling stuff didn't do it for me. I also tried to sell perfume for
another MLM start up company without success, I sold one bottle of
perfume that I remember, someone felt sorry for me. I did not have
the verbal skills or the right look necessary to become a good sales
man, and that is what you volunteer to become the moment you sign up
as a distributor. Amway was already an established company, probably
the first truly big MLM company to appear on the global market. In
time I figured out the people making the real money in the MLM game
who had all in the process acquired celebrity status always seemed to
have outstanding communications skills, and it seemed they were also
prepared to invest large sums of money in advertising. As a
functioning alcoholic all my spare money went on alcohol, I knew the
main source of income these companies had came from the distributors
themselves, the so called winners knew it was a numbers game, they
would advertise in newspapers filling hotel board rooms conference
centre with the objective of recruiting as many people/customers as
possible. The idea is to show the business plan to as many people as
possible, some will become consumers and some will become really good
at recruiting new distributors to earn commission from. I seriously
doubt too many people ever succeed in these types of businesses
business using the starter packs alone, which would cost maybe £25.
It was an enticing idea, where else can you start a business for such
a small amount of money, and that too was a selling point.
Established distributors would suggested that it was easy to rise
from nothing to great wealth. My Dad being my Dad used it as
justification to buy another expensive flash car, something to
impress the distributors he sought to recruit.
There
used to be a health food shop local to where I lived and that is
where I was shown the Herbalife business plan. The owner of the shop
was clearly making money from his distributors who would fill the big
room above his shop to be sold products and the business plan.
Another time the manager at the place I worked asked me to attend a
meeting at his house but he could not say why, I'd have to find out
when I got there. I was hoping for a promotion, instead I endured an
hour of being shown the Amway business plan. I found it difficult to
tell him I had already been an unsuccessful distributor a few years
years before, that I already understood the plan, that I was not
interested. He was my controller at work, he had been feeding me
plenty of work so I refrained from voicing my dismay at being
manipulated in such an unethical way, especially when I could have
been down the pub drinking. Network marketing is a legitimised form
of what used to be known as pyramid selling, which is illegal. MLM
remains lawful because some of the revenue created is redistributed
back into the community of distributors to certain levels or depths.
Since
this era of my life Mark Hughes passed away, he was born in 1956 and
he died in 2000, he was found dead from a cocktail of alcohol and
drugs in his mid forties. To show you the power of network marketing
concepts I will have to give you some figures. In 1980 Herbalife was
founded, in 2012 Herbalife reported net sales of $4.072 billion
dollars. As of 2013 the company distributes its products in 91
countries through a network of approximately 3.2 million independent
distributors. Network marketing is a phenomenally powerful business
concept which has a snowball effect, not something you would want to
let lose in AA with nobody at the reins.
So
what is 'the plan' exactly and what does it have to do with
Alcoholics Anonymous?
It
is very simple concept most of you will already have grasped, the
general idea is to become wealthy and to acquire celebrity status in
your own world by following a simple but extremely powerful marketing
plan or model. There are precise, specific, clear cut directions to
follow, which may include leaflet distribution and the odd porky pie.
So first of all you are shown the business plan, and if you like what
you hear you sign up and copy the process by showing the plan first
of all to everyone in your small world. If you are prepared to invest
in advertising, you can show it to strangers as well. What usually
happens is you are invited to a meeting at someone's house or some
room some place by a family member, a friend, or perhaps by your
boss. They will often not disclose why they want you to come along
until you arrive, distributors in search of new recruits generally
come across as excited, and they can't wait to tell you why. All the
brochures have pictures of big houses and expensive cars and success
stories where deluded people equate the rise of wealth with the rise
of happiness. Most people I expect would want to attend these
meetings if only out of curiosity. Upon arrival you are instructed to
sit down and listen to some really important information which will
probably change your life forever, along with a room full of
similarly curious people by now desperately wanting to know what it
is about. At this point the person holding the meeting adopts the
role of successful entrepreneur and begins to explain himself, they
will come across as eager to tell you about something which happened
to them which has already begun transforming their lives beyond their
wildest dreams. So out comes the white board where first a single
circle is drawn at the top representing the person the person at the
top of the up line, yes the person drawing on the white board. They
will they proceed to tell the invited guests at this rather strange
party how successful in business they have become in next to no time
at all, that we should all come on board while the opportunity is
still in its infancy. They will speak of the two elements of the
business, selling products for a commission, and the primary focus,
recruiting people to sell for another type of commission. They will
say that by teaching new recruits how repeat the process, who will
themselves in turn repeat the process exactly as shown commission can
be returned from distributors several levels deep. Over the
proceeding ten minutes or so a whole bunch of circles are drawn
representing newly recruited distributors, it ends up forming a large
triangle where the man at the top recruits two people who in turn
recruit two people and so on can end up to a lot of commission, just
from recruiting two people. Imagine if you were the distributor to
recruit someone like Mark Hughes! You would need never work again,
and the business can be inherited by your children.
