Answer Addiction

Tag: AA and god

  • An Atheist's Guide to Alcoholics Anonymous

    An Atheist's Guide to Alcoholics Anonymous

    Simply put, when we do not understand how something works, we chalk it up to god.

    The following is an excerpt from a longer work.

    Spiritual Caulk and the Great Puppeteer in the Sky

    One of the most profound insights I’ve discovered in atheist literature is that god concepts serve the purpose of filling in gaps in our knowledge. “Miracles” like lightning and earthquakes and sudden changes in personalities were considered inexplicable. In order to satisfy the natural human hunger for explanation deities were invoked. To this day god serves the same purpose. Simply put, when we do not understand how something works, we chalk it up to god. God serves as a metaphysical caulk, a generic, all-purpose filler that effectively fills in the gaps in our understanding.

    One time at an AA meeting at San Francisco’s 1010 Valencia I heard a woman talk about a ride on a city bus. She was fairly new to sobriety, feeling pretty shaky at the time. As she rode the city bus she looked up and, there on the seat directly before her, she recognized a fellow member of AA. This chance encounter and their subsequent interaction helped her through a difficult time. She interpreted this as a miracle. She described it as “god working in her life”, a very common expression in the rooms of AA.

    This is what I have come to refer to, yes, somewhat derisively I confess, as the puppeteer god. It refers to the idea that god arranges worldly matters to reinforce our AA lifestyle, to miraculously guide our “spiritual” development. This god is very helpful, offers us numerous opportunities for growth, but never gives us more than we can handle. On good days god even finds us parking places when we are on the verge of being late for some important event, like an AA meeting or a job interview. The puppeteer also likes to miraculously inspire our sponsor to call us just when we most need to hear from him or her. I understand the comfort such beliefs bring. A safe, orderly world. Like a household in which a caring, attentive parent oversees all.

    But I wondered as she spoke, hadn’t this other fellow been on that bus before? Undoubtedly when she was still “in her cups”, that same rider was right there, sitting before her unnoticed. In fact that very same rider might have been sitting across the way, waving a Big Book directly in her face just the day before. But she would have been unable to acknowledge this fortuitous encounter and all the mutual good that it afforded. Perhaps she had been blinded to the world around her as she obsessed over how and where she was going to get her next fix, pill or drink.

    Wasn’t the difference, the real deal maker in this scenario, our speaker’s newfound willingness to perceive and imbue with value this most excellent opportunity for enhancing her recovery? Wasn’t her newfound openness and willingness really the crux of the matter, regardless of theistic interpretations?

    I find it very difficult to relate to the sharing of AA members whose Higher Power arranges the world to fix them. They utilize god to fill in the void in their understanding when interesting and impressive things happen in their lives. To me this just smacks of mental laziness. I feel very uncomfortable in meetings where this sort of thing takes place. I think they are dismissing the power of genuine willingness in their lives, denigrating the incredible capacity of humans to embrace change and transform for the better.

    If you choose to interpret recovery experiences in this way, you are left with some inexplicable and particularly onerous implications. For example, why did god not similarly come to the rescue of Freddy, or Jim, or Alice, or Tom? Each of them has relapsed and are now out stumbling drunk or shooting up in an alley somewhere. Why did the puppeteer not come to their aid? Is there a merit system involved? Is it karma? Unlikely to be the case, as we all know miscreants who have been spared, yet sweethearts who have succumbed.

    I believe that the real work in our bus rider’s life is being done largely by her newfound attitude. She is open to solutions and opportunities to grow her recovery that, prior to this time, she could not even have recognized. She is ready for new, life changing experiences that could move her forever away from the needle and the bottle, and instead towards sober well-being. This mindset, of open-mindedness and willingness, is essential to recovery. Theistic interpretations are not. And it is this newfound mindset that’s really doing the heavy lifting here. Not god.

    Courage to Change

    Prayer and meditation are among the most obvious examples of definitively religious practices considered essential to recovery. This morning, ironic though it may be, I prayed before returning to these blasphemous writings. Why? Because I need a daily restoration to sanity and this activity is a learned and habitual component in that process. 

    But the heavy lifting in prayer is not done by anything outside of us. The puppeteer deity does not meet our requests, or deny them, or even hear them. Through prayer and meditation we make fundamental changes to ourselves. It is an act of commitment and recommitment to a new set of values. But there is nothing that is literally miraculous involved, no outside deity at work. Praying for people, places and things does nothing to affect the people, places or things in question. What it can do is change us, and thereby our relationships with the people, places and things in question. What prayer does is simply change our thinking, our emotions, our action choices, and thereby everything about our relationships with the rest of the world.

    AA members often jest that we should be careful what we ask for. A common interpretation is that, when you begin to pray for something, to ask god for something, god will present you with opportunities to develop or earn that thing. Say, for example, you discover in your inventory process you suffer from impatience. Recognizing this as a defect in your character, you subsequently pray for increased patience.

