Every once in a while, we run into an AA member in the rooms, who attends meetings regularly, calls his/her sponsor, works the steps, goes to meetings, but still suffers from a lack of serenity. These feelings may include depression, chronic relapse, and even suicidal tendencies. What gives? Are these people simply lacking willingness or honesty? We think not!

The program teaches that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results. Makes sense doesn't it? But why is it that we rarely see this applied to the AA program itself? I have never run into a sponsor telling his/her pigeon that if the AA program is not working, s/he should stop working the AA program!

But I have heard:

Here's a mail I got from a medical professional on this very topic:

Have been reading a few of the emails you listed. I am in the medical profession.

As you may imagine it takes quite lot of insight, knowledege and hard work to make an accurate diagnosis and hopefully an effective treatment, depending on each patient's individual situation and illness. 12 steppers version of "medical treatment" is to give every single patient, the exact same "treatment. Without ever really even taking an accurate patient history. And if the "patient" returns, sicker, saying the "treatment" isn't working, or worse, making things worse.....what is the AA "doctor's" response?......huh?...bet you can guess..."Take more of it!".

You tell me what effect you think that would have in a real medical practice.

A lot of dead or sick patients.

Blaming a lack of success with the AA program on the member him/herself is not fair to a certain segment of the AA population. Namely, those individuals who have abuse, trauma or other special issues in their history.

While the Big Book instructs members that sometimes outside help is needed to resolve certain issues, and Bill Wilson was aware of his own lack of knowledge when he wrote "we know very little", these phrases seem to get lost among the other slogans and catch-phrases which dominate:

In fact, overly simplistic bits of advice like "turn it over" and "let it go" when applied at the beginning of the healing process do more to hinder the healing of abuse and trauma survivors, who turned to alcohol or drugs to cope with the resultant feelings, and are now looking for serenity in a 12 step program. The feelings which are the legacy of physical/emotional/sexual abuse are strong and run deep, and platitudes like the ones listed above imply that such feelings can be crumpled up like a piece of scrap paper, to be tossed in a wastebasket and forgotten. A wastebasket that our "Higher Power" will empty for us, provided that we pray rightly.

Here's an excerpt from www.allaboutcounseling.com, a wonderful site which covers many topics typically addressed in therapy, including sexual abuse. We learn why abuse survivors can't just "let go" of their pain.

Shouldn't adults who were abused as children try to let it go?

For a person to heal from trauma, there is a process called "letting it go". However, people confuse letting go with burying (pushing it down, not dealing with it, not addressing feelings that are so difficult to talk about, like shame, guilt, rage, terror). We get these feelings from the trauma. Burying these feelings never works. It ends up affecting all parts of our life if not addressed. So, no, the person should not "let it go" in the sense of burying it. It will be healing for the person to eventually let it go after they have addressed it adequately and processed the hurt.

More on sexual abuse from www.allaboutcounseling.com.

An additional problem we find in AA is that there is a tendency for members to rewrite the narrative of their lives to fit the AA model. Because of this, the truth of an abuse situation may become deeply buried in the psyche of the suffering member, essentially becoming hidden from his/her awareness! The AA may even attribute his resultant deadened spirit to "the disease" for which the prescribed treatment is more step work and meetings! A circular path that offers no real relief!

When the survivor does have clear memories of the abuse/trauma, the predominant disapproval of "finger pointing" and "blaming others", which is a big no no in AA, (self-flagellation is permitted), may cause survivors to get stuck in a very painful phase of their aftermath. Namely blaming themselves for having been at the wrong place, at the wrong time or in the company of the wrong person. This is dead wrong thinking! No one has the right to abuse another human being, no matter what the circumstances! Abuse is always the abuser's fault and never the fault of the survivor.

I am convinced that AA's founding fathers simply weren't aware of the issues which affect survivors because there may have been no abuse/trauma survivors among the demographic sample of alcoholics whose experience the AA program was based on. In fact, the structure of the program seems to indicate that the early AAs were perpetrators of harm more often than they were victims of it. Hence the need for a moral inventory. Abuse survivors represent the opposite end of the spectrum, namely, they are on the receiving end of someone else's immorality! I find it most inappropriate that a thorough and fearless moral inventory is the "treatment" for both groups!

I wonder how many survivors of childhood sexual abuse become alcoholics? I wonder how many of those alcoholics make their way into Alcoholics Anonymous, the spiritual program of recovery.... I have seen people trying to "pray their pain away" time and time again. Unfortunately, a spiritual Band-Aid just can't heal real emotional pain.

