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Once every year or so, we look at the state of atheists/agnostics (and/or other underrepresented populations) in AA and the broader recovery community. I just read something—something I missed in a first go-around of Writing the Big Book—that means today’s the day for this review. I’m also reading Pathways to Recovery and Desistance: the role of the social contagion of hope (2019). 

Each AA member is an individual, but today, we look at early AA members as being from two persuasions: 

• Our more “religiously inclined” members (supernatural worldview) and, 
• “those agnostically inclined” members (secular worldview). 

We look at recently unveiled hints as to what was meant in “Appendix II” of AA’s Big Book and to whom was it intended. We’re also going to look at how some members use AA-speak to describe their story, borrowing from Alcoholics Anonymous language; other members talk about addiction and AA recovery in plain or contemporary language. Hopefully, we tie these ideas together in a look to how the future of recovery (and AA’s place in it) will adapt to accommodate a changing demographic of people with alcohol (and other substance) use disorders.   

October 2019, I released a podcast interview with author Bill Schaberg, Rebellion Dogs Radio Episode 49, about his (then) soon-to-be-released, Writing the Big Book: The Creation of AA. November 15th, TheFix.com posted a Rebellion Dogs interview called, “Facts and Fables: William Schaberg Explores the True Origins of AA.” (Click on the links to hear/read more.) 

I saw Professor David Best lecture at Recovery Capital Conference of Canada (New Westminster, BC) and he was commenting on a body of evidence, longitudinal studies he has participated in around success factors to persons with substance use disorder re-integrating into life with a new, sober identity. I’m going to take a moment to talk about a five-part framework that Best has found in recovery successes. CHIME (Leamy et al, 2011) is an acronym for Connection, Hope, Identity, Meaning and Empowerment[1]. 

Connection includes a supportive mutual-aid network, recovering family, work and social relationships, access to medical, financial, health and wellbeing supports. 

Hope is in the subtitle: The role of the social contagion of hope, suggesting that hope is transmitted. Substance and process addicts have to have hope that recovery is possible, hope-inspiring relationships, aspirations and motivation. 

Identity is a factor in admitting to ourselves we have a problem—that comes with a new label, our identity as someone in recovery can be a source of pride and we need to feel safety in our identity being supported within a larger community. 

Meaning is the antidote to many barriers of sustained recovery: boredom, shame, anxiety and low self-esteem. Reintegrating into a social framework where we feel mastery and purpose and/or creating a new recovery community in which we feel valued is a key to recovery capital. 

Empowerment means personal responsibility and the support of community to overcome obstacles and identify our strengths and what we can control in life. 

All five characteristics (CHIME) can be reinforced in peer-to-peer groups. The book, Alcoholics Anonymous, for better or worse, addresses all five. AA groups do as well. Identity—which will be a focal point of today’s essay—starts with first accepting and, later, hopefully embracing that I (and we) are alcoholics. This brings us together. But still, we are individuals and how much of culture, social status, gender-identity, age and worldview tribalize an otherwise one big tent of a recovery community. Identity binds persons with substance use disorder and it can also separate us into sub-cultures under a bigger tent. Some of us will go build another tent, somewhere else, focusing on the differences and fining a surrounding supporting our integrity. Home groups in mutual aid all have their own identity, style, rituals and purpose that both connects them to a whole and acknowledges unique characteristics as well. 

We will talk about loyalty and integrity, not a one or the other proposition, a one AND the other balancing act in healthy identity. Some secular AAs identify their legitimate place in AA in the Big Book and others have to reject the theistic bias of the book to balance the integrity of their worldview and the loyalty to their AA tribe. 

Fun fact: I actually just found this last chapter Thirty-one of Writing the Big Book, “Aftermath.” 

I had read a PDF before the book was published and somehow, I went right from Chapter Thirty, “Publication Day” to the appendices  and end notes. How did I miss it? I don’t know; the publisher’s page[2] reports the timeline of the book’s scope, “from October of 1937, when a book was first proposed, to April of 1939 when Alcoholics Anonymous was published.” 

Imagine my surprise; it was like finding a whole new book when flipping through my hardcopy version, just recently. It felt like unburying a lost chapter. 

Chapter Thirty-one just happened to be on a timeline and subject matter that I have agonized over: the motivation and rationalization for, and changes made in the second printing of the Big Book and especially, the insertion which we now know as “Spiritual Experience.”   

As we learned from our interview with William Schaberg, the folktales of the creation of Alcoholics Anonymous included some widely held myths about how the book came to be and about life during AA’s early “flying blind” years. I call the two years between first and second printing, which informed “Spiritual Experience,” as Bill W’s “sober-second thought” years. 

The addition of an Appendix signifies a perception change, something that Bill W felt needed to be said. Could this be an awakening—not a white light version this time like his Towns Hospital spell, but—“the educational variety” because [it developed] slowly over a period of time (AA, p 567).” In 1939 (and the three years leading up to the first edition, Bill had the collective experience of dozens of sober AAs to borrow from. Now it was 1941 when AA successes numbered 2,000. This larger, more diverse sample size would be eye-opening. The tone of Appendix II is so different from anything in the first 164 pages that I wondered if Bill W wrote what we call today, “Spiritual Experience.” I was assured by AA historians, and know it to be true today, that Bill did write it. 

As we learned in Rebellion Dogs Radio #49, through the eleven years of primary document research, Bill Schaberg reports that Hank P’s,  and atheists’ efforts to persuade Bill to offer a psychological, behavioral salvation for real alcoholics, in tandem with the “touched by the hand of God” narrative that Bill W so vividly describes based on his experience and testimony of others. 

Here’s an aside from one armchair-quarterback, me: First, it’s part of the historical record that Bill W suffered from depression. Did our founder have a manic side, too? Bipolar wasn’t a thing—as far as diagnosis—back in the day; could it be that Bill’s writing spurts were during manic swings? Of our 164 pages of  Big Book, I hear an undercurrent of the righteousness of the recently converted in the narrative. I’m not calling uncle Bill out on anything I haven’t done myself. Some of the poetic language could be construed as hyperbole: “you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny (BB p. 164);” all in caps, poetic yes, but is it overselling? 