Yawn,
so what does this have to do with AA?
Well
in short I believe these extremely powerful marketing concepts are
already at play within AA in England. Some bright spark has already
unleashed this powerful force and it has now grown to a size where
its presence is becoming more and more noticeable, hence the rise of
aacultwatch. Worse, with MLM there is a single company which had
total control over all of its its distributors, and although I think
this is the underlying long term objective for those with financial
objectives, anybody can now see the love and adoration of the AA
world around them can be acquired merely by copying a what is a well
thought out marketing process wrapped up as a spiritual remedy.
To
explain further, I had all sorts of problems in AA getting sober in
the early days, it took ten years before I finally put the drink down
for good, and that was nearly 12 years ago, so I've been around a
while, I know what did work and what did not work, for me. There was
one particular group of people in AA locally who began to emerge who
came across as being very well people indeed. They would share
similar things, that AA had left them feeling restless irritable and
discontented, which it can do. Some people do feel like that if they
are seen merely as equals, it is called status anxiety, the fear of
not being a somebody, it affects those who have not like myself
experienced a similar environment to AA which was rooted in Christian
ideology. Anyway I began to observe these people who I spotted very
quickly seemed to be selling themselves a bit compared to all the
other nobodies in AA, they would say things like 'stick with the
winners' , which is kind of insulting for where there are winners it
suggests everyone else is a loser. It became obvious they were in
search of newcomers to me very quickly but not immediately, I would
take something more for me to question the possibility of a product
being the underlying motivation for this new and unusual behaviour
spreading across the region. I was completely unaware that I was a
trained ear who knew exactly what to listen out for. Anyway members
who declared themselves as recovered would attend more traditional
meetings, share their first and last names declaring how they were
recovered from Alcoholism, and that they had found God and were in
receipt of a real spiritual experience unlike the one which had kept
many of them sober for years already. Initially all members of AA
were targeted for recruitment, over time the focus has primarily been
on newcomers. They would say how all of the promises in the Big Book
of AA were coming now true and if you want what they have, you too
should do what they did making it obvious that newcomers would do
well to approach them after the meeting to be shown the way, if they
didn't approach the newcomer first.
Eventually
I sussed out the underlying methodology, it was and still is network
marketing. I was at a meeting one day out of my usual area and a man
who I still do look up to but not in every area approached me, I was
aware he was the man everyone was talking about, he was a celebrity
in their world. I had already considered asking him to be my sponsor
but I did not think he would have the time as he seemed to have
sponsored tons of people, all with great success, even though many
were already long time sober. So when I talk about a success I mean
'recovered' members would tell us how much happier they were having
been shown how to work the program, they would all rubbish their
former sobriety, assuming they were long term members, and they would
say they found God in the process, exactly what it says in the Big
Book. So I am not talking about nasty people with bad intentions, I
am talking about good people who have gotten a little bit carried
away with their obsession with numbers, with profit and with status,
they can't see that they are the Actors described in the Big Book. I
don't think people who have spread this methodology know any
different, if there is no up or down structure they just don't get
it, the principle of equality within AA I mean. So some people began
openly declaring that there lives had been changed beyond their
wildest dreams, it sounded appealing after all I was still relapsing,
but where had I heard that before? Sadly for me what they had on
offer could not possibly help me, as soon as I spotted the underlying
agenda I was out of there, I needed someone to listen and help me
unwrap the maze in my head, I did not need business minds selling me
dreams. Looking back I can see how I was having a lot of difficulty
with my communications skills, I could see through people being
familiar with their behaviours but I could not find anyone to just
shut up and listen. Anyway I was approached and invited to come along
to a debate about the Big Book, which I thought would be a great idea
as there were 101 things in the Big Book I wanted to talk about. I
really thought I would be attending a debate, that is what I was
told, it was not true but I took the bait and turned up anyway.
