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Under Readers' comments.
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“AA's
Role in Addiction Treatment Needs Re-evaluation - - Mar 10th 2008
I
am an alcoholic. I also have bi-polar disorder. I have also been a
member of the Unification Church, known more widely as the "Moonies".
I
think this triangulation of experience has given me some good insight
into the dynamic interplay between mental health issues, medicine,
and religion and cults as healing tools.
I
first joined AA as a 15 year old in Northern California while I was
at boarding school, because I knew the nature of my substance use was
unhealthy and destructive. I did not believe in God at the time, but
quickly adopted the mystical & ritualized attitude proscribed by
AA because I was desperate to get well. I was also in rigorous
therapy at the time with our school counselor, who I later discovered
was actually also a member of the Indian eastern philosophy cult,
SYDA Yoga.
Having
undiagnosed bipolar disorder and under the supervision of a highly
educated, but boundary blurring mystical therapist, I was
particularly ripe for diving into "spiritualized" ways of
interpreting reality. I also was being very well educated myself, so
I learned early on in this process how to tolerate cognitive
dissonance between what my critical thinking would tell me and what I
thought God itself was communicating to me through the events around
me. I tended to err on the God side, taking a cue from the old adage
"God works in mysterious ways" ie. illogical, sometimes
strange, ways. However, I did temper myself somewhat with my
remaining intellectual powers.
Predictably
this became quite an extensive routine of mental gymnastics split
between a constant interpretation of signs and interconnections or
synchronicities and attempts at rational analysis of a given
situation.
I
did stay sober and got that AA version of happy, which is sort of a
subdued ecstasy, and unrelenting dedication through constant
repetition of a set of behaviors and trigger terms. I seemed quite
normal for a young artist, but then again, no one had x-ray glasses
to view my logic process which, as I stated was split at best. Only
my therapist and other AA's were somewhat in on it and that was the
understood way of being in that community.
AA
also practices the cultic technique of an insider doctrine and an
outsider doctrine. While the steps are public knowledge, what is
understood about their meaning and interpretation becomes secularized
for outsiders and sacredly mystical for insiders.
That
is one of the reasons it disturbs me that health professionals are
willing to recommend people to AA after what can only be described as
plainly superficial research on the organization. Word of mouth is
not a scientific tool, and yet that seems to be enough to convince
many doctors that this treatment is worthy of what often becomes a
lifetime attempt at a cure.
In
any case, I returned to LA to live with my family in Brentwood, just
down the street from the central meeting location of Clancy
Imusland's Pacific Group. Naturally, I went there, because of its
proximity, I had never heard about it. I was pretty lonely at the
time, being a sober teenager isn't easy, and was grateful for the
swarms of people surrounding me, circling meetings in the list book
for me and giving me guidance.
I
quickly got absorbed into the group's meeting routine, sponsorship
techniques (as a sponsee), sexist practices, elitist attitude,
weekends at Clancy's house, parties, dances, dinners on and on. It
was my first introduction into the structured cult lifestyle. While
much looser than many hard core cults, I have come to understand that
the cultic phenomena is a well defined but broad spectrum of group
behaviors rather than a single point a group arrives at in its
practices. In my estimation AA in general falls on the lower end of
that spectrum, but is definitely a major player as one of the largest
thriving cultic groups that generally flies under the radar in terms
of being identified as such. I would place the Pacific Group of AA in
a more advanced category of behavioral control and thought reform.
Two
years later I left for college in Westchester, NY where I met an old
charismatic man in AA who seemed to understand God in the passionate
and dedicated way that I did. He was interesting, very verbal, and
creative. Against my better judgement I took him on as a sponsor,
after all, he was old, and he was speaking my language. He actually
actively worked on integrating me into his life for about a month
before the sponsorship occurred. We entered into a cabal of two where
over time secrecy became the rule. Ultimately he molested me sexually
repeatedly and I became convinced that it was God's will.
It
was then that I met a Moonie recruiter on Broadway in NYC who got me
to take a survey on belief and guided me up to their offices. He was
young and friendly and I was instantly drawn to the idea that there
might be a young community of bright believers like me. I agreed to
go on a seven day "youth leadership program", which was, of
course, (although I didn't get it at the time) an invitation to a
compound where they could test my responsiveness to a very seriously
engineered thought reform environment.
Well
I was primed for this experience on multiple levels and as the week
passed there I learned that the Moonies forbid unwed sex of any kind
and that pretty much sealed the deal for me. I was attracted by their
fervor and dedication, their energy and intelligence, and I felt like
I would finally find some protection from a sexual predator like the
sponsor I had been involved with.
I
won't go into my experience with the Moonies, you can read about it
on the web by googling "Cathryn Mazer Unification Church".
There was a lot written about it at one time because the Today Show
covered my family's harrowing search for me once I disappeared into
the cult.
I
think it's more important to point out that I have tried AA a few
times since leaving the Moonies and having become somewhat educated
about the nature and variety of the cultic experience. Each time I
try it again I find myself more and more uncomfortable with its
practices.
