The truth about AA

June 17, 1996

The 12-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous often comes under public scrutiny by competing private services that know the price of everything and the value of nothing. This time they even fooled your staff writer (“Faith Fading as the Basis of AA, Some Leaders Say,” May 20).

To begin with, there are no “leaders” in AA. Even the AA literature states emphatically, "Our leaders are but trusted servants, they do not govern.” Second, the late Rev. Sam Shoemaker did not invent AA. He did not start it and he is not its patron saint, despite the desperate campaigning over the years, mostly by Episcopal lay persons and clergy.

Sam Shoemaker was a saintly man, an inspired preacher, author, homilist and dedicated Christian.

But these “leaders” and “disciples of the Episcopal priest from Pittsburgh on whose principles the 12 steps are based” err in confusing Rev. Shoemaker's “principles” with the “Oxford Movement” of Frank Buchman, a Lutheran minister in the 1920s and 1930s.

Finally, as a professional drug and alcohol counselor since 1980, I can honestly state that after many millennia of mankind's suffering from the chaos and tragedy of alcoholism, the 12-step program of AA is the only treatment that has come even close to solving the mystery. That's why, when you go to a modern-day detox and rehabilitation center and pay up to $20,000 or more for the privilege, they will give you daily doses of the AA 12-step program.

JACK O'NEIL
Sewickley

Comments

[aa sucks]

That's a load of horseshit. It (and every other 12-step outfit), by every definition is nothing more than a cult. Alcoholism with the treatment centers peddling this crap are a self-perpetuating mega-million-dollar enterprise. You take in people at their weakest (or so they thought), make them weaker, by convincing them they are powerless and make your millions from them, one relapse at a time.

Shame on you for perpetuating this crap and taking advantage of every single person lapping this bs up faster than antifreeze at a petting zoo.

First of all, I can tell you personally, that never has a tray of jamesons looked tastier than after sitting through an hour of that happy horseshit. Some of my worst binges came after meetings.

Nowhere but in an AA meeting (and I've been to plenty, all over the country), have I met people so frantically dependent on AA. Everyone else in the world would call this, "socially dysfunctional". They've recovered from nothing. They've simply replaced one addiction with another. One woman even professed that she could not be friends with anyone who wasn't a part of the program (quite militantly I might add), regardless of their drinking habits.

From my own experience in 2 seperate, 12-step based treatment centers, I was told...

"they've found the gene which causes alcoholism" (milam recovery center). This was a blatant lie.

"the addiction IS the disease". Right, the disease is "addiction". So I guess when we all went out for our smoke breaks (counselors included), we were just reinforcing our disease?

Tell me something, if this is a disease with an associated physiology, why are we told it's a "spiritual" disease? and if it IS a spiritual disease, why are 12-step programs endorsed by the government? (as this would be a glaring violation of our 1st amendment rights). Instead of 12-step programs, why not perform exorcisms?

I once sought work in the middle east. My sponsor at the time immediatley railed me against the notion of doing so. His rationalization "well they don't have AA over there!!", to which I replied, "well, relapse won't be an issue..", he responded "Yeah, cuz ya CAN'T DRINK!!!!". I'm failing to see the problem here? I mean, he says "cuz ya can't drink" as if that's a bad thing. That's when it dawned on me, that AA isn't really about sobriety, it's about indoctrinating people into the AA lifestyle.

You're not the cure, you're just another symptom of the problem. Quitting anything is a matter of will to do so ("will", which AA makes sure to smash right away, along with ego, confidence, and other such things).

The bottom line is this: If you don't want it, you're not going to get it. If you REALLY DO want it, you don't need to sit around in a room with a bunch of fucking strangers to talk about it to do so. You reach a point where you distinctly realize that it's "get your shit together or die". You pick one or the other and life goes on (or not, decision pending).

1.5 years sober. That's 1.3 years longer than I ever managed under AA.

Take your 12-step program and shove it.

[DXO]

Keep comin' back.

[Dick B.]

If you leave out the foul language in this material, there remain some simple facts which have been omitted. First, if you read my title New Light on Alcoholism, you'll see the number of times in which Bill Wilson attributed almost all of A.A.'s ideas to Rev. Sam Shoeemaker. If you read my book, you will find that most of the language of the 12 Steps is Shoemaker language. And you will find that Bill actually asked Sam to write the 12 Steps and that Sam declined. In the front of my title is a picture of Sam inscribed to him by Bill. And I have set forth the letter in which Bill stated to Sam that Sam was a "co-founder" of A.A. That's only a part of the story since A.A. had a number of roots--the Bible, Quiet Time, Anne Smith's Journal, the teachings of Rev. Shoemaker, the Oxford Group life-changing practices, the religious literature early AAs read, the ideas of William Silkworth, M.D.; Professor William James; and Dr. Carl Jung. Also some of the New Thought language of writers like Emmet Fox; and some comments by lay therapist Richard Peabody. Yes. Faith as the basis for A.A.is fading. The higher power is called a radiator, chair, light bulb. The Bible has been deleted. So has Jesus Christ. So has the whole history of the early A.A. Christian Fellowship in Akron. In their place are self-made religious ideas about "not-god", "spirituality," and absurd names for God. Just a smidgen of what these two articles don't mention. See http://www.dickb.com/index.shtml

[DXO]

Keep comin' back.