To any of you creative people out there who struggle with mood swings, are inspirations that find you burning the midnight oil, happening when your higher mood and energy is engaged? I don’t mean to play doctor; my mental health doesn’t put me in any position to throw stones—I do relate, is all I’m saying. Maybe I’m projecting, but it’s something to think about. 

Secondly, I think the Big Book would read better—and be less contentious—with less use of adjectives. Let’s look at some adjective-dependency examples: 

• rigorous honesty 
• entirely ready 
• complete abandon 

Ask a grade-school student about honesty—the only honesty is rigorous. And “ready,” isn’t it like pregnancy; either you are ready, or you aren’t? Why make an addict agonize about if we are honest or ready enough? Take my own AA recovery as an anecdotal case. My case is prove-positive that some honesty, some open-mindedness and some willingness will do—no rigorousness, entirety or completeness needed to muddle through. 

So, I think “having had a spiritual experience, as a result of these Steps” is a case of adjective-dependency (yes, I made up this compound word); “spiritual experience” sounds grandiose. 

What would be so lacking in “Step Twelve: Having an experience as a result of these Steps we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all of our affairs”? 

I think it’s still a dramatic statement without an adjective. And, if you are spiritual, do you/should we go around boasting about it? 

A history of irreligious AA - the white-light-lite group: 

For the 1941 atheists and agnostic, who this new appendix may have been reaching out to—” it is true that our first printing gave many readers the impression that these personality changes, or religious experiences, must be in the nature of sudden and spectacular upheavals”—referring to alienating statements like, “God could and would if He were sought,” “having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps,” or the glorious “But there is one who has all power; that One is God. May you find Him now.”  

The caps alone—today’s millennial might tell Bill, “Dude, don’t yell.” 

 Could it be that this exclusive—not inclusive language was what Bill was making amends for?  Or maybe he was compelled to share his more expanded, more enlightened insights. 

As many of us in early recovery might be, Bill was enchanted with his own transformation; a spiritual experience, he called it, that worked where so many other attempts to overcome drinking had failed. With two more years of his own sobriety and 2,000 sober samples instead of a few dozen, like any dynamic, perceptive person, he would know more and he would have expanded his view of the varieties of AA transformations.

So, it was 1941 and Bill knew more sober atheists, agnostics. If AA was similar to the USA average of  5%[3], at the time, that’s 100 sober unbelievers. Not too shabby of a sample size. Of course, we had more believers, too. Let’s call these one hundred secular AA members, the “white-light-lite group.” 

“This was the great contribution of our atheists and agnostics. They had widened our gateway so that all who suffer may pass through, regardless of their belief or lack of belief.” Bill W, AA Comes of Age, p. 167                     

A common misapprehension is that it was always more religious in the past. These cultural cycles wax and wane. An article points out that the 40’s were about as religious as 2013, the publication date of this article: 

“Earlier generations were always more religious than we are, right? Not always. Religiosity can rise and fall just like other things do over time. In fact, America of the 1940s was about as religious as America today[2013]. 

Coming out of World War II, America was not very religious. … The economy improved. The baby boom ensued. And religion grew. 

The 1950s were also a time when America began to see itself as a Christian nation in a cold war with atheistic communism. President Eisenhower joined a church after being elected, becoming the first president to be baptized while in office. In 1954, the phrase ‘under God’ was added to the pledge of allegiance to signify the religious stance of the country.”[4] 

Check out any Big Book and your attention will be drawn to a footnote reference to “Appendix II, Spiritual Experience” on pages 25, 27 and 47, directing you to pp 567-568. 

This appendix has a story to tell; the story takes us back to the year, 1941: time for a second printing of the Big Book. The first few thousand copies were finally running out. The book wasn’t “selling like hotcakes” until after the Jack Alexander, March 1, 1941 article in The Saturday Night Post[5]. 

More revelations from William Schaberg’s Writing the Big Book: The Creation of AA come beyond page 600. Simply called “Appendix” in the second printing (The Twelve Traditions now occupy Appendix I and “Spiritual Experience is bumped to II). Here’s what Writing the Big Book reports: “in the back of the book, which at this point lacked a formal title ('Spiritual Experience') that was added to the first printing of the second edition in 1955.” 

Today’s Appendix II says, “... Yet it is true that our first printing gave many readers the impression that these personality changes, or religious experiences,  must be in the form of sudden and spectacular upheavals. Happily for everyone, this conclusion is erroneous...” Schaberg reports, “Bill’s original edits to the piece have been preserved and they provide some interesting insights into his March 1941 thinking on the issue.” This is what was originally penned by Bill W:   

“Happily, for those agnostically inclined, this conclusion is erroneous.” 

The, then-unnamed appendix goes on to describe a secular transformation or recovery from alcoholism. 

 “Most (not some) of our experience” is an educational process that takes time, less often, it’s a sudden flash of light and/or insight. Bill talks of a “an unsuspected inner resource” as agency for recovery. Interesting. I don’t know what Bill’s personal evolution was, but his tone changed. This earthly, practical way to look at learning sobriety is/was clearly set apart in explanation, if not experience, with another eye-opener; here’s more of what was originally written in Writing the Big Book: 

“Our more religiously inclined members call it ‘God-consciousness’” 

This is instead of today’s, “Our more religious members…” 

The first draft’s wording gave “those agnostically inclined” and “our religiously inclined” members in recovery from alcoholism separate identities but celebrate equality:  “educational variety” or “religious experience.” Is that Bill’s intent, I wonder? 

I understand why this sober second thought would be of interest to all members and prospective members: “Happily for everyone, this conclusion is erroneous.” It speaks to both camps. There’s no need for our non-theistic members to fear that the power of example, inner resource and/or Group of Drunks relied upon for sustained recovery is second rate in any way—full stop! This is of course a departure from the tone of the first printing. Also, the message ought to be heard by our theists that there is no need to insist to the not-God squad that a supernatural higher power will eventually have to take the place of their earthly leaning post. 

But is this the message and is it clearly conveyed to “everyone”? 

1. Please dismiss our warnings that only a personal, anthropomorphic higher power can get a real alcoholic sober 
2. Learning is a suitable replacement for praying when it comes to staying sober 

Every path is an AA path—secular or spiritual. Like anything, some get it; some don’t. 

As a thought experiment let’s imagine the first draft survived and the message from AA’s author was directed specifically to the secular/agnostically inclined; would/could this have made AA as comfortable for atheists and the non-Judeo/Christian adherents as for practicing or lapsed Christians? 

