I have occasionally called AA a religious cult, and so have other people. It might be helpful if we ask, "What are the real characteristics of a religious cult? How do I tell if I have just walked into a real religious cult, rather than just some church with a bunch of overly-enthusiastic members?" Let's look at the characteristics of most typical religious cults. I have assembled the following list from several other peoples' lists, and my own experiences with cults:

1. The Guru and his church are always right, and above criticism and beyond reproach. In some cults, the guru is dead, but the principle is the same. I use the word "guru" loosely here; in many cults the charismatic leader has the title of minister, priest, yogi, swami, prophet, or all-knowing wise man. In any case, the leader is always right.

2. The individual members of the cult are told that they are inherently small, weak, stupid, ignorant, and sinful, and are in no way qualified to judge the Guru or his church. Should you disagree with the leader or his cult about anything, see rule number one.

(This cult characteristic is sometimes expressed in the infantization of the cult members: They refer to the leader as "Father", while he refers to them as "my children.")

A corollary to this rule is the practice of lowering members' self-esteem by a variety of methods:

• Elders or higher-ranking members will berate the newer members and tell them that their work or their spirituality isn't good enough.
• Members will criticize themselves and confess all of their sins and faults, sometimes engaging in public self-criticism or confession sessions. This is used by everybody from Maoist Chinese Communist groups to Christian cults.
• Sometimes other members will attack them and criticize them in "group therapy" sessions, or Synanon games.
• Members are taught not to trust their own minds or their own judgement. Your thinking has been corrupted by sin. Your judgement is no good. Your thinking is no good. Your mind is no good. Your motives are no good. Everything you do is just for yourself. You need a complete make-over.

3. No exit. There is simply no proper or honorable way to leave the cult. Period. To leave is to fail, to die, to be defeated by evil. A corollary to this rule is the demonization of those who leave: They were evil. They were unable to resist temptations to sin. They are the spawn of Satan. They were always trying to destroy our movement. We are much better off without their bad influences.

A few cults specialize in kicking people out as a means of practicing terrorism; you either instantly obey all orders and believe everything you are told, or you are gone, banished in disgrace. But that still isn't an honorable exit. On the other hand, some other cults are extremely possessive: they won't allow members to leave at all, under any conditions, and will even go kidnap and bring back runaways.

4. No graduates. No one ever learns as much as the Guru knows; no one ever rises to the level of the Guru's wisdom, so no one ever finishes his or her training, and nobody ever graduates.

5. Cult-speak. The cult has new terminology or euphemisms for many things. The cult may redefine common words to mean something quite different, also know as "bombastic redefinition of the familiar", or "loading the language". And the cult may have a lot of slogans. Beginners have to learn all of the new terminology in order to fit in, and understand what is being said.

For instance, because leaving the cult is one of the worst crimes a member can commit (according to the cult), most cults have a special term for leaving, like "going tai-tan", "leaving the fold", being "trapped in samsara", "straying from the path", "falling from grace" or simply "going out." When that dreaded phrase is uttered, everyone knows what it means.

Sometimes euphemisms or redefined phrases can take on truly evil dimensions. Adolf Hitler's "special handling" of the Jews, sending them to the "final solution", is a classic example. But there are plenty of contemporary examples: In one cult, "Sharing the love of God" means practicing prostitution to get money for the cult, and "Allowing God to bless others" means cheating people out of money which then goes to the cult. To the Moonies, "heavenly deception" means misleading nonmembers to promote the church's goals.

There may also be a lot of slogans to learn. Slogans are handy because they can condense whole pages of dogma into snappy one-liners which are easy to remember and easy to repeat. Slogans can also codify ideas which don't work well in other formats: For example, Hitler's "Ein Land, Ein Volk, Ein Fuerhrer!" sound byte (translation: "One land, one people, one leader!") wouldn't have the same zing if it were a long essay, especially because it is actually an irrational appeal to the people to abandon democracy and embrace a fascist dictatorship. Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf that the average voter could not handle any idea that took more than two sentences to express, and for best results, the idea should be expressed in six words or less. Hence all of his short slogans.

Slogans are also handy for stopping thought. When a simplistic slogan is the answer, there just isn't much more to be said. AA uses slogans like "Utilize, don't analyze", "Stop Your Stinkin' Thinkin'" and "Your best thinking got you here" to stop people from thinking. Those things are also known as "thought-stopping clichés."

6. Group-think, lack of dissent, and enforced conformity in thinking. The cult has standard answers for almost everything, and members are expected to parrot those answers. Group-think usually means no real thought at all; just repeat the slogans and follow the program. Group-think also usually means that the group thinks that the Guru is always right.

There are two corollaries: A) Independent or critical thinking is discouraged, especially critical thoughts about the Guru or cult, and B) Positive thoughts and statements about the guru and the cult are encouraged.

7. Irrationality. The beliefs of the cult are irrational, illogical, or superstitious, and fly in the face of evidence to the contrary. The Hari Krishna cult, for example, believes that the Earth is flat (still, today, in spite of our astronauts' journeys into space, and all of those pictures of a big blue round Earth). Scientologists believe that you can be harmed by memories of injuries that happened to you during previous lifetimes. They also believe that, if you pay enough money to Scientology and take enough courses of treatment and training, you can become immortal -- a fully-developed being with mind-over-matter powers who is above physical death. Many cults believe that God will answer all of their prayers and rearrange the world to suit them. The Nichiren Shoshu Buddhists believe that a printed scroll, called a Gohonzon, will grant your wishes if you chant to it enough.

Another aspect of irrationality is absolutism. That is, seeing everything in terms of absolute black and white. The very word "rational" comes from "ratio", a fraction. Absolutists hate fractions and proportional terms, they love words like "always", "never, "all", "and none". They dislike words like "usually", "seldom", "mostly", and "few", which admit to there being exceptions to the rule.

8. Suspension of disbelief. The cult member is supposed to simply believe whatever he is told, no matter how unlikely, unrealistic, irrational, or illogical it may be. For example: Fortunate coincidences are accepted as proof that God favors the Guru and his cult: "The Big Man upstairs is really looking out for us." Superstitious rituals are performed without skepticism. Some cults pray or chant incessantly for almost everything imaginable, as if God were Santa Claus, and actually believe that their amateur magic ceremonies will really work. And if the guru suddenly starts performing miracles, this is to be accepted as believable (Rev. Jim Jones, People's Temple). And if the Guru starts seducing all of the 14-year-old girls in the religious community, you are supposed to believe that he is just giving them spiritual lessons (Swami Muktananda).

9. Denigration of competing sects, cults, religions, or groups. This needs no explanation.

10. Personal attacks on critics. Anyone who criticizes the Guru, the cult or its dogma is attacked on a personal level. Rather than honestly and intelligently debating with critics, using facts and logic, the cult will resort to low personal attacks, using name-calling, slander, libelous accusations, personal slurs, accusations of bad motives, and casting aspersions on the critic's intelligence and sanity.

11. Insistence that the cult is THE ONLY WAY. The cult is the only way to Heaven, or world peace, or enlightenment, or clean and sober living, or do-it-yourself psychotherapy, or whatever the goal is supposed to be.

12. The cult and its members are special. "We are different from ordinary people." In spite of the fact that the individual cult members are often told that they are stupid and foolish, the cult members are also told that they were very smart and very lucky, on the whole, to have joined the cult. The specialness of the cult is frequently expressed by contrasting the cult with "everyone else out there." Those other people weren't smart enough or good enough to join the cult. A mindset of us versus them is encouraged.

For instance, Scientology regards Scientologists as the only sane people on the planet. They are "operating thetans", which is something like "functional intelligences." All of the rest of the people on Earth are considered to be so brain-damaged and non-functional that they are hardly worth dealing with.