    The popular mythology in AA is that, at this point, The Great Puppeteer in the Sky will place before you a frustrating series of circumstances intended to shine a spotlight on your impatience. “Our higher power presents us with opportunities for growth.” Having become ready to have this defect removed, god now tests, or forges, us through exposure to temptation. That god gives us what we need in order to allow us the opportunity to develop our character is a historically common theistic interpretation.

    But it is fairly easy to see how a non-believer, or conversely, if you will, one who believes in human potential, can interpret such experiences as simply highlighting our newfound sensitivity and awareness, along with our newfound willingness to change. Occam’s Razor, or the Law of Parsimony, suggests that, all other things being equal, we should employ the explanation which posits the least extra parts, as it were. Certainly employing supernatural deities to explain straightforward psychological and social phenomenon directly conflicts with this most common sense philosophical principle.

    Consider, for example, the sixth and seventh steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. These prescribe for us that we become willing to have god remove all of our defects of character and humbly ask him to do so. If we work the steps with genuine honesty, open-mindedness and a willingness to change, we will come to identify our negative tendencies and reach a state of willingness to change. From here on out, if we are genuinely interested in changing, we will be hyper-aware of these traits and their consequences in our daily life. This newfound sensitivity to both the trait and its impact on self and society are sufficient, when coupled with an awareness of viable alternatives, to fully explain the process.

    This is what happens when we identify problematic tendencies (steps 4 and 5), and subsequently become willing to change (steps 6 and 7). Through this process of honest and critical self-reflection we are now more acutely aware both of the behavioral propensities and of their negative effects upon self and society. We have heightened our awareness and see these things at work in our lives with greater honesty than ever before. Most of us are aware that some practice is then required, as we strive daily to employ different behaviors when the occasion arises to do so. In this manner we slowly but surely change our habits of word and deed regarding the problematic behavior.

    An introduction to viable alternative attitudes and actions
    +
    A genuine willingness to change
    +
    The passage of time
    =
    All the defect removal we need.

    The result of this process is that we can be significantly transformed. Some defects are removed quickly and easily, perhaps because they are directly correlated with using behaviors. These fall to the wayside as physical sobriety begins. But many defects of character we must grapple with slowly over time. Willingness to change includes being honest enough to identify the defects, to face their effects on ourselves and those around us, to see the daily flare-ups, to learn alternative attitudes and actions from our fellowship or literature, and then to practice the implementation of those alternative methods in our daily lives.

    On this “one day at a time” basis we experience slow, yet certain, incremental change. We gain nothing by understanding these profound transformations as dependent upon theistic intervention. In fact, we may be inclined to take less responsibility, to wait for the miracle rather than work for the change.

    Sometimes a genuine spirit of willingness will create moments of inspiration, moments of sudden change. This, too, should come as no surprise. These rapid changes are miraculous, indeed, in the sense that they are often life-changing and profound. But whether the change is slow and incremental or sudden and immediate neither requires theistic interpretation. In fact, by so doing, we denigrate the amazing and wondrous capacity of humans to change for the better. Perhaps taking the blame for the bad, while giving god credit for the good, is an antiquated and counter-productive tradition.

    The changes brought about by a life in AA can indeed seem profound, even miraculous. We are surprised. One day we could think of nothing but alcohol or drugs, and would obsessively, energetically and compulsively shape our lives around the need to use them constantly, regardless of the horrendous damage done to ourselves and to those around us. The next day (seemingly) we are caring, sober, responsible, unselfish and kind people, almost entirely transformed. We do not recognize that there is within us this capacity for transformation which is perfectly and entirely explicable on humanistic grounds. Because the change is beyond our understanding, we apply the spiritual caulk, the fill-all in our understanding that is “god”. But the caulk is not needed. Miracles happen every day. I know. I am one of them. If you are reading this, you are probably one too. But god is not required to make sense of them. In fact, in so doing, we denigrate and belittle our own innate capacity for transformation and positive change.

    The above is an excerpt from the book Common Sense Recovery: An Atheist’s Guide to Alcoholics Anonymous. The book was originally written as a journal by long-term member Adam N., as he sought to bridge the gap between the religious language and perspectives of AA, and his own increasingly secular, atheistic understanding of the fundamental principles of recovery. Now in its third edition, this work continues to be a valuable guide for many who struggle with the religious nature and language of AA and contains important insights for the future of the fellowship.

    An audio version of Common Sense Recovery will soon be available through audible.com.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Dear AA, We Need to Talk

    Dear AA, We Need to Talk

    You weren’t straight up so now we’re on the rocks.

    Dear Alcoholics Anonymous,

    I’m leaving you. I’ve had enough after 31 years and that’s not even counting the 2 before that. Oy, those were rocky. You sounded way too Christian with just a spritz of Buddhism thrown in for a twist. We’d be nothing but a sour mix because I’m a devout Jewish atheist.

