(See
the new aacultwatch forum)
“Learning
from the US experience of Twelve Step Facilitation continued…
Whatever
happened to twelve-step programs? Kurtz, E. (1999)
http://www.williamwhitepapers.com/pr/Dr.%20Ernie%20Kurtz%20on%20Twelve-Step%20Programs%2C%201996.pdf
Historian
Ernst Kurtz, comes to a similar conclusion to Professor Zafiridis and
Lainas in his paper “Whatever happened to twelve-step programs?”
“…In time, the core Twelve-Step insight of accepting
limitation became attenuated not only in imitators but even within
the A.A. fellowship itself, as the very decentralization that
preserved it from professionalization became the avenue for its
corruption by commodification. Many both within and outside of A.A.
resist this trend, and so this part of the story continues, albeit
differently in diverse Twelve-Step settings…” (p.26)
“…Under
the umbrella afforded by civil rights legislation, the “Hughes Act”
of 1970 and additional laws passed in 1973 and 1978 sought to aid
alcoholics by moving public policy, if not attitudes, toward
understanding alcoholism as a disability meriting the same
consideration as others. These acts broadened and in some cases
mandated opportunities for treatment, and a new industry soon sprang
into being...” (p.16)
“…When
the new laws broadened funding for treatment, a slow evolution in
practice became a mad race for money. What had been largely a labor
of love - and in some settings remained so - became in others mainly
a way of making money, as wider cultural awareness and legislatively
mandated insurance coverage combined to create a fruit ripe for
plucking. Critics pointed out that the consistent bane of
spirituality, greed, seemed to guide many who now clothed their
projects in Twelve-Step language…” p.16
“…Before
long also, some funders of care - governments, companies, insurers -
began to suspect that they were being defrauded. Reacting against the
abuses, some began to view all recovery programs as rip-offs,
rejecting anything that smacked of the Twelve-Step programs with
which they associated this experience.xxviii (p.16)
“…The
second significant 1970s occurrence was the recrudescence of American
twentieth-century “reefer madness” - the discovery of apparently
rampant use of psychoactive chemicals, or in the common shorthand,
“drugs.” Medical historian David Musto has termed addiction “The
American Disease…” (p.16)
“…Another
new and different population arrived as judges increasingly began to
sentence drunk driving offenders to attendance at Alcoholics
Anonymous meetings. Individual groups in A.A.’s decentralized
fellowship reacted variously. Some agreed, some refused, to sign
(preferably initial) court attendance slips…” (p.17)
“…Some
professionals who worked with alcoholics and addicts had entered the
rapidly expanding field hastily and lacked real knowledge of
Twelve-Step programs. Sometimes they made inappropriate referrals. To
meet that problem, which increased as the multiplication of
addictions and treatments swelled the number of Recovery Movement
candidates, other professionals, as well as the victims themselves,
formed new groups…” (pp.16-17)
“…By
the 1990s, the situation seemed hopelessly confused. On the one hand,
the term “Twelve-Step” came laden with connotations of self-pity,
narcissism, and greed. On the other hand, many continued to find in
various Twelve-Step programs vehicles for a spirituality that even
outsiders recognized as real. A.A. applied the pragmatic phrase
“whatever works” to staying away from the first drink. Some of
the new treatment providers applied the maxim to developing new
“products” and manipulating diagnoses...” (p.18)
“…Whether
because of Wilson’s loss or, more likely, because of the impact of
what have been termed the “Culture Wars,” mutual respect and
balancing compromise between the transcendent and immanent spiritual
approaches, as well as between therapeutic and spiritual emphases,
began in the late 1970s to give way to increasing polarization among
programs claiming the Twelve-Step mantle. These divisions, though,
ignore the essence of Twelve-Step spirituality, which involves
finding a way of living with incongruity, a way to embrace
paradox.xxxiii (p.19)
“…When
some imitators deviated from that Twelve-Step insight to become
either a form of therapy or a mode of New Age religion, they lost
respect not least because they lost effectiveness. There is nothing
wrong - indeed, there is much right - with both therapy and religion
accurately labeled, but it abuses both to present either as the
other, or to recognize insufficiently their distinction from one
another. The Twelve Traditions protect the Twelve Steps from such
confusion of spirituality or religion with therapy. They do this by
implanting an acceptance of limitation, which encourages respect for
difference. These complementary attitudes clear a space within which
the realities of paradox may be lived. Programs that ignore the
Traditions tend to reject paradox; most seem also to slip away from
first the vocabulary, and then the practice, of the Twelve Steps…”
(p 20)
“… it
is not true that Alcoholics Anonymous teaches that alcoholism is a
disease, for such teaching would violate A.A.’s Tradition on
“outside issues,..” (p 21)
“…The
shift from the Twelve Steps to therapy can be seen as early as
Charles Dederick’s founding of Synanon in 1958…” (p.22)
“…The
reliance on a literature produced by quasi-professionals has led to
preferring the vocabulary of therapy to the language of spirituality
and to analyzing the past in ways more redolent of 1930s
psychotherapies than of any recognizable tradition of spirituality…”
(p.22)
For
pdf of full text follow above link.”
Note:
Conference Questions can be downloaded in pdf from the GSO (GB)
website. They are on pages 5-11, AA Service News, Issue 157,
Winter 2013
http://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk/download/1/Library/Documents/AA%20Service%20News/157%20Winter%202013.pdf
Conference
2014 background material can be found on the GSO (GB) website. Follow
the “Background Material for Conference 2014” link in the
Document Library.
http://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk/Members/Document-Library
Cheers
The
Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)
PS
To use “comment” system simply click on “Comments” tab below
this article and sign in. All comments go through a moderation stage
No comments:
Post a Comment