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It's no wonder that people often compare AA to a religion. In case you've never been to a meeting, let me detail what they're like:
Smiling greeters shake your hand at the door
Proclaim that you're an alcoholic, that you're completely doomed unless you believe that a Higher Power can restore you to sanity (Similar to the Confession of Sin and Assurance of Pardon portions of the Presbyterian Church service I attend with my parents)
A person leading the meeting reads a passage from a book and then tries to relate it to life issues
It is not uncommon for the religious to target vulnerable groups in order to sell religion to them. And alcoholics and other addicts are certainly a visible vulnerable group.
As usual with these things.... and it is true of even the most outrageous diet plan or homoeopathy plan too.... the AA programme is a couple of very useful and beneficial ideas at the core of a complete load of unsubstantiated nonsense and woo.
At the core AA is a support group. Where people with similar problems support themselves and each other. It helps people admit to their own problems, a recognised important move in any recovery. It also provides self regulation as people can keep an eye on each other for re-lapsing as well as just themselves.
But as you recognise there is also a nice effort to sell religion, and some harmful ideas in there too. Selling this idea of a "higher power" that you can ask for aid and forgiveness and submit yourself to. It is a crass attempt to install religious thinking into vulnerable minds.
I am all for self help groups built around honesty and open social support but the religious agendas of some of those groups is clear.
It's no wonder that people often compare AA to a religion. In case you've never been to a meeting, let me detail what they're like:
Smiling greeters shake your hand at the door
Proclaim that you're an alcoholic, that you're completely doomed unless you believe that a Higher Power can restore you to sanity (Similar to the Confession of Sin and Assurance of Pardon portions of the Presbyterian Church service I attend with my parents)
A person leading the meeting reads a passage from a book and then tries to relate it to life issues
Offering plate gets passed around
Lots of groupthink, little raw honesty
Social pressure to stay in the group
Lots of groupthink, little raw honesty
Sounds a lot like church, doesn't it?
You will find that AA meetings vary a good deal from place to place. I participated in Manhattan (NYC), and the meeting there (of which there were many) showed a lot of variation.
Some of the things that I did not experience in the late 1970's as you have:
* Smiling greeters shake your hand at the door....this was not SOP at many meetings I attended.
* A person leading the meeting reads a passage from a book and then tries to relate it to life issues....sometimes the speaker would read a passage from the "big book," but usually not.
* Lots of groupthink, little raw honesty...perhaps because NYC is a tough town in reality and not just in the movies, I found exactly the opposite. Lots of raw honesty, and the canned piety to a much lesser extent. However, the balance did vary considerably from group to group.
* Lots of focus on imagery and conspicuous piety....there were very small clusters of "the righteous and the holy" in every meeting, and they were certainly conspicuous. I can remember one young lad at my favourite meeting who was of this type, at the group's anniversary party one year he got his pious face mushed into the cake by a large, tough gal who carried a tiny handgun in her bra. Conspicuous piety was just as likely to be labelled bullsh*t.
In the NYC meetings I went to there was a strong emphasis on the Higher Power not being God, unless you personally felt that was what it was for you. What the Higher Power was was left up to each individual. There was the Serenity "prayer" at the close of meetings, but it is clearly an aspiration and not the usual petitionary prayer of churches addressed to a deity. And I can clearly remember one meeting where the speaker closed the meeting with the Christian prayer, the Lord's Prayer. More than half the meeting remained silent or left. In a city with such a mixed population Christian churchiness just didn't fly well.
On the other hand, a friend of mine visited his home town in Ohio and went to a meeting there. And there the tone was of a folksy get together with a banjo player, some rousing singing of old favorites, and lots of references to "the lord."
Well, Emmet Fox was the or one of the founders,
one of my favorite authors or speakers... I would imagine it
to have a loving , friendly, welcoming, non judgmental atmosphere, yes.
I have only seen scenes in movies.
A friend goes to a more Native American AA group...he participates
in sweats and other events like that.
I have no idea how an atheist would veiw it. I wonder if they would
accommodate him in some way...seems like they would....I don't know how,
since it has such a strong Superior Being idea among the founders....ha, just like
America.
These are the original twelve steps as published by Alcoholics Anonymous:
We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
This is what would worry me.
Step 1 sounds fine to me. Admitting you have a problem and that your life had reached a point of crisis is an important first step in any issue of this sort. Be it self help, group therapy, or counselling.... an early goal is always to admit to yourself and others that the problem is real and exists.
From then on though I think it becomes not only nonsense, but potentially harmful. Taking control of your life is imperative in situations like this yet step 2 advises giving the entire thing over to a higher power.
From then on it is a clear attempt to sell god to the vulnerable. To cajole already vulnerable people into accepting god and getting into praying and so forth. What ANY of that has to assisting people deal with alcoholism is beyond me. It is clearly a sales pitch for religion. Do we want people in such programmes to find god, or find sobriety? It is clear from the 12 steps that the former agenda is second to the latter.
Now, I'm sorry I posted here...if it had been in the Atheist section
I wouldn't have gotten involved
.
I believe AA is not for Atheists.
There must be some addiction groups that don't mention God...
I hope so anyway. You have a right to that, imo...there must be 'something'
in this day and age.
I think at one point in my life, I had some issues with the brew. I saw that and I simply put it down. All too often, I think religion strips people's personal power from them. You as a person absolutely CAN stop doing anything destructive that you put your mind to. It takes conscious effort, but you can do it. I reckon it's harder when you have the belief that you need an intercessor to speak/do/act/carry thoughts and their forms on your behalf. That must suck.
But OP, that's pretty much the reason why I never sought 'help' from AA. I didn't want to be 'preached' to subversively (or overtly) and I didn't want to hear some spiel about how I'm a drunk forever. Bull.
Now, I'm sorry I posted here...if it had been in the Atheist section
I wouldn't have gotten involved
.
I believe AA is not for Atheists.
There must be some addiction groups that don't mention God...
I hope so anyway. You have a right to that, imo...there must be 'something'
in this day and age.
AA refers to a Higher Power. That power is given no name. It's left up to the individual participant to decide what the term means to him/her. I've known several atheists who go to meetings and have benefited from being a part of AA.
They also share VERY personal stories. I'm not sure how the OP decided there was "little raw honesty". I've sat in on meetings and heard people spill their guts. The support they get from their fellow members is quite remarkable.
OP have you attended meetings? I certainly never saw a greeter at the door, nor did I see use of imagery or any of the atheists participating in "group piety". Though they did participate in the Serenity Prayer that concludes the meeting. That takes about 10 seconds.
AA refers to a Higher Power. That power is given no name.
Often it is. And that power is called "God". See the twelve steps I posted above. It is very clear what they are talking about when they refer to this "higher power" and exactly which direction they are pushing people in when they talk about it.
Step 1 sounds fine to me. Admitting you have a problem and that your life had reached a point of crisis is an important first step in any issue of this sort. Be it self help, group therapy, or counselling.... an early goal is always to admit to yourself and others that the problem is real and exists.
From then on though I think it becomes not only nonsense, but potentially harmful. Taking control of your life is imperative in situations like this yet step 2 advises giving the entire thing over to a higher power.
From then on it is a clear attempt to sell god to the vulnerable. To cajole already vulnerable people into accepting god and getting into praying and so forth. What ANY of that has to assisting people deal with alcoholism is beyond me. It is clearly a sales pitch for religion. Do we want people in such programmes to find god, or find sobriety? It is clear from the 12 steps that the former agenda is second to the latter.
It is a shame that AA works for so many people.
So sad really, don't you agree.
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