    “Trust me,” you cooed. “Alcohol is cunning and baffling. I can help.” But when you strongly suggested I pray on my knees, I lost it.

    I screamed, “Jews don’t pray on their knees!”

    You weren’t alarmed but you asked that same old tired question. “How can you be an atheist and a Jew?”

    Before I could explain culture versus religion to you with my secular “bagel Jew” crack, you cooed at me:

    “That doesn’t matter. Anything can be a higher power—a chair or a doorknob. Just as long as you know you’re not it.”

    With an eyeroll, “A doorknob? What’re you, high? That makes no sense.”

    Unfazed, you kept trying to lure me in. “You’ll see the hoop you have to jump through is wider than you think.”

    But, oy vey, the goddamn god stuff left me feeling shaken so I split. Then when alcohol stopped working all together, I ran back. I dreamed about you warming me up like a stiff scotch used to. But instead of giving me euphoria, you said I needed to admit I was powerless over alcohol. If I surrendered this time, you said I could pour my sadness into you. I was lost and you were gentle, so when you told me to close my eyes, I did.

    You asked, “Can you think of anything that’s more powerful than you?”

    “Yes,” I said. “Rain. No matter how much I screamed at the sky, it wouldn’t stop raining.”

    Your face lit up. “You got it!”

    I beamed. “Oh! And the ocean, too,” I said. “Waves will keep crashing no matter what I do.”

    “Right. You’re powerless over alcohol and I can restore you to sanity.”

    Hands on hips, I yelled “I’m not insane!” But I was still shaken, not stirred.

    “You can use G.O.D. as in Group of Drunks,” you reminded me, then led me to a dark church basement where you said I’d feel welcome. But the pathetic coffee left me craving something stronger; I wanted to be under the influence till I was over the limit. Yet, still attracted to the liquor-free confidence there, I decided on the GOD acronym. Until the speaker cracked the Big Book open and read Step 11.

    You smarmy liar! And I was vulnerable, trying to quit getting lit. You gaslit me:

    “To certain newcomers and to those one-time agnostics
    who still cling to the A.A. group as their higher power….”

    Still desperate and confused, I kept going because people were nice to me. At a lunchtime meeting, the speaker talked about her fifth step. It sounded so much like confession I got excited and whirled my head around scanning the room for communion wine. Those early meetings taught me to pray—for a liquid lunch.

    You said it was a spiritual program so I had to accept the idea of a higher power. That nearly crushed me. You really didn’t understand that some people know there isn’t any god. I’d held out hope that you were going to unveil yourself as top shelf stuff but most of the time, you seemed like Mad Dog. Especially when you said stupid shit like, “Your best thinking got you here.”

    I wanted to be with you in the rooms, but most of the time I was dragging my ass around. But now I’m sick of feeling trapped. I hate your smoke and mirrors trickery. Your demand for rigorous honesty can cramp my style. When we almost broke up and I wanted to bolt, I cheated on you with meetings for atheists. The problem was there were so few of them and they were just as dogmatic.

    I can hear your disdain when you call me one of those “unfortunates” who can’t get the program because I’m constitutionally incapable of being honest. Now that’s grandiose. I’m sick of your self-righteous finger wagging at me, saying you’re not judgmental but then labeling me the belligerent one if I challenge anything you say. But come on, the idea of a looming spirit in place of intoxicating spirits is ridiculous.

    Okay, I admit I’m grateful that you always took me back. You’ve been patient and kind and most of all, you stuck by me. But damn it, I’m sick of being barked at for doing things that aren’t suggested. So I’m at a crossroads. The fear of leaving is a biggie. You and all of our friends will pull away from me if I leave you. The pressure to stay feels a lot like the bar pressure to do one more shot.

    If I went that route, at least I could take breaks from feeling everything so acutely while also stuffing down any critical words about you. Whenever I express frustration about how hypocritical you can be, I get looked at with pity: “Poor Dee. She’s taking her will back. Let’s pray for her. It only works if you work it.” 

    I wince at that crap. I refuse to wear a cone of shame if I save a seat, or gossip, or don’t feel like stacking the chairs some days. A lot of people think it’s healthy to fear slipping but I no longer want to fear anything. Peer pressure reminds me of junior high.

    Please quit telling me if I’m upset it’s because I’m obstinate, immature, and willful.

    Uh oh. But what if you’re right? If I leave, would I regress? I never want to be the sorry sot I was before we met. Those stakes are too high. I was afraid to give up alcohol and drugs because I “knew” I needed them. Then you proved me wrong. If I storm out, does that make me a brat who won’t take my medicine?

    You’ve always been a good listener and who else would love me in spite of my god rants? Maybe I am at the right party now. Though I long for the schnockered nights, I ain’t in my twenties anymore. I don’t even know if I could still stay up till four in the morning, much less hit the after-hours until the Tequila Sunrises. Yearning for wild nights of yore could be euphoric recall — rosy as a maraschino on top.