Two members of the Heaven's Gate cult made a video tape just days before their mass suicide, where they talked about how they felt just unbelievably fortunate to have been born on the right planet, at the right time and place, to have been able to meet and learn from the cult leaders Ti and Do, and get prepared for the Big Journey to Heaven (suicide). And all of the other people on Earth, who wouldn't be committing suicide and making the trip to the Hale-Bopp comet and the flying saucer hiding behind it? Well, sadly, they just missed the boat, and they won't be going to Heaven...

13. Induction of guilt, and the use of guilt to manipulate cult members. Cult members can be faulted, and made to feel guilty, for anything and everything, from their sexual desires to their weakness in getting tired and making mistakes after 16 hours of working for the cult for free. Errors and sins committed in the past are also a fertile ground for inducing guilt, especially since the cult member can not now do anything to change or fix the past. This guilt can, in turn, be used to control the minds of cult members: "You thought that was a good thing to do? Your mind is useless. Your mind is corrupted. Just do what you are told, and quit trying to think so much."

14. Dogma. The cult has lots of it to teach you. Dogma can also be defined as beliefs, convictions, teachings, precepts, or tenets. Irrationality in those beliefs and teachings is one of the big red flags to watch for.

15. Indoctrination of members. Members have to learn and believe all of that dogma. The indoctrination can be anything from merely making people listen to sermons to industrial-strength brain-washing.

16. Appeals to "holy" or "wise" authorities. The authorities can be anything from the Bible or other religions' holy scriptures, to the words of someone deemed to be a knowledgeable authority on some subject, to the words of dead saints, real or imagined. And all of them are supposedly endorsing the cult. Those endorsements can take on a wacky circular logic: the cult says that a certain man is wonderful and wise because that man says that the cult is wonderful and wise.

17. Instant community. You get a ready-made extended family when you join the cult. Sometimes, you move into their living quarters upon joining, and really get an all-encompassing community. Or you just spend all of your spare time at the temple or center, associating with other members, who are your new circle of friends.

18. Instant intimacy. "Since we are all just one big happy family, we should not keep any secrets from each other." Or: "Get rid of all of your old mental garbage by talking it out. You can't take the power out of it if you don't talk it out." Or: "Your secrets will keep you sick." This often takes the form of confessing all of one's sins and faults and dirty little secrets to the whole group, which can then of course be used for guilt induction.

Instant and constant intimacy also makes critical thought very difficult: if someone must always reveal his every thought to the other cult members around him, then he doesn't even have time to crystalize negative thoughts about the cult before the other cult members are "correcting" his thoughts and changing his mind.

19. Surrender to the cult. New members are expected to hand over their minds, their wills, and sometimes even their souls, to the group. This is often masked as surrendering to the Will of God, but since God isn't around to issue new orders, the cult will do it for Him. It's just like when the preacher tells you to give your money to God, he really expects you to make the check out to his church.

20. Giggly wonderfulness and starry-eyed faith. It just seems like there are always a few cult members around who giggle a lot, and proclaim that it's all so wonderful. "Praise the Lord, Sing hallelujah, Glory be, Thank you Jesus, It's a Miracle!" (or something similar) is their standard response to everything. Those people have shut down their logical minds for the duration, in trade for group acceptance.

21. Personal testimonies of earlier converts. They will all tell you that the cult is wonderful and the best thing that ever happened to them. (And if there are other former converts who think that the cult totally sucks, well, they won't be around to tell you that, will they?)

22. The cult is self-absorbed. That is, the cult is the most important thing in the lives of the cult members. Sometimes, it is their entire life.

23. Dual Purposes. The cult has a publicly advertised purpose, and a hidden purpose. For example, many cults will, while raising funds, claim to be very busy solving social problems like alcoholism, drug addiction, homelessness, poverty, or abandoned orphans. But when the money is spent, little or none of it goes to the good cause; rather, the money is used to support the cult, and further its hidden agenda, and finance the leader's luxurious lifestyle.

For another example, Synanon advertised itself as a wonderful new-age community of people dedicated to saving people from alcoholism and drug addiction, but the organization degenerated into a crazy leader-worshipping cult where all of the men except the leader Chuck Dederick had to get vasectomies, and Dederick took over control of all of the members' sex lives and marriages, as well as all of the rest of their lives, and then Dederick had a goon squad of thugs who brutally physically attacked critics in the dark of night. Then they tried to kill a lawyer who was suing them. Not exactly your garden-variety drug-and-alcohol rehab program.

24. Aggressive Recruiting. Members work hard at getting new members. Sometimes, it is one of the major activities of the cult. Sometimes, a member can't rise above newby status until he recruits somebody else.

25. Deceptive Recruiting. What you are joining isn't what you think you are joining. And they won't tell you until they've got you.

26. No Humor. Try telling jokes about the leader and the church. If the members go ballistic on you, you are involved with a bunch of religious fanatics. ("Screech!!! That's NOT funny!") Jokes about other stuff don't count -- the jokes must specifically poke fun at the leader and his church and the church's beliefs. Some humorless cults pretend to have a lot of humor by laughing and joking all of the time about everything except the leader and the cult.

Alan Watts said that his definition of sanity was the ability to come off it. If you can poke fun at someone's foibles and get him to laugh and come off it, then he's okay. On the other hand, if he just says exactly the same thing again, but twice as loud, because you were apparently too deaf to hear it the first time, and couldn't understand his genius, then you have a problem on your hands.

27. You can't tell the truth. If you find that you can't tell the truth when speaking to the group, that you have to censor your own speech, and can only say certain things, in order for what you say to be acceptable to the group, then you should strongly consider the idea that you are in the wrong group.
A corollary to this is that you can't ask for the whole truth either.

28. You must redefine yourself and your life in cult terms. As the new member brings his thinking into conformity with the cult's thinking, and absorbs the values of the cult, he will reinterpret his memories of his previous life in cult terms, and will redefine himself with cult terms and cult concepts. Essentially, he will build himself a new ego which is "cult member," and he will see himself and the world through the eyes of a cult member. This is a standard part of the conversion process.

As he reinterprets his memories, viewing them through the tinted or distorting lenses of his new value system, he will often decide that former friends are now enemies because they do not approve of the cult or share his new values. In extreme cases, converts denounce their parents and other family members as "servants of Satan," or some such thing.

29. You must change your beliefs to conform to the group's beliefs. This one is so obvious that it is easy to overlook. At first glance, you might think, "Isn't that what all churches demand? That you believe what they believe?" Well yes, it is, more or less. But imagine the opposite. If you have a group that does not demand that you change your beliefs to conform to the group's beliefs, then that is very un-cult-like behavior. So it is still relevant.

There is also the issue of how much you must conform. Most mainstream churches are tolerant of members who have diverse or differing beliefs on some issues. But cults demand great conformity, and can be very unforgiving of any deviation from dogma. So it's a matter of degree.

30. The End Justifies The Means. When the cult engages in unscrupulous behavior, it's okay, because it's all in the service of God. The Hari Krishnas routinely short-change people, and rationalize it by saying, "It's all God's money anyway, so it's okay to get more of it for God." Most cults practice deceptive recruiting, and rationalize all of the lies by saying that they are saving souls, or getting more souls for God. The Moonies routinely practice "Heavenly deception", and that is okay too...

The following points are extreme cult characteristics, which only a few cults actually practice, but those are the cults that often end up appearing on TV, so a lot of people think these things are necessary practices of all real cults. They aren't.

31. The use of heavy-duty mind control and rapid conversion techniques like sleep deprivation, malnutrition, total immersion in the cult, and being kept totally occupied, all of the time, with tasks like prolonged repetition of cult dogma and thought-stopping slogans, or prolonged praying or chanting. This is brain-washing, pure and simple. (Please note that a good brain-washing program requires all of those things and more; just one of them, like sleep deprivation, or being kept busy all of the time, won't brain-wash you.)

32. Threats of bodily harm or death to someone who leaves the cult. In the end, Rev. Jim Jones' People's Temple killed everyone who tried to leave...

33. Threats of bodily harm or death to someone who criticizes the cult. Scientology routinely sues critics, and tries to bankrupt them. Synanon put a rattlesnake in a critic's mailbox, and nearly killed the guy. Malcolm X was killed for disagreeing with the church leader Elija Muhammed's hatred of white people.

