Philosopher Michel Foucault has argued that the health sciences and the human sciences eclipsed religion in the 18th century, bringing about a revolution in the way we understand the deepest things about ourselves.
But this revolution has not yet been accomplished in the study of addiction. In contrast, research into the underlying causes and responses to addiction has, for over 200 years, consisted of a shifting hybrid between religion (or its non-dogmatic cousin known as spirituality), psychology, and clinical medicine.
In the middle of the eighteenth century, Christian theology provided the basis for understanding problematic alcohol use. For example, in 1754 Jonathan Edwards put forth such a theological perspective in Freedom of the Will:
When a drunkard has his liquor before him, and he has to choose whether to drink or no… If he wills to drink, then drinking is the proper object of the act of his Will; and drinking, on some account or other, now appears most agreeable to him, and suits him best.
The actions of “a drunkard” were the acts of a free, but depraved will according to this theological perspective. Over the subsequent fifty years, this perspective began to change. Benjamin Rush, the psychiatrist whose profile graces the seal of the American Psychiatric Association, did not have the concept of addiction in his own medical and psychiatric training when he first began to practice as a physician in the 1770s.
By 1812, however, Rush became one of the first to lay out the idea that problem drinking was an issue of medical concern when he described drunkenness as “a disease of the will.” In the half-century between Jonathan Edwards and Benjamin Rush, understandings about problem drinking shifted from the theological/moral to the medical. “Drunkenness” became “alcoholism,” a “drunkard” became an “alcoholic,” and “depravity” became “disease.”
A Genuine Conversion
The eclipse that Foucault chronicled in his cultural history of Western modernity seemed to be proceeding apace in this newly emerging field of addiction when Dr. Rush articulated a shift in rhetoric from depravity to disease. But it suddenly stalled as clinical medicine was unable to account for the perplexing existence of addiction, or to find effective clinical interventions to treat it.
For a time, psychology seemed to hold the promise of bridging the religious and the medical by articulating a theory for the etiology and treatment of addiction; but by the 1930s a figure no less prominent than Carl Jung had come to see that promise as fallacy and to state that hopelessness was the only result of relying on medical or psychiatric treatment to treat alcoholism. In his advice to one of his patients (advice now famous in the annals of Alcoholics Anonymous), Jung offered only one source for hope in dealing with addiction: “a spiritual or religious experience—in short, a genuine conversion.”
Bill Wilson, one of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), credited Jung’s work as “beyond doubt the first foundation stone upon which our Society has since been built.” AA describes the central role of spiritual conversion in recovery from alcoholism, even as it relies on medical terms naming the condition as a disease. In America, then, for almost two hundred years, religion, medical science, and psychology have been involved in an intricate, shifting alliance in response to addiction.
We Admitted We Were Powerless
For the last half of the twentieth century, that alliance coalesced into a singular model of psychotherapeutic support, clinical diagnosis, and spiritual practice known as Alcoholics Anonymous (along with numerous other “fellowships” such as Narcotics Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymous, Sex Addicts Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous—to name a few). However, that singular model is beginning to give way as psychology offers new theoretical models of behavioral change, medicine copes with the dismantling of publicly-funded addiction treatment programs that require primary care providers to address addiction directly, and religious scholarship raises radical critiques of the kind of religious tradition that was central to the founding of AA.
Various psychological theories of behavior change are finding that the foundational component to sobriety consists of an internal belief that one is capable of making and maintaining a change in behavior. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, clinical psychologists working in the field of addiction began to formulate models of behavior change that stood in sharp contrast to the first step of the Twelve Step model of Alcoholics Anonymous.
In AA, no recovery begins until one acknowledges her or his powerlessness: “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.” But according to psychologists such as James Prochaska and Carlo DiClemente, recovery is not possible until a person begins to feel a sense of self-efficacy; that they have some capacity to make a healthier choice and to follow through on that belief with action.
Other clinicians have developed a widely-known behavioral model known as Motivational Interviewing that provides a number of therapeutic actions to help people move past their ambivalence and make a change in behavior. This model, which draws on the work of Prochaska and DiClemente, also argues that self-efficacy is integral to making a change toward healthier behavior. Another model of behavior change, known as Self Determination Theory, argues that lasting change is likely only if the motivation comes intrinsically. These new models, and others like them, differ fundamentally from a Twelve Step model in their assumption (an assumption that the models have tested with clinical research) that human beings begin the move toward sobriety not by admitting their powerlessness but by honestly acknowledging their power and capacity to make a realistic change.