    Maybe staying together is fine after all. We’ve talked so many times about my expectations and you’re right—it’s stupid to blame you for being imperfect. I mean, look at me.

    G.O.D. can stand for good orderly direction, with Buddhism’s tangy flavor: a god within. Now that I’m thinking things through, I suppose a frothy soy milkshake could satiate me more than White Russians ever could. And, seriously, who wants a shit-faced higher power within anyway? No marriage is 100 percent bliss; perhaps I just caught a 31-year itch. My mind easily wanders back to booty calls with sexy bar pickups. Libidos on fire. At weak moments I ache to go back there. Then I snap out of it.

    Truth is, I love Netflix nights chillin’ with decaf chai latte from Starbucks. You’ve been there for me time after time. So, let’s hold up the paper cup. Cheers, AA. I’m not going anywhere.

    What’ll it be tonight? Barfly or Leaving Las Vegas?”

     

     

    How have you handled boredom and frustration in recovery? Or did you decide to leave your 12-step program? Tell us in the comments.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Is AA Too Religious for Generation Z?

    Is AA Too Religious for Generation Z?

    “What I try to teach is: if you don’t buy into any kind of a supernatural higher power, navigate the 12-step world, filtering the god-stuff out, working the program in your own way; there is lots that really works.”

    Are today’s mutual-aid recovery groups ready to satisfy Generation-next?

    “More than any other generation before them, Gen Z does not assert a religious identity. They might be drawn to things spiritual, but with a vastly different starting point from previous generations, many of whom received a basic education on the Bible and Christianity. And it shows: The percentage of Gen Z that identifies as atheist is double that of the U.S. adult population.”

    Released early this year, Barna Group’s Generation-Z Report (Americans born between 1999 and 2015) surveyed over 2,000 13 to 18-year-olds. The oldest of this generation turn 20 in 2019.

    According to AA’s most recent triennial membership survey, 1% of AA is under 21—that’s about 20,000 sober teenagers in AA rooms right now. What’s my personal affinity with this demographic? It’s two-fold: I have two millennial children and one 18-year-old stepson; secondly, while I am a grey-haired Baby Boomer, I was a teen at my first 12-step meeting. My 20th birthday was 1980, three months shy of my fourth anniversary clean and sober.

    I was a second-generation AA member and—like Barna’s youth focus group—my worldview seemed incompatible with the old fogies of 12-step rooms. My mother mused about finding god’s will for her from meditation or her daily horoscope. She was such a Virgo, you know. Horoscopes, higher powers, legends of Sasquatch, these were all fictional symbols as far as I was concerned. Reasonable people didn’t take such constructs literally, did they?

    Bob K, like me, is a second-generation AA. He’s currently between historical book projects; Key Players in AA History will soon have a prequel. Bob’s follow-up research will produce a book about pre-AA addiction and treatment. At age 40, Bob made it into AA as a result of his dad 12-stepping him. He also was uncomfortable with the emphasis on “God.” 

    “When I was a month sober, it was ‘God-this, God saved me’ and I was going to put my resignation in. I didn’t think I could stand it in AA any longer. I went to the internet of the day—which back then was the library—and I looked for non-religious alternatives to AA. They had them in California but nothing in Ontario Canada. So it was AA or nothing. If I tried to brave it alone, I’d be drunk; I knew it.”

    Today, Bob enjoys the likeminded company at his Secular AA home group, Whitby Freethinkers, which meets in the local suburban library just East of Toronto. 

    If I were confronting addiction/recovery as a teen today, I wonder if I would go to AA or NA? If AA was once “the last house on the block,” today it’s one house in a subdivision of mutual-aid choices. Today, newcomers have access to Refuge Recovery, SMART Recovery, Secular Organizations for Sobriety (SOS), or Medically Assisted Treatment, none of which existed in the 1970s.

    On Practically Sane, therapist Jeffrey Munn states: “I like to take a practical approach … I’m not a fan of the ‘fluff’ and flowery language that is often associated with the world of psychology and self-help.” Jeffrey came into the rooms at 20, stayed sober for 2 ½ years, relapsed, came back and is now 13 years clean and sober.

    “I was mandated to three 12-step meetings per week to stay in the program I was in. Since I was young I have been agnostic. I wanted to find a higher power that was common sense-based, but in the rooms I felt pulled towards a more dogmatic spiritual idea of higher power. Back then, I needed to come up with my own conception of what was happening on a psychological level.” Recently, Jeffrey wrote and published Staying Sober Without God: the Practical 12 Steps to Long Term Recovery from Alcoholism and Addiction.

    “I looked at SMART Recovery,” Jeffrey tells The Fix. “I looked at Moderation Management, too—that one struck me as being an organized resentment against AA—I wasn’t feeling it. When it comes down to social support and a practical plan of action, it’s hard to beat 12-step programs. What I try to teach is: if you don’t buy into any kind of a supernatural higher power, navigate the 12-step world, filtering the god-stuff out, working the program in your own way; there is lots that really works.”