34. Appropriation of all of the members' worldly wealth. Members "willingly" donate everything they own to the Church, in trade for a guaranteed ticket to Heaven.

Scientology does it in a clever round-about way: In order to be "cleared", you must take a whole lot of courses to "process your engrams." (Translation: Fix your mind by removing the harmful effects of memories of past injuries.) The first course costs only $25, to get you started. But the following courses are increasingly expensive, until the last ones are $5000 or $10000 each. If you intend to take all of the courses, plan on selling your house and giving the money to Scientology. I knew one woman who was into Scientology, who said, "You know, if I only had $50,000, I could really get my head together." I had to agree that she needed her head examined, but didn't agree about the proper course of treatment.

35. Making cult members work long hours for free. Do you want to sell books in the airport, or sell flowers on the street corner? Maybe you would prefer slave labor in one of the church-owned businesses?

36. Total immersion and total isolation. You move into the cult's temple or center, where you are always surrounded by other cult members. You are not allowed to even communicate with nonmembers. Thus, no nonbeliever can plant a seed of doubt in your mind. Scientology followers are required to write letters to parents, former friends, and everyone else they know, informing them that they will no longer be communicating with them or their damaged minds unless they too join Scientology.

37. Mass suicide. This one is spectacular, and TV news reporters seem to love it when it happens. But it is actually very rare. Most cults just busy themselves with robbing and brainwashing their followers, and getting a lot of grovelling worship of the Guru. But when mass suicides do happen, it reveals just how crazy things can get, and just how powerful brain-washing can really be.

So how does AA score as a cult? On a scale of zero to ten, where zero means that it isn't like a cult at all, and ten means that AA is really like a cult, I score AA like this: (Feel free to grab a piece of paper, and make up your own scores. It isn't like I own a monopoly on the truth, or anything...)

1. The Guru and his church are above criticism and beyond reproach. AA scores a 10 on this one. One just does not criticize the Founders, Bill Wilson and Doctor Bob, or their wonderful program. AA members say, "If you criticize the program, you will cause people to relapse and die drunk, and it will all be your fault." That's exactly the same argument as why you couldn't criticize the Church in Rome during the Middle Ages: "You will destroy the faith of the weak people, and then they won't be able to get into Heaven, and it will be your fault."

Bill Wilson's Big Book is cited as the ultimate answer for everything, a new Bible for contemporary alcoholics. If Bill said something, then it is automatically true. In the eyes of the AA faithful, Bill Wilson never made a mistake after he started AA, and never gave bad advice to any AA member. Bill Wilson was the paragon of sanity, clarity, and wisdom.

The faithful happily ignore the fact that Bill Wilson's writings all-too-clearly demonstrate that he was suffering from "Delusional (Paranoid) Disorder, Grandiose Type," as described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 3rd Edition (DSM-III-R), pages 200 to 203.

2. The individual members of the cult are told that they are inherently small, weak, stupid, ignorant, and sinful, and are in no way qualified to judge the Guru or his church. AA scores a 10 on this one too. You are just a brain-damaged alcoholic, and you aren't qualified to judge AA. If you disagree with any of the insanity of AA, it just proves that you are diseased and in denial. Sober former drinkers who criticize AA are dismissed as "dry drunks."

Members are made to feel small, weak, stupid and sinful by constantly making lists of all of their faults, wrongs, moral shortcomings, and defects of character, and confessing them both privately and publicly. And if they don't do a good enough job of it, their sponsors will fill in the gaps in the ego deflation. And members are definitely taught to distrust their own minds: "Stop your stinkin' thinking'. Your best thinking got you here."

3. No exit. AA scores a 10 again. They say, "You can't leave, because if you do, you will relapse and die drunk." Then they recite a list of friends who didn't do the Twelve Steps, and who went out and died. AA also tells people that they will turn into bitterly unhappy "dry drunks" if they leave and manage to stay abstinent.

4. No graduates. AA scores another 10. True believers love to brag about this: Nobody ever graduates. You are in it for life. You will never finish recovery, and you will never stop going to meetings, and you will never stop doing the Twelve Steps.

5. Cult-speak. AA gets a 10 here. AA has plenty of cultish terminology, lots of loaded language and bombastically redefined words, and a whole bunch of good mind-bending slogans and thought-stopping clichés.

This is a good redefinition: in Alcoholics Anonymous terminology, the word "sobriety" doesn't mean "not drinking" or "an unintoxicated state"; it has this bombastic definition: "A special state of Grace gained by working the Steps and maintaining absolute abstinence. It is characterized by feelings of Serenity and Gratitude. It is a state of living according to God's will, not one's own. It is sanity." (Even the word "sanity" here is redefined; it is Frank Buchman's sin-free, surrendered-to-God -- or surrendered-to-Frank -- state of living.)

Another redefinition: "recovery" means going to meetings, doing The Twelve Steps, and abstaining from alcohol. According to AA, someone can't be recovering from alcohol if he isn't going to meetings and doing The Twelve Steps; he's only "abstaining".

Note that those two handy redefinitions allow AA-dominated drug and alcohol treatment facilities, which are financed with public tax dollars, to advertise jobs as being reserved for people who are "in recovery, with at least 6 months of sobriety", and then only hire other members of the Twelve-Step religion. It sounds like a nice hire-the-handicapped policy, but it is really religious discrimination, which violates many different laws, but they seem to be getting away with it anyway.

Another redefinition: humility is "a desire to seek and do God's will." So all of the appeals for humility are really appeals for obedience.

And when it comes to slogans and thought-stopping clichés, AA has so many that I can only paraphrase the Bible: "Our name is Legion, for we are so many." Notice that many of them conflict with each other, so you can sometimes quote a slogan for whichever side of an issue you wish to take. Also notice how many of them are negative, and condescending or demeaning. That helps in the cult conversion process, breaking down the minds and wills of new-comers.

"Think, Think, Think."
"Stop Your Stinkin' Thinkin'."
"You need a checkup from the neck up."
"Nobody comes here by accident."
"You're exactly where you're supposed to be."
"Your best thinking got you here."
"One day at a time."
"Let Go and Let God."
"Don't Procrastinate."
"Easy Does It."
"Live and Let Live."
"Work the Steps, or Die!"
"Higher Powered."
"Just For Today."
"Alcohol is Cunning, Baffling, and Powerful."
"Resign from the Debating Society."
"Utilize, Don't Analyze."
"You're only as sick as your secrets."
"Don't leave five minutes before the miracle."
"Only another alcoholic will understand."
"Denial isn't a river in Egypt."
"Nobody can do it alone."
"We are all Miracles."
"Religion is for people who are afraid of going to Hell; Spirituality is for people who've been there."
"You don't have to know how electricity works, in order to use it."
"Take the cotton out of your ears and stick it in your mouth."
"Meeting makers make it."
"If you don't work a forth you'll drink a fifth."
"The most important thing is suit up and show up."
"The most important thing is just never take that first drink."
"The most important thing is to work the steps."
"Sit Down, Shut Up, and Learn Something."
"Fake it until you make it."
"Keep an open mind."
"Take What You Want, and Leave the Rest."
"Quitting isn't an option for addicts like us."
"If you drink, your fate is jails, institutions, or death."
"Alcoholics can't afford to have resentments."
"God never gives you more than you can handle."
"Turn it over."
"Let it go."
"Keep It Simple, Stupid!"
"Just Don't Drink, Dummy!"
"Progress, Not Perfection."
"First Things First."
"Nobody is ever too dumb to get the program, but some people are too intelligent."
"Acceptance is the answer to all of your problems today."
"Get on your Knees."
"Get humble."
"Stop fighting everyone."
"Your secrets will keep you sick."
"We're the experts on addiction."
"Anything can be your Higher Power: a teacup, a doorknob, a stone."
"At first you come because you have to come, but later you come because you love to come."
"It isn't religious, it's spiritual."
"He suffers from terminal uniqueness."
"He's a bleeding deacon" (He's an unhappy old-timer).
"He's on a dry drunk" (He is simultaneously sober and in disagreement with AA).
"He's sitting on the pity pot" (He is indulging in self-pity; not being grateful for AA).

