Alcoholics Anonymous and its related groups for other substances are undeniably the de facto standard for addiction treatment. The AA meeting is so prevalent throughout society that it has become a cliché in cinema and television. To many, it seems like the only solution.
Pacific Standard recently ran a piece with the headline “After 75 Years of Alcoholics Anonymous, It’s Time to Admit We Have a Problem.” According to the article, “90 percent of American addiction treatment programs employed the 12-step approach” by the year 2000." The article argues that although it is the dominant form of addiction treatment, Alcoholic’s Anonymous’ religious-based, 12-step approach might not be the best option.
In his new anti-AA book Clean: Overcoming Addiction and Ending America's Greatest Tragedy, former director of Harvard's substance abuse treatment unit Dr. Lance Dodes writes the following: “Alcoholic’s Anonymous was proclaimed the correct treatment for alcoholism over seventy-five years ago despite the absence of any scientific evidence of the approach’s efficacy. And we have been on the wrong path ever since.”
In fact, several alternatives to AA do exist. HAMS, for instance, is a harm reduction program that encourages addicts to complete small, realistic goals such as slowly reducing alcohol or drug use. There is also the Secular Organizations for Sobriety, a method that emphasizes participants need not submit to a higher power as AA requires them to do. There are many other addiction recovery options.
None of these options, however, have taken over AA’s spot as the most prominent pathway to ending addiction. The difficulty in establishing an effective treatment program is that many of the programs require mental and behavioral therapy rather than medical treatment. SMART Recovery, the first result returned on Google after a search for “alternatives to Alcoholic’s Anonymous,” refers to addiction as a “bad habit” rather than a disease, emphasizing the “motivation” to quit.
The ways in which American society treats nicotine addiction has always differed from the ways in which it treats alcohol and other drugs. There are nicotine patches, gum, and now electronic cigarettes that purport to lead to smoking cessation. Medication in the form of a pill even exists. Varenicline, most commonly known as the brand Chantix, reduces an individual’s urge to smoke and even causes cigarettes to taste worse.
There are also pharmaceutical drugs on the market that help reduce the urge to drink alcohol or other drugs (methadone being a common example for use in drug detoxification). But, of course, using medication to curb the problem is simply introducing a to which an addict’s body and mind becomes accustomed.
As Pacific Standard notes, addiction is a multifactorial disease about which we still know extremely little. Treatment programs such as AA might be beneficial to a certain degree, but it’s time to increase the collective effort to discover better treatment options.
Rick Warren and the Saddleback Church? No thanks. Not for me.
***The CR programs I’ve attended have NEVER mentioned Rick Warren, and one of them ONCE mentioned Saddleback. Your objection is beyond the pale.
But if it helps some people, great! I am certainly not opposed to whatever works.
***Great! Take what you like, and leave the rest. But it sure SEEMS, from your wordy response, that you ARE opposed.
But the problem as I see it with this and similarly
***What exactly are those “similar” programs?
Bible based and Christ centered recovery programs is that unless you are already a member of that church
***I’ve gone to 3 CR groups, none of which ANY affiliation to Saddleback. Now, I have my own observation about church membership based 12 step groups, but your comment doesn’t address that.
or are already of a similar mindset religiously
***Now, wait a minute. I’ve spent 34 years in these rooms. I have had assholes come up to me and tell me that I shouldn’t talk about Jesus in 12 step groups. WTF? Somehow now I’m part of a “similar mindset religion”? I STARTED in 12 step groups.
it might be a turn off.
***And where in the big book, where in the 12 steps is this considered a problem?
This program also helps people with “hurts, habits and hang-ups”.
***I agree that Rick Warren/Saddleback was a bit overreaching in that approach, but I have also seen some members claim victory over “hurts, habits and hangups” that AA does not address. Nor do the spinoffs of AA such as NA, GA, Al-Anon, LS&AA, CA, and EA.
But understand an alcoholic who has reached rock bottom, has just come off a bender after losing their job, family, friends and can’t stop drinking, may not identify with someone who is not an alcoholic and simply has a “hang up” or a bad habit like shopping too much or smoking or eating too much or is just “hurting” because they can’t get a date, their marriage broke up, their kids aren’t turning out right, their dad just died and that makes them sad…. whatever that “hurt” is.
***Well, now isn’t that interesting? That is why I propose a separate thread. For instance, my struggle is with depression. It turns out that Bill Wilson, the Founder of AA, also struggled with it. Even after he helped MILLIONs of alcoholics gain victory, he couldn’t seem to help depressives. It turns out, DePRESSION is more INSIDIOUS than ALCOHOL.
The beauty of AA is its single purpose * and simplicity; one alcoholic who has been there and done that, gone to Hell and back and is now living a happy sober life and helping the new comer.
***Well, yup and nope. The 12 steps help others. But I agree, the Gamblers who showed up to AA meetings eventually felt that AA itself did not address their unique problems of addiction. And Bill Wilson, the founder of AA, never really addressed Depression as the underlying issue in his alcoholism. Again: Separate thread.
I understand that some have issues with AA and the “Higher Power” being too inclusive
***I do, now. I didn’t used to. I thought I was okay with my own Higher Power and the rest of my 12StepBrothers would respect that. But they didn’t. Rick Warren’s friend identified the problem in 1989. I identified it in 1986.
and not Christ centered, but again that is why AA works for so many.
***Then you should have ZERO criticism for CR. It works for “so many”, and it adheres to the original intent of the founders of AA. Those guys were CHRISTIANs.