This new research was spurred partly in response to cuts in funding during the Reagan era: medical providers began to see their clinical options for referral in alcoholism cases diminish, and they faced the daunting clinical work of addressing patients’ addictions as part of their clinical practice. The behavioral change theories provided some ways to medical providers to stage interventions with their patients. No longer did a patient have to “hit bottom” before a provider was able to talk with them about alcohol or drug use. These new theories provided a way to think about clinical responses to patients using drugs in chaotic ways, or ambivalent about stopping drinking. They also changed the metrics by which successful behavior change was measured. While all of the models support sobriety as a goal, they also, by and large, support any choice on the part of the patient toward less chaotic use as a step in the right direction. This shift to seeing behavior change on a spectrum rather than in black and white (adopting perspectives in terms of either addiction or abstinence) also created tension with a Twelve Step model.
The Suspect Theological Legacy of AA
Psychology and medicine, then, are both shifting in their theoretical understanding and clinical approach to addiction. Theologians and religious studies scholars are also raising critiques of the kind of religious practice that was so influential in the formation of Alcoholics Anonymous.
When Dr. Bob and Bill Wilson co-founded AA, they both claimed that the only kind of practice that provided them with any resolve against alcohol was participation in a religious and spiritual community. Initially, they found that community in the Oxford Group. This movement, which took its name from the English town where the movement was founded, was an evangelical Protestant organization that was wildly popular in the early decades of the 20th century. The religious practices of self-reflection and testimony that were so common to the Oxford Group were translated into a parachurch genre through which they could become part of an organization such as AA.
And yet, despite their early participation in the movement, both Dr. Bob and Bill Wilson eventually expressed misgivings and withdrew their membership before founding Alcoholics Anonymous. They were not the only ones to express concern. In 1936 Reinhold Niebuhr stridently criticized Frank Buchman, leader of the Oxford Group, for Buchman’s support of Hitler. Just this year, Jeff Sharlet (a research scholar in Religion and Culture at New York University, contributing editor for Harper’s and Rolling Stone, and RD regular) traced the connections between Buchman, the Oxford Group, and an influential evangelical political organization known as The Family; an organization Sharlet finds dangerous and tremendously powerful, the subject of his book entitled The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power.
Alcoholics Anonymous has never been formally affiliated with the Oxford Group and it certainly has no present-day connection to the organization that Sharlet investigates. Nonetheless, the theological claims of the Oxford Group formed the basis for the spiritual practices of the Twelve Steps. Harvey Firestone, the multi-millionaire founder of Firestone Tires, hosted a meeting of the Oxford Group in 1933 in appreciation for the movement’s capacity to help his younger son, Bud, achieve sobriety. This meeting was a key event in the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous. The religious tradition of the Oxford Group was exceedingly amenable to the Firestones; claiming powerlessness over alcohol while retaining inordinate social and cultural power as business leaders is far different from coercing a confession of powerlessness out of a homeless man or woman who drinks a tallboy of beer, shoots up heroin or smokes crack, and has few options for comprehensive treatment programs to achieve sobriety.
What Would a New Approach Look Like?
The odd assortment of players in the history of AA, psychology, and religion—Bill W., Dr. Bob, the Firestone family, Carl Jung—may have been correct in their understanding that some kind of spiritual practice is necessary for some people to achieve sobriety. But surely that practice has a broader social-cultural context. Practical theologies that draw on liberation theologies (and there are many of these) could form a new foundation for thinking about the connections between alcohol use and spirituality; they could also create new spiritual practices that do not require a confession of powerlessness, particularly for those who have experienced pervasive social dynamics that conspire to deny them access to cultural and material power in their lives.
Men and women living in poverty, the preferential children of God in liberation theologies, bear the brunt of the dismantling of a comprehensive public substance abuse treatment system. In many circumstances, their only option to address active addiction is to confess their powerlessness before they can be part of a community of recovery. But surely there are other spiritual journeys they can embark upon.
