to consider aa a dangerous cult?

[Kirkers]

I am ready to be attacked by cult members.

I have read 'theorangepapers' online which is very well researched, and 'twelve step horror stories' (also available to read online) and they prove to me (on top of my own experience) that aa does much more harm than good. In every proper, conrolled experiment aa produces worse results than any other treatment, including doing nothing. It is unquestionably a cult(Google, 'is aa a cult'). Yet 93% (I am not sure about that figure, sorry) of treatment centres follow the same model. That would be the £10 billion treatment industry.

I hope this isn't too off topic for mumsnet. They do involved children too. It is awful.

I first came to mumsnet following the Julie/Jake Myerson thread. The detective work that went on was phenonmenal. Is there anyone out there breastfeeding or too pregnant to move who could look into the orange papers and tell me I'm not Erin bigchest Eronovich.

This is an absolutely genuine request for feedback from people who are prepared to consider the actual black and white evidence of this extraordinarily powerful organisation.

Thanks.

Me too TheBoss. It's disgusting.

Thebossofme: The Niaaa is an organisation that recommends aa programmes and doesn't include contact details for any other alcohol programme. I'm no investigative journalist.

'They are not peer reviewed as far as I have been able to find and I invite everyone to peer review them Today. I have no idea why they are free because 2 of them are for sale.'

Kirkers, that's not how peer reviewing works. It doesn't mean laypeople like you and me coming and commenting on an article, it means other members of the same research community assessing the article. To be honest, a non-peer reviewed article doesn't look great.

I have wondered about the AA myself; I don't like the idea of powerlessness, or of a higher power restoring anyone to 'sanity'. I'm often a lot more 'sane' when I drink, but that doesn't mean it's good for me. So it's interesting that there is some criticism of their methods, because I've not seen that before. Their account of alcoholism doesn't really tally with my experience.

Still, it's clear from reading the thread that there must be a huge variation between groups, and if it helps some people, that's great.

Plus "the God thing" is bogus. As far as I can make out AA is not pushing a religious agenda. Members are asked to hand their issues over to a higher power and that higher power could be anything - I guess some people just can't compute what that might mean.

I do actually think that aa is not for everyone and i am sure that there are some strange and slightly cultish aspects to it, but if it can help even a very few people recover, then it is doing some good. I think that its a shame that there is such limited help around for addicts.

"He does this because the weekends were when he did most of his drinking and he finds the support on those two nights is important to him. He has made friends there and shares a similar camaraderie with them that he enjoyed with the lads in the pub."

Brilliant point. This is why people (sometimes/often/if they like) go to AA for the rest of their lives. They don't have to, they want to. because it is an activity to do in some of the time they have now they don't drink, and is a social opportunity, with a huge common ground. And the opportunity to help other people. Would a homeless person who got a job and a house but kept going back to the homeless charity who helped him, to talk and help out, be seen as a bad thing?

At its simplest, the "higher power" is an acknowledgement of the fact that the alcoholic is not God...someone else is in charge even if you are not sure who that someone is.

The op is a loon (hides thread)

I think Alan Carr is brilliant too. And I love th' e fact that he was hired (successfully) to wean the board of Phillip Morris off smoking. You have no need to keep going back to him (I know he's passed on). You were not urged to go to meetings once a week. I think his approach should be modified for alcohol; it's not cool, it's not funny, it's a straightforward physical process that need be no mystery. He is good on belittling smoking being 'cool'. He anaylses (it's years since I read it) but I remember him talking about the influence of cinema, 'Your never alone with a Strand' etc. He broke through that 'cigarettes are cool' subliminal message by (cuttingly) ridiculing smoking.

Personally I would put giving up cigarettes as .... just very difficult indeed. Alan Carr was fab, esp that (and I'm not mocking, I'm admiring) the fact that he even used his own death to help other people give up/stop.

Alan Carr is a good person to quote.

Kirkers - I give up with you. I can see that you are not an investigative journalist because you seem to be unable to read and process information properly. The NIAAA is nothing to do with AA, its a research body that receives independent funding, congressional funding and funding from various very reputable medical organisations. Its research has been widely published and has been peer-reviewed many times. President Obama used their statistics whilst talking about recovery and dependency.

Care to supply any such corroboration for your orange paper rubbish????

I work in mental health with a background in addiction. I personally think the twelve step programme is a load of twaddle, very rigid and the fact that it allows people to call alcoholism an illness and disease is just wrong.. its not a bloody disease its and addiction which is a harmful BEHAVIOUR. There is a lot of money (A lOT) to be made from rehab centres which all seem to use the twelve step programme. In mine and my colleagues experience it works for very few and is unrealistic and rigid.. Total abstinance is just not realsistic or achievable for a lot of people.. the harm reduction model is far more flexible.

I think what's rankling with me Kirkers is that you're not putting this thread in an honest context.