AA doesn’t preclude a Christ centered recovery
***It originally did. Except that perhaps you meant “preclude something OTHER than a Christ-centered recovery”.
or membership in a church like Saddleback
***AA never discusses membership in churches. Your point is growing dim.
but it also welcomes the Catholic, the Jew, the Buddhist, the Mormon, Hindu the agnostic or Atheist - any alcoholic seeking help without pre-conditions.
***Not originally. The “God as we understood Him” was the Christian God.
A program like Celebrate Recover might work wonders for someone who is already a follower of Rick Warren’s preaching and books,
***I didn’t know much at all about Rick Warren nor his church before I went to CR because I read CR’s FOUNDING BELIEFS, which removed that “God as we understoood Him” loophole.
much for someone who is not; a Catholic or Jew (or someone raised in many other faiths) for instance or someone who has rejected organized religion,
***There were times when I rejected “organized religion” and continued to attend 12 step groups. It was always obvious to me that the founders of AA intended that this was a christian based approach.
an agnostic,
***That’s where AA erred. They tried to allow agnostics into the tent, thereby pulling down the tent.
someone who has tried religion to “cure” them and it didn’t work
***I’ve been there. Your point is antithetical to what the 12 steps actually mean.
or was told it was because they were sinners rather than suffering from an addiction.
***I’ve been there as well. But the pain of being told I was a “sinner” was just as bad as being told that I shouldn’t be pushing Jesus onto the 12 step programs.
The last thing many want is to be beaten over the head with a Bible.
***You simply DO NOT understand where the founders of AA came from. It was a biblical program from its onset.
I’m sorry to say that but in my experience, that is true for a lot of alcoholics.
***And I’m sorry to say, that you don’t know what you’re talking about.
* 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. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for AA membership; we are self-supporting through our own contributions. AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution; does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.
***That’s a beautiful quote from AA litrature. But it has nothing to do with what step 3 and step 10 actually meant.
Kevmo: The problem with AA and the “secular” program is Step 3 and Step 10, where they talk about “God as we understood Him”. Members drive a truck through that loophole, so much so that if someone says that Jesus is God then they are very likely to get keyed up on for “bringing religion to the forum”.
I used to attend a lot of AA meetings with my husband and many Al-Anon meetings on my own before and after his recovery and I never witnessed anyone being admonished or shut down for talking about their Higher Power being God or Jesus or for being a Christian.
***I have 34 years in the program. I have DIRECTLY experienced this, and have had friends who directly experienced it. Perhaps if you were a little bit more up front about who your Higher Power is, you would experience it as well.
But I was at a meeting once where the person was celebrating 10 years of sobriety but hadn’t been going to AA or Al-Anon meetings for last 4 years, had no longer been involved in AA at all and this person didn’t talk very much about her “drunk a log”, what happened and how I got here, what life is like now”, she didn’t share her experience, strength and hope, but instead used the meeting to proselytize her rather new found faith and go on to tell those at the meeting that unless they accepted Jesus Christ exactly in the way she did, follow the preacher she was following, be a member of her church, that they would not only not stay sober but in fact they would go to Hell and told the group that while AA was her beginning and opened the door to her God, that AA was not the answer.
***To be perfectly candid, I think you’re full of shiite. But ask yourself, was that member perfectly within her rights?
But while this made quite a few of us uncomfortable and a few that she called on to share, tried to get back on point, nobody tried to stop her from sharing or tried to shut her up.
***I see you answered my question. I have no doubt she experienced persecution for her beliefs, but the point is that MANY who have expressed that Jesus is their God have experienced persecution within AA and the 12 step groups. Do you doubt MY experience with 12 step groups?
But after the meeting a few old timers had a talk with her; explaining to her and reminding her of AA’s sole purpose and asking her to remember what she was like when she attended her very first AA meeting as they remembered her then,
***Sounds to me like you ganged up on her.
and if she, someone BTW who used to be an agnostic, a former non-believer but a suffering alcoholic and a IV drug and coke addict, how she would have felt and how she would have reacted if at her very first AA meeting she had heard someone say the things she said that night, they asked her to honestly ask herself if she would have walked out and never came back. She had no answer and waked out and didn’t come back for a long time.
***Yup. You ganged up on her.
And that was a shame because she had a powerful story and message to share without all the proselytizing.
***And it is SUCH a SHAME that you basically ganged up on her and KICKED HER OUT OF AA.
The last I knew of her through some mutual friends, she had divorced her husband, a fellow recovering alcoholic because he wasn’t sufficiently religious when he came to find that the church they had been attending was not Christian and Bible based but rather cultish.
***Sounds a lot like me that your problem is with some cult rather than Christianity, which the founders of AA originally based the 12 steps on.
She then cut off all ties with her family and former friends and had accused her father, brother and uncle and husband, even her teenage son of sexually abusing her because her preacher told her she must have been, s
***I see that this has become a Wall-Of-Text-and-Stream-of-Consciousness bullshit argument. Take it somewhere else, sister.
that that was the cause of her alcohol and drug abuse and implanted in her “false” memories through some sort of “regression”
***Still more bowlsheet, I see.
therapy combined with demonic exorcism. She finally left that church but the damage was already done, she went back to drinking for a time and eventually came back to AA a much more humble person and while still a believer in Christ as her savior, not so quick to judge others.
***Wow, you actually finally came back to some original point. Maybe you really need to read up on what the original founders of AA intended for the program. It was a Christian Program. But after looking at that rant, I doubt you’ll do such a thing; it’s so much easier to impose your own bigotry on how things were intended.
For what it is worth, my side of the street is clear. ***Denial isn't just a river in Egypt. MATTHEW 5:23 Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there ... www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Matthew-5-23/ King James Version "Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, ... the ungodly man's approach 'which would be to wait until enough time has p***ed for me to get over it and forget.