Question
2:
Would
Conference consider what response can be given to Groups who refuse
to accept the group conscience of Intergroup/Region?
[See
also: The Traditions, Preamble and Concepts]
“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. ”
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)
See
also AA Minority Report 2013
