Question
2:
Would
Conference consider what response can be given to Groups who refuse
to accept the group conscience of Intergroup/Region?
“As
background to this topic I thought it would be good to include some
archive AA Grapevine articles relating to the Synanon cult, since
history tends to repeat itself. I think it will always be a challenge
for each new generation of AA to continue to repeat constructive
history, rather than the destructive; especially in this present time
when there is a movement in AA using an outside published watered
down history and sponsorship guides which claim the AA program has
been watered down and claim to be the “original” program, but are
in fact themselves watered down versions with personal opinions of
the authors harping back to the Oxford Group; combining “tough
love” treatment center program sponsorship with Big Book Study. As
far as I am concerned the only original, unwatered down AA program
and history is published by AA World Services Inc. and AA Grapevine
Inc.
From the extracts of the AA Grapevine articles: “Dear
Editors”, (June 1968) and “The Enemy of Continuing Sobriety”
(March 1975) it can be understood that the operation of Tradition Two
in AA is reliant on the expression of individual AA member’s
consciences. Without this expression and leadership in AA to counter
the expression of divisive change, there is no active principle in
Tradition Two. A silent expression in our group conscience is no
expression in our group conscience.
The extracts from the AA
Grapevine article “40-hour Marathon Meetings” shows how some AA
groups were being influenced by the Synanon Cult in 1968. The
introduction to the Twelve Concepts for World Service reminds us all
that “We are sure that each group of workers in world service will
be tempted to try all sorts of innovations that may often produce
little more than painful repetition earlier mistakes. Therefore it
will be an important objective of these Concepts to forestall such
repetitions by holding the experiences of the past clearly before
us.”
“40-hour Marathon Meetings” (AA Grapevine March
1968) (Extracts)
". . .The long hours in marathon bid fair to
open the heart. . .
IT'S EASY to assume that we aren't going to
see much change in the AA way of doing business in years to come.
There are signs this is much too easy an assumption.
From the East
Coast and the West Coast come separate reports[1] of a new kind of
small, intense AA meeting, not confined to AA members, but including
anyone who will abide by the rules of the meeting. The purpose of
these meetings is self-inventory: how I am doing now……
….The
main emphasis is on truth--the whole truth, not the abridged version
which has become expected and appropriate at AA open meetings. Ah,
you say, that's all very well, but you surely don't mean the whole
truth, do you? Sex, perversions included. Thefts. Slanders. The
really nasty stuff?
Evidently those proposing the new meetings do
mean just that: the whole truth, including all the etceteras, as
corrective for an AA which is tending to become conventional, even
evasive. They propose the whole truth as a resource especially for
those with a terrible burden of guilt which they can no longer lay
down in public in AA.
As one reads the history of AA, it seems
evident that in the beginning, among the close, small groups of the
first days, any guilt could be unloaded. The price for freedom from
the guilt was willingness to change, willingness to stop doing
whatever was producing the guilt--starting with stopping
drinking…..
…….The new meetings are designed to put all
those participating in them in a position to furnish real help to a
member wanting to change. The group is going to ask him for a
commitment to stop whatever he is doing wrong, and it will expect him
to report back regularly to the group on progress--admitting failure,
without breast-beating, when he has failed…….
…….You're
alarmed, you say? This is much too much invasion of privacy by the
group? Not so. Remember, one is a member of the group by free choice.
One is in the group precisely to get the help the group offers.
…….
……The quintessence of the new kind of meetings is the
"marathon." Evidently the idea for these comes most
directly and recently from the programs for narcotics addicts called
Synanon and Daytop. Both of these came out of AA, as a matter of
historical development, but they are changed in important ways from
the original AA program. The parentage is still evident, however, and
nowhere more so than in the appeal to rigorous honesty. The climate
of Synanon and Daytop, as best one can tell from reports and from
minimal direct exposure, is much closer to the tone and intention of
the fifth chapter of AA's Big Book than are most AA meetings today.