And if they want a few more, I have some favorites of my own that I'll be happy to donate to the cause:
"My Karma just run over your Dogma."
"Pray for Brains."
"Death is just Mother Nature's way of telling you that it's time to quit smoking."
"When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."
"A mind is a wonderful thing to waste." (--Dan Quale)

6. Group-think. AA gets a 10. It practices group-think, has standard answers for everything, and discourages independent thought. "If you try to do things your own way, you will make a mistake and relapse, and probably die drunk. Just do things the tried and true way." Avoid independent thinking; just stop thinking for yourself, they say, because "Your best thinking got you here."

The old-timers say that the answer to everything is, "Follow the Twelve Steps, get a sponsor, and read The Big Book."

The true believers say that everything you need to know -- about everything in life -- is contained in the first 164 pages of the Big Book.

The first Step starts the process of destroying one's individual mind: you must admit that you are powerless, and that your life is unmanageable. In Step 2 you come to believe that you are insane. Then, in Step 3, you must surrender your will and your mind to God or the group, and let something or somebody else do your thinking for you.

The first two of the Twelve Traditions reinforce this group-think attitude:
"1) Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends on AA unity."
"2) For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority -- a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants -- they do not govern."
Obviously, if you disagree with the standard party line, and express contrary ideas and opinions, you are breaking AA unity, and Tradition 1 says that no one is allowed to do that. Tradition 2 says that God is the ultimate authority, as He expresses Himself in the group conscience. But who decides what God is expressing in the group conscience? Obviously, it is the leaders, the old-timers who are the true believers and who dominate the "sharing" sessions with their well-practiced raps and their standard sermons.

7. Irrationality. AA gets a 10 on this one, for everything from expecting God to micro-manage their lives, and solve all of their problems, to their claims that God delivers miracles on demand. The Twelve Steps themselves, as an alcohol treatment program, are flat-out insane. Declaring yourself to be powerless and insane, and then begging God to give you just one day of sobriety, is irrational. Declaring that you are done with self-seeking is crazy; what could be more self-seeking than trying to save your own life? And it is impossible to seek gratitude and serenity for yourself without being at least a little selfish and self-seeking.

Above all, AA gets a 10 for insisting on curing a medical and psychological problem, the habitual excessive consumption of alcohol, with a spiritual cure. The only other well-known groups that insist on curing medical problems with spiritual cures are the Christian Scientists, who won't take their children to a doctor even if their kids are dying ("Let God heal the children, and if they die, then it is God's will"), and some aboriginal witch doctors and medicine men. Please note that, in fairness to them, I say "some" witch doctors and medicine men, because even most of them are happy to mix Western medicine with native herbal cures and then throw in some spiritual stuff and rattle-shaking for flavoring.

But the twelve-step fanatics are not so reasonable: One friend of mine is in dual recovery, meaning that he is recovering from both mental problems, and also drugs and alcohol. His doctor has him taking tranquilizers and mood stabilizers for his mental condition. Some of the faithful in his twelve-step recovery group, including one of his sponsors, are telling him to stop taking the pills that the doctor gives him, and just trust the Twelve Steps to heal him. That borders on criminal irresponsibility. It is also practicing medicine without a license, because they are countermanding the orders of a real doctor. Fortunately, my friend is following his doctor's orders. But I can't help but wonder, would the Twelve-Step fanatics accept criminal liability if someone they counseled to not take his medications flipped out and killed somebody?

Alas, I just learned that the question has essentially been answered: In one group, an elder with 35 years of sobriety told a newcomer, a young man, that his sobriety was no good because he was taking medication for high blood pressure. The newcomer, on the advice of the elder, quit his medication, had a stroke, and is now crippled for life. Was the elder held accountable to anyone? No.

My experiences here seem to be far from unique. As Gary Persip points out in Recovery From Addiction Without God?:

I have even heard sponsors advising those they sponsor to refrain from using medications that were prescribed by professionals and, presumably, deemed necessary for the treatment of other medical or psychological problems of the individuals. Occasionally, sponsees will admit that they haven't informed their sponsors of medically prescribed drugs they are taking for fear of a critical response.
...
Medications of any kind are disparaged, and any diagnosis of disorder other than the Big Books disease concept of alcoholism meets with strong opposition. The parallel with "faith healing" should be obvious and the same pitfalls are present. To such individuals, there is no such thing as clinical depression.
...
The many deaths that have been attributed to failure to obtain adequate medical treatment observed among family members of a number of "natural" religious groups comes to mind as a parallel case. How many disasters, including death, has this misguided practice of AA members contributed to? On what basis do so many AA members assume that they are qualified to advise on matters for which they have no training? The practice, as has been noted, is in sharp contradiction to those Traditions that state that we share only our experiences, strength and hopes with one another, not our opinions.
-- from Recovery From Addiction Without God? by Gary Lee Persip.
Available at: http://www.unhooked.com/sep/persip1.htm

Another irrational facet of AA is belief in the old Buchmanism/Oxford Group Movement's tenet that all of the problems of the world are due to sin. Nothing else is relevant, not poverty, politics, education or lack thereof, social issues like racism, or the environment. The cure to everything is to get people on their knees, confessing their sins and defects of character, and begging God to fix them. Thus AA will not do anything to fix the problems of society. AA won't do anything about the causes of alcoholism; AA says that the causes of alcoholism are that it's a hereditary "spiritual" disease and that people are sinful, and the cure is abstinence and prayer, and surrendering your will and your life to God.

Another aspect of the AA irrationality is Bill Wilson's love of absolute terminology. Read the Big Book, and you will see that it is just loaded with absolute words like "always", "never", "all", and "none" which are the vocabulary of black-and-white thinking:

"Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic."

We are convinced to a man that alcoholics of our type are in the grip of a progressive illness. Over any considerable period we get worse, never better.

"Quite as important was the discovery that spiritual principles would solve all my problems."
Chapter 3.

The first principle of success is that you should never be angry.

Our next thought is that you should never tell him what he must do about his drinking.

We never, never try to arrange a man's life so as to shield him from temptation.
Chapter 8.

For us, material well-being always followed spiritual progress; it never preceded.
Chapter 9.

We all had to place recovery above everything...

An alcoholic who has recovered, but holds a relatively unimportant job, can talk to a man with a better position. Being on a radically different basis of life, he will never take advantage of the situation.
Chapter 10.

"God ought to be able to do anything."
Chapter 11.

We must always accept things the way they are.
I am powerless over everthing.
God never gives you more than you can handle.
There are no coincidences.
The fellowship isn't perfect, but the program is perfect.

One last parting shot: AA claims that alcoholism is a "spiritual disease, which requires a spiritual cure." Neither the American Medical Association, nor the American Psychiatric Association (in DSM-III-R or DSM-IV), recognize the existence of any such thing as a "spiritual disease." And neither does the Roman Catholic Church. Nor does any Protestant church that I know of, other than the Buchmanism/Oxford Group Movement/Moral Re-Armament gang. But AA is convinced that alcoholism is a spiritual disease, often caused by bad genetics, where the disease is passed from father to son. How is a genetic defect a "spiritual disease"? This is crazy.

I would like to study this new field of medicine further, these "spiritual diseases." Unfortunately, Bill Wilson doesn't bother to ever define a spiritual disease, or even list them all. He does give us a hint about causality:

Resentment is the "number one" offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease..."
The Big Book, Chapter 5, page 64.

Bill's references to spiritual diseases or illnesses reveal that he really couldn't distinguish between emotional problems and spiritual diseases. Resentment, anger, and frustration are emotional problems, not "spiritual" problems.

