Is this a ^feminist^ issue?

[Jingo62]

stinkin-thinkin.com/2011/06/11/why-addiction-recovery-should-be-a-feminst-issue/comment-page-1/#comment-61899

Or do I just go into overdrive whenever I read of 'blaming the victim'?

There are indeed cult-like aspects to AA. The advice to keep going back to meetings even when you've been sober for years is (to me) bizarre and seems calculated to prevent the alcoholic from ever really moving on in life past their addiction. I stopped smoking three or four years ago but if I regularly went to meetings where other smokers and ex-smokers sat around talking about smoking, cigarettes would continue to dominate my thoughts and I suspect I'd find it a lot harder to stay off them.

The thing is though, AA undoubtedly works for some. For some others all it does is replace one life-dominating addiction with another one, albeit one that is less deadly. For many others it doesn't help that much if at all. AA is very much more about a particular form of spiritual growth than anything else. I think it is quite illuminating that the one glaring omission from the 12 Steps is "Put the damn bottle down".

I also suspect that part of AA's continuing popularity is that it's free. A friend of the family paid for my ex to go to rehab for a couple of months at a cost of over £6,000. As well as group sessions within the rehab centre itself, part of the "recovery programme" was mandatory daily attendance at outside AA meetings. I understand that this is far from unusual.

I had a neighbour who managed to stay sober for a couple of years through A.A. but was attending a meeting somewhere almost every night. He also had a "sponsor" who seemed to act as a free surveillance unit and was overbearing and a little creepy. I met him once and thought he was a control freak, to be honest.

Oh my fucking God.

I just looked at that site and the most recent post concerns an English woman and her boyfriend on trial in America for bringing men home from aa in PONTEFRACT FUCKING ENGLAND TO HAVE SEX WITH HER DAUGHTER AGED 7 AT THE TIME.

stinkin-thinkin.com/keep-coming-back/comment-page-6/#comment-62205

Has this been in the English press? What in fucking hell is going on at Pontefract AA and do they know about it?

(I apologise for shouting. I was just about to post on here and I clicked on the very most recent entry on that blog and it was that, which came as a shock to say the least. I kept looking to seen if they meant New England, or a Pontefract in the US, but it seems it is the one 152 miles North of London. Might get that shouty post deleted.)

Pretty shocking.They are rightly looking at life imprisonment although I imagine AA do prison visits....
It seems to harbour, not surprisingly, some real idiots as well, like this one a couple of posts previously:

ARRESTED AT STATION The Peterborough Examiner, 2010
www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1772058&archive=true

FRANCE -A Frenchman is facing drunk driving charges after taking his car to a police station to distribute Alcoholics Anonymous leaflets.
Police said the man -who had a previous conviction for drunk driving -smelled of booze when he arrived to drop off the AA pamphlets. A blood test revealed the man had nearly double the permitted alcohol level. Now, he?s facing up to four years in jail and a fine greater than $14,000.

I can't believe it Tyr. I don't read those sorts of stories, ones like the one I just read. That is more than being an idiot. I am speechless.

i agree with Tyr and Snorbs.
it also bothers me that sometimes men go to these places to pick up vurenable women.

Sorry if it's a bit off a sidebar to your original post, Jingo, but for sheer mind-numbing stupidity, have you checked this long running site? If not, it's well worth it.
www.darwinawards.com/darwin - 61k

Note how few of the recipients are female, although "Ride 'Em Cowgirl " gets an honorable mention.
In fact, search the site for "Lawnchair Larry" and try and imagine such a hair-brained scheme even occurring to a woman.
Some idiots don't even have the excuse of drunkenness.

Yes absolutely agree with Snorbs re the uselessness of this insistence that you should continue to allow a past addiction to dominate your life by attending meetings for ever afterwards.

