AA

My work requires fairly extensive travel. Even though I prefer driving because of the freedom and flexibility it allows in my schedule, sometimes the distances and timelines can only be satisfied by air travel. So I usually find myself flying three or four times a month disguised as a mild mannered businessman.

In such cramped circumstances, squeezed between too many fellow travelers at 30,000 feet you would think that addiction and recovery topics would be taboo but amazingly enough I have had some great discussions over the past year.

There was the time I got to grill the doctor of infectious diseases about ailments directly related to substance abuse. Then there was the time I got to talk to a psychiatrist specializing in sleep disorders about how people new to sobriety can learn how to sleep again without any chemical lullabies.

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I always enjoy getting mail from TDA visitors and regulars alike. Some are just simple thanks or words of encouragement, several have been mean-spirited diatribes, and then there are those that I really like with links to relevant content.

So thanks to TDA reader Norman for providing us with the heads up on this blog post by Brian Cuban reviewing the “cult” status that some would like to place on Alcoholics Anonymous. Nothing new here really, this is a common debate but the extensive comment section is entertaining in a sort of disturbing fashion.

It never fails that those attacking AA most vigorously always seem to be the ones that would probably be better off working on their own personal problems than worrying about the semantics concerning a fellowship of alcoholics. This debate is always guaranteed to attract a rational recovery adherent and their canned “I hate AA” speech, this one is no different so look about midway through comments. I think they must pay these guys to go around cracking on twelve step groups.

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I try to keep the discussion at The Discovering Alcoholic apolitical as possible. Obviously this is not possible one hundred percent of the time, but even so I am usually successful in maintaining a focus on the issue instead of the ideology. But not today.

While many of you may be familiar with the AA logo, let me assure you the large “A” represented in the image above is not in any way related. It is the symbol for Anarchism; while there are many anarchist flavors in general they agree upon the belief that society should be organized without a nationalist state. Even though historically those who would create an even worse totalitarian state have wielded similar useful idiots as their disposable foot soldiers of chaos and revolution, these days they seem to be little more than marionettes- media and policy distractions for well funded political movements (cue the irony).

When I came across this article on the news feeds called One for the Resistance, I thought it rather strange that I would sympathize with an anarchist group that had figured out that yes, alcoholism and substance abuse even degrades the effectiveness of a clueless protestor. Quickly though the article took an ominous tone as the author described how the movement could take advantage of alcoholics and addicts to further their own cause. They have now stumbled into my bailiwick and are definitely in a relevant topic… ergo I am allowed to say the A is for asinine.

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My husband asked me for a lettter to give to his lawyer, who in turn would give it to the judge who is sentencing him for his third DUI. In the state I live in that is a class 4 felony and the possibility of jail time is high. This was all I could come up with, and somehow it just seems like it is not enough.
____________________________

Dear Sir,

This letter is my way of expressing how my husband's drinking problem has impacted my life and how, if he is sent away to jail that would further negatively impact not only my life but the lives of his children.

Radical Recovery. That's the term Lillian and Murdoch MacDonald use in their book, Phoenix in a Bottle, for their recovery from alcoholism. Why is it radical? It's radical because despite all the commonly accepted beliefs that society has been fed about alcoholism, these two people found a way up and out of it and they feel no need to abstain from the occasional libation. Among the beliefs they have discarded are the following:'

Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.

Alcoholism is an incurable, progressive and fatal disease.

There are so many people that attack AA for being a cult or overly religious that it seems they must be regularly forcing people to drink cyanide laced fruit punch instead of encouraging recovery. You don’t have to twist my arm for me to admit that AA has religious roots. That should be all too easy to recognize in the twelve steps themselves, also that you will regularly run across a particular group or member that is religiously overzealous is a given. Conversely, you will also find groups and outspoken members that are just generally spiritual in nature or even purely secular.

Now I think it is obvious that many are just bashing Christians because it seems to be the progressive thing to do these days, some have probably rationalized their hate for AA out of their inability to make it work for them, and some even use it as a way to promote their own programs or personal agenda. For these I have one thing to say, don’t go if you don’t like it but please stop generalizing AA as a negative entity instead of as one of the most beneficial voluntary programs of all time. But there is one group that may actually have the “right” to complain; those that are ordered by the court to attend AA and NA programs as part of their alcohol and drug related sentencing.

SFGate.com ran a story on a particular case this month:

When Inouye was arrested for trespassing in March 2001 and tested positive for drugs, his parole officer, Mark Nanamori, ordered him to attend a Salvation Army treatment program that included participation in Narcotics Anonymous meetings, the court said… Inouye showed up but refused to participate, dropped out after two months, and, for that and other reasons, was sent back to prison in November 2001 for violating his parole… After his release in 2003, he sued Nanamori and others for violating his constitutional rights. Inouye died while the suit was pending, and his son took over the case.

Apparently Inouye was a Buddhist who was against any treatment program with religious content. It seems that the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco agrees with him.

In fact, said the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, the constitutional dividing line between church and state in such cases is so clear that a parole officer can be sued for damages for ordering a parolee to go through rehabilitation at Alcoholics Anonymous or an affiliated program for drug addicts. Rulings from across the nation since 1996 have established that "requiring a parolee to attend religion-based treatment programs violates the First Amendment," the court said. "While we in no way denigrate the fine work of (Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous), attendance in their programs may not be coerced by the state."

While I don’t necessarily disagree with the 9th Circuit on not forcing a parolee to AA or NA because it may offend him, however the right to sue for damages seems grossly extreme. I mean when you get down to it they are categorizing AA and NA as religious programs but this is a very relative designation. In the same manner as the big books of AA and NA talk of higher powers and in some cases call upon “God” so does our money, our court systems, and even the leaders of our nation as they are sworn in. If some people are offended by a court ordered treatment program that very well may save their life, then it would seem likely that living in a nation where one can not even purchase the bare necessities without seeing a reference to God would make living here unbearable.

