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.

Haven't read all of this but the figures i heard were that AA has a success rate of 17% - which is pitiful I feel - I agree that it is a cult like organisation. I once had the misfortune to work with someone who was HUGE in NA, AA and every other sodding A. She was so aggressive to anyone who disagrred with her, tolf me I had a drinking problem (yes I did, but wasn't admitting it at the time) and the only way out of my 'hell' was to join one of these 'A' s. I have managed to stop drinking very successfully All By Myself for a year, so I personally agree with Kirkers. I joined an online sobriety support group and whilst some bits were helpful, God help you if you dared to disagree with AA and its methods. It scares me that people are referred to these palces.

I barely drink, dp doesn't think I am in need of the programme, he has been out for a year. He doesn't drink at all. He was found over the limit about 15 years ago and he is still embarassed and it was appalling luck because he just is not a (even social) drinker.

SSSmmmmoookkkiiinnnggg is no comparison. I feel like Gwyneth Paltrow on that. When I am seventy. Still got a battered old Alan Carr book somewhere for bad days. The best bit of Alan Carr for me was learning about the sublimal marketing via French films etc. He was really scathing about young girls thinking they looked cool smoking. And Bless Him for contributing to the expansion of human understanding. I'm with whoever said that.

coolma - what about those who find it impossible to stop on their own and who are not wealthy enough to afford a residential recovery programme? What do you suggest they do? Peer support networks are the only solution I see for them. Which IME is all that AA is. Yes some become evangelical, in the same way some become evangelists about a food, or an eye cream, or a shop, but that doesn't make AA bad.

17% feels like a lot to me in the context of an overall 1 year recovery rate of 35-40%.

Ive not read the 12 step horror stories but have certainly heard a few.

The thing is most if not nearly ALL drug and alcohol rehab residential centres are privately owned or small charities. People have to apply to get funding.. we are talking in the region of £1000 a week or more or pay privately. Basically ANYONE could set up a residential rehab centre and advertise the service... 'Rehab' can take anything up to 6 months and usually has an aftercare package.. so there is megabucks involved!

For a lot of people the 12 step programme is so rigid and inflexible that they just can't achieve the goals and 'fail'... failure means kicked out and left unsupported.. madness when you consider that the average person is likely to give up an addiction 6 times before succeeding ( rough estimate)
Failure also means no more contact with your peer support group and is pretty harsh im my opinion..

A harm reduction model (as used by ad-action) is much more flexible and concequences of their tailored to the individual.. gets people to take responsibility for their actions and behavior.

12 step is soooo outdated in my opinion..just read them..

• Step 1 - We admitted we were powerless over our addiction - that our lives had become unmanageable
• Step 2 - Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity
• Step 3 - Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God
• Step 4 - Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves
• Step 5 - Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs
• Step 6 - Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character
• Step 7 - Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings
• Step 8 - Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all
• Step 9 - Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others
• Step 10 - Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it
• Step 11 - Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out
• Step 12 - Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs

So... hand over all the power to someone else and become powerless...nahhh

Any more health professional with anything to add to the Pot?

Surely it's patently obvious that no one system is going to work for everyone - because we're all different, motivated by different things and responsive to different stimuli.

I'm going to talk about food cos that's what I understand!

One person can't have biscuits in the house without eating them. For them, maintaining a healthy weight means not buying the biscuits at all.

Other people can cope with having the biscuits in the house, as they are able to just eat one and put the whole packet back (I am not one of these people but I hear they exist )

Other people can eat biscuits whenever they like and not put on weight or suffer any adverse effects.

So surely they key is to find out what helps YOU to be healthy, and go with that? If AA doesn't work for you, try another method that does.

No method is going to be perfect. No method is going to be able to meet all your needs, because you need to meet some of those yourself as part of the process of growing and becoming healthy. But a method that doesn't work for you may well work for someone else, and surely trying something out and seeing if it works (and if not, being thankful for the ones it HAS helped and moving on to try something else) has to be more healthy than not trying anything at all.

devendra - I interpret the 12 steps in an entirely different way, and not in a powerless sense, and certainly not in a God sense.

But AA isn't a rehab centre anyway...so its not really relevant to talk rehab centres. And I've never ever ever come across anyone who was kicked out of AA. Ever. Even when still going on drinking.

Perhaps my experience with that awful woman and the forum I joined have made me wary. Maybe AA should change a little - I guess after so long sticking rigidly to the Bill W versions, things could move on? Just a thought.

I may be being very contentious here, but if someone really can't stop on their own, or with a medical intervention to start with - which doesn't use the 12 steps, then perhaps they are not ready to stop? I hope that doesn't sound patronising. I have a feeling it does..

