{"id":24,"date":"2012-12-23T00:17:30","date_gmt":"2012-12-23T00:17:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/?p=24"},"modified":"2012-12-23T00:17:30","modified_gmt":"2012-12-23T00:17:30","slug":"a-broader-vision-for-aa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/2012\/12\/23\/a-broader-vision-for-aa\/","title":{"rendered":"A Broader Vision for AA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bill Wilson, a co-founder of AA, wrote in the ‘Big Book’ Alcoholics Anonymous<\/em>, Ch. 11,\u00a0A Vision for You:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cSome day\u00a0we hope that every alcoholic who journeys will find a Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous at his destination.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bill wrote that in 1939.\u00a0 His vision seemed possible, until 1993.\u00a0 That\u2019s when AA stopped growing.\u00a0 In 1993, it attained its greatest reach, with 2.1 million rotating members (mostly white males) in more than 110,000 groups worldwide.\u00a0 In 2012, those numbers haven\u2019t budged, while the population has risen 20% into a drastically different demographic makeup.\u00a0 AA is stagnant, in decline and lacking in diversity.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t mean individual members or communities aren\u2019t thriving.\u00a0 AA has grown dramatically in some cities.\u00a0 That\u2019s great, but that growth has been offset by losses elsewhere.\u00a0 We don\u2019t know exactly where since GSO doesn\u2019t publish detailed geographic figures, only high-level summary data.<\/p>\n

So what is our vision for AA?\u00a0 Well, if we are to help the most people, AA will have to grow again.\u00a0 I think it has additional, untapped potential it can not reach.\u00a0 What is holding it back?\u00a0 There\u2019s little good data, but anything that limits its scope should be a suspect.\u00a0 One way AA members limit AA is by calling it \u2018The Program\u2019.\u00a0 What\u2019s \u2018The Program\u2019?\u00a0 Why, the Big Book, of course.\u00a0 Anyone who wants to stay sober can join AA, but the best\u00a0way<\/em>\u00a0to stay sober is\u00a0The Program<\/em>.\u00a0 Why is calling AA \u2018The Program\u2019 a limiter?\u00a0 Because it defines AA more narrowly than necessary, and more narrowly than AA itself does in the AA Preamble.<\/p>\n

The Preamble says AA is not a program, but a fellowship.\u00a0 This is a much broader definition of AA:<\/p>\n

Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism.<\/p>\n

Why, then, do so many people in and out of AA consider AA synonymous with The Program in the Big Book?\u00a0 Because the founder wrote it.\u00a0 When someone asks about AA, it\u2019s very tempting to just say \u201cThe 12 Steps\u201d or \u201cRead the book\u201d.\u00a0 But fetishizing a method or a book is a form of rigidity.\u00a0 Why hamstring ourselves that way?\u00a0 Where we come down on this issue depends on how much we value tradition vs. innovation.\u00a0 Conservatives will accept some rigidity to get a strong foundation.\u00a0 More progressive people will take more risks in the hope of growing or enhancing AA.<\/p>\n

We can turn to the churches for a comparison:<\/p>\n

Many churches say they are Bible-based.\u00a0 This is attractive to some and less so to others.\u00a0 But reading just a bit of the Bible suggests that few churches really are Bible-based.\u00a0 No modern church could adopt all its rules.\u00a0 Its members, if it had any, would go to jail for killing homosexuals.\u00a0 Or they\u2019d go broke by giving away all their wealth.\u00a0 Clearly, \u2018Bible-based\u2019 means that they\u00a0try<\/em>\u00a0to live according to\u00a0parts\u00a0<\/em>of the Bible.\u00a0 They necessarily emphasize some passages over others to fit their other values.\u00a0 The story of Abraham and Isaac is read, but few parents would kill their child for God, though a few might feel they should but simply aren\u2019t godly enough to muster that level of surrender.<\/p>\n

Likewise, many AA members credit the Big Book Program for keeping them sober.\u00a0 But of course no one verifies that connection.\u00a0 How could we know whether someone has followed the 12 Steps, or that doing so is what keeps them sober?\u00a0 We just take their word for it, which is fine.\u00a0 But if there is no certification, how do we know that doing the Steps is really necessary?\u00a0 Among religious people, we know they profess one faith and practice another.\u00a0 They\u2019re not hypocrites, they\u2019re just human.\u00a0 So, it\u2019s possible that many or most of those who credit the 12 Steps for their recovery would have stayed sober without them, or without parts of them, such as prayer or meditation.\u00a0 No controlled tests have been done, so we\u2019re left with testimonials.\u00a0 That\u2019s fine, too, but testimonial data is of a different quality than data from controlled experiments.\u00a0 It could be that the AA members who credit the 12 Steps are simply playing it safe, continuing to do what they have done, or as they were told, even though they aren\u2019t sure they still need to.\u00a0 If it ain\u2019t broke, don\u2019t fix it.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s still a problem. \u00a0If a Christian who reads her Bible, avoids adultery, votes against gay marriage and tells her kids that masturbation is a sin has a joyous life, we should she think about changing?\u00a0 Well, I hope it\u2019s obvious.\u00a0 If she could be happy (without harming anyone) without some of those things, it seems she should.\u00a0 We know masturbation causes no harm, so shaming her kids is counterproductive.\u00a0 This woman should be relieved that she can drop this aspect of Christianity without consequence.\u00a0 In fact, it would help her kids to do so.\u00a0 She would be a more loving mother if she stopped it, but her religious conditioning tends to make her cautious about changing her \u2018program\u2019.<\/p>\n

AA members are in this situation regarding prayer.\u00a0 If praying causes you no harm, then you can keep it up even if it might not actually be necessary.\u00a0 But many people, including Bill Wilson, have moral problems with prayer.\u00a0 Here\u2019s Bill W talking about prayer in the 12&12, p 97:<\/p>\n

