Responsible leadership!

Extracts from the aacultwatch forum (old)

"In addition to the examples of responsible leadership given by the Irish General Service Conference and the Orange County Central Office manager, the separation of the embryo of the Synanon cult from AA in 1958 was another demonstration of responsible leadership and operating principle of Tradition Two.

The Synanon Cult: How the cult started by Synanon cult founder Charles Dederich:

“The break with Alcoholics Anonymous occurred about the middle of August (1958) It happened right in the middle of an A.A. meeting. Our whole gang had taken over the Saturday night meeting of the Santa Monica A.A. group at Twenty Sixth and Broadway and built it up from its attendance of ten people to an attendance of about forty five or fifty. There was some objection on some issue by the members of the Board of Directors of the A.A. club. I recall the leader stopping the meeting. They didn’t like us. The alkies didn’t like the addicts, and they didn’t like me in particular…and they didn’t like my gang because they were mostly addicts. They made things difficult for us. I remember getting up in the meeting and saying, ‘All right, lets go home-the hell with this.’ So the whole meeting got up, and we all got into our automobiles and came down to the club, and we never went back to A.A. again. We were building something new and different. Although I will always be grateful to A.A. for helping me personally, Synanon has nothing to do with A.A., any more than a rowboat compares with an airplane. We have a live-in situation, with family characteristics. We emphasize self-reliance rather than dependence on a higher being. We assumed a responsibility; we had to get up the rent, we had to feed the people when they came in, and so on. This was the point at which the few alcoholics in the club began to fall out. They didn’t want any responsibility. In fact, it was even verbalized. ‘We don’t want to do this; we want to have a lot of fun; we want to have a club as a club.’ The alkies began to say, ‘Well, it’s our club,’ and I said, ‘No, it’s my club.’ I became the champion of the addicts, chucked the alcoholics out, and Synanon was then fully launched for addicts.”(Yablonsky, L. 1965) (Extract, How Drug Abuse Treatment Turns into Mistreatment By Juan E. Lesende - September 18th 2009) http://www.treatmentsolutionsnetwork.com/blog/index.php/2009/09/18/from-the-desk-of-juan-lesende-how-drug-abuse-treatment-turns-into-mistreatment/

If you read through Tradition Two you might imagine Charles Dederich as the “arch deacon” who turned bleeding deacon and the club board members as the “trusted servants” and  “rotating committee” who are doing the “thankless privilege of doing the group’s chores.” The board’s supporters in the group as the “elder statesmen” providing the “revolution” against Dederich, the “benign dictator” who turned malignant dictator.

The separation of the embryo of Synanon from AA is an example of the outplaying of the “forces” of  “unity” against “disintergtration” described by Bill W. in the forward to the pamphlet “ AA Tradition How it Developed p. 3. Online: http://www.aa.org/pdf/products/p-17_AATraditions.pdf

It is also an example of the leadership in Concept IX, able to withstand “..heavy and sometimes long standing criticism..” from “…our ‘destructive’ critics. They powerdrive, they are the ‘politickers,’ they make accusations. Maybe they are violent, malicious. They pitch gobs of rumors, gossip, and general scuttle-butt to gain their ends – all for the good of A.A., of course…”  Concept IX online:  http://www.aa.org/pdf/products/en_bm-31.pdf

If the “forces” of “disintegration” propelled by Charles Dederick  in 1958, were not countered  by stronger  “forces” of “unity” emanating from the club board and their supporters, then without this opposition his cult could conceivably have grown inside AA, becoming a national and international problem. What else would there have been to stop it? As we know, separated from AA at its beginning, the cult grew outside AA, influencing the medical profession and treatment industry instead with the Synanon “Tough Love” treatment model.

Unless you’ve had the experience of responsible service  leadership yourself, (and bearing in mind Dederick tried to dispose of his later opposition by getting his cultists to attempt to kill an attorney by putting a de-rattled  rattlesnake in his mail box) then you’ll only be able imagine the atmosphere in the 1958 Santa Monica group meeting. 40-50 alcoholics and addicts lead by a power-driving cult leader like Dederich, one side pitted against the other, the alkies “making it difficult for us” as put by Dederick. I think (and know from experience) it took some courage for the AA committee and their supporters to provide the opposing ‘force’ of ‘unity’ and the ‘but one ultimate authority’ in Tradition Two. The scene as described by Bill W. in Tradition Two: “…At times the A.A. landscape seems to be littered with bleeding forms…” Tradition Two online: http://www.aa.org/twelveandtwelve/en_tableofcnt.cfm”

Cheers

The Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)

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