Fundamentalism

“Trysh Travis gives an account of the growth of the fundamentalists’ resistance to what they saw (and see!) as the dilution of AA’s message by liberals in her book “The Language of the Heart: A cultural history of the Recovery Movement from Alcoholics Anonymous to Oprah Winfrey” (University of North Carolina Press; 2009) viz: “Probably the largest body of traditionalist literature in circulation today takes the form of what might best be called sobriety guides – books and workbooks intended to move readers through the Steps, to deepen their understanding of the Big Book, and, above all, to increase the quality and durability of sobriety by aiding them in the surrendered life. … Their publications typically derive from or are intended to work in concert with talks by seasoned members, who travel (the United States) offering workshops on how to implement the insights they have committed to print; audiotapes of their talks form an important complement to their printed works. Sobriety guides are not monolithic – some, for example, make an explicit case for Bible study while others are more ecumenical – but their authors generally share the characteristics associated with the mid-western, mid-century version of AA, and incorporate reprinted pamphlet material from that place and time alongside original writing, charts and diagrams”. (Here her footnote says: “Joe McQ, of Little Rock, and Charlie P, of Maysville, Arkansas, who began to travel and promote their ‘Joe and Charlie Curriculum’ in the mid-1980s, are perhaps the best known of the traditionalist sobriety guide-authors [other authors named are Searcy W, Wally P, Clifford B, Myers R, Paul O and the born-again evangelist Dick B] ). She adds, “The audience (for this literature etc) has grown since the late 1990s, when the internet began to provide traditionalist authors and their partisans an efficient means of communication and a highly visible platform. Websites like Silkworth.net, The Primary Purpose Group, AA Big Book Study Group and GSO Watch (!) to name only a few, promote traditionalist authors alongside The Little Red Book and 24 Hours a Day. While such sites differ in the degree of vitriol (sic) that they hurl at the dominant AA culture, all of them tout amateur publications as counterweights to a cultural mo(ve)ment in which ‘the Language of the Heart has gotten all tangled up with drugs, pop psychology, clinical terminology, and emotionalism’. (Jim H) … According to Mitchell K, during the 1990s they (the fundamentalists) also helped support the creation of a growing movement [of] ‘underground’ meetings. As in early mid-western AA, admission is carefully controlled: ‘they are not advertised; and attendance at them is by invitation only. One has to be ‘sponsored’ into them … [and they] are open for alcoholics and their families only’. This rigor, Mitchell K argues, counteracts official AA’s misplaced ‘desire to help the greater number of people,’ which has ‘led to lower expectations and to diluting of the message to make it more palatable’.”

As I wrote in “Share” magazine (July 2007), these extra-mural, by invitation only workshops, Step weekends etc are a pestilential nuisance, setting member against member and sowing conflict among groups.”

LAURIE A.

(our thanks as usual to this AA member for their contribution)