Ive known MANY people who have been told not to attend AA while they were drinking.

And you can interpret how you like... but when you read them there is a great deal of reference to god and lots of talk of 'giving up the power'... its needs a radical update..

bossofme - re smoking and alcohol - I agree that they are very different in terms of what they make you do and the severity of outcomes etc. But from a quitting perspective, having given up smoking with allen carr, I found that a lot of his thoughts and advice worked for drinking as well. Plus smoking and drinking often go together, in the pub, or at home, it's all wrapped up in the same sort of lifestyle.

Exactly Casserole.

"God" is the God of your understanding. The point of this IMO, is to say to the alcoholic "You are not the centre of the universe, and neither is alcohol"

Stanton Peele writes well on a non-disease method of alcohol abuse.

coolma... the thing is that poople who drink and take drugs in a harmful way are usually damaged in some way, childhood sexual abuse is top of the list but usually any sort of childhood trauma is present in MOST people who present to secondary health services for help with addiction.... so its NEVER as easy as just stopping or.. people use acohol and drugs to self medicate from uncomfortable emotions and take that away and you HAVE to put other coping mechanisms in place.. 12 steps fails miserably at that because its all about relinqueshing the power.. all fine and dandy in the short term but is just doesnt stand up as a long term support...

ImSoNotTelling - i think we'll have to agree to disagree on that. I think AC might work with a mild alcohol problem, probably the kind where near-abstinence would work. In the case of full-blown alcoholism where a lot of drinking is done in secret etc, I suspect not.

Devendra - what do you mean by rehab centres in the context of AA?

kirkers - there is a difference between alcohol abuse and full-scale alcohol addiction.

'Sometimes, the A.A. success rate is actually less than zero'

Erm, I don't understand this. You mean they actually make people drink who didn't have an alcohol problem before? Why would they bit at AA anyway, then?

Rehab centres refer to local aa meetings following treatment..

Of COURSE AA is a cult. That's how it works so well in getting people off alcohol-it works far better than any other alcohol intervention available. Better someone throw themselves into AA than throw their lives away through alcohol

It's a cult but a perfectly harmless cult.

Devendra - how many AA members really take the 12 steps at face value? I suspect that most "interpret" them the way I do. They are old and dated, I agree, and were written in the context of the US and all that implies.

Surely if it works for some, it can't be bad? The reality is that alcohol problems take many forms and have many roots, and one solution won't work for everyone, which is why a range of resources and approaches is vital. For one very close family member, AA was the solution to a 20-year problem. Without it, I have no doubt he would be dead in a ditch. His father and grandfather both died very young of full-blown alcohol caused illness.

local AA meetings are not rehab centres, devendra, its ludicrous to suggest they are!

TBOM yes I was alcoholic but functioning. All I know is that I could apply the same thougts to teh addictive behaviour - ie what does smokin/drinking actually really do for me? Nothing. Who is in control, me or the drug? The drug. Any pretence otherwise is just that, a pretence. Do I want to do this for the rest of my life, getting worse and worse, as that is the nature of addiciton? No. Can't I have just one - be a social drinker/smoker? No that is not the nature of the addiction it always becomes more. etc etc. To free yourself you have to stop, and it is a positve joyful thing to do. So I stopped.

I sound nuts don't I worked for me anyway.

Devendra I was wondering, you say about people who "present to secondary health services for help with addiction" what do you mean by that? What sort of services and how are people referred to them?

Read 12 step horror stories if you think no harm is done.

Lots of harm is done. This is the tip of the cliche.

IMSNT - you don't sound nuts at all, you sound fab! I think the key is you were still functioning at enough of a level to rationalise and feel joy, and clearly didn't need the support network that AA can provide. I didn't even manage to stop smoking with AC!!! I'm a wimp with stuff like that - but a support group helped (well, 3 friends who gave up with me!). So I get why for some, doing it with AC might be OK, for some stopping on your own works, and for some, AA is the answer.

The key is a range of well-funded and freely available services to suit individual needs. Not some loon telling people they are joining a cult by trying to get sober.

My dp gave up drinking 18 yrs ago.He went to AA initially and found the support enormously helpful and took from it what suited him.He is like me an atheist and there was no 'god' aspect at all.he admitted he was powerless over alcohol because he was.He could never just have one.Once he was well down the road he stopped going as he felt he needed balance and as most of our friends myself inc drink he knew that acceptance was the way to go and not avoidance.He is a very strong character though and very spiritual and i think this helped him.It is a great tool if you keep it in perspective but if it becomes your life it is almost another addiction/crutch.