What would a spirituality of recovery from chaotic alcohol or drug use look like if it were grounded in the theological claim that God has a preferential concern for the drug user? How would the kinds of practices that would arise out of this perspective provide new insights into the complex intersections between religion, spirituality, psychology, medicine, and addiction? We need to find out.
Tags: aa, addiction, oxford group, twelve steps
For a quarter century, I worked as a probation officer in New Orleans. I worked with addicted and alcoholic offenders, especially those convicted of driving while intoxicated. I took part in many workshops, took part in a seminar at the Johnson Institute in Minneapolis, and attended summer school several times at the University of Utah Summer School on Alcoholism and Other Addictions. Further, I received therapy for depression that took advantage of the 12 Step Movements.
This article is helpful and insightful. There is a sense in which AA becomes an alternative addiction, one that keeps patients alive but that also serves as a substitution for alcoholism. I have heard counselors talk about this for at least 20 years. Much remains unsolved and unexplained in addictions therapy.
I think religious conversion (change, moving forward, whatever) plays as part in recovery. Some sort of change in point-of-view seems to have been important for all those I met who are in long term recovery, but I also sensed that those people took their encounters in AA to a deep level not necessarily explained by the dogmas of AA. Who knows, improved therapy might come from anywhere—from medications or from some other source. I do believe that AA has strong evangelical roots.
"Spiritual treatment" got a kick start from Carl Jung, the Sultan of Woo? Ronald Reagan's campaign to re-create 19th century homelessness inadvertently became a force for good?
Despite the acceleration of scientific knowledge that's occurred in the past 100 or so years, there is something "phantasmagorical" about the experience of sobriety. My father recovered through AA as have I. As I see it, while I benefited from a "motivation that came intrinsically," it seems to have originated with an impetus coming "from outside myself" apart from my own doing. As I understand it from my own personal experience, as well as from an open exploration of various metaphysical and spiritual sources, without what AA still refers to as a "spiritual awakening," I would maintain that recovery from deeply existing addiction, or, at least, from "certain types" of addiction, is improbable at best.
"This new research was spurred partly in response to cuts in funding during the Reagan era,.."
Frankie, you gotta get on or get off. The meters running. Dude, get self actualized now. I mean, you got three more session with me and a couple more rounds with group then the bucks come out of your pocket. You gotta pick up the pace. Where is Carl Rogers when we need him?
The Right should love this article.
Seems like quite a jump from the first step's 'powerless over alcohol' to widespread social and economic disadvantage.
No one has to pay anything to attend AA; the meetings are self-supporting through members' contributions. It works, budget cuts or no.
Works for me, anyway. Thanks.
AA is based on help from a "higher power", but AA also calls for individual action. Making amends and supporting other alcoholics speak to the active works of the person in the program.
Anecdotally, I have seen AA bring someone to sobriety and strengthen their Christian faith in my own family.
First of all the problem of alcohol abuse presents itself in multiple ways and not all of it is alcoholism. Some people just drink too darn much. Alcoholics on the other hands have a different physical reaction to alcohol then most people. The symptoms look the same however. This makes diagnosis and treatment difficult.
Secondly, for those that are alcoholics they typically spend a lifetime battling their alcoholism with their will power. Many die trying. Society tells them, even today, that they need to exert more will power over the problem. But you cannot exert will power successfully over a physical disease. You can if you simply drink too darn much but not if your body is physically addicted to alcohol.
The first step in those cases is incredibly empowering. It tells a person to look beyond their own will to discover a real solution to the problem.
This solution has been called a spiritual experience. It has also been called a psychic change. Whatever. The label is far less important then looking beyond the will to a method for changing your life so that reliance on alcohol is no longer an issue.
Making that happen encompasses a 2 pronged approach. The person must get beyond the physical addiction and withdrawl first. This is very difficult and medicine is experimenting with drugs that may make this process easier. This could be a blessing for many as withdrawl is a horrendous experience. It could also be a serious problem as that is not the cure.
The cure is in helping a person make the changes necessary to deal with the pyschological aspects of addiction. What role does it play in a persons life? What hole are they filling? What are they escaping? What new approach to life is necessary so that the mental/emotional urge to reach for an escape mechanism (alcohol, sex, drugs, danger, adrenaline, whatever) is alleviated.