    Barna reports, “Nearly half of teens, on par with Millennials, say, ‘I need factual evidence to support my beliefs.’” Jeffrey hopes Staying Sober Without God—which joins a growing secular 12-step recovery offering—offers the rational narrative today’s youth crave. Barna calls today’s youth “the first truly post-Christian generation [in America].”

    Certified Master Addiction Counselor David B. Bohl of Milwaukee understands the value of other-oriented care. David tells The Fix: “As head of a 20-bed coed dual-diagnosis treatment center, emerging adults, 18 to 25 years old, came into our care. I wouldn’t say that they universally shrugged off the 12-step approach but almost universally, in reaction to our volunteers, alumni, and traditional AA community, younger clients didn’t want what the volunteers and alumni had. And I wouldn’t say it was the religiosity always. Sometimes it was an age-thing or life approach. So, our recovery management function became that much more important in terms of building individualized treatment that suits everyone.

    “In the USA, 75% of all residential treatment centers identify as 12-step facilitators,” David tells us. “In the simplest form, our job is to introduce people to the language and the concept of the 12 steps and then to introduce the clients to support groups or people in support groups when they are discharged from acute care.

    Where trauma is involved—religious trauma in particular—traditional AA language and rituals trigger that shame they feel from negative formal religion experiences.”

    Let’s put this overbearing religion caution to a real-life test: Suwaida F was the second oldest of 11 children to Somalian refugee parents who fled to Canada in the 1980s.

    “In Kindergarten I didn’t have to wear a hijab; my parents weren’t super religious. I went to an Islamic school in grade one. It was normal for teachers to have belts with them, they would hit you; child abuse was normalized. They didn’t really teach us that much math, science, history. The Islamic teachers weren’t that educated. My parents took me out and put me in public school. Then, some of my mom’s Somalian-Canadian friends started moving their kids to Egypt. My friends would stay in Egypt two years, finish the Qur’an and the girls came back wearing burqas and head-scarves. Some Muslim friends would come to school in their hijab, take them off and put them back on when they went home. We called them The Transformers.

    My parents really wanted us to learn the Qur’an; I don’t speak Arabic, so it was difficult. And I never believed it. I asked my mom and dad, ‘How do you know that this stuff is real?’ They got frustrated and mad and said, ‘Don’t ever ask that question again.’ I knew it wasn’t real. Mom got more and more religious. Pictures of her at age 19 — she wore no head-scarf when she was my age. My mom expected me to be religious and I rebelled. I had to leave home.”

    Suwaida misses her sisters. She feels unwelcome in the family home unless she is dressed in the Islamic custom and that wouldn’t be true to herself. Away from home, Suwaida found the welcoming community she craved in the booze and cocaine culture.

    “It wasn’t a matter of having no money; I had no sense of hope. People at work didn’t know I was hopped from shelter to shelter at night. One winter I was told, ‘Suwaida, you’ve been restricted from every youth shelter in the city of Toronto.’” As addiction progressed, Suwaida recalls an ever-descending patterns of compromises, bad relationships and regrets.

    “Today, it’s like I still never unpack my suitcase; I’m always ready to go.” During a stay at St. Joe’s detox, Suwaida went to her first NA meeting.

    “At 7 PM, a woman spoke. I made it clear that I thought it was stupid; I wouldn’t share. At the end, everyone was holding hands to pray and I said, ‘I’m not holding any of your hands.’ I didn’t go back. When I was discharged, I went drinking at the bar with my suitcase, not knowing where I was going to stay that night.

    My second meeting I consider my first, because I chose it. I thought I should go to AA. I googled atheist or freethinker AA to avoid a repeat of my NA experience. I found Beyond Belief Agnostics and Freethinkers Group on the University of Toronto campus. I went there last February. For a while, I had wine in my travel-mug, and I didn’t say anything. In August I felt like the woman beside me knew I was drinking, and I ask myself, ‘What am I doing?’ So, my next meeting, I went sober. I’ve been clean and sober ever since.”

    Despite the child-violence of Islamic school and rejection from her family, Suwaida isn’t anti-theist. “I do believe in God or in something. I feel like I’m always looking for signs. I don’t believe in a god in the sky but to say there’s nothing beyond all this doesn’t make any sense to me. Sometimes the freakiest things happen. Maybe it’s because I’m a storyteller, I try to make a story out of everything; you think of someone, then they phone you, is that random?

    I feel a part-of in secular or mainstream AA meetings. My self-talk still sounds like, ‘Don’t share Suwaida, you have nothing to add.’ Maybe it comes from not being able to express myself when I was growing up. I have no sense of self. I guess I have something special to offer but I don’t know how to articulate it. It’s hard; I have limited self-confidence.”