Like I said earlier, I don't know you. A quick search on your previous posts (ie information you have freely supplied about yourself on this site and that is already publicly available) tells me that you have previously posted that you have a history of alcohol abuse yourself, that you have a partner who has wanted you in the past to attend AA, who attended al-anon himself (whether because of your own drinking or his exes I don't know).

There's no shame in any of that. But when you post an OP that is shrill and makes wild accusations it rings alarm bells. When you link to research that is pejorative and has not been properly reviewed or accredited, it rings further alarm bells. And you in your very first sentence mitigate any argument against your OP as merely the predictable brainwashing propaganda spreading of weak devotees of this "cult". Thus precluding any real or robust refuting of your points.

If you were to start a thread that went something like this, I'd have been more inclined to listen.

"I have / used to have a drinking problem. I tried AA, but I didn't find it helpful for me, for reasons xyz. My partner has been to alanon and he has found it very helpful; however I have xyz concerns about that too. Here is the literature I've found on the internet. Does anyone share these concerns? What have you found that's been helpful for you or your loved ones?"

THEN I'd listen. But until then, you're just sounding like someone who's a bit in denial, and very much on a mission to explain why something hasn't worked for he by villifying the something instead of looking within.

I'd love for you to turn this thread around and prove me wrong though.

Hmm. Never heard this before.

I know only one person who has used them. So far,so successful. I think he's been addiction free about 12 years. He still goes, where ever he is in the world.

He's not religious though, or evangelical about sobriety. Just a bloke who might otherwise be dead.

Personally, I went cold turkey for my addiction to narcotics. Worked for me.

Kirkers - smoking addiction is absolutely not the same as alcoholism at all. I don't know any smokers who beat up their kids when smoking, or who steal to fund the addiction, or who crash cars whilst smoking, or who lose their jobs whilst on benders. To suggest that the same methods might work for two things that are totally different and have different root causes, environmental pressures etc is utter utter tosh. I've met many people who stopped smoking with AC, never met a drinker who has. But I do know several drinkers who stopped with AA. None of them are cultish, given away their house to AA, or any other nonsense.

Now go away and learn to think like an adult before posting such crap again.

Littledragon; I want it peer reviewed, even if it is destroyed. I don't know who wrote it and I have no connection with it. I would like it peer reviewed sentence by sentence. What do you suggest? I would like it peer reviewed in great detail and for the peer reviews to be reviewed.

I would like to know who wrote it and to see them on the Today programme. I would like a debate about this (by anyone's standards and yesterday's statistics about alcohol-related deaths put it home) enormously important social issue.

Casserole - that's useful to know. So Kirkers is just someone trying to discredit something because it didn't work for her.

Kirkers, just be honest and I'd be much less angry with you. But you need to accept that what doesn't work for you does work for others. Doesn't make them wrong, or brainwashed, or you wrong - just different. Just don't go posting stuff that might influence others from taking that step - PLEASE.

Maybe the bar is set too low.

I just stopped. It was fine.

With all thesw things, one method works for one person, another for another. What needs to happen is to find out what sort of person the addict is, and from that which sort of treatment will help them. Some people need a rigid structure. Some people need a lot of hand holding. Some people need to talk about it alot. Some just want to do it and forget about it.

No one therapy/process whatever will be right for everyone. I am sure AA is great for some people, and other approaches great for other people.

Also on here we are talking about AA aren't we, meetings in church halls on a tuesday night with tea and biscuits. NOT other organisations rehabilitation centres etc which have adopted a 12 step program. They are different things. I have no doubt that a lot of money is being made from the latter.

I'm not in AA but am in Overeaters Anon (12-step group for eating disorders) which is based on AA and has totally saved my life. I know people who swear by AA and others who think it's bonkers. Everyone has their own experience and we can never know exactly what that person's experience has been.

However I do agree with many of the posts that suggest that the OP may frighten people away from AA. Without wanting to jump to conclusions, I suspect that the OP is more likely to be either upset about perceived AA 'intervention' in her own life (her older post shows a history).

Alternatively, maybe we have a troll/journo digging up a story?

Apologies if I'm offending!

Devandra, could I throw you the ball?
Have you read 12 step horror stories.
READ DEVANDRA's post.

My last post was tihnking about what devendra had said, but the trhead is moving quickly so by the time I posted it had moved a lot!

Exactly I'mSo. There's such a drinking culture here, almost all social events involve alcohol. It's nice for people with alcohol issues to socialise with others without having to watch others get drunk, or make excuses for not drinking.

Kirkers, without wishing to offend, are you still drinking? And if not, what worked for you? Why do you think that was a better route for you than AA? Did you actually try AA (for longer than a few meetings - one recovered addict I know took 14 meetings before he said anything except his name and about a year of meetings before he felt an impact)?

SMH What a load of bull crap, so OP what is the point of the AA cult then?

Disclaimer - Not a member of AA or Alanon or any other 12 step program (usnless you count the twelve steps of eating chocolate )

devendra - some people can't have just one drink, so for them total abstinence is the ONLY solution.

And AA round my way is meetings in church halls, not rehab centres, so not sure I know what you mean...

TBOM Totally agree.