“Thankfully for those agnostically inclined” may or may not have solved the worldview-gap that exists in today’s AA. For the nonbeliever who’s been on the receiving end of a condescending, “Keep an open mind” or a “Keep coming back; you’ll get it, eventually,” these microaggressions suggest “Appendix II,” didn’t serve the author’s intended purpose. 

Bob K, in his analysis of Appendix II, “Short of a Game Changer”[6] felt that the concession to nonbelievers didn’t go far enough. In his own “Life’s a (Bobby) Beach” way of seeing things, we read: 

“that such a change could hardly have been brought about by himself alone” is easily answered by the secularist – ‘Yes, by myself I am without power, but together we are strong.’ The caveman needs no God to conquer the saber-toothed tiger, but he does need other cavemen.” 

This 2012 commentary got an “Amen” from the choir but not so much from the rest of the spiritual-not religious congregants: 

“the Appendix does not fall into the category of a game changer. ... The “Spiritual Experience” ... doesn’t change the game, but it is nice to at least be in the game, even if barely showing on the scoreboard.”   

Bobby, would it have been more satisfying to you, if the original scrip survived,  “Happily, for the agnostically inclined, this conclusion is erroneous”? 

Well, it’s got me thinking anyway. 

While we nit-pic about Appendix II, any third or fourth edition Big Book hanging around the AA clubhouse, page 566 ends with: 

“There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and

which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance—that principle is contempt prior to investigation.” 

—Herbert Spencer 

It’s widely held today (and never disproven) that Herbert Spencer never said this. He certainly never wrote it anywhere that was published. 

This misattribution, wasn’t always in the Big Book: 

“the quote attributed to Herbert Spencer, which wasn’t added to ‘Spiritual Experience’ until the third printing of the second edition in 1959 (Writing the Big Book p 601).” 

For those of you in the “We should update the Big Book” camp, maybe removing the quote or disassociating it from Spencer would be a good test to how receptive The General Service Conference is to change. Why start with original text; can they comfortably change that which Bill Wilson previously changed? And I wonder if there are any records around to answer why the (mis)quote was added in the late 1950s. Remember that 1941 America was no more religious than 2013 America and it saw a spike in Christianity and secularphobia[7] through the Cold War years. Is the suggestion that contempt prior to investigation, the suggestion of open-mindedness a flip-flop return to the Chapter Four idea that non-theism is intellectual pride? Willingness and open-mindedness to other views can’t be strictly as suggestion for unbelievers is it? 

Understandably, if 1959 just isn’t cutting edge change enough for you, for readers who find the Big Book too religious, or patriarchal, homonormative or unscientific, no one needs to make peace with the Big Book or any book to get or stay sober. Put it away. Donate it to a Salvation Army. There are more contemporary books, or migrate from the book covers to YouTube videos, podcasts or other 21st century expressions of the addiction and recovery experience. The 12-Step approach, itself, is optional—in or out of AA. 

Secular Recovery Today: 

Both inside AA and beyond, the secular view of 12-Step recovery continues to be told. The AA story isn’t strictly something that happened in 1939; it’s an ongoing, everchanging story. 

For those who do want to be at one with your 12-Step community, without denying your values, set aside either/or thinking. How about loyalty AND integrity? In any relationship—family and me, work and me, AA and me—the balancing act is blending loyalty and integrity. I don’t have to piss away one to respect the other. We don’t have to speak in 12-Step-ese to be included. 

John S nailed it on Episode 145 of AA Beyond Belief podcast, speaking with Joe from New Jersey: 

“Over the last five years, I guess I’ve had to unlearn AA speak ... I’m 57 now, and I’ve been in AA since I was 25. And for 25 years, that was my life, and I knew the language and the lingo, and knowing the language and the lingo kind of got me by. And so, after that 25-year period when I realized I was an atheist, I had enough. I couldn’t even bear going to the meetings anymore. … So, we did start a secular meeting here in Kansas City and since that time, I have been unlearning the language and the lingo. [chuckle] 

So, like, ‘higher power’, that’s not the way I talk. … That’s not my language. I never would have, the first place I ever heard that was an AA, you know. … If people want to talk about that, that’s their deal. But I don’t use that language, I just use my regular everyday language. Other people help me.” 

 Boom; mic-drop. That’s it right there. Completely integral without hostility towards AA. John, previously was loyal to AA but set aside integrity in exchange for belonging, using AA-speak as cover. Now, he doesn’t tip-toe around AA with his words: Loyal to AA AND integral to his core-beliefs. We can be unabashedly atheist, feminist, millennial, and be good AA citizens. We need not fit our language into G.O. D. acronyms. 

How unorthodox can you go without being “kicked out of the pool?” Read John Lauritsen’s A Freethinker in Alcoholics Anonymous. He got sober while Bill W was still alive. Always candid about his atheism, John sees the Steps as being as religious as praying. So, he didn’t do Steps. He’s still sober today. What does he do that is AA? 

“Probably all sober alcoholics would agree that a requirement for sobriety is not picking up the first drink. Aside from that, alcoholics would give a variety of answers, for A.A. is an individual program. 

I would say that for me, A.A. consists of the realization that I am powerless over alcohol; that total abstinence is required on a 24-hour basis; that alcoholics can provide practical help and moral support for each other; that life is worth living and things can get better; that honesty is the basis for lasting sobriety; and so on. 

There is no evidence that religious belief is necessary for good sobriety. Thousands of alcoholics have stayed sober and helped others to sobriety without having the slightest belief in the supernatural. …” 

Intriguing? Read the rest of the book. It’s real life AA recovery. 

More contemporary 12-Step literature logically offers a more inclusive way to explain what happens in the transformation from addiction to wellness. Here’s an example from NA’s 2012 Living Clean: 

“We become increasingly aware of our choices, our motives, and our behavior. We come to know what we were thinking when we made a decision, and we recognize the difference between thinking through a decision and reacting or acting on impulse. Listening to our intuition means that we can be open to others without being naïve or foolhardy. We learn to trust our intuition and honor feelings (Living Clean p. 172).” 