So what’s my take on this whole mess? Well I think those charged with crimes have the Constitutional right to refuse to go to a court ordered AA or NA, but they should best be ready to face alternative sentencing (more jail). Should there be more choices available? Absolutely, I am always in favor of recovery alternatives and in many areas there are more choices. But for those places where meetings of any kind are limited I would think that a desire for recovery and the thought of more incarceration would be enough to just make one grin and bear it. Of course if someone is just dead set on not attending these programs then there is always the choice of jail or the other Constitutional right, the one to leave the country. Yeah I know that seems kind of extreme, but the truth of the matter is if someone is having troubles with drugs and alcohol they better be ready to accept some extreme measures!

There are many people who are turned off by even the general nature of the religious content of AA and NA, but their recovery is more important to them than someone else’s beliefs. The twelve steps provide a path and structure to recovery, a grounding influence in a time of turmoil. They continue to go because of the support structure and the sense of belonging. Talking and listening to others that have the same problem, being with those that can relate and can lend an understanding ear are indispensable recovery tools. You have the Constitutional right to turn these things down, but it just seems stupid to do so especially when the alternative is jail.

Submitted by mtangel of Eclectic Recovery where she explores self designed recovery programs.

You can never go back to being a cucumber.

I think there are a lot of myths out there about alcoholism, not the least of which is that there is a specific "alcoholic personality". But this I believe is true -once we've crossed that oh so mysterious line that differentiates alcoholism, we don't ever go back. God knows I've tried. Some people firmly believe that they were born with alcoholism and I've often wondered if I am one. Some obviously drink themselves into it. Some succumb after difficult life events send them running to the bottle for relief. But it really doesn't matter, because across the board, it seems that once you're an alcoholic, you're an alcoholic. There will be no more social drinking, no more wine with dinner, no more nightcaps.

This can be a hard pill to swallow - especially in a society like ours where drinking is glamourized and where, unfortunately, a stigma still exists that there is something morally awry with us alcoholics. While it's certainly true that we may do some morally reprehensible things while drinking, I don't think this is limited to alcoholics, everyone does crazy things while they're under the influence. And I guess this is why the 4th step of Alcoholics Anonymous bugs me no end. It states: "We took a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves." Now the statement itself is not disagreeable to me; it wouldn't be a bad thing for everyone to do on occasion. It's the emphasis later on in the book about focusing on our shortcomings and character defects. Yeah, yeah, I know it says something about listing the good things, but that's not where the emphasis lies.

Is it possible that some alcoholics seeking recovery might be better served by placing the emphasis on their good qualities, on what they've done and are doing right in life? I find myself increasingly attracted to Charlotte Kasl's sixteen step program. The 4th, 5th and 6th steps of her program are as follows: 4. We examine our beliefs, addictions, and dependent behavior in the context of living in a hierarchal, patriarchal culture. 5. We share with another person and the Universe all those things inside us for which we feel shame and guilt. 6. We affirm and enjoy our strengths, talents, and creativity, striving not to hide these qualities to protect other's egos. It gets you to the same place, but the emphasis isn't on what is so terribly wrong with us. The extra step - #6, seems to create a balance that is sorely missing.

Just some cucumber for thought on a Saturday morning.

It never ceases to amaze me at the amount of time and energy some people will expend attacking Alcoholics Anonymous and similar 12 step programs. It’s kind of like picking a fight with Gandhi since the anonymity issue guarantees you don’t have to worry about any spirited public rebuttal. Some of the attacks are from alcoholics themselves rationalizing the tall boy in their hand and others are transparent in their self serving motives (Rational Recovery’s founder calls his program the "antithesis and irreconcilable arch-rival of Alcoholics Anonymous."). What brought this topic on was a post today by someone who commented that AA’s program shut down the critical thinking portion of his brain. In this post he cited a recent article in the Canadian Reader’s Digest that bluntly states that AA is “useless”.

The article is entitled 12 Steps to Nowhere and is written by J. Timothy Hunt. Near the end of his harangue of carefully picked statistics and off-topic shots at AA’s founders the author describes himself as a “highly functional drunk”. Immediately the warning bells sounded and just got louder as I read the following passages including “I made it a point never to drink when I was on duty” and when referring to his motivation to quit drinking as a funny look from his doctor he states “then one day, I stopped… It took one step, not twelve.” Now whatever credibility this guy supposedly had was eradicated with me with these two statements.

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At first, I just assumed I had followed the wrong trail. I was link-jumping from site to site using the keyword “alcoholism” and ended up at a site where it seemed I would be more likely to learn something about child rearing than hard core drinking. I had ended up at Mom Writes, written by the lovely and talented long-time blogger Mary T. But upon closer observation you see the header illustration of her blogging domestic diva includes a glass of wine and a less noticeable impish tail. You know what they say; the devil is often in the details.

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"When compared with the everyday occurrences of an active alcoholic without AA, even bad AA seems trivial. No one has died, no one has gone to jail, in fact no one has even been charged with a crime… they have been called, hold on to your hats, cult-like."

There seems to be an awful lot of hoopla being raised about this AA group in DC alleged to have cult-like tendencies. I first saw mention of the Newsweek story over at scout’s newcomer daze but soon afterwards saw it splattered all over the media even finding a site dedicated to stopping the group from using the AA name.

The Newsweek story was titled “A Struggle Inside AA” and tagged as “Critics Say Washington AA Chapter is Cultlike” as if there was this huge rift in AA with over two million members rushing to choose sides. Well I think the title seems more dramatic flair than substance, especially since the story revolves around a single AA chapter, Midtown AA, and the accusations of a few ex-members.

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