The habitual consumption of excessive amounts of alcohol is certainly an emotional disease -- a psychological problem, and it causes a medical problem. It is much more than just a bad habit when the drinker continues to drink in spite of all of the harm it is causing him: health problems, job loss, poverty, marital problems, and sometimes even death. And it becomes a psychiatric disease when enough brain damage accumulates. But when does it become a "spiritual disease"?

Does the alcoholic drink too much because he has the "spiritual disease", or does he have the "spiritual disease" because he drinks too much? Does he crave alcohol because he is evil, or is he evil because he craves alcohol? Inquiring minds want to know.

Why don't compulsive coffee guzzlers have the spiritual disease "caffeinism"? Why don't badly addicted, dying, cigarette smokers have the spiritual disease "nicotinism"? Why aren't those people labeled "coffeeholics" and "tobaccoholics", and forced to get Twelve-Step treatment?

Why does Alcoholics Anonymous say that coffee and cigarette addictions are perfectly okay, and even openly encourage them at meetings, in spite of the fact that one of the founders of AA, Bill Wilson, died from cigarette smoking? And in spite of the fact that tobacco kills three or four times as many Americans each year as does alcohol? (Tobacco kills 400,000 Americans per year. Alcohol kills 100,000, and fatal auto accidents involving alcohol kill 20,000 Americans per year.) And in spite of the fact that more alcoholics die from tobacco than from alcohol? -- Eighty or ninety percent of all alcoholics also smoke, and more than half of the time, the tobacco kills them before the alcohol does. So why isn't "tobaccoism" a "spiritual disease"? What is so damn wonderful about dying of lung cancer sober? Inquiring minds want to know.

Oh, by the way, there really is a Nicotine Anonymous 12-step group, whose First Step says that they are powerless over nicotine. In their twelveth step, they only call themselves "nicotine users", not "nicotinaholics", or "tobaccoholics." But in their Fifth Tradition, they say that their mission is to carry the message to other "nicotine addicts." This leaves us with a really funny situation at a lot of Twelve-Step clubhouses, where all of the Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous people are compulsively sucking on cigarettes during smoke breaks, and rationalizing it by saying that Bill W. and Doctor Bob did it, so it's okay, while in the next room other people are grovelling before God, and confessing that they are weak and sinful and powerless over nicotine, and their lives have become unmanageable, and they are such stupid sinful worthless addicted jerks because they smoke cigarettes. Go figure.

Oh, and as if that weren't enough, there is also a Caffeine Anonymous twelve-step group meeting in another room...

8. Suspension of disbelief. AA scores a 10, especially for Step 7, which demands a miracle from God: "We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings." And that step is the heart of the AA self-improvement program: You just wait for God to fix you. Literally. The rest of the steps involve making lists of all of your faults, wrongs, defects of character, and shortcomings, and making more lists of all of the people you have harmed, and wallowing in guilt (a little of which might actually be good for you, but not forever), but no other step actually deals with fixing yourself.

To hear the faithful tell it, God performs miracles like removing shortcomings from AA members every day, and God doesn't seem to have much else to do besides granting twelve-stepper's wishes, and managing their lives, and making everything turn out okay. And God has to do it, because the AA members turned their wills and their lives over to the care of God back in Step 3, and they won't do it for themselves. "Let Go and Let God" is their motto, and passive dependency is their official approach to life.

Isn't it funny that AA members get miracles on demand, and have God working for them every day, as their reward for having drunk too much alcohol for too many years, while all of the ordinary people in the world have to take care of themselves and solve their own problems? Well, if you can believe all of that, then you get 10 Brownie Points for suspension of disbelief.

Step 12 is pretty unbelievable too. It begins, "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps..." Oh yeh? Most people have to wait their entire lives for a genuine spiritual experience, and all of the AA members get one just for doing the preceding 11 steps? I don't think so.

On a side note, how are we to distinguish between mental awakenings and spiritual awakenings? Just quitting drinking, and letting the brain heal some of the damage, can produce delightful awakenings and moments of sudden clarity. When do these become "spiritual" awakenings?

Also, many alcoholics report having visions, awakenings, hallucinations, and spiritual experiences while detoxing and going through DTs. They sometimes have very powerful, even life-changing experiences, and without ever having done any of the Twelve Steps. Bill Wilson, one of the two co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, was one such person. He changed from a hopeless drinking-to-die alcoholic to a lifelong tea-totaller, from just three or four days of tripping on alcohol withdrawal, morphine, belladonna, henbane, megavitamins, tranquilizers, and other psychoactive drugs, and having a vision of God, while getting Dr. Silkworth's belladonna cure at Charles B. Towns Hospital in New York, December 14, 1934. And then he made up the Twelve Steps four years later, in December, 1938. So it wasn't the Twelve Steps that gave Bill Wilson either his spiritual experience or his sobriety.

9. Denigration of competing sects, cults, religions, or groups. AA scores a 10. It's quite a show to watch the hard-core true believers go nonlinear when you mention Rational Recovery or Secular Organizations for Sobriety... And again, AA insists that it has the only working answer to alcoholism, and those other groups are killing all of the people who go to them.

For example, my AA-faithful alcoholism treatment counselor went off just at the mention of The Small Book. "What?! Isn't that the one without the Higher Power?" Then he told us that Rational Recovery's AVRT technique (Addictive Voice Recognition Therapy) is just so complex and difficult that you will die before you figure it out, so don't mess with it. Not!

AVRT is actually just recognizing the thoughts that are the voice of the Addiction Monster, aka the Beast, as it tempts you to take a drink. It is pathetically easy, once you get the hang of it. It is just like those Walt Disney cartoons with Donald Duck having a little devil on one shoulder, and a little angel on the other, and the little devil is whispering into Donald's ear, "Smoke! Drink! It will be fun!" But my AA-indoctrinated counselor says that recognizing that situation as it is happening is much too hard for you or I to do, so Rational Recovery is confusing people into drinking themselves to death.

10. Personal attacks on critics. AA scores a 10. They accuse critics of killing alcoholics by misleading them into drinking. They accuse critics of only being in it for the money, and of having other ulterior motives. They accuse critics of being bitter, unhappy, angry, and insane. They resort to name-calling. They claim that critics don't know what they are talking about because they are not alcoholics, but if the critic is a recovered alcoholic, they call him a "dry drunk," and say that he is "in denial" or crazy. They mount smear campaigns against critics, often using their front groups ASAM and NCADD, and their network of addiction treatment professionals who hide their AA membership while attacking the critic.

What AA will not do is calmly, politely, logically, debate the facts with critics, and participate in fair, unbiased testing and experimentation to prove whether the program really works. Above all, they seem to fear being put to the test, because they have little to gain and a lot to loose, because what little testing has been done indicates that AA works about as well as no treatment at all.

It is also funny that AA readily accuses critics or competing treatment programs of killing patients, but AA will never even consider the possibility that AA might kill patients. AA is always claiming that they save lives, and they will quickly, at the drop of a hat, trot out a short list of old-timers who all claim that AA saved their lives, but AA does not even seem to consider it possible for AA to kill a patient. That is illogical. If meeting-style treatment or Twelve-Step treatment is so powerful that it can save lives, then it must also be powerful enough to destroy lives, if it is misapplied or misused. But AA just claims that the 95% of the newcomers who don't make it are all morally inferior, and just constitutionally dishonest with themselves.

11. Insistence that the cult is THE ONLY WAY. AA scores a 10. AA believes that there is no other possible way to recover from alcoholism, period, so there is no point in even looking for another way, or studying alternative treatment methods. And to send an alcoholic to any other treatment program is to subject him to a death sentence, they say.

12. The cult and its members are special. AA scores a 9. The AA members unquestionably feel that they are special, and different from other people. Some of that feeling may be justified, because they are alcoholics, and they are the survivors of some very bad times that other people didn't survive. Still, they don't hesitate to declare themselves special. For example, "Religion is for people who are afraid of going to Hell, Spirituality is for people who've been there" is how they distinguish their "spiritual" program from a religion, which implies that AA people are superior, because they aren't afraid of going to Hell anymore.