The Victorian era was the setting for Bill W. and Dr. Bob’s formative years; no matter how much inclusivity or spirituality they muster, we would never hear them talking about “trusting our intuition and honor(ing) feelings.” It takes a 21st century book to speak in a contemporary language. 

Marijuana Anonymous literature was late-20th century; Life with Hope was first written in 1995 and guess what? They update it as needed. My 2012 version says: 

“Some of us believe in no deity; a Higher Power may be the strength gained from being part of, and caring for, a community of others. There is room in MA for all beliefs. We do not proselytize any particular view or religion. In MA, each of us discovers a spirit of humility and tolerance… The program of recovery works for people who do not believe in God and for people who do. It does not work for people who think they are God Living With Hope pp. 7-12).” 

More from Writing the Big Book: The Creation of AA: 

Have you heard the Big Book enthusiast’s refrain, “None of the original 164 pages have ever been changed—don’t fix it if it ain’t broke!” in automaton-like drone?    

First, they mean well; their ability to help the “still-suffering” is focused on a particular constituency, amiable to bowing to authority in search of sobriety. These enthusiasts are a big help to someone receptive to supernatural intervention. In most cases, they don’t force themselves on anyone. But if you face belligerence, here’s some ammunition—a few selections—some more substantial than others that deconstruct the idea that the sacred text has not been altered. Chapter Thirty-one of Writing the Big Book reports, “Edits to the text of the Big Book did not end with its publication. There were a number of major changes made during the sixteen printings of the first edition (1939-1955) and some less striking ones made to early printings of the second editions (1955-1974). Here’s a rebuttal notes to the “Big Book has never been altered” myth: 

1) The first printing was 179 pages, not today’s 164. 

2) Five times in the first printing we referred to ourselves as “ex-alcoholics.” We don’t anymore; I think that’s substantial. 

“There were five places in the text where the hyphenated word ‘ex-alcoholic’ had appeared and this was obviously a problem given the Fellowship’s growing insistence that ‘once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.’ In the eleventh printing three of these phrases were changed to read ‘ex-problem drinker,’ one was changed to ‘understanding fellows’ and the final one became a ‘non-drinking doctor.’” 

3) “The changes made to the text for the second printing were among the most substantive ever made. Most important, the wording of the Twelfth Step was changed from ‘Having had a spiritual experience as the result of these steps…” to “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of those steps…’ And at the end of this Step, an asterisk was added sending readers to the bottom of the page where they were directed to the newly added [Appendix] in the back of the book … the change of the word ‘these’ to ‘those’ became a touchstone for argument over the next several years. Saying the necessary ‘spiritual awakening’ was ‘the result of those steps’ rather than ‘these steps’ effectively contributed to one’s spiritual awakening.” 

So, if one did subscribe to the AA experience as being a “spiritual experience” and not simply a “sober experience,” the argument would be—on one side—the eleven steps give you enlightenment and then you pass it on, but Bill put so much emphasis on “nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. It works when other activities fail (Alcoholics Anonymous p. 89).” Because Bill’s position is that working with drunks helps keep you sober—with or without seeing any burning bush, first—anyone who admitted to alcohol dependency could work with other drunks and help themselves, also. 

 There were Big Book changes that seemingly—not actually—are set in stone. Other changes had a little back and forth in the first 25 years or so. 

4) “The word ‘those’ continued to be used in the final fifteen printings of the first edition and also in the first printing of the second edition but it was changed back to the original ‘these’ in the second printing of the second edition (1957).” 

Now this is a nit-picky, personal pet peeve  note, a bee in my bonnet that didn’t get any ink… In all these changes, why is this error still standing: page one of the book, “Bill’s Story,” still misspells Plattsburgh as “Plattsburg.” Didn’t anyone who was combing through the Big Book have a map!??! 

There are plenty more changes if you’re into minutia—or more than I am, anyway—especially, if you read Bill Schaberg’s Chapter Thirty-one, “Aftermath.” 

If you’re still reading Writing the Big Book, don’t skip the Appendices or End Notes; they’re chalked full of good stuff. Of course, don’t do what I did and miss a chapter, either. Oh well. And the new-found chapter (for me) ends with: 

“’… one thing I feel vitally important is to get the story of how the book was actually written. We get some many distorted stories on the [West] Coast. People talk about the one hundred men that wrote the book. Actually, there weren’t a hundred, as Bill will bear me out, but he said one hundred to make it sound good as though it really was going to work. The people talk as though there were one hundred men, that all went saintly and were talking straight up to heaven and God just guided Bill’s hand—that Bill just sat there and let the words come through. Actually, it wasn’t anything like that at all.’ 

Dorothy Snyder (Interviewed by Bill Wilson August 20, 1954) 

No… it wasn’t anything like that at all ….” 

We need inner resources, self-will—demonized by some—is an inner resource. Also, we need help; what are our external resources? “Recovery Capital is the breadth and depth of internal and external resources, that can be drawn upon to initiate and sustain recovery from severe alcohol and other drug problems.”[8] 

AA sobriety is a pathless land. Many repeat the mantra about the book as the design for living and these Steps “precisely as written.” Despite seeming influences to conform, we can be empowered in 12-Step recovery. John S’s story is a good example; despite his willingness to go along that satisfied a need for approval, he reflected, made a new boundary and he owned it; others respected it. How many members owe their sobriety to the book? On the other side of the equation, how many members ignore the book completely? How many started it and found another book about addiction and recovery that they found more relatable? I don’t know. I’m happy for everyone’s sobriety. 

 Sure, the thumpers see the Big Book as the way all real alcoholics got sober. I know too many who never read the book and are shining examples of AA sobriety and we can’t unlearn what we see.  Others read Alcoholics Anonymous years after finding contented sobriety in AA. 

If we lean towards echo-chambers and limit the types of groups we attend, our views will naturally narrow about what is and what should never be. One thing is for sure is that demographics shift and consequently, the attractiveness of cultural touchstones of the past become less compelling. 

Pew Research, at the end of last year, compared America to a decade before: 

 “the share of ‘nones’ – religiously unaffiliated adults who describe their religion as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” – has reached 26%, up from 17% a decade ago and Nearly 14% of people living in the U.S. in 2017 were born in another country, extending a steady increase over the past few decades.”[9] 

Working the 12-Steps exactly as written is “a” way, not “the” way. As Writing the Big Book points out, whatever we believe about the 12-Steps “exactly as described in the book, Alcoholics Anonymous,” we’re learning that not everything we read and heard is/was true. Of course, developing a more critical view of things is  not an AA-thing; we wrestle with new mysteries as we see further into the universe or deeper into sub-atomic particles. We adapt—or we ought to. 

