Re 12 step.
It's a huge subject but yes I was very involved in multiple fellowships for well over a decade. I've attended meetings all over the world, started meetings, spoken at conventions, and attended literally thousands of meetings. I've done the steps multiple times. All the 12 steps did is compound my issues, and I'm now in touch and part of a network of many, many people who are also survivors. It's extremely harmful.
I'm also a feminist, have undergone a post grad therapy training, and have had about twenty years of therapy - some shit, and some fantastic. I credit the latter with making any difference in my life.
I absolutely stand by my view that the 12 step model is not a treatment, it's hokey faith healing. It was born of the Oxford Movement, an evangelical christian cult of which Bill Wilson was a member. It's literature and ideas have not been updated since 1935. More to the point, it doesn't work (although evangelicals will fight me to the death to say it does, it doesn't, and every study proves it, I usually get told I'm 'resentful' which is a very loaded 12 step terms as from it 'stems all forms of spiritual disease - I am not diseased, and neither is any other person struggling with substance misuse or compulsive behaviour).
It's is not faciliatated, at all, in any way, ANYBODY can (and does) start a meeting - you just hire a room, call the HQ for the pamplets and off you go. There are no checks and balances, if you learn to talk the talk, you get kudos, there is no way of checking, and abuse is RIFE - I'm talking on a scale similar to the catholic church and covered up in the same way. Google a film called the 13th Step if you don't believe me.
Bill Wilson was a terrible womanizer (even in recovery), a misogynist, and he was a white middle class American male, a power driving arrogant man who was prepared to admit that the ONLY thing he was powerless over was alcohol. These men were arrogant, self centred and had WAY TOO MUCH self esteem, for them, a process of ego deflation was probably helpful (although if you look at the success rates for AA it's 5% which is the same as no treatment at all, with worse and more prolonged relapse rates).
Firstly I don't believe addiction is a spiritual disease, I don't believe people are morally and spiritually bankrupt. It's not an equal opportunities 'illness' (it's not an illness for starters) it's disproportionately concentrated in disadvantaged groups - women, economically, minorities. There is absolutely NO oversight of the sponsorship process (I've had many sponsors and was abused by several) and I really, really don't believe doing a moral inventory with a totally unqualified person whose only qualification is they've been attending longer than you, is a treatment and for those with trauma it is DEEPLY DANGEROUS ... that's laying aside the tales I could tell you about wise old timer men doing 'fifth steps' with women (against the suggestions, but hey that's 12 step for you) and then forcing them to have sex. I could tell you a million tales like that, it's everywhere.
Plus fellowships like SLAA are now infected by the fundamentalists, hence programmes like SLAA HOW and there are many abusive women in those meetings, giving utterly damaging advice. These people think they are well, but in fact have just flipped out of the chaos of substance abuse or compulsive processes and into the rigidity of "recovery" - that is NOT recovery, it's just ideology. It's also PROFOUNDLY damaging to vulnerable people, particularly women with childhood trauma (women get addicted for very different reasons to men, sexual trauma is usually part of it).
I don't agree that women's problems are based on selfishness, ego, self will run riot, and nor to I agree that telling women they are powerless and need to ACCEPT is the answer either.
SLAA is full of men - rapists, paedophiles, and misogynists - who seem to think they are powerless who they have sex with. Sexual abuse is not a disease! Handing it over to God is not the answer. Doing the steps is not a treatment. These men have a very slick patter that can be very convincing.
Women are not told that when they go to the mall or a bar that they can trust anyone. They are not told to take 'the cotton wool out of their ears and put it in their mouth', they are not told they are diseased and powerless, they are not told to trust people who have been hanging around the mall longer than they have. The culture of victim blaming in the fellowships (looking for your 'part' in it, and seeing where you 'made decisions based on self' IS ABUSE, it's also victim blaming and sexist).
The big book of AA is still the basic text of SLAA, it's a sexist manual, particularly the chapter 'to wives'.
And saying 'there are dodgy people everywhere' is victim blaming, AA and all the fellowship HQs are acutely aware they have a massive sexual abuse problem and they DO NOTHING about it despite repeated complaints. Victims are blamed. I WILL NOT endorse a programme that blames victims and does fuck all to get rid of predators. I'm talking gang rape, organised rape and paedophilia ... it's endemic. There are men hanging around those groups, looking for women with kids, listening to what they share. Men in AA joke about going to SLAA when they want to get laid. It's disgusting.
There is no background checking, no complaints procedure, NO WAY to shut any meeting down, or hold anyone to account. The 12 step fellowships are registered charities, they are subject to ALL the same rules and yet they don't follow them due to some hokey idea of 'anonymity'
I attended CODA for a long time too, and Al Anon and ACOA and I also started and set up meetings, several, and I've come to believe that codependency is actually a feminist issue, it's internalised oppression, not a disease, it's the normal and natural consequences of being a second class citizen in the world under patriachy - the way out of it is not to say we are powerless, and 'accept the things we can not change' but to kick the doors down and demand better treatment for women and kids. it's not about admitting powerlessness but claiming our power.
Finally, the premise of addiction that AA et al uses is not backed up by any science. Our understanding of addiction and substance misuse has moved on leaps and bounds, and I don't agree that 'once an addict, always an addict' - it is possible to leave addiction or risky behaviour far far behind. There are far far better and safer ways to access help, particularly for women.
stinkin-thinkin.com/2011/06/11/why-addiction-recovery-should-be-a-feminst-issue/
vimeo.com/ondemand/the13thstep
charlottekasl.com/many-roads-one-journey1/
I could write a book on this topic, in fact I AM writing a book on this topic, but in every way, and I mean EVERY the 12 steps are not a treatment for ANYTHING, and worse than that, the fellowship is NOT SAFE. I've seen that behaviour over and over again with my own eyes. If you are a long time member you've heard the joke (made quite openly) to 'get her on her back before she gets on her feet'.
I don't want to derail this thread, but there is a wealth of feminist writing out there on this topic, there are also now a huge amount of resources for anyone that is struggling with substance abuse or compulsive behaviour that is empowering and not toxic or shaming.
I do NOT recommend any woman attend any 12 step fellowship (oh and abuse and rape is also very prevalent in rehabs, they just call it 'acting out' and cover that up too, with most therapists being 'two hatters' - ie 'recovering addicts' whose only qualification on the topic being their attendance at 12 step fellowships).
I am very very clear on my views, and have been very involved in working with sexual abuse survivors from 12 step fellowships, it's not an isolated incident, it's inherent in the structure and the ideology of the place.
Sorry OP, won't derail your post further, but for the love of GOD don't go to SLAA.