    “Give them their voice; listen to them,” is Kevin Schaefer’s approach. He co-hosts the podcast Don’t Die Wisconsin. He’s also a recovery coach.

    “I’ve been in Recovery 29+ years. I’m a substance abuse counselor and I got into addiction treatment through sober living. When I started working in a Suboxone clinic, I came to realize that AA can’t solve everything. I always come from a harm reduction standpoint: meth, cocaine, benzos; I ask, ‘Can you just smoke pot?’ and we start building the trust there.

    Medically Assisted Treatment (MAT) is geared towards this generation. Most kids coming through my door know a lot about MAT, more so than people in AA with the biases and stigma that they bring. Kids sometimes know more than the front-line social workers. Their friends are on MAT, that’s how they gather their information (not to say their information is all correct). But a lot of therapists don’t understand medication. Medication can be a ticket to survival out on the streets.”

    The Fix asked Kevin his opinion on the best suited mutual-aid group for this generation.

    “Most of the generation you’re talking about walks in with anxiety and defiantly won’t do groups.” We talked about the role of online video/voice or text meetings for a tech-native generation. “Yes—where appropriate. Women especially, because from what I’ve seen, most females have suffered from trauma. I have heard women who prefer online recovery; that make sense to me. I’ve been to InTheRooms.com; as professionals we have a duty to know what’s out there. And there are some crazies online.

    If someone has an Eastern philosophy bent, I’ll send them to Refuge Recovery; I’ve been there. If I can, I’ll set them up with somebody that I know can help them. And let’s not forget that some youth, if Christianity is your thing, Celebrate Recovery is amazing — talk about a community that wraps themselves around the substance user. There are movie nights, food, all kinds of extracurricular activities. The SMART Recovery Movement? Excellent. SMART momentum is building in Milwaukee. They are goal-oriented and the person gets supported whether they’re on Suboxone or, in one case I know, micro-dosing with LSD for depression; they’ll be supported either way. My goal with youth is: ‘Try to get to one meeting this month; start slow.’ Don’t set the bar too high and if they enjoy it, then great.

    The 12-step meeting I go to, it’s a men’s meeting. There are people there on medication and they don’t get blow-back. I wish more of AA was like this. When I came in, almost 30 years ago now, I saw all the God-stuff on the walls and I thought, ‘Nah, this isn’t going to work’ but thank G… (laughs), thank the Group of Drunks who said, ‘You don’t have to believe in that.’ The range in my meeting is broad—Eastern philosophy, Native American practices, Yoga, I was invited to Transcendental Meditation meetings at members’ houses. I was fortunate to fall into this group. You know, the first book my sponsor gave me was The Tao of Physics—not The Big Book—it was this 70’s book with Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, correlated to physics and contemporary science.”

    So, as to the question that kicked this off, some mutual aid meetings are ready to meet the taste of a new generation; results may vary. Who’s heard: “If you haven’t met anyone you don’t like in AA, you haven’t gone to enough meetings”?

    The reverse is true, also. If the peer-to-peer meetings I’ve sampled seem too narrow or dogmatic, maybe my search for just the right fit isn’t over. And if I don’t want a face-to-face meeting, there’s always Kevin’s podcast, virtual communities like The Fix, or I can order one of Bob or David or Jeffrey’s books if that’s more to my taste.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Alcoholics Anonymous: A Different Perspective

    Alcoholics Anonymous: A Different Perspective

    Rather than seeking knowledge through scientific methodology to gather more and more evidence regarding the factual attributes of successful recovery, AA emphasizes scripture, tradition, and the word of authority figures.

    I recently read an essay on another recovery-oriented site, a site whose focus is on people in 12-step recovery yet who are disinclined to religion. The topic was “moments of clarity.” Now, this phrase, for those who have spent years in the 12-step subculture, has obvious connotations. Having the knee-jerk, familiar response to the phrase is one of those cult-like behaviors which make me happy I am no longer an AA member, no longer speaking the lingo nor “drinking the Kool-Aid.” For this free-thinking addict/alcoholic, 60 years old and having spent more of my life in recovery than out, it brought to mind something very different from what was intended. This was a profound and life-changing experience I had, in which the following truths hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks:

    1. I am an atheist.
    2. Alcoholics Anonymous is a religion, like Christianity and Islam.
    3. Such religions tend to impede the development of scientific knowledge regarding natural phenomenon.
    4. Alcoholism, addiction, and the process of recovery are entirely natural phenomenon.
    5. AA has a very low success rate.

    Before going on, I should make clear that I am not merely another AA-basher. I am a former long-term member and Alcoholics Anonymous was central in my life for decades. I learned a great deal, much of which I utilize to this day. I also mean no disrespect whatsoever to the author of the original essay, and I apologize for being tangential. I have problems with the “program,” but not with any individual members. My focus is on all those who suffer because, like myself, they are forced to choose between the rock of active addiction and the hard place of joining what is essentially a Christian sect.