Thanks has to be extended again to William Schaberg for his tireless discipline to bring Writing the Big Book to fruition. And, today’s final thought aptly goes to Bill White and Ernie Kurtz as the looked at AAagnostica’s third anniversary with their usual context and vision in 2014. 

“There have been efforts by some within A.A. to Christianize A.A. history and practice, and there have been simultaneous efforts to forge more tolerant space for agnostics and atheists within A.A.  Each trend has been sometimes castigated by alarmists as a sign of the corruption and impending downfall of A.A. 

From the perspective of its history, we view such diversification within A.A. as an inevitable process of adaptation to the increasingly diverse religious and cultural contexts inherent in the fellowship’s worldwide growth.  It also reflects adjustment to the realities of religious diversification and secularization in the United States.  The future growth and vibrancy of A.A. may well hinge on these adaptive capacities.  It remains to be seen whether such developments will nurture and celebrate the growing diversity within A.A., or whether A.A. boundaries will be reactively tightened, likely triggering group schisms, member attrition, and flight to existing or new secular and religious alternatives.”[10] 

The adventure continues…

READ as a PDF (CLICK) 

listen to William Schaberg interview (Rebellion Dogs Radio)

[1] Best, David, Pathways to Recovery and Desistance: The role of the social contagion of hope, Bristol UK: Policy Press, 2019, p.110 

[2] http://www.writingthebigbook.com/ 

[3] 1948 USA census data show 91% Protestant or Catholic, 4% Jewish, O% other religion and 5% none or unreported.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_religion_in_the_United_States 

[4] https://religionnews.com/2014/12/11/1940s-america-wasnt-religious-think-rise-fall-american-religion/ 

[5] https://www.aa.org/assets/en_US/p-12_theJackAlexArticle.pdf 

[6] https://aaagnostica.org/2012/10/21/short-of-a-game-changer-appendix-ii/ 

[7] Dr. Phil Zuckerman coined the anit-atheist term, ‘secularphobia” https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/the-secular-life/201406/why-americans-hate-atheists 

[8] Granfield and Cloud, 1999; Cloud and Granfield, 2004 

[9] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/12/13/19-striking-findings-from-2019/ 

[10] http://www.williamwhitepapers.com/blog/2014/08/aaagnostica-and-the-varieties-of-aa-experience-ernie-kurtz-and-william-white.html

A Freethinker in Alcoholics Anonymous link

View or read this blog in a PDF here.

Do you suffer from something called, eco-anxiety? 

Senior Editor at The Atlantic, James Hamblin defines this Century-21 contagion as the dread and helplessness that come with watching the impact of climate change. 

“He has tasted good and evil in your bedrooms and your bars and he’s traded in tomorrow for today,” to borrow from Kris Kristofferson[i]. Ecology, economy, consumption, addiction: these environmental systems within which that we interact, make us—as the environment’s stewards—look more like the monkeys being put in charge of the zoo (and I suspect this is unfair to monkeys). How do you feel when you hear about our pollution causing catastrophic climate change, the less fortunate starving in the countries that produce the goods and food that we consume? Is your reaction worry, guilt, anger, despondency or a call to action? 

In his 2017 book, Recovery, Russell Brand shared his views regarding our human consumption tendencies: 

 “I believe we live in an age of addiction where addictive thinking has become almost totally immersive. It is a mode of our culture. Consumerism is stimulus and responses as a design for life. The very idea that you can somehow make your life alright by attaining primitive material goals … is quite wrong. Addiction is when natural biological imperatives, like the need for food, sex, relaxation or status, becomes prioritized to the point of destructiveness.”[ii] 

On a more positive note, recovery capital is a measure of our wellness—it’s not strictly “abstinence from a stated substance/behavior”; it’s more global than how many days away we are from our sobriety date. Optimal recovery isn’t merely restoring ourselves to some previous status; for me, certainly for many, recovery is better than any time in our past. Dr. Ray Baker and Last Door’s Jessica Cooksey of Last Door Recovery Society defined “recovery capital”, on tour for the September 2019 cross-Canada Recovery Capital Conference, and it includes four elements: 

1. Cessation of addictive behavior 
2. Improved global health 
3. Improved level of function 
4. Increased prosocial behavior 

This four-part measurement isn’t a rigid framework that demands consensus from everyone—each of us may all have a unique definition of our recovery—but it’s the framework to which researchers measure efficacy and/or addiction recovery outcomes. 

In our recovery capital, we live better, get better and interact better in the world. The Recovery Capital Conference drew attention to recent studies of people living in recovery, conducted in the last few years around the world. Results reveal that not only are people in recovery more charitable and more engaged in cooperative citizenry compared to our previous lives in addiction; we are also more altruistic that the general population. Nothing assuages our guilt or quiets our self-absorbed rumination than empathy for another. Living in Recovery studies show that—maybe as part of our recovery regimen—we are civically engaged and generous with time, talents and our discretionary income. 

This August, The Atlantic[iii] presented some simple facts to counter the helplessness of “What can I do about climate change?” 

In the article, “If Everyone Ate Beans Instead of Beef: With one dietary change, the U.S. Could almost meet greenhouse-gas emission goals,” James Hamblin demonstrates that it doesn’t take all-or-nothing change to make a difference. 

Stop eating beef. 

This isn’t a vegan rant; he invites us to keep eating our bacon and chicken wings. Just eat plant-based meat replacements instead of burgers and steak. This one half-measure sacrifice you and I could make, can change the world. 

Even in recovery, addicts like me still have a bag of tricks for avoiding-techniques that don’t require a new sobriety date; these tricks include distraction, obsession, compulsion and magical thinking.  Still, we can’t un-ring a bell and it’s hard to unlearn hard truths or even inconvenient truths. 