Without that relapse is guarenteed.
Despite its christian beginnings the AA of today has evolved many slogans and approaches that echo aspects of eastern religions. Living in the present moment being perhaps the most critical one.
AA's program actually has very little to do with alcohol. It mostly deals with helping people learn how to live an adult, self-sufficient life.
Reliance on self-will kills. Paradoxically learning to live a truly self-sufficient life gives life. Admitting powerlessness leads to true power over ones life.
Weird. But it works.
There is an alternative now called Smart Recovery which is a natural evolution of AA. http://www.smartrecovery.org/
A Response to John Blevins' “We Were Powerless: Addiction, the Will, and the Evangelical Roots of the Twelve Steps”
Blevins critiques the element of powerlessness in AA’s recovery model as problematic and possibly an obstacle to the addict’s recovery, citing research from the therapeutic profession that claims that “recovery is not possible until a person begins to feel a sense of self-efficacy; that they have some capacity to make a healthier choice and to follow through on that belief with action.” I agree with this assessment, but with the qualification that it overlooks the actual positive effect of this admission of powerlessness. What this admission in reality entails is the setting aside of old beliefs and ideas about oneself and one’s relationship to the world and to a Higher Power, beliefs and ideas that stand in the way of that very sense of self-efficacy that is indeed endemic to recovery. It may be a matter of semantics, but what the alcoholic experiences when ‘hitting bottom’ is the necessary deflation of a false sense of that relationship with that power that is in fact inherently within him. Previously he may have felt no sense of such a relationship at all, or that this Higher Power was somehow abstracted from his own nature and therefore not available to aid in the overcoming of the obsession and compulsion to ingest the addictive substance and/or engage in the addictive action. This is why the admission of powerlessness is so important, because it allows the sufferer the opportunity to see this relationship in a different light.
The program of AA’s twelve steps, following step one’s admission of powerlessness, is actually geared to connecting the addict to his own “unsuspected inner resource” as William James called it, that is only found deep within the addict’s very being, according to the Big Book, AA’s text for conveying the recovery program.
The Motivational Interviewing model mentioned in Blevins' article actually has an analog in the AA model, in the 4th step, which calls for a “fearless and thorough moral inventory” of one’s resentments, fears, and past behaviors and patterns, sexual and relational, and the 5th step, which entails the admission and review of these elements in order to “shape a sane and sound ideal” for a future life. The steps as a whole are the avenue to the addict’s ability to effectively make choices and take actions that will lead to a sane, integrated, and meaningful existence.
I also concur with Blevins that the twelve step model does have applicability in expanded areas, including the liberation theologies that he mentions. There is particular resonance between the way that an AA group governs itself, through the group conscience and autonomously from other groups and any hierarchical structure, and the method used by the base communities engaged in the Latin American liberation theology movement to conduct their affairs. Blevins' concept of a “preferential concern” for the addict also echoes the liberation theology claim to an epistemological “preferential option for the poor.” The recovering addict, just as do those engaged in the base communities, has the “experience, strength, and hope” necessary to carry the message of liberation to his fellow sufferer.
Finally, I believe Blevins' concern for the addict’s well-being to be genuine, and I congratulate him for seeing that there is wider applicability and a special connection to other liberation theologies within the twelve step recovery model. I cannot, however, think that some of his apprehension regarding the efficacy of the first step’s admission of powerlessness may be based again on his own, and the therapeutic profession’s misconception and/or disregard for the importance of this admission in the process of aiding the alcoholic in recovery.
Disclaimer:I'm not-academic, and not particularly spiritual. I'm also of a certain age.
An oldie but goodie is Gregory Bateson's "The Cybernetics of 'Self': A Theory of Alcoholism," in Psychiatry , Vol 34, February 1971. Also it can be found in "Steps to an Ecology of Mind."
Bateson provides a cybernetic explanation for how admitting powerlessness provides a starting place for recovery.
I'm not sure how much attention is paid to Bateson's ideas these days. But in a general way his work seems very relvant to the questions John Blevins poses. Before his death Bateson was working on a manuscript which his daughter organized into a book "Angels Fear: Towards An Epistemology Of The Sacred."
Bateson's idea of "God" probably will not automatically comport with religious views, but I don't think they are necessarily antagonistic, especially when thinking about therapeutic approaches.