While AA has waxed genteel, and eager to avoid discussion of
unpleasant truths, drug addicts are willing--indeed obliged--to go to
any lengths of honesty to be rid of their sociopathic or psychopathic
behavior patterns.
Thus the marathon--forty hours of continuous
meeting with a five-hour sleep-break halfway through. In two
experiences of mine--one in a non-AA and one in an AA
setting--thirty-five hours has proved barely sufficient for the
"Fifth Steps" of some sixteen people assembled for the
adventure. Marathons, unexpectedly, do not prove physically
exhausting. One gets a second wind after eight or ten hours. (Food is
provided at regular mealtimes.)………”
1*See Pages 6 and
9 --Ed.
Anonymous”
“Dear Editors:" (AA
Grapevine June 1968) (Extracts)
"I believe there are 'winds'
and 'winds' and some of them are far from beneficial."
"Those
winds again: In the March issue of the Grapevine, under the general
head "Winds of Change," there were three articles and an
editorial concerning new kinds of meetings devoted to telling the
total truth about oneself in a group. Not very many editorial
features in the Grapevine produce as much comment in the form of
letters and full-length manuscripts as this one has. Some but not all
of the comment is contra--contra the idea of such meetings, and
contra the editorial, which found in them a kind of harking-back to
AA's beginnings in the Oxford Group. Herewith we print what had come
in up to the printer's deadline for this issue, in the form of a
super "Letters to the Editors" section. It warms our
editorial heart to see such interest in Grapevine pages.--The
Editors”
“………So, in order of appearance, let us
first concern ourselves with the "Forty-hour Marathon Meetings."
The content of this material is concerned with the advantage of
rigorous "honesty" that must accrue if the participant in
this therapy is to benefit. So let us be honest. On page 5, paragraph
2, the writer states "Evidently the idea for these (marathons)
comes most directly and recently from the programs for narcotics
addicts called Synanon and Daytop." Would it not be more in
keeping with "honesty" if the author had given details on
his attendance at such meetings in an "AA setting," where
any personal interest he may have in furthering use of marathons
might have appeared? He does indeed describe, in the last paragraph
of his article, the type of alcoholic who appears to find this
therapy most beneficial, namely, "the long-term slipper--the AA
failure." If the author is such a "slipper" and he
finds that forty hours of alcoholic talkathons "bid fair to open
his heart," then more power to him. But let us have a few
clarifying statements for the AA "seeker" or newcomer, who
may feel that he has strayed into the wrong pew if he reads this GV
issue.
The fact is that programs for narcotic addicts are
primarily concerned with young people from urban ghetto areas--our
most tragic and underprivileged minority groups. They just do not
represent the much larger alcoholic population, and indeed it is for
this reason that both Synanon and Daytop have modified the AA
program, just as we, in our turn, had to depart from the Oxford Group
and evolve our own recovery principles, which are greatly
different.
This reference brings me to the "quintessence"
of the point of view expressed by the writers on the marathon and on
the Fifth Step meetings. The writer of the first states that the
"climate" of the addict's marathon is "much closer to
the tone and intention of the fifth chapter of AA's Big Book than are
most AA meetings today." He further suggests that "thirty-five
hours has proved barely sufficient for the 'Fifth Steps' of some
sixteen people assembled for the adventure." The Seeker
Anonymous of the "Fifth Step Meeting" article suggests
(page 8, paragraph 4) that there should be a Fifth Step group that
should be "open and mixed"--parents, spouses, children,
etc. Well, I would like to suggest to both of these writers that they
first read the Fifth Step itself: "Admitted to God, to ourselves
and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs." Are
these two members proposing a new Fifth Step? How would they like to
define it?--since they are clearly purposing to change it. In the
book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, the exact reason for the
wording of this Step in this precise way has been unmistakably
spelled out by Bill W. Any investigation of AA history or of Bill's
written and spoken words would have elicited the historical fact that
it was because of the "Absolutes" of the Oxford Group that
Bill realized very early in AA that "open confession" and
Absolute Truth, Honesty, etc. could not, would not work for the
alcoholic. It was on this very issue that AA in its formative days
split from the Oxford Group, and Bill is the first to say that
without this split we would not have survived. Clearly, the writers
of these two articles have read a different AA history and different
AA literature, and have had different experiences--indeed, they
appear to have heard a different Bill W. than I have…….