I've got a friend who was an alcoholic (although AA would insist that she is a recovering alcoholic) for about 3-5 years of her life. She has been sober for 18 years now and in the first 3 or so years of her sobriety she continued to attend AA meetings. Then she realised that she didn't actually need them anymore - she really doesn't want to get drunk anymore. So she stopped going and alcohol is simply not something she thinks about. AA would insist that she is suffering false pride, that she could easily fall into old habits because she doesn't have the crutch of AA... thinking about it, it's a thoroughly disempowering philosophy, one that tells you that something that you did for maybe 3 years of your life, has to dominate the rest of your life forever.

www.gmanews.tv/story/75915/Girl-kept-detailed-diary-of-rapes-by-mothers-boyfriend

'Friendofthegirl', who wrote the piece about feminism has just written aboutthe case of the girl being raped by men that her English mother picked up at Pontefract Alcoholic Anonymous meetings.

stinkin-thinkin.com/

The mother is about to be deported to England. I wonder if she will continue to go to AA meetings, meet vulnerable people seeking help?

I wonder what people in AA in Pontefract feel, if they find out who they might have been sitting next to (and I mean the men she met there, who did the alleged things to her daughter)

www.gmanews.tv/story/75915/Girl-kept-detailed-diary-of-rapes-by-mothers-boyfriend

stinkin-thinkin.com/

@Trills; I was going to say that answers two and three were about right but now I think the answer to your first post is number one.

Jingo62,

Is she being deported? I understood she is being charged in the US, where she is a permanent resident along with her scumbag boyfriend. Both face life for A.S.A on a child so they are both about to become very vulnerable inmates in a U.S. prison.
Neither of them are likely to attend any more AA meetings.
What may happen in terms of Pontefract is that the mother may reveal details of the English abusers as part of a plea bargain.

I don't know. I thought so when I saw it this morning. I think that reporting restrictions must be different in America because if this happened in England I think the press would have to avoid mentioning the names to protect the girl. I suppose that alcoholics anonymous in England will be making some sort of statement. I don't know.

Hi mumsnet. I so appreciate your discussion of my post! Thank you!

I wanted to respond to HerBeX's observation about the friend who's been sober for 18 years, after 3 years of AA: You might be interested in the NIAAA's reporting on the NESARC study which validates her experience with alcohol dependence. It demonstrates that most people with alcohol dependency or addiction will recover (or "mature out") on their own. Here's the link: www.spectrum.niaaa.nih.gov/features/alcoholism.aspx

And I wanted to also address the notion that people who were once dependent can never again hope to drink "normally" or in moderation (which is also addressed in the NESARC study): This is true for some people, but it is also one of those self-fulfilling prophesies promoted by the recovery industry, that keeps people in a state of permanent dependence upon recovery -- in a perpetual state of high vigilance over relapse, and dismissive of the idea that it's possible for someone who drinks abusively to ever be "normal." It's a variation on the "powerless" theme, and one of those pieces of conventional recovery wisdom that has its roots in the spiritual disease model of addiction.

I'm not saying that abstinence is not a valid choice by any means, only that there is a wide spectrum of valid choices one can make. The decision should be made based on one's self-knowledge and priorities, not on one's sense of powerlessness.

Thank you all for hearing me out. I have to say, the silence from the US feminist-sphere has been deafening so far.

Welcome, friendthegirl! As I said above, your post was amazing. You've really put into words some of my disquiet about the 12 Step based recovery movement from a feminist perspective. And yes, spontaneous recovery from havy or alcoholic drinking is the norm, despite what AAers try and tell you.

Now I have a few years distance, it is quite amazing to me to see the bigger picture, both from a feminist perspective and from a WTF viewpoint. As it stands in the US under your healthcare set-up, the disease model of addiction will never go away because rehabs rely on insurance funding the treatment so needs addiction to be defined as a disease, which they supply using 12 Step methodology (which is also cheap), which stresses the disease model. Anything up to (and probably over) $30,000 to stay in a hotel for a month and go to an AA meeting every day!

I'm not sure that we have it any better over here, btw, except brief interventions and medication seem to be more mainstream, perhaps. And a raging alcohol culture, but it was ever thus.