“What about all the accidents, sickness, cruelty and injustice in the world? What about all those unhappy lives which were the direct result of unfortunate birth and uncontrollable circumstance? Surely there could be no justice in this scheme of things and therefore no God at all.”<\/p>\n

Bill then sets these concerns aside because prayer seems to work.\u00a0 But many of us have found that prayer is actually optional in recovery.\u00a0 For us, dropping prayer does no harm, and frees us from serious moral issues.<\/p>\n

The problem is fundamental.\u00a0 For centuries, religions have explained human suffering with a reward\/punishment model.\u00a0 When we are good, God rewards us, when we are bad, He punishes us or turns away.\u00a0 This appeals to some people.\u00a0 It\u2019s straightforward and explains a lot.\u00a0 But would it be moral if it were true?\u00a0 What we do know is that loving humans don\u2019t behave like this.\u00a0 When a person, even an unrepentant criminal, needs lifesaving aid, we help them.\u00a0 We stop their bleeding, or administer expensive treatments like chemotherapy, even when a person has done nothing to improve themselves.\u00a0 Preserving life is just the right, compassionate thing to do.<\/p>\n

We also have to notice that God gives most people freedom from alcohol for nothing, but according to the Big Book, alcoholics have to earn it.\u00a0 \u201cGod could and would if He were sought\u201d means God will do nothing to help us recover from alcoholism until we surrender to him.\u00a0 We are conditioned by religion and AA to say this is reasonable and even loving, but there is no way around noticing that God gives with a hook.\u00a0 Any alcoholic on Medicaid can get substance abuse treatment for free, without turning his life and will over to anything.<\/p>\n

For many nonbelievers, atheism is a form of conscientious objection.\u00a0 I myself am a former believer.\u00a0 I gave up God reluctantly.\u00a0 It took a deep moral pinch for me to go to the personal and social trouble of removing and replacing what faith had done for me.\u00a0 But I had no real choice.\u00a0 Just as many AAs trade in their punishing God for a loving one, I traded in my loving God for none.\u00a0 I\u2019d rather depend on human aid than accept help from a God who could help everyone, but waits in AA rooms for people to complete his obstacle course.<\/p>\n

Despite these few examples, many AAs find nothing objectionable in The Program.\u00a0 That\u2019s up to them.\u00a0 Such people seem to form the core of AA\u2019s membership.\u00a0 But we\u2019d like AA to appeal to every newcomer, not just those who can swallow the Big Book program.\u00a0 And there is reason to believe that social pressure causes members to extol The Program even if they don\u2019t fully understand or practice it:<\/p>\n

The bandwagon effect makes it very risky to say anything off-message.\u00a0 Moreover, psychologists know that people tend to over-report socially desirable behaviors like going to church, voting and working The Steps, and under-report undesirable behavior like drinking or skipping prayer.\u00a0 So, it\u2019s likely that AAs actually practice a wide range of behaviors that are only more or less aligned with the Big Book.\u00a0\u00a0 Bill acknowledges this in several places:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. “Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery.”<\/li>\n
  2. \u201cNo one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles.\u201d<\/li>\n
  3. “Our book is meant to be suggestive only.\u00a0 We realize we know only a little.”<\/li>\n
  4. “Our membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism. Hence we may refuse no one who wish to recover. Nor ought AA membership ever depend on money or conformity.”<\/li>\n
  5. “Most strongly we point out that adherence to these principles [the Steps] is not a condition of AA membership. Any alcoholic who admits he has a problem is an AA member regardless of how much he disagrees with the program. Based upon our experience, the whole program is a suggestion only.”<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So why all the fuss?\u00a0 So what if people identify AA with the Big Book program?\u00a0 The problem is that AA is dying, partly from being strangled by the Big Book.\u00a0 What if the public viewed AA as a fellowship of people who want to stay sober in any way at all?\u00a0 Would that make AA an aimless, anarchic mess, unhelpful to anyone for lack of focus?\u00a0 Or would it make AA a vibrant, diverse gene pool of hard-won experience that would make us useful to more people?<\/p>\n

    Your answer probably depends on your reaction to risk in general.\u00a0 If risk scares you, you are more likely to hew to the Big Book program even if it turns some people off.\u00a0 But if risk and innovation excite you because they break things open to new possibilities, then you\u2019ll be interested in re-branding AA as a fellowship for anyone who wants to stay sober, not just those who want to find God through the 12 Steps.<\/p>\n

    A final brute fact may make the decision for us.\u00a0 Nonreligious people are the fastest growing \u2018religious\u2019 group.\u00a0 Protestants are now a minority in the US for the first time.\u00a0 Minorities are growing.\u00a0 This perfect storm of demographics has already transformed religion and politics.\u00a0 One way or another, it will transform AA.\u00a0 If AA adapts to serving these people, it will grow.\u00a0 If it doesn\u2019t, it won\u2019t.\u00a0 AA history buffs love to say our founders learned vital lessons from the failures of the Washingtonians and the Oxford Groups before them.\u00a0 That\u2019s great.\u00a0 But AA could become the cautionary tale for the next successful approach to addiction.\u00a0 Or it can lead, but only by making itself useful to a changing world.<\/p>\n

    <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Bill Wilson, a co-founder of AA, wrote in the ‘Big Book’ Alcoholics Anonymous, Ch. 11,\u00a0A Vision for You: \u201cSome day\u00a0we hope that every alcoholic who journeys will find a Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous at his destination.\u201d Bill wrote that in 1939.\u00a0 His vision seemed possible, until 1993.\u00a0 That\u2019s when AA stopped growing.\u00a0 In 1993, it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}