Here's a snippet from "The Courage To Heal - A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse" by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis

SPIRITUALITY IS NOT ESCAPE

The whole point of getting in touch with your spirituality is to enhance your healing, not to escape it. Spirituality is not a shortcut through any of the stages of the healing process. It's not an alternative to feeling your anger, to working through the pain, to fully acknowledging the damage done. Rather it should be an enrichment to healing, a source from which you can draw comfort and inspiration.

Certain religions, cults and spiritual practices encourage you to avoid emotions, particularly anger. They stress forgiveness and are not likely to support you in confronting your abuser. These attitudes do not promote healing. If you are involved in a practice that denies your needs as a survivor in an active healing process, you are not helping yourself.

When I stumbled upon this, my sponsor recognized immediately that my important discovery may threaten the apparent perfection of the AA program, so naturally she shifted the blame onto me. She told me that I must be reading into things - that people have a tendency to read what they want to read. Interesting response, isn't it? Let's just allow abuse survivors to suffer a little more, so the AA program can look perfect for the greater majority who haven't endured such horrors! Isnt' this a double violation for survivors??!!

Despite my sponsor's reply, I felt this finding to be important enough to bring up at a meeting. The response from the throng? I was either met with dead silence, or the AAs simply defended the Big Book bible and said that it was I who was foolish for looking to the Big Book as a way of healing from an abuse situation. After all the Big Book offers a program for healing from alcoholism. Notice the pattern, the fault must be carried by anyone who dares criticize the AA program.

I beg to differ with this response too. Clearly the AA lore advises that we must work the program in ALL AREAS of our lives... the program offers a MANNER OF LIVING, it offers specific answers for DEALING WITH RESENTMENT, it warns against feeling JUSTIFIABLE ANGER, it stresses FORGIVENESS - and at the same time, it alleges to be a SIMPLE PROGRAM. I hardly think it's simple for abuse or trauma survivors to adhere to these "simple" rules and heal.

Nevertheless, the program does help with abuse issues in at least one way -- it attends to the needs of abusers/offenders/perpetrators by advising that they make amends -- a very wise instruction. But steppers will have to agree that many abuse survivors, those on the receiving end of the hurt, develop substance abuse problems to cope with the horrific emotional and psychological aftermath of their experience. Therapy for abuse issues will require that the substance abuse problem be attended to first before the therapy for abuse can be effective. Where do most people end up for treatment of alcohol or drug problems? 12 Step programs of course! In the rooms, they will be instilled with a sense of pressing urgency to "work the program" in order to maintain sobriety. Since the advice of the program is 180 degrees counter to what survivors need to feel in order to heal from abuse, yet they must maintain sobriety for the abuse therapy to be effective, survivors are left in a bind.

How can they refrain from anger and strong emotions in order to maintain their spiritual condition which ensures sobriety, while simultaneously letting out the rage and fury in therapy?

How can they look for their part and disregard the other person entirely in order to work the program which ensures sobriety, while they simultaneously stop blaming themselves for the actions of another?

How can they practice forgiveness in the name of working a good program to ensure sobriety, while simultaneously confronting their abusers and holding them accountable for their actions?

How can they simultaneously "get out of self" in order to work AA's program to ensure sobriety, while at the same time getting into self to finally face the hard-to-deal-with emotions and bring about healing?

While everything in the program is "merely a suggestion", members are told over and over that those who ignore the suggestions can anticipate a terrible tragic fate.

Many abuse survivors become chronically relapsing alcoholics who can't seem to find inner peace in AA. They work the steps over and over, and arrive in droves at therapists and other counselors, feeling that they are at the end of their rope. Those counselors who aren't enlightened to the abuse/AA connection may often give them the same hurtful answer that many sponsors do... "You just don't WANT the program to work." You just didn't work the program hard enough. You weren't thorough or rigorously honest. Gim'me a break!

And, if they are lucky enough to find out that they must deal with their trauma, by working through the pain and rage, many times their AA fellows will withdraw their support while the survivor works through this process because it is disruptive to their serentity to be in the company of someone who has strong emotions. The almost rote response is: Anger... bad... anger... danger... not serene... not sober... How very sad for the person who really could use some support during this extremely intense process.

Please see two other pieces on this site which are crucial for abuse/trauma survivors:

AA and the question of gender -- Special concerns for women
Anger, rebelliousness and other forbidden feelings