Another example: "Ordinary people just don't know what it's like. They don't really understand us at all. They don't even know when to laugh at the punch lines of the jokes." "They just don't understand." "Earth people, or Normies, just don't understand."

Even worse, some AA members insist that they are "The Chosen." Their period of drinking was just God's way of preparing them for the Great Work for which God had chosen them. Now, those AA members are God's Chosen people on Earth, doing the Will of God, while, presumably, the rest of us aren't. To hear those nuts tell it, people who didn't try to drink themselves to death have missed out on all of the good stuff in life, and have missed out on their ticket to Heaven. (Too bad. But maybe, just maybe, if we promise to drink at least one whole fifth of cheap rotgut whiskey every single day for the next three years, maybe we too can become some of God's Chosen People?)

Another popular myth is "God blessed the alcoholics. Only unto them did He give the precious gift of being able to help other alcoholics." That is, of course, just a big pile of bull.

Institutional AA thinks members are special in a similar way: They believe that only people who are steeped in AA dogma are qualified to work in treatment facilities. Most of the residential and outpatient treatment facilities in this country are dominated by AA and NA members, who will not hire anyone who is not another AA/NA member. This also means that institutional AA and NA think that only people who have been alcoholics or drug addicts are qualified to help someone else overcome the problem. According to them, ordinary, sane, well-balanced people who aren't addicted to 12-step meetings aren't qualified to talk about strategies for being normal, and living healthy, successful lives.

13. Induction of guilt, and the use of guilt to manipulate members. AA scores a 9. The Twelve Steps are great for making people muck-rake their own lives, fearlessly searching for things to feel guilty about, performing endless "moral inventories" to find wrongs, defects of character, and shortcomings, and admitting "to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs." You also admit in Step one that you are helpless and have no control over your problem, and then you wrap it all up by making lists of all of the people you have harmed. You never make any lists of your good characteristics. Then they hit you with the thought-stopping cliché "Your best thinking got you here", a little something designed to stop your critical thinking by inducing guilt about your past performance...

Another relevant practice of AA is the induction of fear, and the use of fear to manipulate members. Frank Buchman loved to use guilt to manipulate prospects, and get them to surrender to the Oxford Group, but Bill Wilson and Doctor Bob found that fear worked much better with alcoholics. Just explain to alcoholics how hopeless their situation is, and how they are doomed to drinking themselves to death, and how horrible it's going to be, and you have their attention.

14. Dogma. AA scores a 10. They've got plenty of dogma: the Twelve Steps, the Twelve Traditions, the Big Book, and a lot of other publications, like "Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions." Old timers may often be heard advising that everything one needs to know is within the first 164 pages of the Big Book. They get and deserve the 10 for the many inaccuracies and dishonest statements in their books, which is one of the big differences between information and dogma. And they also deserve the 10 for gross irrationality in their dogma, and members' fanatical dedication to that dogma.

15. Indoctrination of members. AA scores an 8. You get indoctrinated at every meeting, and you must continue going to meetings for the rest of your life. You are also supposed to get a sponsor to personally supervise your indoctrination. And 90 meetings in 90 days is a fair attempt at rapid conversion.

It's interesting to watch newcomers learn what to say when they "share." Some beginners will say that they don't like all of the praying and God talk, that it isn't for them; that they just want to quit drinking. Someone always sidles up to them after the meeting, and lets them know that the proper behavior is to keep those opinions to oneself, and "fake it until you make it", and go through the motions and appear to have no problems with all of the religious stuff. You can disagree all you want as long as you don't say it out loud. I've never heard a beginner voice objections to all of the religiosity twice. Some of them never returned, but nobody voiced those objections twice.

16. Appeals to "holy" or "wise" authorities. AA scores a 7. This is a split decision; AA feels itself to be such a self-contained authority on everything, that it makes few appeals to any current outside authorities. However, the Big Book, AA's own Bible, contains direct or indirect endorsements by Dr. William D. Silkworth, M.D., John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Carl Jung, Father Edward Dowling, S.J., Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdisk, as well as five other doctors, in the Chapter "The Medical View on A.A.". And there are always lots of appeals to the Big Book and other AA publications, especially the writings of Bill Wilson. At almost every meeting, someone is reading from those "holy scriptures", and delivering a sermon on the subject.

Institutional AA often points to "scholarly" or "scientific" articles that support the twelve-step treatment program as good medicine. What they don't tell you is that most of the articles were written by AA members.

17. Instant community. AA scores a 3. By joining AA, you get a new social circle, and a sponsor, and you become a member of a nation-wide organization, with Chapters everywhere. But you don't get the total immersion experience, and you can't move in with them even if you want to (unless you have been committed to an institution).

18. Instant intimacy. AA scores a 7. AA promises you confidentiality, and invites you to confess all and tell all, even to a roomful of complete strangers, even at the very first meeting. But they don't force intimacy on you. (Except for institutional AA, where I am hearing about just that: enforced confession sessions.)

19. Surrender to the cult. AA scores a 10. AA uses the threat of death by alcoholism to blackmail people into submitting and surrendering to the cult. Chapter 10 of the Big Book asks, "Will he take every necessary step, submit to anything to get well, to stop drinking forever?" That is a standard refrain of the cheer-leaders: "You must be willing to do anything -- anything -- to help your recovery." And that includes submission or surrender, even to things that don't feel right.

The first Step starts the process of destroying one's independence: you must admit that you are powerless, and that your life is unmanageable. In Step 2 you come to believe that you are insane. Then, in Step 3, you must surrender your will and your life to God or the group, and let something or somebody else do your thinking for you.

"Let Go, and Let God" is the slogan.

All too often, it is the sponsors who demand that you surrender your mind or your will to them, especially the sexual predator sponsors, and the energy-sucking vampires who get their kicks by running other peoples' lives. In fact, sponsors can be extremely dangerous in this regard: when someone does a fearless moral inventory, he or she is supposed to confess all of his or her sins to another person and to God. The "other person" is almost always the sponsor. Thus, to a great extent, the new inductee surrenders to the sponsor, who ends up knowing all of his or her innermost secrets, and runs his or her life and even guides his or her thinking. And if the sponsor is unscrupulous, the opportunities for blackmail, exploitation or manipulation are enormous.

And it is all too common -- how could it be otherwise? If you just pick a bunch of drunks and dopers at random, you will find a fair sample of felons, thieves, con artists, and like characters among them. They don't all immediately turn into angels just because they went to a few meetings, in spite of the fairy tale that says they do because the Twelve Steps are so powerful. Sexual exploitation of newcomers is so common that they have a nickname for it: "thirteenth stepping" somebody. Women and men, old, young, and younger, straight or lesbian or gay, all are targets.

It took me only a few hours of searching the Internet for information on AA to stumble across many web pages describing thirteenth stepping, written by victims of it themselves (try www.aadeprogramming.com but the national organizations are claiming to be shocked at discovering that it exists. On July 5, 2000, a memo from the headquarters of the British AA was leaked to the Glasgow, Scotland Herald newspaper, which reported:

Vulnerable alcoholics seeking help for their addiction are being subjected to sexual and other abuse at the hands of long-serving volunteers from the world's largest alcohol support group.

An internal memorandum circulated to every Alcoholics Anonymous group in the country reveals that volunteer members are increasingly being investigated by police forces examining allegations of sexual abuse.

According to the memo, leaked to the Glasgow-based Herald newspaper, within AA "there is a small minority of men and women who operate with sick but hidden agendas, and, no matter what they may say, they seek self-gratification often at the expense of other members or potential members".

A senior alcohol addiction worker said: "It came as a bit of a shock to me and I have never picked up on these allegations before. AA [is] in a difficult position: we all put checks and balances in place, but it is very difficult to protect people entirely from abuse of position because the people involved are invariably clever."

The senior worker says he "never picked up on these allegations before." That's funny, because I heard about that kind of stuff in my first few months of attending meetings: "Just go across the river, to the meeting at the St. Francis church, and there is a guy over there who manages to sponsor every woman who walks in the door. He gets them all. And he's teaching them more than just the Twelve Steps."