I read this fine article a second time. It is excellent--the link between Calvinism and 12-Step programs makes sense to me. Thank you again for this fine article.
For an exhaustively researched and very critical look at AA's history, theology, and success rates, you might look at at http://www.orange-papers.org. The letters section is especially interesting. Things get kind of heated there . . .
This article seems strangely innocent of the last two or three decades of addiction research, which is showing the way to real circuits responsible for addiction and real treatments, based on drugs and other interventions. Alcohol, cocaine, tobacco, and other drugs of abuse rewire the reward circuitry of the brain, (the "other power" in spiritual parlance, or however you want to put it), and fixing that takes a lot of work. Indeed, it can never be fully fixed, as the one-drink AA policy so brutally attests.
Quasi-religious practices are effective because they are especially powerful, capable of becomming counter-addictions, as another commenter has mentioned. Cults and brainwashing can be extremly mind-altering, and that may be what is needed in the absence of more rational treatments, which are certainly coming.
Just a couple of brief comments.
The first step is not an admittance of powerlessness. It is an admittance of powerlessness =over alcohol=. It is not a surrender of abandonment of self or of intrinsic motivation. It is an act of the self to save itself. It is/was in my experience very =empowering= in the sense of "I can do something about this."
Secondly, I missed the 'suspected-ness' of AA's roots unless it's the guilt-by-association with Firestone (they made that terrible tire, the Firestone 500 too) and the social/economic/political dis-empowering actions of S.A. religious conservatives who stood four-square against liberation theology. I think implying that somehow the first step of powerlessness over alcohol is somehow in sync with social, etc. dis-empowerment.
As an aside, it is interesting that those with little economic and political power seem more willing to regard Christ as Lord/Sovereign than we who have so much power... I met a lot of people I liked in treatment; met a lot of Jesus' sort of people in AA. :-)
That alcoholism or any other addiction is a disease is an illusion, or so philosopher Herbert Fingarette argues. He finds baffling that advocates of the “disease concept” argue alcoholism is an inevitable phenomenon with cancer-like phases and propose a cure that stresses the importance of the individual’s decision to commit to a program the first rule of which is absolute abstinence.
The “disease concept” undermines responsibility. “In fact,” he adds, “alcoholics do have substantial control over their drinking, and they do respond to circumstances…. [W]hen what they value is at stake, alcoholics control their drinking accordingly.”
One of Fingarette’s key points is that “the only known way to have a drinker stop drinking is to establish circumstances that provide motivation to stop drinking, not an excuse to continue.” But his use of the term “motivation” is loaded with ambiguity.
But he develops the insight that alcoholism is a way of life that has meaning for the alcoholic. The “modern claim” that the “disease concept” brings a realistic and rational perspective that clears away “archaic moralism and punitive tactics” is false. The “disease concept” not only encourages self-deception. It is also subtly and rigidly moralistic, Fingarette argues, for it ignores, denies and discounts what meaning the alcoholic’s way of life may have.
He identifies three basic facts: 1) many drink heavily and persistently; 2) this kind of drinking is associated with serious trouble; and, 3) “there seems to be a certain strange combination of responsibility and irresponsibility about it.” But like “motivation,” that “strange combination” is also loaded with ambiguity.
In terms of the question of how one changes from bad to good habits, Fingarette asks: Why is it so difficult to change? He answers: “After a certain time in life, a fairly early time, we have grown into activities, motivations, sensitivities, desires, habits, social associations, conditionings, skills, all interwoven and interdependent with one another to form a way of life. Any relatively isolated judgment or decision to change, no matter how well supported by reasons, is very often a weak reed indeed on which to lean as a basis for effecting major change. All of the already established propensities conspire against an effective follow-through of such a resolution.”
So Fingarette points to the enormous force of momentum behind the addiction and the intricate, tightly woven and complicated way of life the center of which is one primary habit.
