Alcoholics Anonymous
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==Rehab== | ==Rehab== | ||
Most inpatient rehabs seem to use the 12 step program, requiring attendance to meetings of either Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous. Other Models include Scientology's unscrupulous version, Narconon, as a basis for treatment. It is very rare that rehabs would not be entirely based on 12-step programs. When potential patients ask if the program is religiously based or 12-step based, generally they will opt to call it a spiritual program. This seems to be the case due to the idea that 12-step programs can work for everyone, a dubious claim at best. | Most inpatient rehabs seem to use the 12 step program, requiring attendance to meetings of either Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous. Other Models include Scientology's unscrupulous version, Narconon, as a basis for treatment. It is very rare that rehabs would not be entirely based on 12-step programs. When potential patients ask if the program is religiously based or 12-step based, generally they will opt to call it a spiritual program. This seems to be the case due to the idea that 12-step programs can work for everyone, a dubious claim at best. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ==Secular alternatives== | ||
| + | Those looking for secular support groups and programs dealing with addiction have a number of alternatives to AA. Some include: | ||
| + | *[http://www.smartrecovery.org/ SMART Recovery] | ||
| + | *[https://rational.org/index.php?id=1 Rational Recovery] | ||
| + | *[http://www.cfiwest.org/sos/index.htm Secular Organizations for Sobriety (SOS)] | ||
| + | *[http://womenforsobriety.org/beta2/ Women for Sobriety] | ||
| + | *[http://lifering.org/ LifeRing Secular Recovery] | ||
| + | *[http://www.moderation.org/ Moderation Management] | ||
==See also== | ==See also== | ||
Revision as of 01:06, 4 December 2012
Alcoholics Anonymous was the first "12-step" recovery group, with the aim of helping alcoholics stop drinking and stay alcohol-free. While AA has undoubtedly helped many alcoholics to recovery, it is problematic for many atheists, because AA relies on a belief in a supreme deity ("God") as an inseparable part of the program. It is also problematic for theists who don't believe in an interventionist god.
Contents |
The 12 Steps
The steps are:
- We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.
- Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
- Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
- Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
- Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
- Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
- Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
- Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
- Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
- Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
- Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
- Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.[1]
Religion in AA
As you can see in the above section, 7 of the 12 steps mention God, prayer, a spiritual awakening, etc. In addition, AA's "Big Book" (the main book of AA writings) includes an essay addressing this issue, "We Agnostics", which essentially states that there is no way around belief in a supreme deity if you want the AA program to work and that agnostics and atheists will need to draw on enough faith to believe in God, who in turn will reveal himself.[2]
For this reason AA is perhaps not for everyone. However, there are nonbelievers who are prepared to publicly defend AA on the basis that it "works for them" - Roger Ebert being one such example [3].
AA is non-sectarian as to which conception of deity each member holds, and in practice AA groups and individual members may vary widely as to what extent they emphasize religious belief, as opposed to the emphasis official AA literature places on it. So, if one's conception of a higher power happens to be the Flying Spaghetti Monster, that's perfectly okay. However, Pastafarian heaven contains a beer volcano, and pirates are frequent consumers of rum. This would understandably give rise to a conflict of interests.
Is AA religious?
AA maintains that it is a "spiritual, not religious program." However, this seems to be a distinction without a difference as the structure of the AA program makes clear. As noted above, the Steps repeatedly mention God. Meetings also usually include prayer and the AA literature is overtly infused with religiosity. AA also sprung out of the Christian Oxford Group movement. As a consequence, a number of courts have ruled that enforced AA attendance violates the Establishment Clause such as in the cases of Griffin v. Coughlin[4] and Warner v. Orange County Dep't of Probation.[5][6]
Is AA a cult?
Many critics (and, surprisingly, a few supporters) have labeled AA as a "cult."[7] One way AA is cult-like is its origins in the Oxford Group movement (later re-named Moral Re-Armament). William Griffiths Wilson ("Bill W.") and Robert Holbrook Smith ("Dr. Bob") were the original co-founders of AA. In keeping with AA's tradition of anonymity, they are better known as Bill W. and Dr. Bob. Both were involved in the evangelical Christian Oxford Group, an evangelical movement popular in the 1920s and 1930s, which stressed personal conversion and surrender to God. It targeted at successful businessmen, doctors, and other upper middle class pillars of the community and often described as a "Salvation Army for snobs".[8] Frank Buchman, the founder of the group, courted the rich and powerful. His tight grip on the movement led it to be known pejoratively as "Buchmanism." Bill W. reworked the Oxford Groups' six principles into the Twelve Steps.[9] He also later took a lifelong interest in spiritualism and even participated in seances and early LSD experiments even as he remained sober (from alcohol, at least).