    Alcoholics Anonymous as Religion

    “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…”

    • Twelve Steps

    The chapter We Agnostics is a thinly veiled effort at proselytizing by a devout Christian. Its goal is to use the concept of “open-mindedness” to convince readers to buy into the dualism of old-time religion, with its antiquated belief in the existence of both a natural and a supernatural realm, complete with supernatural entities or “higher” powers. Attaching “as we understood him” to a couple of steps is similarly disingenuous. It is nothing more than a manipulative sales pitch by a professional salesman, one which pales in the shadow of the heavy-handed religiosity of his “12 steps of recovery.” So, for example, in Bill Wilson’s steps you will find: 

    God four times,
    Him or His four times
    Prayer and meditation
    Spiritual awakening and
    A power greater than ourselves.

    Surrender of the personal will, faith in God, confession, prayer and meditation, ultimately even proselytizing and missionary work are promoted as essential attributes of recovery. Here again, the steps promote religious dualism, with its denial of the value of naturalistic, or scientific, knowledge. Even in the 21st century I distinctly recall hearing this erroneous, anti-science perspective espoused in meetings, with god and the supernatural realm presented as the source of all the good stuff, while the natural realm and the animal known as Homo sapiens served as the source of all the bad.

    • Scripture

    The highlighting, underlining, and prodigious dog-earing; treating the book as a sacred object like the Quran; studying and re-reading, with study groups like the Bible; carrying it everywhere; quoting and citing as if anything between the covers is self-evidently true or “gospel,” so to speak; and the unwillingness to change a word of the first 164 pages: all of these attest to a belief in the Big Book as the kind of scripture or divine word which serves as the foundation for religious traditions like Christianity, Islam, and others. I can recall many times in the rooms when I heard the view that the Big Book was divinely inspired, the ludicrous notion that a supernatural entity was speaking through Bill Wilson when he wrote Alcoholics Anonymous.

    • Tradition

    Rather than seeking knowledge through scientific methodology to gather more and more evidence regarding the factual attributes of successful recovery, AA emphasizes scripture, tradition, and the word of authority figures. These are the criteria that many religions use to justify “knowledge” as they understand it. Ironically, even though America is one of the greatest scientific nations in history, we also suffer a populace which is largely hostile to science and academics. The members of AA comprise a microcosm of this larger population.

    • Faith is NOT a Virtue

    Faith is claimed to be a virtue, but in the 12-step context it is actually the acceptance of something for which zero evidence, facts, or data exist. That is, the adulation of ignorance, a trait which walks hand-in-hand with America’s mistrust of science and of academics more generally. This approach teaches us to be mistrustful of science, yet obedient and sheep-like with religious authority. The main reference to science in the “first 164 pages” is one line which states that “science may one day cure alcoholism, but it hasn’t done so yet.” Importantly, this one reference is often read sarcastically, with derisive snickers and mocking asides, illustrating a cocky certainty of its implausibility.

    • Authority and Obedience

    As with religions like Christianity and Islam, unquestioned obedience to authority figures is of the utmost importance in Alcoholics Anonymous. We are all familiar with the phrase “take the cotton out of your ears, and put it in your mouth.” In some places this is an actual rule, with newcomers in their first 30, 60, or 90 days advised to only listen. Unquestioned obedience to authority is a major distinction between religious perspectives and secular, humanist, and scientific approaches. The adulation of Bill, of Bob, of circuit speakers and old-timers, of sponsors, the use of quotes as meeting topics, and the current emphasis on temporally-measured sobriety, encouraging both pride and the development of a hierarchy, all convincingly mirrors the religious emphasis upon blind faith and obedience to the words of authority figures.

    • Conservatism

    Conservatism in this context means a profound reticence to change. I believe that the Catholic Church recently apologized to Galileo, only 450 years overdue. Both Christianity and Islam still treat women as if we were living in Biblical times. This intransigence, this resistance to progress, is one of the primary characteristics of Alcoholics Anonymous. AA causes people to become narrow-minded and inflexible, unable to consider new, different, or contrary approaches to treatment methods. When I have broached these subjects with current members, they have consistently become defensive and “circled the wagons.”

    Religion as Impediment

    “So what?” you might ask. “So what if AA is a religion?”

    The problem is, as a result of their fundamental dualistic nature, these types of religions stand in the way of us acquiring knowledge and, in particular, cultivating a more naturalistic, scientific understanding of addiction, alcoholism, and the truly essential attributes of recovery.

    Problems and Solutions

    You admit you have a problem. Then you find a “spiritual solution.” What do you do? In AA, as with Islam and Christianity, you are discouraged from seeking an alternative solution. You are even encouraged to proselytize, to go out and “spread the good news.” Religious converts, recipients of the “one true word,” are trained to be blind, even hostile, to alternatives, particularly naturalistic ones, while enthusiastically promoting the one and only true supernatural solution.