What addiction calls for, then, is not surprise and mystery, but understanding and compassion. This does not absolve the alcoholic from responsibility. Addiction is not some sort of “alien, uncontrollable phenomenon.” To think like that is a form “self-deception.” For, Fingarette concludes, “The reality is that we are responsible for our way of life. Of course it is very, very hard for me to change my way of life. Still, I must take responsibility for what I have made of myself, for the way I live. If not I, who? But … [w]e ought … to have compassion for each other’s troubles in changing our lives, even though in the end we must hold ourselves accountable for what we are. We should see the alcoholic, not as a sick and defective human being, but as a human being whose way of life is self-destructive. The difficulty we face is stubborn human nature, not disease.”
A powerful conclusion but again “human nature” is an ambiguous term and he says little about providing a context in which (moral) action makes sense, which I think is crucial in a modern world where the problem of meaning is acute and, I suspect, is a (if not the most) significant factor behind what drives most addictions.
It is surprising that Jung seems not to have connected alcohol with alchemical substances. (Jung's collected works is so enormous that I can be sure he didn't.) In alchemy, supernaturally charged substances change the elements with which they come into contact--including the human body, as it experiences the changes brought about by drinking. In the framework of alchemy, drinking itself is a spiritual experience and can only be neutralized by another spiritual experience.
Jung also seems not to have appreciated the ritual nature of drinking, though, as a student of ancient ritual practices, he could not have been ignorant of the connection between the rituals of, say, Dionysian cults and the rituals of people drinking in a bar.
Caroline Knapp, in the first few pages of her memoir, Drinking: A Love Story, conveys the ritual and religious quality of pouring that first glass of white wine. Any drinker knows the feeling of almost religious exhilaration that comes with the first few swallows. The reader understands that Ms. Knapp will need to replace this religious experience, based on drinking a powerful cup, with a different and more powerful experience of the Divine.
In 'The Spirit Level – why more equal societies almost always do better’(2009) , Richd.Wilkinson and Kate Pickett demonstrate a direct correlation between income equality and a whole host of indicators – crime, teenage pregnancy, educational performance, alcohol addiction, stress, obesity, drug use, and mental illness. Inequality, in short, makes our societies crazy in all sorts of ways.
It would be interesting to see how religious and spiritual authorities in the most unequal societies eg USA, would go about working out how to tackle addictions (and other societal ills) at the political, intellectual and moral depths that Wilkinson and Pickett's research demand.
I am in recovery from alcohol/drug addiction. I think that some "outside" people get confused about AA concepts of "surrender" and "higher power."
The AA meetings I attend have people of varying religious persuasions, from Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, and I know a Wiccan who attends meetings regularly and stays sober. I also am currently sponsoring an atheist who uses general principles of "doing the next right thing" as his higher power.
Many evangelists and fundamentalist Christians are not happy with AA's philosophy. In the first place, AA is not specifically "Christian" as such. In the second place, many Christian fundamentalists are not happy with AA's acceptance of homosexuality as a legitimate way of expressing love. And probably most importantly, AA sees alcoholism/addiction as an illness rather than as chosen sinful behavior, whereas many fundamentalists see alcoholism/addiction as a sin.
We always stress surrender to a LOVING higher power (whoever he/she/it/they might be). There are so many in recovery who discuss being raised with a "punishing God" who would judge them and mete out devine punishments of various kinds. AA changes recovering peoples' thinking that a higher power will be gentle, non-judgmental, and loving rather than punishing -- one doesn't punish another for having an illness.
My own spiritual life has changed and grown so much since I've worked through recovery.
As a chaplain, I've always felt that AA has a decidedly Calvinist theological anthropology. I wonder if that might mean it could have a Calvinist reformation of its own. The work of Serene Jones on feminism and Reformed theology comes to mind -- the idea that, for women, Reformed theology needs to begin its account in a doctrine of sanctification, which re-forms people, rather than justification, which shatters them.
Sorry -- that might be a little inside baseball for a lot of people. But this article really has me thinking.....
Yeah, it might not be a 'real' disease, but considering as such, even considering as a form of 'possession' as external and differentiated from the addict is helpful in the early stage(s) of recovery because part of 'coming to oneself' (ala Luke 15) is a profound, even disabling, sense of shame. To hear a word that this is 'not you' can be empowering.
Delusional? Oh sure, but Paul's words about being a being 'a new creature in Christ' probably seem as delusional as well. Except to those whose experience they define.
Alcohol/drugs are only the beginning. The rest of the steps are about taking responsibility, growing up, emotional maturity, etc. And caring about others. The closing line for a lot of AA meeting is "It works if you work it."