Charles Bufe makes a distinction between "communal AA" (i.e., generic AA meetings) and "institutional AA" (i.e., AA as employed in rehab facilities and prisons). He argues that AA is not a cult, but it does have cult-ish trappings with institutional AA being more cult-like than communal AA. Bufe describes the organization of communal AA as anarchic while claiming institutional AA to be coercive.[10]
Effectiveness
As a general disclaimer, claims about the success rate of AA should generally be taken with a grain of salt. Determining AA's success rate is problematic for a number of reasons:
- AA doesn't conduct research on itself besides a membership survey.
- AA's tradition of anonymity makes it difficult or impossible in many cases to track participants in studies.
- AA meetings may vary by locale. The heterogeneity of AA meetings may make comparisons difficult.
- Data may be self-reported, causing it to be biased.
- The definition of "success" may vary, e.g. is moderation or abstention considered a success?
It is difficult to run a randomized controlled trial on AA because of these reasons. AA claims, based on its most recent (2007) survey, that 69% of its members have been sober for more than one year.[11] However, it is important to note that there is a very high drop-out rate. AA itself reports a figure of 64% of members dropping out by the first year[12] A Cochrane Review of eight trials found that none unequivocally supported the efficacy of AA.[13] A 2009 metanalysis (Kaskutas 2009) found two trials to be supportive of AA, one null, and one negative trial.[14] Based on meta-analysis, the Handbook of Alcoholism Treatment Approaches ranks AA as the 38th most effective treatment for alcoholism out of a list of 48 treatments.[15]
Other twelve-step programs
There are numerous other twelve-step programs for other addictions and social issues based on the AA blueprint. Narcotics Anonymous,[16] founded in 1953, is probably the most famous of these. It should be noted that the steps are exactly the same except "alcohol" is replaced with "addiction."
Rehab
Most inpatient rehabs seem to use the 12 step program, requiring attendance to meetings of either Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous. Other Models include Scientology's unscrupulous version, Narconon, as a basis for treatment. It is very rare that rehabs would not be entirely based on 12-step programs. When potential patients ask if the program is religiously based or 12-step based, generally they will opt to call it a spiritual program. This seems to be the case due to the idea that 12-step programs can work for everyone, a dubious claim at best.
Secular alternatives
Those looking for secular support groups and programs dealing with addiction have a number of alternatives to AA. Some include:
- SMART Recovery
- Rational Recovery
- Secular Organizations for Sobriety (SOS)
- Women for Sobriety
- LifeRing Secular Recovery
- Moderation Management
See also
External links
- The AA web site home page
- More Revealed -- site with free access to publications critical of AA
- Orange-papers.org -- anti-AA site with extensive history and critical analysis
- Silkworth.net -- massive archive of AA material and studies on AA
Footnotes
- ↑ "The Twelve Steps of Alcholics Anonymous". Alcoholics Anonymous. http://www.aa.org/en_pdfs/smf-121_en.pdf.
- ↑ "We Agnostics", Chapter 4 in Alcoholics Anonymous
- ↑ Roger Ebert. My Name is Roger and I'm an Alcoholic. Roger Ebert's Journal, Chicago Sun Times, Aug. 25 2009.
- ↑ Griffin v. Coughlin, 88 N.Y.2d 674 (June 11, 1996)
- ↑ Warner v. Orange County Dep't of Probation,827 F.Supp. 261 (S.D.N.Y.1993).
- ↑ For more legal cases, see Derek P. Apanovitch, Religion and Rehabilitation: The Requisition of God by the State, 47 Duke Law Journal 785-852 (1998).
- ↑ L. Allen Ragels. Is Alcoholics Anonymous a Cult? An Old Question Revisited.
- ↑ Not to be confused with the earlier Oxford Movement in the Anglican church
- ↑ Dick B. The Oxford Group and Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous History A.A.'s Oxford Group Roots: Article 12
- ↑ Charles Bufe. (1998) Alcoholics Anonymous: Cult or Cure? (2nd ed.) Tucson Arizona: See Sharp Press
- ↑ Alcoholics Anonymous 2007 Membership Survey
- ↑ Loran Archer. The 95% First Year Dropout Myth. Hindsfoot Foundation.
- ↑ Marica Ferri, Laura Amato, Marina Davoli. Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step programmes for alcohol dependence. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2006, Issue 3
- ↑ Lee Ann Kaskutas. Alcoholics Anonymous Effectiveness: Faith Meets Science. J Addict Dis. 2009; 28(2): 145–157.
- ↑ What works? A summary of alcohol treatment research, in R. K. Hester & W.R. Miller (Eds.), Handbook of Alcoholism Treatment Approaches: Effective Alternatives (3rd ed.), 2003, Allyn & Bacon.
- ↑ No relation to the Scientology front group Narconon. See na.org.