The Atlantic connects greenhouse gases and our breakfast, lunch and dinner choices. You can dismiss this, take on the challenge for 90-days or go all the way with food choices that’s best for the environment. Some of our recovery community abstain from participation in the whole supply and demand of animal protein (dairy, fish, chickens, pigs, sheep). No more honey or leather, either for all-in vegans. We may do it because we care about animals or about our precarious fate tied to our eating habits. People are going hungry today. If that’s your call to action, this remedy is also found in lowering the demand for animal protein in our diet. My math might be slightly off, but where beef is concerned, I believe it takes 17 pounds of plant protein to create one pound of beef. Is this a way to nourish 17-times more people? And besides addressing malnutrition, we also lessen the demands on scarce ground water and reduce greenhouse-causing methane. There’s a big carbon footprint to this weekend’s pot-roast. 

We have more access to information than our recovery predecessors did. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition[iv] findings have been out since 2003:   

The World Health Organization recently reported that more than 3 billion people are malnourished. This is the largest number and proportion of malnourished people ever recorded in history. In large measure, the food shortage and malnourishment problem is primarily related to rapid population growth in the world plus the declining per capita availability of land, water, and energy resources. 

If my burger depletes more land/water/energy resources that the equivalent nutritional injection from plant-based food, and that means someone else goes hungry as a result, how can this not influence my sober second thought?   

The point The Atlantic makes is small changes count, too. Feel hostile about having your steak or burger taken away? Cut down to one beef serving each month or each week, instead of completely. If you buy the science argued in the article, any positive change will help. When offered The Atlantic’s means of reversing our ecological damage, that takes away the hopelessness of, “What can one person’s actions do?!?!?”” 

But wait; isn’t diet or climate change an “outside issue” that risks dividing recovery communities who ought to be sticking to our primary purpose? This “stick to the knitting” thinking isn’t widely held among your recovery peers. In the Canadian 2015 study, Life in Recovery from Addiction. Participants were asked a number of questions over several themes about substance use and what recovery from alcohol and other drugs looks like, today. Along with meetings, therapy, medicine or treatment, respondents were asked to report on their recovery life more broadly. From a menu of choices, participants checked of one or more supports to their recovery… 

• “Nutritional plan or diet” was checked off by 70% of respondents and 
• “Relationship to land and natural environment” was a factor for 67% of respondents. 

Contextually, diet and the environment ranked lower than “relationships with friends and family,” “meditation,” “recovery reading” and “exercise.” However, diet/environment were more important supports to recovery than “smartphone apps,” “yoga” or “social media.” So, yeah, most people in recovery consider the food they eat and our environmental impact to be more vital to their recovery than this blog. I’m fine with that. 

Of respondents who recognize diet as integral to recovery, 89.5% rate this support as very important or somewhat important. Relationship to land or natural environment was somewhat or very important to 88.3% of respondents.[v] 

So, can we really call food and climate “outside issues”? Our 12-Step fellowship wont’ be campaigning on pro-vegan behavior any time soon but our fellow home group members are taking a stand and voting with their grocery and menu choices. These Life in Recovery Canadian findings are not unusual when compared to other surveys from other countries. 

Altruism is done, of course for the wellbeing of others but the unavoidable psycho/ social/physical karma-pay-back from acts of selflessness include: 

• the release of endorphins, 
• improved mental and physical health, 
• feelings of gratitude and satisfaction.[vi] 

This isn’t self-help leftist woo-woo. This is scientific findings. Charity and kindness evokes happiness, self-efficacy and enhanced positive self-evaluations.[vii] 

We take our own inventory and we don’t judge others, right? Still, our inventory may lead to thinking about the company we keep. The “Group of Druggies” or “Group of Drunks” does represent a type of higher power, or power of example that influences our choices. Positive prosocial behavior is contagious and so is enabling destructive behavior. Hanging around AA or NA, we may be more likely to be in the company of smokers and excessive coffee drinkers? What a rich history; AA’s founders, died of cancer (Dr. Bob) and emphysema (Bill W), possibly both associated with preventable, reversible illness affected by lifestyle choices. 

A higher percentage of people in recovery smoke, compared to the general population. I see some treatment facilities offering a smoking area for clients and others include smoking cessation as part of the treatment. I don’t smoke but I wonder if this no drugs, no drinking, no smoking rigidness is an overreach into radical purity, forgetting that even smokers in recovery are better citizens and family members than they were when these smokers were drinking. My inclination may be true, but what is bearing out is that by continuing smoking relapse is more likely than for non-smokers: 

The researchers found that people who smoked cigarettes at the initial interview and who were still smoking 3 years later were about 1.5 times more likely to use drugs and twice as likely to have [Substance Use Disorder] SUD at follow-up than those who quit smoking. Among non-smokers at the initial interview, those who had started to smoke between interviews were almost 5 times more likely to report substance use at the follow-up compared with those who did not smoke. (National Institute on Drug Abuse May 2018)[viii] 

If you or I keep smoking while giving up addiction to other substances, relapse is statistically more likely. If we smoke and we’re a bad influence on others, they are more likely to relapse on their drug of (no) choice. 

A 2008 Browns University Medical School research study[ix] camped out around AA meetings in Nashville and concluded, “coffee and cigarette use among AA members is greater than among the general U.S. population.” 

“Hey, let me show you my 25-year NA key tag; hold my coffee and cigarette and I’ll get it out of my pocket.” Yes this “clean and sober” example of the 12-Steps at work is in recovery and meets the definition of recovery capital referred to above. Recovery is a continuum, no matter how black-and-white we want to define it. My sobriety date from drugs and alcohol hasn’t changed since 1976 but my trajectory has not been 100% improving health, 100% improving prosocial, 100% improving functionality. 

Ten and twenty years in, I’ve found myself starting again in other mutual-aid groups; I’ve struggled with mood and behavioral disorders. No one gets to dictate to you or me what our recovery journey ought to be. Mine hasn’t been a puritan’s life; it’s not about being perfect. For me, recovery involves a periodic inventory of what I stand for and how I’m doing. How am I being influenced by those around me? What kind of example am I to others? These are questions I ask. 

 I am more than comfortable in the company of society’s undesirables. People who need love the most, deserve it the least. How many people have loved me more than I deserved over the years? I can surely play it forward.  I don’t refuse to talk recovery with smoking newcomers. But I need to balance this with positive influences; I have people who subscribe to a whole-food, plant-based diets in my life, people who are as committed to exercise as they are to meetings, people who talk about good sleep-hygiene, civic engagement and environmental stewardship. 