Personally, I found treatment and AA to be very much a vehicle for my taking responsibility for my choices not at all an excuse to keeping using/drinking.
The bottom line is that AA is just one of many ways in which Christian evangelists have selected particular vulnerable populations to prey on and convert. The specific manner in which this is accomplished is by analogizing the inherent "sinful" nature of humanity -- which is a core element of Christianity -- to the "powerlessness" of alcoholics over alcohol. This is a compelling, and insidious, metaphor to those who are "in crisis" over their drinking.
I've been told by people in AA that no one is forced to adopt a religion in order to be a member ... while they have to choose a "Higher Power," that "higher power" can be anything, e.g. the intellect, humanity itself, etc. This is, however, quite untrue. The AA Big Book, chapter 4, consists entirely of a "sell job" trying to convince would-be agnostics/atheists/freethinkers that a belief in a God is the only way out of alcoholism. Of people who avoid religious beliefs, it says:
Actually we were fooling ourselves, for deep down in every man, woman, and child, is the fundamental idea of God.
For AA, then, being an "atheist" or anything else of that kind, is an axiomatic impossibility.
The sooner the people who run and guide AA admit that it's a proselytizing organization, the sooner they'll have some credibility, because their denials of the obvious only make them look deceptive.
As for the idea of expressly and specifically targeting certain vulnerable populations, that's morally and ethically repugnant, and it should stop. But it won't. Believers will continue to go after vulnerable populations (e.g. public school children whom they wish to indoctrinate with creationism under the flag of "intelligent design").
"The bottom line is that AA is just one of many ways in which Christian evangelists have selected particular vulnerable populations to prey on and convert."
I don't know how familiar you are with AA, but from what I've read and heard, many (if not most) Christian evangelists do not approve of AA. There are many evanglical Christian programs that have been presented as alternatives to AA.
Many of the Christian evangelicals object to the following in AA:
1. They object to the idea that alcoholism/addiction are diseases rather than the idea that consuming too much alchohol/drugs is a sin.
2. They object to the idea that AA is not specifically a "Christian" program. We don't try and convert people to Christianity. We have Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Wiccans, Hindus -- and yes, some atheists. AA does not specify that Christ is the "only way." Sure, there are some in AA who understand Jesus to be their higher power, but others understand deities from other religions to be their higher power. Many evangelical Christians object to this; they want a specifically "Christian" program.
3. AA as an organization takes no position on any outside issue. However, many anti-Gay evangelical Christians believe that accepting Gay people and accepting their expressions of love for each other as legitimate and not sinful -- that this constitutes "taking a position" on an issue that is very crucial to their understanding of the world. There are stories of Gay people in recovery in the official AA literature and none of them have ever been advised to "change their lifestyle" as a part of recovery -- for many evangelical Christians, this is "taking a position" that they cannot accept.
Believe me, as someone who has been involved with AA for decades, AA is definitely NOT any sort of fertile ground where any evangelical Christians see as a place to find new converts. What usually happens instead is that some evangelical Christians try to convert people away from AA and into their own "Christian" programs.
Having been granted the gift of sobriety for over 21 years as a result of my connection with a higher power that I have found deep within myself, I feel compelled to respond to Psi Cop's post, especially the statement that "The sooner the people who run and guide AA admit that it's a proselytizing organization, the sooner they'll have some credibility, because their denials of the obvious only make them look deceptive." First of all, AA's primary concern is not credibility with the public, but rather to help the suffering alcoholic to achieve and maintain sobriety in order that she/he might have a chance at some semblance of a meaningful life. This program has been effective and has improved the lives of countless sufferers, both the addict and those whose lives they impact. Secondly, the concept of God is defined as "a God of one's understanding," and for some this is the Christian God and for some, like me, a non-theist who believes in the power of good that I have seen demonstrated in and among human beings both in and outside of 12 step programs, it is a valuable heuristic for tapping what William James called the "unsuspected inner resource" that is otherwise referred to as God, Allah, Holy Spirit, Prime Mover, Force, etc. The most important aspect of the program for me is that it works, when these steps are taken and the principles applied, and it works for all who work it, whether they believe in a singular entity called God or in the good orderly direction of the steps.
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