    So around 8 or 10 years into sobriety we go and get our counseling certificates, then get a job working or volunteering at a nearby treatment center. The faculty, staff, and volunteers at the facilities, and at the couple of behemoths in the addiction treatment field, are largely AA members, AA trained, and generally convinced that with the 12 steps and our “spiritual solution,” the problem has been solved. I believed this too, for many years. This fundamentally biases the treatment process, leaning it towards 12-step and away from any alternatives.

    Conservatism Revisited

    Another consequence of AA’s conservative bent is that people in the program become so convinced that the Big Book and the program are perfect exactly as they are, that they do not hear what atheists or skeptics like myself have to say. This is a form of cognitive bias called confirmation bias, which simply refers to how, even when confronted with facts or data challenging their beliefs, people will nonetheless cling to their original views. In fact, people will even double-down on their faulty original position when confronted with fully rational, fact-based alternatives. This bodes ill for our efforts to update recovery by embracing more empirical, evidence-based knowledge, especially if it conflicts with AA tradition, scripture, or authority.

    Anti-Naturalistic Thinking

    These religious traditions started out as pre-scientific efforts to understand ourselves, the greater cosmos, and our place within it all. Their most significant error was the introduction of the afore-mentioned dualism, an imagined schism between the natural and the supernatural. Ever since Darwin, we have known that the 100% natural animal Homo sapiens builds new knowledge on top of old knowledge, accumulating knowledge over time until we figure out how to solve all manner of worldly, natural problems. This includes curing diseases that were once deemed completely beyond our comprehension or scope, requiring prayer, sacrifices, and incantations to mysterious gods.

    Rather than attributing meaning to the words “bless you” when someone sneezes and seeking to bring supernatural elements to bear on the demonic entities which allegedly cause a person to become sick, we have instead discovered the germ theory of disease. I am simply suggesting that we stop thinking in such medieval, archaic terms when it comes to addiction, alcoholism and recovery and instead fully embrace empirical, scientific methods which might yield more fruitful results.

    God of the Gaps

    The strongest argument for religion as an impediment would be the “god of the gaps.” For millennia humanity has inserted supernatural answers into the gaps in our knowledge. If a hurricane blows or an earthquake hits, god (or, if you prefer, a higher power) did it. However, over time, naturalistic answers have replaced supernatural answers, one by one, consistently, and with far more accuracy.

    Complex psycho-social maladies like ours are particularly mysterious and therefore highly prone to such supernatural interpretations. AA’s founding fathers were steeped in a social context in which radical personal transformations were deemed mysterious and supernatural. We had absolutely no idea what was involved, so we labeled such experiences as “psychic” (Silkworth) or “spiritual” (Jung), which merely perpetuates the fallacious dualism, as a result of both the unclear meanings and supernatural undertones of such key terms.

    Over the course of human history our questions have found their best, most accurate answers not in the supernatural but instead in knowledge gained through approaches emphasizing the scientific method. As atheist author Greta Cristina and others have wisely observed, there exist precisely zero accounts of this process moving in the opposite direction. Nonetheless, AA remains an obstinate hold out.

    It’s time to embrace facts and data, to give science a real shot at addressing this global scourge. AA members must become more open to approaching the problem anew. If, when confronted with Galileo holding that the earth revolved around the sun, the church had simply said “well, let’s check out what the evidence says,” that would have been great. But they did not. Instead, like AA members have done to me—and I’m no Galileo—they cry “trouble maker” and play hear no evil, see no evil…

    Alcoholics Anonymous as a Failure

    None of the above would matter if Alcoholics Anonymous really, truly worked.

    But it does not.

    I was told by the senior counselor in my second treatment center that only 10% of us would “make it”. That’s an admitted failure rate of 90%. This was not merely manipulative sales-speak. Such extremely poor success rates are similar to what a variety of differing studies have found. We all know this, anecdotally. If you look, you can see that the only thing busier than the coffee pot at an AA meeting is the revolving door. And such disheartening research does not even scratch the surface of our failure, as most of the world’s millions of addicts and alcoholics never even darken the doorways of AA in the first place, for a number of very good reasons.

    “It works if you work it” is a classic example of the kind of un-falsifiable claim which characterizes religious traditions. Scientific claims, on the other hand, are characterized by falsifiability, which simply means that they can be tested. Then we can either discard them, modify them, or build upon them. It is by utilizing precisely such scientific approaches that we have discovered cures for polio, small pox, malaria, and so much more. The more complex, psycho-social disorders, such as depression or bi-polar disorder, are likewise yielding to our efforts to address them as purely natural phenomenon.

    By any and all measures, there is a staggeringly large amount of room for improvement. The religious perspective merely serves to block our way at this point in history. In the short time it took you to read this essay, thousands of lives were shattered or ended. It’s time to move on and aggressively seek empirical, naturalistic solutions to this deadly global scourge.

     

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    View the original article at thefix.com