In terms of my own food-righteousness; I am gentle with myself. Being better about eating food with a lower carbon footprint is a “progress—not perfection” tenet for my sobriety. Rigidity is its own addictive trap. It’s the unhealthy extreme of order in my life, the same way chaos is the unhealthy extreme of spontaneity. I aim for wellness, not perfection.  “Impossibly good” as a goal, depletes recovery capital as far as I’m concerned.

I’ve talked before about my new mantra of, “I strive for ‘sober enough’ today.” 

I’m not trying to be the poster child for all that recovery can be. I’m a sample of recovery and I don’t want the weight of being “the” example. Growth for me affects all the choices I make, in how I vote, spend my free time, the food I eat are part of this growth. I never wake up the next morning and I wish I had the burgers and chocolate cake the night before. 

I hope this blog hasn’t regressed into a preachy rant. What “sober enough” means for each of us is very personal. What’s for lunch? 

Here’s the “Beans for Beef” The Atlantic article: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/08/if-everyone-ate-beans-instead-of-beef/535536/ 

View or read this blog in a PDF here.

[i] The Pilgrim Chapter 33, Kris Kristofferson 

[ii] Brand, Russell, Recovery: Freedom from our Addictions, London, Bluebird 2017 

[iii] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/08/if-everyone-ate-beans-instead-of-beef/535536/ 

[iv] https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/78/3/660S/4690010/ 

[v] https://www.ccsa.ca/sites/default/files/2019-04/CCSA-Life-in-Recovery-from-Addiction-Report-2017-en.pdf 

[vi] https://www.addictionland.com/index.php/blogs/entry/altruism-in-recovery-benefits-more 

[vii] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5011126/ 

[viii] https://www.drugabuse.gov/news-events/nida-notes/2018/05/cigarette-smoking-increases-likelihood-drug-use-relapse 

[ix] https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/ace-cac071308.php

Rebellion Dogs Blog  - May 2019 

Have your say at the 69th 

General Service Conference of AA   

READ THIS AS A PDF instead.

Are you an AA member; a member of a group that has a General Service Rep? Do you know what (General Service) Area you live in? In case you feel or suspect that AA sees itself as a top-down operation, telling our groups what’s best, what to read, how to apply AA in our life, well, the General Service Conference wants you! 

The 69th General Service Conference (usually in April) will take a week in May to discuss what AA members want for the future. 

Your opinion/experience is sought and would be appreciated. Ninety-three Area delegates in Canada and the USA have shared at our Area Assemblies, with our General Service Reps, the topics being discussed this year. My delegate—maybe like yours—has reached out to members and groups for some directions in the decisions to be arrived at during this year’s conference. 

Have a look through some of the topics of this year’s rendition of AA-as a whole’s business meeting and see if there are any topics that you have a feeling about or opinion on. You might be skeptical that your opinion is/will be considered, but read on… 

Here’s some of what’s on the table at the 69th General Service Conference: 

Should we write/print a 5th Edition of Alcoholics Anonymous? 

Background: First printed in 1939, the 2nd Edition was 1955 featuring AA leading the world with affirmative action; one-third of the stories would be women AAs even though they made up less than 25% of our population. Added was a new “Foreword” and additional Appendices. I recall the 1976 the 3rd Edition being introduced without much fanfare. Early this century—2001—our current/4th Edition was published. Letters from four of our Areas have expressed an interest in a new Big Book with stories that better reflect our diverse membership. Of special interest is members who got sober before they reached 25-years-old. There is talk of a fourth section in the Big Book to accommodate these new stories. 

In 80 years, there have been four editions; the last one was 18 years ago so is it time for something new?   

There isn’t much chance that the 164 pages of basic text will be changed. A vote in 2002 agreed that the writings of Bill W should not be changed. We could vote again, but that’s not on the table at present. However, this would be a good time to add a new *asterisk* or two to give contemporary context to the 1939 view of alcoholism and AA recovery. Here’s an example I suggested to my delegate: 

What if when “God as we understood Him” was mentioned, an asterisk noted that today AA is made up of members that include atheists/agnostics as well as members whose spirituality doesn’t fall into our monotheistic narrative. We have secular AA meetings today that members with alternative worldviews share about AA in their own language. 

Will AA bow to my demand? It’s not a demand; it’s my two cents. Maybe others will express similar sentiments. But now the delegate voting for Area 83 knows how I feel and what I think would be good for AA as a whole. 

Fact: I just learned this the Area 83 delegate, who was at the conference in 2001, was given a first printing Edition Four. I’ve included a picture of the end of the first printing Edition Four “Foreword.” It contained a sentence that rose the ire of some of our AA members who felt at the time that online AA is second-rate to face-to-face(f2f) AA. They didn’t like how AA World Services represented us and they demanded a change. An entire sentence was removed (in bold): 

“The stories added to this edition represent a membership whose characteristics—of age, gender, race, and culture—have widened and have deepened to encompass virtually everyone the first 100 members could have hoped to reach. 

While our literature has preserved the integrity of the A.A. message, sweeping changes in society as a whole are reflected in new customs and practices within the Fellowship. Taking advantage of technological advances, for example, A.A. members with computers can participate in meetings online, sharing with fellow alcoholics across the country or around the world. Fundamentally, though, the difference between an electronic meeting and the home group around the corner is only one of format. In any meeting, anywhere, A.A.’s share experience, strength, and hope with each other, in order to stay sober and help other alcoholics. Modem-to-modem or face-to-face, A.A.’s speak the language of the heart in all its power and simplicity.” 

Check your own copy of Alcoholics Anonymous, if you have one or look here[i]: You’ll see that we removed a whole sentence. 

I’m trying to remember back in 2001, did we have MySpace then? Maybe ICQ was the main platform of individual or group typing/ talking back and forth. I recall being part of an ICQ AA forum. When MySpace did come on the scene it really attracted AA members (and the larger recovery community). We grouped up to share pictures, topics, discussion, discuss anonymity, break our own anonymity, out other AA members, etc. We were learning as we went along. Can you imagine the essays Bill W would have written in Grapevine about the internet?    

Pre-Facebook and pre-Google Yahoo Groups was the best of interactive “anonymous” fellowship. There was a Yahoo Group called AAWR (A.A. Without Religion) and it was a collective of atheist/agnostic/freethinkers around the world starting topics about recovery and AA life. 