So
I turned up at a man's house who was clearly very successful, very
likeable, very intelligent, someone I believe would pick up the phone
and speak to any alcoholic in distress night or day. I was aware this
was the man who had helped a lot of people because lots of people had
told me so. I had considered asking him to be my sponsor anyway so it
didn't bother me too much that I'd arrived at a Big Book study, not a
Big Book debate. I was losing my trust in AA members having already
experienced controlling behaviour beyond belief. I'm not saying I was
lured their as a malicious and blatant fabrication of the truth,
sometimes people chose the wrong words, I'm terrible for that myself,
either way I had arrived and there was a room full of people who all
did seem to know why they were there.
I
couldn't figure out how a person could sponsor a dozen or more people
all in one go, I'd never come across batch sponsorship before, and
that was the first indicator of a marketing process. Also there was
someone taking notes and we were told the only reason this person was
in attendance was because he was learning how to repeat the process.
The Big Book study was to be carried out over several weeks, there
would be homework for us all to do every week which was designed to
get you to read the Big Book and to look for certain things such as
promises not listed in the promises chapter. The person running the
show spoke of restlessness irritability and discontentment prior to
going through this particular method of studying the book and going
through the 12 steps and finding God in the process. Alcoholics were
painted as an undisciplined bunch as quoted from somewhere in the
book which was used as justification for us to all follow precise
specific clear cut direction. By now I had realised we were being
shown the plan however the reward would not come in the form of
money, it would come in the form of fulfilled promises, certain
keywords sentences and phrases were used to paint an interpretation
which suited the underlying marketing concepts, now I wanted to know
if there was money involved although initially I did not. I saw it as
a religious sectarian thing where this band of people saw themselves
as another arm of AA rather than how I now see it which is as a
completely separate thing in itself which has brought about division
and controversy, which some people enjoy.
All
the ingredients were there, the up line was being promoted, I had
been lured to a meeting to be shown and shown the plan, you do this,
then you repeat it and as a reward you get a fourth dimension of
existence as promised in the Big Book and people were being taught
how to repeat the process. People were also given instructions and
homework, and like most MLM meetings it was a numbers game, you can't
expect to recruit everyone. I had been lured under false pretences
and the process had to be strictly adhered to. We were told exactly
what to highlight in the Big Book, we were not given the opportunity
to debate or to make our own interpretations, we were expected to be
passive learners instructed to follow instructions, to read a certain
number of pages every day and to look for specific things, such as
anything that seemed like a promise. There was a lot of talk about
God, about how all of the promises in the Big Book had already
started to come true for those who had trusted the process but for me
it was a mockery, I failed to see how multi level marketing concepts
could help me at all having already failed me three times. So after
two weeks I walked away from it, I could not see how another six
weeks or so of reading a book I had already read more than once could
help me.
In
time I learned that there appears to be a link between the rapid
expansion of rehab clinics across the country, shareholders, and the
rapid expansion of primary purpose type organised groups across the
country. I am sad to see that tradition 9 is being ignored, it says
'ought never be organised' for this very reason, to stop individuals
from taking control. It is in my opinion a power play, and as I have
said before, AA should not underestimate the power of these marketing
concepts. I do accept that most people are completely unaware that
they have been used as pawns in a game of numbers. I also accept that
there is no need for anger, these people are trying to help others,
but they have been blinded to the damage they cause in their wake,
they cannot or do not want to accept what they are doing is in
opposition to AA tradition. It is affecting AA as a whole therefore
in my opinion step four has been invoked.
“Each
person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show; is forever
trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery and the rest of
the players in his own way. If his arrangements would only stay put,
if only people would do as he wished, the show would be great.
Everybody, including himself, would be pleased. Life would be
wonderful. In trying to make these arrangements our actor may
sometimes be quite virtuous. He may be kind, considerate, patient,
generous; even modest and self-sacrificing. On the other hand, he may
be mean, egotistical, selfish and dishonest. But, as with most
humans, he is more likely to have varied traits.” [BB. Step 3]
Anonymous”
Cheers
The
Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)
PS
Our thanks for this member's contribution
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