While
it doesn't require that one believes in a specific God, it does
demand that one believes in a God, while simultaneously stating that
it doesn't, by applying a kind of double-speak rhetoric, in the "as
we understood Him" addendum. Double speak is one of AA's most
frequently applied mind control techniques and I believe (at this
time based more on experience than research) that it is the primary
tool by which it retains members. For instance while it states that
"the only requirement for AA membership is the desire to stop
drinking", my experience has been that refusal to do the steps,
get a sponsor, read the big book, and/or regularly attend meetings
(usually depending on the community at least 3 times a week) clearly
elicits vocal disapproval and often results in social ostracism.
While the member is not banned outright he or she is shunned in
various ways. The necessity, vital importance of doing all of these
things, in order to physically survive alcoholism/addiction, is
constantly asserted during sharing at all kinds of different
meetings.
Veiled
and not so veiled threats of terrible sickness and death if one
leaves the group is a common feature of AA in general. Regardless of
the fact that current research in no way bears this out, it is a
common understanding in the program, and is a terrifying method of
retaining membership.
Furthermore,
sponsors are not qualified to be counselors and this is absolutely
their expected role in AA. Having been in therapy and in and out of
AA for over half of my life I can honestly say that my best sponsor
was far less helpful to me than my worst counselor, and believe me, I
have encountered some crackpots.
The
internal sense of the steps and the overall behavioral program of AA
is that it is a sacred science and that the only reason it wouldn't
work well is because it is not being practiced rigorously enough or
because of the personal shortcomings of the practitioner. It is never
entertained that the system may have any fundamental flaws. To
suggest so in a meeting will generally produce an arctic chill in the
room and result in many fervent rebuttals, disdain, pity, patient
explanation, social rejection etc.
Constant
verbal repetition and loaded language which uses words in our english
lexicon with new meanings ascribed to them becomes an insiders code
and how well someone uses this code can help determine their status
in the community. This also lends itself to double speak in that a
sentence that may seem innocuous to an outsider could have coded
meaning to a member. Members also learn how to reshape their
perception in their minds of their drinking lives according to AA
logic and language and are ritually trained by going to constant
meetings how to verbally testify about their lives out of and then in
AA. Any alternative view of the alcoholic life process is generally
rejected, although usually with the caveat that, "it may work
for them, but it doesn't work for me".
There
is also a wide misconception that there is a great variety of
meetings in the world. I find this to be another form of double
speak. While each meeting has its own flavor and community, in
general the ritual and the content is always the same. There are a
few content options - the speaker meeting with sharing, the large
speaker meeting without sharing, the big book study meeting, the step
& tradition meeting, and the meditation meeting. The steps are
hung on scrolls on the wall, the meeting is opened with a reading
from the big book, sometimes other AA literature, the form proceeds
according to the content category, and it is closed with a prayer and
chant ("keep coming back! It works if you work it, so work it
you're worth it!" is one that comes to mind). Despite the wide
variety of communities in which meetings take place, I have found
that the unspoken yet intense pressure to use language and logic
according to what I consider to be a rigid AA form is consistent
across these communities. Window dressing may be added but I've found
that is mainly superficial.
I
have attended meetings in Northern California - San Francisco,
Berkeley, Danville, Walnut Creek; Southern California - Los Angeles
including Brentwood, Beverly Hills, Hollywood, North Hollywood, West
LA, Venice as well as in communities south of LA; in Oregon briefly
(forget the town's name); in New York - Westchester various towns
including Bronxville, Yonkers, and Hastings, - New York City - West
Village, East Village, Times Square, Madison Sq. Garden area, Upper
East Side, Upper West Side, Williamsburg and Park Slope Brooklyn; in
New Zealand - Wellington; at treatment centers and rehabs; etc.
Point
being - my opinion is not based on a few meetings in a few
communities.
Lastly,
what I find most reprehensible in the mental health, medical, and
judicial systems use of referrals to AA and its sister programs is
that it has clearly become an easy dumping ground for them that
requires little or no effort or investment on their part. It seems
that it is so convenient that the necessity for a responsible vetting
that would be required with almost any other treatment regimen is
simply ignored. Even the academic discussion of AA's role in
addiction treatment seems mainly based on anecdotal evidence. Why do
the scientific, medical, theraputic, civic, and even cult awareness
communities turn such a blind eye?
Usually
a cult member will tell you that they're happier and safer than
they've ever been in their lives, that the group is a force for good
and helps thousands of people, regardless of what group they belong
to. Rarely do current members of an active cult express misgivings
about their organization, only some of the people in it who are bad
apples that misrepresent the group as a whole. This kind of
expression of total satisfaction can be a dead giveaway that the
system is successfully utilizing thought reform techniques.
I
recommend Robert J Lifton's "Thought Reform and the Psychology
of Totalism" to anyone interested in learning about mind and
behavioral control.”
Cheers
The
Fellas (Friends
of Alcoholics Anonymous)
PS
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