Jingo, AA conventiently "has no opinion on outside issues", which incidents like this rapidly become when convenient. It is not an organisation like Relate or Rotary or similiar. It is more like a franchise operation, I suppose. So don't be surprised if you don't hear a peep. I think that because there have been no charges laid here, there is silence on this side of the Pond in general.

@Ayerrobot; I have just read much much more of 'friendofthegirl''s site and I don't think that AA are going to have an option to hold 'no opinion on outside issues', as you describe it, in the event of an ongoing police investigation into the repeated rape of a 5-7 year old girl whose perpetrators were recruited by her mother at meetings of alcoholics anonymous.

@friendofthegirl; great site. And thanks for letting me know about this site.

www.feministe.us/blog/

(allegedly allegedly allegedly)

Q: Are boys/men having to think about/deal with this shit?

A: No - then it's a feminist issue
A: Yes but not nearly as much - then it's a feminist issue
A: Yes - then it's not a feminist issue specifically but that doesn't mean it's not important

I think it is more like the issues surrounding abuse in the Catholic Church in Ireland. With the same degree of collusion. And the same wall of silence, which in the case of the young girl repeatedly raped by AA members, is tantamount to interfering with the course of justice.

Jingo, I wrote and deleted a para in one of my posts saying exactly that about the similarity with the Catholic Church and the abuse cover up. The anonymity aspect (like the confessional) is one reason why this won't get far, though of course I am furious that it won't. The posters on Stinkin Thinkin are much more coherent about that aspect than I am. How would the police find these men? They turn up to meetings, give a first name (real or false) and then can disappear into the ether just as soon as they have arrived. No records kept, a cult of anonymity (some would say secrecy) and a "what is said in the rooms stays in the rooms" mentality, along with the cult of fellowship which means that people are trusted way before they have given reason that they can be. Add in a lack of leadership (when it is convenient) and the police are at a dead end. I am surprised by the lack of publicity over here - that is the only way the police are going to get anywhere, because they will have to rely on people coming forward rather than doing on the ground investgations. Maybe now the verdicts are in, things will start to move.

I will contact WYP and see what they have to say.

Did you see the 'letter to our friends in the media'? Wtf? Do the media not cover these stories on the basis of that? Apparently they send this letter out each year to all media outlets. I can't see the Vatican getting away with that. Will try and find a link.

Jingo62, AyeRobot,

There is a parallel with the Catholic church to a point as regards secrecy but AA do not have a power structure and their own State, like the Vatican. There was a documentary on the S.A. scandal a few years ago, where it was revealed that the FBI alone were seeking to arrest 6 paeodophile priests who had been given refuge in the Vatican. This would not happen with AA, obviously.
I think one reason why media coverage has been quiet here is that it is more likely to cause the cuprits to scatter; that and confidentiality issues. I suspect that there are investigations ongoing as we speak and much will depend on what the mother reveals under interrogation.
Lastly, given the level of intrusion of AA and their "sponsors" into the lives of their members, there will be others that were confided in and knew what was going on.
I can't see this issue getting brushed under the carpet.

Jingo62,

I agree with you about the analogy between the Catholic church and AA.
I do not understand how the church or AA/NA continue to look the other way
in regards to sexual abuse against minors. The Catholic church has been exposed,thus they have some safety measures in place. But it is not enough.
Churches in general still try to deal with sexual abuse against minors
internally-instead of reporting it to the police. AA and NA do NOTHING at all about the crimes against children on their watch.

There is a community website that I help with at www.nadaytona.org
This site is designed to expose the dangers to minors and young people that attend AA/NA meetings. This includes people who bring there small children to meetings with them. Children cannot emotionally deal with multiple addicts horror stories. It is hard enough that they have had to deal with the parents addiction.But to listen to 50 or more addicts/alcoholics troubles is not healthy for children. It is also dangerous that they are in the company of court mandated felons that attend Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous.

Great site here!

I will try to make this a direct link

www.nadaytona.org

@antidenial;
Are you in America or Britain? Is there an equivalent of your site devoted to the UK?

I am in America.I do post global stories all related to the harm to children and others from AA/NA members. I do have people on the site that are from thr UK. This is a global topic!