People who do not get a sexual predator for a sponsor still run the risk of getting a dogmatic religious fanatic, or a neurotic manipulative fool, or a control freak, or any other kind of alcoholic or dope fiend loser you can imagine. Healthy, wealthy, and wise people do not join AA, so your odds of getting a wise, intelligent, compassionate, saintly sponsor to help you with your recovery are very, very low. And there are simply no requirements for sponsorship, other than that the sponsor is supposed to have a bunch of clean and dry time. The Big Book does not even support the idea of sponsors; the sponsor system is just one of those things that developed over the years, and is now accepted custom.

20. Giggly wonderfulness and starry-eyed faith. AA scores a 6. Every so often, you get someone raving about how wonderful it is that their Higher Power is taking such good care of them and making everything so wonderful, but giggling seems to be minimal.

And there is always someone raving about how it's a miracle that he is there, at the meeting, sober, against all odds, and isn't God wonderful to have done that? It seems like nobody ever says that it was inevitable that he would quit drinking, because he was just so sick and tired of being sick and tired; it is always a "miracle" when somebody manages to stay sober for a while.

21. Personal testimonies of earlier converts. AA scores a 10. Half of every meeting is spent listening to the earlier converts "sharing" the message that AA and the Twelve Steps saved their lives. And I have never, ever, heard one person share the message that the Twelve Step program didn't work for him. The AA faithful do not bring the dead bodies in from the grave yards, to hear their stories.

22. The cult is self-absorbed. AA scores a 6. Many AA members are extremely absorbed in AA; for some, it's their whole life, but many more have a life of their own.

23. Dual Purposes. AA scores a 10. Their publicly-visible purpose is to help people quit drinking; their secret purpose is to promote their evangelical fundamentalist religion. The same is true of all of the other Twelve-Step groups; they all pretend to cure something, but they are all really just pushing the same old Buchmanite/Twelve-Step religion.

24. Aggressive Recruiting. Score AA at a 10. This is a tricky one. Unlike many cults, AA does not aggressively recruit on the street corners or in any other public places, nor do they go door to door like some annoying religions that we all know about. The Twelveth Step requires members to recruit new members, but that is done in a low-key manner.

What is not low-key is the practice of using therapy program counselors, judges, and probation officers to coerce people into AA. Those counselors are usually AA members, and the judges and probation officers sometimes are. But often, the judges and probation officers are just good, well-meaning people who have been led to believe that AA is a wonderful moral organization that gets people off of alcohol and drugs, and is a good moral influence on alcoholics and drug addicts. They believe that for several reasons:

• First, it is often the therapy program counselors who tell the judges and probation officers that AA is good for getting alcoholics to quit drinking. The counselors will even say that AA is the only thing that works.
• Second, the therapy program is the city- or state-approved program for treating alcoholics, and the therapy program usually, almost always, uses AA as part of its course of treatment.
• Third, AA has been very successfully promoting itself in the media for many, many years, in violation of the Eleventh Tradition, "Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion." Also, AA has lately even been running television commercials, which is also certainly a violation of the Eleventh Tradition.
• Fourth, AA benefits from the Bible Bias. That is, most Americans have been brought up to believe that religious people are more moral than other people. However we try to avoid it, we can't help but feel that an organization that encourages drunks and drug addicts to pray must be a good group.

25. Deceptive Recruiting. AA scores a 10. Again, the public face of AA is that of a wonderful self-help group for quitting drinking, where people join voluntarily. The hidden face is a coercive mind-controlling religion. It is a religion that demands that you surrender your will, your mind, and your life to it. It is a religion that uses the court system, parole officers, and treatment counselors to force people into the organization. The judge says, "Ninety meetings or ninety days!" and AA is more than happy to play along. As one wag said, "AA is in the position of a snake who is being force-fed mice. Not that the snake was all that unwilling."

And institutional AA/NA routinely advertises itself as the best and only successful drug and alcohol treatment program, without ever revealing that the expensive treatment program is little more than indoctrination into the AA/NA cult. And without revealing that the treatment works only as well as no treatment at all.

The latest statistics available on the subject, from AA itself, show that about one third of AA's current membership was originally coerced into joining AA. And that is the committed membership, not the newcomers who will leave as soon as they are allowed to.

26. No Humor. AA scores a 10. You just do not tell jokes about Bill Wilson, Dr. Bob Smith, or the core principles of AA. AA claims to have a lot of humor -- they brag about it -- because they laugh a lot about other things; you can tell all of the "stupid drunk" jokes you want, you can laugh at yourself all you want -- self-deprecation is almost a requirement, and you can tell jokes about your friends. But thou shalt not tell jokes that directly poke fun at AA or its program. And thou shalt not ridicule the more illogical, irrational, stupid, or absurd parts of the AA dogma. (Hint: try some of my jokes out on them. I hear that AA-indoctrinated drug and alcohol counselors have a fit...)

The stern leaders say, "That isn't funny. This isn't a joking matter. People die over this stuff." Exactly correct. And lack of genuine humor is one of the things that is killing people.

27. You can't tell the truth. AA scores a 10. Being able to tell the truth presupposes that there are people who want to hear the truth, and there are far too few of those people around. There are many things you can't openly share in meetings, starting with:

• "I don't practice the Twelve Steps. I use just one rule: 'Just never drink alcohol, not any at all, not ever, no matter what.'"
• "AA has too much cult religion stuff in it."
• "I avoid the Twelve Steps just like I avoid toxic waste dumps, and for the same reason: I don't want to get poisoned."

If that doesn't start a war, try:

• "I don't do the 12 steps, I don't have a sponsor, and I don't believe in the Big Book."
• "The Twelve Steps don't work for me. I think that the Twelve Steps are twelve of the stupidest steps for achieving sobriety that any burned-out alcoholic ever thought up. They have absolutely nothing to do with staying sober. Haven't you ever noticed that the word 'sobriety' doesn't even appear in the Twelve Steps? Not even once?"
• "And for that matter, neither do the words 'quit drinking', 'health', 'recovery', or 'abstinence.' What the Twelve Steps are really about is turning you into a good little cult member, not quitting drinking."

You know what fireworks will result. If you can actually calmly, sanely, discuss these issues like some sober, mature, adults, then you have found a wonderful group that I've never heard of.

28. You must redefine yourself and your life in cult terms. AA scores a 10. No matter what you thought of yourself before AA, you will end up talking about yourself in terms of your resentments, powerlessness over your disease, selfishness, self-seeking, spiritual diseases, and other such "defects of character."

All happy memories of drinking will be suppressed, and negative memories enhanced, until you are reciting stupid speeches like how you never enjoyed drinking at all; it was just one long miserable addiction. (Which brings up a stupid question, "How can you be threatened by Ecstatic Recall if you never enjoyed drinking in the first place?")

You will begin to talk about God endlessly, and "normal" people will begin to wonder if you have flipped out, and become a religious fanatic. You will begin to tell them that the reason you drank was because you had gotten too far away from God...

29. You must change your beliefs to conform with the group. AA scores a 10. AA is nothing but one huge crazy belief system. AA allows little deviation from the rules. You will come to believe many things. The hard-core true believers will tell you that any failure to conform to the dictates of the standard AA dogma will result in a relapse and dying drunk, and it will also prove that you are in denial.

30. The End Justifies The Means. AA scores an 8. AA has an easy rationalization for its behavior: "It will save the alcoholics' lives." Also, "It will bring them closer to God." AA rationalizes a lot of stuff: abusive treatment of new recruits, fanatical adherence to dogma, deceptive recruiting, irrationality, and gross distortion of the "success rate", just to name a few.

And the hard-core cult characteristics:

31. The use of heavy-duty mind control and rapid-conversion techniques. The street version of AA scores a 0. They just don't do this in regular meetings.