……I,
therefore, find this kind of spiritual arrogance out of place in an
official AA magazine which is read by vulnerable newcomers. It is
even possible that many of them and many of us still find our main
"hang-ups" quite solvable within the framework of the AA
program if we truly and continuously remain a viable part of its
mainstream." M. V. B. Chappaqua, New York
“Around
AA - Items of AA Information and Experience” (AA Grapevine March
1968) (Extract)
Bootstrap Operations
“….These experiences
of these people, some of them in the service professions like social
work and the ministry, some of them part of bootstrap operations like
Alcoholics Anonymous and Synanon, some of them just ordinary traffic
cops, bus conductors, doctors, lawyers, or Indian chiefs, demonstrate
that the new morality of self-indulgence (which is really the absence
of any morality) is at the outset a sheer fraud; that the older
program of virtue for its own sake is far more difficult to follow
but much more rewarding in the end.”
John Mulholland and George
N.
“I Have Walked down Those Same Streets” (AA
Grapevine September 1971) (Extracts)
To a daughter in trouble
comes this message of love--a sharing of experience to remind and
comfort us all
"DEAR ALLISON:
This is probably the hardest
and most important letter I have ever had to write. I am trying to
communicate to you that I not only love you and care about you, but
truly understand your problems--because I have had similar troubles
in my own life……..
…..For me, Alcoholics Anonymous was the
answer. For you? This is something you must decide for yourself. The
Synanon program and the experiments conducted at Day-top both have
been successful for many. Would either help you? Well, go and find
out…….
…Mother”
“About Alcoholism - Alcoholism
Information, Research and Treatment” (AA Grapevine May 1972)
(Extracts)
"Alcoholism and other addictions as they affect
women will be the theme of the Spring Conference of the Michigan
Alcohol and Addiction Association, to be held May 7-8-9 at the
Pantlind Hotel in Lansing, Mich….
…..Two panel discussions,
both under the theme heading "The Addicted Woman," will
consider different types of drug addiction. Alcohol will be the
concern of the first, with an all-female panel comprising four AAs
and one Al-Anon. Heroin and other "hard drugs" will be
discussed by a Synanon panel.
For further information, write: Box
61, Lansing, Mich."
“The Enemy of Continuing Sobriety”
(AA Grapevine March 1975) (Extracts)
"There are many esoteric
practices that lead us into self-indulgence. AA is a program for
reducing ego
SOME YEARS ago at a participation meeting, I heard a
young man hold forth on "not going for this 'Get rid of your
ego' stuff." He was deliberately trying to build up his ego,
develop more self-awareness, express himself, cultivate his own
me-ness. I disagreed with and was made uneasy by this line of
thinking……
…..A currently fashionable phrase keeps popping
up lately among the AA people I see: people-pleaser. Those who claim
this designation are always "former" people-pleasers. Now
they are pleasing themselves, thinking of what they want to do, and
being "good" to themselves. One of the "former
people-pleasers" blithely stated one evening at a meeting on the
topic of tolerance that, since joining AA, she had learned to become
intolerant; that is, she no longer had to tolerate anything she
didn't like….
…..I refer the "people-pleasers" to
page 61 of Alcoholics Anonymous: "He may be kind, considerate,
patient, generous; even modest and self-sacrificing. . . .The show
doesn't come off very well. He begins to think life doesn't treat him
right. He decides to exert himself more. He becomes, on the next
occasion, still more demanding or gracious, as the case may be. . .
