“Hi Guys
I have recently
returned to London after an extended stay in Wayne's World otherwise known as
Plymouth....
I was already aware of
the activities of the cult through experience in London but nothing had prepared
me for what I experienced in Plymouth. The "Roadies", as they are known in AA
proper, have an almost complete stranglehold on AA in that city. The meetings
are the most central and best attended...row upon row of glassy eyed smartly
dressed ranks of the "happy, joyous and free".... Stage management is very
evident with strict control emanating from the top table and those who occupy
the reserved seats at the front. The Chairs follow a set pattern as do those who
are selected to "share" back. The "shares" follow the same script. The same
spiel delivered in a monotone over and over. For someone used to the endearingly
chaotic shambles of London AA it was all very surreal and highly
disturbing.
I know you are more
than aware of the various things that have gone on in Plymouth from other
information I have read on the site. What really disturbed me though was the
effect this whole thing was having on AA proper. The whole Roadie debate tended
to dominate meetings. Roadies have infiltrated mainstream meetings and sit there
expounding their set format message, the result is that half the room disappear
outside and the rest stay in and get combative which totally dominates the
sharing. So anyone needing to get support from a genuine AA meeting where
identification is possible is likely to be disappointed. Roadies were
miraculously managing to appear in the Chair at mainstream meetings with
surprising regularity. Part of this is due to the fact that there was a mass
walk out when the self styled cult leader Wayne fell off his perch (as is public
knowledge, he got one of his sponsees pregnant despite his occupation of the
moral high ground for some considerable time. Neither his wife nor his followers
were best pleased by this.) Those people who walked out joined mainstream
meetings or set up new ones under different names but their mindset is still
firmly Roadie in character and so the poison continues to be spread.
Also mainstream AA is
now almost entirely apathetic. Few people can be bothered to oppose Roadie
nominations to Intergroup and so almost all service positions are now occupied
by Roadie disciples. So, take the H&I position...Johnny is a through and
through Roadie. He gets calls from well meaning treatment centres for example
looking to have "AA" come in and talk to inmates... So the Roadie cavalry
arrive, expounding the Roadie themes that treatment centres are bad and doctors
know nothing. They offer to take clients to meetings - how very kind. No prizes
for guessing which meetings they get taken to. One of the main treatment centres
is Longreach, part of the Broadreach group. Now Broadreach as an organisation
are no longer 12 Step and are seriously dubious about involvement with AA.
Broadreach experienced problems with the Roadies some years back involving
coercing people into leaving treatment. A new manager at Longreach, which deals
with women with very complex needs, was keen to get AA back in. Unfortunately,
she contacted the office and was put on to Johnny who of course brought in his
friends from Roads. They started the down the well worn path of presenting their
form of "recovery" as being the only thing that works.... The manager had acted
in good faith and it was thanks to an AA member who works there and a client
with a long involvement in AA that she was put in the picture and no longer
giving clients permission to attend Roads meetings. Had they not been there, no
one would have been any the wiser as they were seeing clients with no staff
present.
There were other quite
chilling developments going on. A newcomer arrived at a "mainstream" meeting but
quickly became flustered and said she had to leave as she had come to the
"wrong" meeting. It seems she was attending meetings as a condition of her
probation. Somehow, the Roadies have managed to get the probation service to
agree only to consider Roads to Recovery meetings as being "suitable" for those
on probation.
There are many other
examples including of course the old chestnut of medication. I was watching a
woman with complex needs going rapidly into decline before my eyes after she
responded to her sponsor's insistence that while on medication she was not
sober. I challenged high ranking Roadies on this issue they said "all we do is
tell people to go to their doctor and tell them they want to stop their
medication". Even if this is all they are doing, and I know it does not stop
there at all, it is still completely wrong to be casting any judgement
whatsoever on people's use of prescribed medication. It creates a feeling that
use of medication is a sign of moral weakness and this is often too much for
people who are already prone to self stigmatise to bear and they give in to
pressure, subliminal or overt. A lady I met in mainstream AA works at the
A&E in Derriford hospital. She told me how often she sees the casualties of
the Roadie dogma appearing after relapse and/or suicide attempts.
Ex Roadies also told me
of how they were "shunned" when deciding to attend mainstream meetings. They
reported receiving abusive phone calls and being harassed in the street.
Overall I found the
Roadies to be quite sinister in character. They are well organised and they
appeared to be using very successfully the standard cult techniques of seeking
out vulnerable people and "love bombing" them, strategically placing their
members in important positions in the AA structure and infiltrating mainstream
meetings, They are a well oiled PR machine and operate using a level of control
that is on some level very impressive but on another, deeply worrying.
Vulnerable people are
being systematically put at risk by these people. Why is York allowing them
still to use the AA name when they so blatantly breach the Traditions over and
over again? Groups are indeed autonomous but not if there is a wider effect on
AA unity. This has the potential to do lasting and irreparable damage to AA. It
is already affecting AA's reputation with mental health professionals who are no
longer suggesting to their patients that they might find help in AA. How much
more damaging does it need to get?
A”
Comment: Some good
questions being raised here – we wonder if they will elicit any answers - and
more importantly any action! Whatever AA's response might be you can be quite
sure that aacultwatch will not be sitting idly by. More to follow on
this......
Cheers
The Fellas (Friends
of Alcoholics Anonymous)
(our thanks to our
reporter for their contribution)