But the institutional version of AA, where they run detox centers and treatment centers, and take prisoners, scores a 10. They do almost everything in the brain-washing book to convert people to the AA religion: total immersion; isolation from outside contacts; restricted reading materials (the Bible and AA literature); constant meetings and group therapy sessions, which are just more AA meetings by a different name; making people learn and constantly repeat AA dogma and slogans as the answer for alcoholism; the use of drugs to make people more cooperative and amenable to conversion; the use of other patients as snitches to inform on those who are bad-rapping the program behind the counselors' backs; and the punishment of dissenters by putting them in the "hot seat" and shaming or bullying them for hours...

The counselors and therapists are quite open about the goal of this treatment being to forcefully convert people to a new belief system, the AA system. They rationalize it by saying that it will save the patients' lives. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why AA true believers over-react when someone says that the Twelve Steps don't work -- if they don't, then this abusive behavior is unjustifiable.

32. Threats ... to someone who leaves the cult. The street version of AA scores a 0. People leave every day, almost everybody leaves -- AA's retention rate is abysmally low, and no one threatens them. AA's own literature says that the specter of John Barleycorn threatening sickness, insanity, and death does far more to enforce the AA rules than anything AA could ever do.

But institutional AA is another story entirely. When you are forced to attend AA meetings by a treatment program, a judge, or a parole officer, there are very real negative consequences for leaving AA. Homeless people who are housed in shelters while in treatment face a return to being homeless in the streets for not going to meetings, and since almost all of the "counselors" are committed AA members, they know who is going to the meetings... Those sent by a judge or parole officer face jail or prison for failure to attend meetings. Other people, like lawyers or doctors, are often forced into AA by their professional society's diversion programs, where their only choices are professional decertification, or attending many dreary meetings. See the next item, threats for criticizing, for even worse examples, like death threats. Give institutional AA a 10.

33. Threats ... to someone who criticizes the cult. The street version of AA scores a 10. The meetings themselves aren't too bad. People are strongly discouraged from criticizing the program during meetings, but not threatened. However, people who publish negative reports on AA, or who openly, publicly, question AA dogma, or who publish medical or scientific papers challenging the effectiveness of AA treatment or its principles, face all kinds of sanctions: loss of reputation, loss of employment, being black-balled from the treatment industry, and being blocked from further publishing or speaking. AA members will launch vicious smear campaigns to discredit and destroy their critics, while hiding their AA membership. AA will use its front organizations like NCADD and ASAM, and also its immense network of addiction treatment professionals, to attack the critics, while they all hide their AA memberships. AA practices blackmail: They threaten to involve any organization that publishes negative information about AA or its treatment program in such shrill controversy that most of them feel that it just isn't worth the bother to open that can of worms. They have even blackmailed hospitals that were starting alternative treatment programs, like teaching controlled drinking, by threatening to stop referring patients to the hospital's lucrative inpatient treatment program.

And institutional AA is even worse. Institutionalized people who refuse to be indoctrinated into believing in AA, or the Twelve Steps, or the disease model of alcoholism, and who criticize those things, face all kinds of threats: 1) Incarceration until the insurance money runs out, with endless "treatment" or "group therapy" sessions where they are bullied, browbeat, and shamed. 2) Expulsion from the treatment program, which may cause violation of probation and reincarceration in a prison, or job loss or professional decertification for failure to complete the program, or great financial expense -- some health insurance plans make the patient pay for the full course of alcoholism treatment if he doesn't complete the program.

In extreme cases, like when AA members run organ transplant centers, the threat is death. Dr. Clifton Kirton reports that when he needed a liver transplant, and resisted AA indoctrination, and said that he felt that AA was a coercive religious cult with medically incorrect dogma, he was told

"If you think that's what Alcoholics Anonymous is all about, you're really missing the point. Religion has nothing to do with it. Your higher power can be anything. You are not being coerced. Your participation in AA is entirely voluntary. I must caution you, however, that your failure to internalize recovery concepts will place your transplant candidacy status in great jeopardy."

These statements were made by Judy Stowe, Certified Chemical Dependency Counselor and coordinator of the Organ Transplant Chemical Dependency Unit at The Cleveland Clinic, an internationally respected tertiary care facility. The fact that the 12 steppers have achieved high status at such a prestigious medical center emphasizes the scope of the cult's influence at the highest levels. It is of further crucial importance that, according to Ms. Stowe, chemical dependency "rehabilitation" is mandated by the state of Ohio, although she refused to provide anything to this effect in writing.
(See: http://www.AAkills.com/articles/kirton.htm)

34. Appropriation of all of the members' worldly wealth. AA scores 0 again. AA passes the hat at each meeting, and that's all. Since many people come into AA in ragged shape, fresh out of detox, unemployed and penniless, nobody thinks twice about someone who doesn't donate. AA even has a seldom-mentioned rule of thumb to the effect of "you aren't supposed to donate more than $1000 per year when the basket is passed around."

The situation with institutional AA is becoming suspicious, however. Institutional AA is usually happy to just suck up people's health insurance money until it is exhausted, but there are stories of people having to sell their homes and give the money to the treatment center to keep running Daddy through the same AA-based treatment program over and over again... I'm still scoring institutional AA with a zero here, but this situation bears watching.

Please note that I have specifically restricted this item to robbing members. Another list of cult characteristics that I was looking at used a different criterion: just "economic exploitation." That writer found institutional AA guilty of robbing the health insurance industry on a massive scale. True, but I'm going to let that one slide. Lots of other businesses do their best to steal all of the money that they can get their hands on, too, but that doesn't make them religious cults. It makes them just some more very ordinary greedy thieving people...

35. Making cult members work long hours for free. AA gets another 0. People may volunteer for some tasks at some centers, but there is no pressure to do so.

36. Total immersion and total isolation. The street version of AA scores only a 3, for "90 meetings in 90 days", or one meeting per day indefinitely, and having a sponsor keep the newcomer busy with indoctrinating projects. That isn't total immersion, and it is not isolation, and can be resisted.

But the institutional version of AA, where they run treatment centers and detox centers, and take prisoners, scores a 10. It is very common for them to limit or block communication with people outside, and to restrict reading material to the Bible and AA literature, and to occupy all of the patients time with AA meetings and "group therapy" sessions that are really just another form of AA indoctrination.

37. Mass suicide. AA scores 0. The odds of AA committing mass suicide are less than the odds of the Roman Catholic Pope suddenly converting to Islam and marrying a harem of beautiful women.

The last seven items are applicable only to the really crazy, nothing-but-enslaved-zombies type of cult. Nevertheless, including those items, the street version of AA scores 287 out of a possible 370, yielding a 77 percent score. That's an honest "C". But institutional AA scores 311 out of a possible 370, yielding an 84 percent score. Most teachers will give you a solid "B" for an 84.

So, in my opinion, the street version of AA will easily pass the test for being an ordinary, run-of-the-mill irrational cult, and will even just barely pass the test of being a hard-core cult. The institutional version of AA easily passes the test of being a very dangerous hard-core cult. Welcome to One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest.

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it just might be a duck.

If it looks like a cult, walks like a cult, talks like a cult, recruits like a cult, brainwashes like a cult, punishes like a cult, and like all cults, pretends it isn't a cult, then there is a pretty good chance that it's a cult.

The biggest cults are called "mainstream cults", and the politicians don't call them cults at all. You can believe any crazy thing you want to if you have a big enough voting block to back you up. The Mormons are the premier example of that. The Seventh Day Adventists aren't doing badly, either, and the Twelve-Step religion is okay, too. The Native American peoples, or "First Peoples", on the other hand, have seen the Supreme Court rule their religious Peyote Ceremonies illegal, because they eat a cactus with a kick. The real reason is simply "Not enough voters." The Roman Catholic Church never had a problem with the Priest having wine for Mass, all through Prohibition.

One man's illegal drug is another man's holy sacrament, if you have enough voters. And apparently, the same rule applies to cures for alcoholism and drug addiction: one man's crazy whacked-out superstitious nonsense is another man's respectable medical treatment, if you have enough registered voters.

Last updated 29 May 2001.

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