Very simply, AA is so popular, because in most areas, there are no other options!!! If an alcoholic lives in Bumblefudge, Missouri, - population 300, where there is one church, one AA meeting and two liquor stores, telling the desperate soul to explore his options is somewhat of a joke. This scenario applies to larger communities as well... The group support aspect and the ritual of meetings can be a big help early on, so for this reason, (because of a lack of other options) drunks are shuttled into AA, with the hope that they get better.

Most doctors, psychiatrists and courts don't have an in-depth knowledge of what AA is anyway. The public perception of AA is still a positive one based on a surface look at its activities. Only now is this changing. To the public eye, desperate drunks enter the AA program and come out as sparkly clean, overgrown obedient children, speaking the word of God. Not a bad thing, as far as society is concerned...

The AA name is known in virtually every household, and is the first program most people think of when confronted with alcoholism. There are more AA groups around the world than groups of any other type, however to automatically assume that AA's impressive membership is evidence of its efficacy, is a mistake... as mentioned, most people enter AA because there simply is no alternative type of group in their area, and when they stay, it is because they are taught that it is unsafe to leave!! Quite an impressive mechanism for keeping the membership up, isn't it!!? I'd like to open a business, which uses that tactic. "Shop elsewhere and you will die." Or imagine if it were a hospital telling it's patients, "You're suffering, we'll cure you, but you'll have to come back forever" "If you leave, the people who you've gotten to know here will stop associating with you." "If you leave, you will die" That's some pretty loaded language -- some pretty heavy-handed concepts! No wonder the membership stays high... people fear walking away from AA!

The irony is that the healthiest AA members are frequently the ones who passed through the hallowed halls of the organization, and not the ones who got stuck there. The ones who passed through outgrew the limiting mindset, and it is a shared view of competent mental health professionals that one of the qualities which healthy and successful individuals possess, is an ability to look for solutions to life's problems from a multitude of angles. Not easy to do when the AA model is pounded into our conscious and subconscious mind with such regularity!!! We observe that those who get stuck in AA, try to apply its principles to every life situation, simply because they fail to accumulate alternative tools for their "spiritual toolbox". This is what I mean by limiting. There are exceptions of course, and frankly it warms the cockles of my heart when I meet levelheaded intelligent individuals who attend AA over the long haul. These folks are treasures, really, and I hope that the newcomers gravitate to them rather than to the "thumpers" and gurus whose brains have rusted over from repeating the same dogma for years.

"Yes, but if people left... if they graduated, who would be here to help the newcomer?" -- you ask.

Very simply, if the people who wished to leave, or take vacations could come back without being treated like a pariah or a traitor to the regime, AA would grow and thrive with the influx of new ideas and better ways. The predominant AA attitude to new information is almost as if Marco Polo had returned from China to find that his people turn their backs to him, not wanting to see the treasures he brought. Not healthy!

Another reason people stay in AA is because of the community aspect. A sober peer support network is invaluable for maintaining the newly chosen lifestyle. The smiles, hugs, handshakes, pats on the back that one gets... this is the stuff of life. A cold website or an impersonal book (no matter how useful the information it contains) cannot compete with true human interaction. The chance to speak at last about our problematic lives, to slowly rise from the gutter to AA stardom... well, these things just cannot happen in a non-group setting. At long last, having a place to fit in, a place where one is no longer a misfit, as so many feel in the outside world... no book can replace that! It is these lures, these personal relationships, these people to practice newly learned living skills on that keep people coming back for more.

"But we see people's lives transforming in AA" you say...

Well, it is true that some people truly find inner peace in AA, however it should be noted that they seem to do so

1. in spite of the AA program, or
2. because they hooked up with some good people from the AA program who taught them useful living skills or
3. they found it while attending the AA program (as finding a better way to live is the focus at that time)

The folks who come into the rooms and take the suggestions, are practicing a technique which I call "bonding through ritual". Most people start out this way. They are utilizing a ritualized rather than meaningful application of AAs sobriety techniques. The motivator for this approach is usually a fear of doing otherwise due to the loaded language of the program itself (Which is repeated more often, the preamble or "take what you want & leave the rest"?). Another contributing factor is the heavy peer pressure. Any ethical mental health professional who reviews the Big Book and 12 & 12 can easily determine that there is much within these texts that can lead to serious psychological problems down the road. It is just so sad that these books are being offered to destitute souls without warning... folks who could really benefit from some good practical advice on how to make a positive lifestyle change.

Considering the questionable methods utilized by AA, its sketchy success rate, as well as the rising public concern with this organization, it only follows that rehabilitation facilities have a social responsibility to explain to their patients that the current recovery climate is controversial, and to offer the materials of a wide variety of groups (RR, Moderation Management, Women for Sobriety, AA, SMART, 16 step Empowerment, as well as to have a library of books which are supportive of as well as challenging to the current recovery methods). Even if AA is, in most areas, the only available no-cost, all volunteer support available, the patients' awareness of the existence of other programs and knowledge of their philosophies, will help individuals to make better choices, or to devise a method that will work best for them.

As you may have already guessed, I do receive a great deal of mail at AADeprogramming, and NOTHING makes me happier than to hear "my meetings are not like that..." or "where I attend, the people are open minded and encourage questioning" or "AA has been a positive experience for me". I'm not here to destroy the positive life-enriching things that happen within the rooms of AA... I'm here to do a thorough and fearless fourth step on the institution itself. An organization that demands the same of its members should not shudder when the same procedure is applied to itself.

When hoards of people who experience internal (spiritual) discomfort for reasons such as:

• Problematic family upbringings
• Problematic cultural values and societal norms
• Past trauma

are being told that their internal discomfort is really a disease symptom, rather than a healthy response to an unhealthy situation. A disease that can only be arrested by daily attendance at meetings where one learns to "accept" the world as it is, instead of calling into question some of the reasons that we suffer so much, I have a problem with that.

One of the most disturbing aspects of the entire movement is its utterly dysfunctional "don't you dare reveal any problems to the potential newcomer" attitude. "The truth may kill!" -- they say...

Despite its heavy Christian overtones, AA has not adopted one of the most famous Christian sayings...

Hiding the problems from the newcomer for fear that they won't join the group is something I object to vehemently! Isn't it our social responsibility to speak out upon discovering the flaws in the system --- especially when people are falling through the cracks???!!!

It's plain to see that because AA defines our discomfort as being a personal problem, and not a political/social problem, the powers that be are not threatened by the activities of AA, and that is one of the reasons that clinicians, courts and society at large supports AA. (this is the basis of Elayne Rapping's excellent book, "The Culture of Recovery", 1996.) In fact, an Internet buddy of mine who had spent time in a rehab told me of a pamphlet he found there, which described a study conducted on AA members. This piece revealed one of the more questionable results of AA programming: namely that indoctrinated AAs are more likely to endure poor social conditions. Undoubtedly this can be attributed to AA's teaching of acceptance, its instruction to "stop fighting everyone", and to Let Go & Let God, etc. But what about those powerful entities who are in between the alcoholic and God? Governments, employers, doctors... is it wise for us ordinary folk to have unquestioning faith in these "higher powers" as well, because now we have a Big Benevolent Supernatural Entity on our side? I think not!

Very simply, it is very non-threatening to encounter a sobered up drunk who says "there's something wrong with me", runs around apologizing for past errors, and is out of society's hair because he's always at meetings. If AA spun-dry alkies who came out to declare "there's something wrong with the system, and I'm going to do something about it", it could be a very threatening scenario indeed, even if that is often closer to the truth!!