.What is his basic trouble? Is he not really a self-seeker even when
trying to be kind? Is he not a victim of the delusion that he can
wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if he only manages
well?. . .Our actor is self-centered--egocentric." In fact,
"doing for others" may be a form of domination--i.e.,
selfishness.The Big Book doesn't fool around at way stations of
subtle forms of ego-feeding. It goes straight to the source of our
troubles: self-centeredness……
…..In Alcoholics Anonymous, I
think we rather consistently do just what the Al-Anons were talking
about: stick to the Twelve Steps. But occasionally one does hear
remarks like those I reported at the start of this article. For
example, transactional analysis is big in this area now, and we
frequently hear references to the "games" people play.
Existentialist philosophy was in style some years back; then
Esalen-type groups were in. And the Synanon games had their
day…..
……..Nevertheless, old Alcoholics Anonymous has gone
right along, year in and year out, disregarding current fads,
providing nothing but the basic and bluntly realistic message that it
started out with. Let's face it--most of us, after we have been
detoxified or the hangover has worn off, are perfectly capable of
taking in that message, even if we refuse, or are too weak, to act on
it immediately. The AA program may seem simplistic to people who
enjoy intellectualization or mechanistic "game" theories,
and its diagnosis of selfish self-indulgence and "self-will run
riot" as key factors in alcoholism may be distasteful. But if
you want to get well and stay well, we have in AA an approach, a
method, a therapy, that is different from and more effective than any
other I have encountered in all my years of reading and studying in
the field of psychology, starting long before Alcoholics Anonymous
was born, and continuing ever since."
B.M. Saratoga,
California
“About Alcoholism” (AA Grapevine June
1975)
"Two Hospital Programs
Many of these items are
contrary to AA philosophy. Their publication here does not mean that
the Grapevine endorses or approves them; they are offered solely for
your information.
A combination of the approaches used by Synanon
and Alcoholics Anonymous has led to development of a third type of
treatment which can be especially effective with both narcotics and
alcohol abusers.
Samuel W. Anglin of the Veterans Administration
Hospital in Washington, D.C., noted that the combined treatment is of
special value for recovering narcotics addicts who develop a
dependency on alcohol, and for polydrug abusers. The approach has
been used at the hospital for more than a year "with a
relatively high degree of success," he reported.
Among
specific benefits he cited were
The former addict's problems of
overcoming loneliness and gaining social growth are eased by
participation in the recovery network of Alcoholics Anonymous and
Narcotics Anonymous; Synanon's intense behavior-modification
techniques speed up the alcoholic's realization he is an alcoholic
and not just a "heavy drinker"; with the combined
treatment, costs are dramatically reduced, since only one facility,
one staff, one training program are required. Self-help aspect also
leads to cost reduction; in the single setting, individuals receive
preventive education on a variety of drugs they may not be familiar
with and are also more likely to encounter individuals from other
generations and other cultures."
The Journal (Addiction
Research Fou)
“Are There Magic Answers?” (AA Grapevine
June 1979) (Extracts) "He found what he needed in the AA
program"
"WHEN I CAME into AA fourteen years ago, it was
fashionable for some members to go to other groups outside AA for
"extra" help……
….I finally went to Recovery, Inc.,
and Synanon and Daytop Village and group therapy and Overeaters
Anonymous, and quickly stopped going to all of them. I belonged in
AA. By the time I went elsewhere for magic answers, I had already
begun to find them in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, which is
tailored perfectly for me. I was then sober long enough to realize
that compulsively joining other groups was not the answer"…..
E. S. Manhattan, New York
For information on the Synanon
cult and its derivatives internet search “Synanon” “Straight
Inc.” “Daytop Village” and “The Dark Legacy of a Re-hab Cult”
I think There needs to be a greater understanding of the cultic
influence that has shaped the drug and alcohol treatment industry
since drug and alcohol rehabilitation programmes have been using
modified Twelve Step programs combined with derivatives of the
confrontational “tough love” models from the notorious Synanon
cult. I also think there needs to be a greater understanding of how
this continuing cultic influence in the treatment industry is feeding
back into AA. ”
Cheerio
The
Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)