So what do you think about AAWS’s vision of 2001 AA? What do you think of AA as a whole’s outrage at the suggestion that online AA was just as good as f2f AA? 

I don’t know; maybe it was little liberal mythology about how adaptive AA was and the General Service Office got a little ahead of our collective conscience. Certainly, GSO got an ear-full and in-box full of heated reaction to the “Foreword” and they took the sentence out that seemed to be causing the bulk of the dissention. I though it was fine the way it was but people like me that liked it, never wrote to tell anyone. So, the members asked for a change and they were accommodated. 

Another literature issue is about adding something on the Twelve Concepts to Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (The 12 & 12) to complete the triangle of three legacies.  

Recovery, Unity and now the Service version of a dozen principles are being discussed to thicken up your 12 & 12. 

The A.A. Grapevine section: “Alcoholism at Large” 

Colloquially known as the Gray Pages, since 1948 we’ve reported medical, social, legal issues in the world regarding alcoholism. Uncle Bill W wrote, “The Grapevine should have freedom to print news articles relative to the whole field of alcoholism, excepting, however, those which might provoke needless dissension.” 

Some AA members, be they fearful or hostile about outside influences, have tried to shelter the fragile newcomer from our holy writ.  Our conference has had to review (and reaffirm) this section in 1974, 1984. The anti-AA-at-Large faction succeeded in having it removed in 1991 and it was brought back in 2007. New motions to toss these contemporary doctors’ opinions were brought to the floor in 2008, 2009 and 2014. Expect another heated round in May. 

If you let your Grapevine subscription lapse with your Life and Rolling Stone magazines, don’t worry about it.  If you have a feeling about Grapevine, share your position with your Area delegate and/or email Grapevine right away. 

AA Branding - our current perception from professionals and the general public

If you read the 68th General Service Conference Final Report, you’ll see that we spent some money on an outside agency, Impact Collaborative, to advise us on our messaging. How well was AA communicating with the public? What can we alter or improve? Well, it’s time to either take action or moth-ball the extensive report reveals through interviews and surveys what the current professionals and public perception of AA is. Here’s a clue… no one but AA says, “If it works, don’t fix it!” 

“The trustees’ Committee on Cooperation with the Professional Community/Treatment and Accessibility (CPC/TA) discussed these items and asked the secretary to work with the consultant on the creation of a LinkedIn page.” 

Your delegate will have all the background information. There are shortcomings in our branding with professionals. Surveys came back with a range of positive and negative comments; “AA still exists?” was among the responses. The term “Cooperation with the Professional Community” sounds like AA thinks we’re doing doctors and lawyers a favor—in their view. There are a lot of suggestions and ideas about modernizing our outreach and the awkward dance of maintaining online-anonymity and carrying the message whenever, wherever, blah, blah, blah. If you have concerns, questions, bright ideas, now’s the time; talk to your delegate or General Service Rep. 

But wait; there is more: 

We AAs are looking at how we deal with our relationship with correctional facilities. 

There is a limit to how much AA will accept from any member in a single year, including as a bequest. In 1967 it went up to $200 from $100. There were 1972, 1979, 1986, 1999, 2007 and 2018 increased – most recently $3,000 to $5,000. Should it be more/less? 

What about anonymity and Public Service Announcement videos. There is a movement to hire actors to play AA members for a PSA. Is that a good way to carry our message? 

The Final Report of the General Service Conference is under review. Any changes you’d like to see? 

If you have new ideas, tell your delegate. They can make a floor motion and if others agree with your idea it will be discussed. 

Nothing that takes place at AA’s annual business meeting compels our groups or us as members in any way. The conference serves the groups and members—it doesn’t tell us how to conduct ourselves or enforce changes or old or new rules. The conference's hope is to be the collective voice of AA. So, if you have something to add to the conversation, there’s more that you or I can do than simply talk about it at the coffee shop like we are Monday-morning quarterbacks that never get asked for our input about the big game. 

Now’s the time. 

[i] https://www.aa.org/assets/en_US/en_bigbook_forewordfourthedition.pdf

The Program of Alcoholics Anonymous: Interpretive by Design 

PDF of This BLOG CLICK CLICK

Just try to refute that membership in AA is based on individual interpretation of Tradition Three, “The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.” Or if you like long-form Traditions: 

“Our membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism. Hence, we may refuse none who wish to recover. Nor ought A.A. membership ever depend upon money or conformity. Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an A.A. group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation.” Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions pg. 189 

The program of AA has always been suggested, i.e. optional, i.e. open to individualized re-wording. This rugged individualism extends to our groups, too—our groups being collective iterations of our individual inalienable rights as AA members. 

To nurse anger at groups who interpret the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous (re-write them), requires a lack of AA historical knowledge in order to get maximum indulgence in the dopamine-rush of righteous indignation. Rigid obedience to a literal interpretation of AA is permitted within any AA group—join such a group, form such a group—purge the demons, knock yourself out. However, such a literalist view cannot be imposed on other AA groups. At least, not by you or me. Only that group’s membership can judge that group’s rituals and practices; so it is written. 

February 2nd at 11 AM I was presenting on special purpose gathering of AA. I keep researching these topics, I keep presenting and you—the people I present to—keep offering me new information, new books to read, new archival items to seek out. History in AA is a collective, ever-evolving document and my trip west was no different. I read this book (pictured) which includes a story of 1965 San Francisco meeting which replaced the AA Twelve Steps with a ten-Step reading that is both secular and multi-substance (not alcohol only). My depth of knowledge continues to expand. 

Central offices serve groups, “they do not govern.” From time to time, our attention is drawn to the drama of central offices that express a negative view or exercised punitive actions upon groups that “break Traditions.” 

The Forum Group of AA. Founded in AA’s 30th year by Dr. Earle M., author of “Physician Heal Thyself!”, now pg. 301 in Alcoholics Anonymous Edition Four, 2001 and first printed in the Edition Two, 1955. The Forum Group founders found AA’s interpretation of higher power and the mono-focus on alcohol, unhelpful for their purposes; so, as I mentioned, they adapted. 

Dr. Earle describes in his book, a journey through long-term sobriety. Something Earle heard from those who came before him, was the Four I’s in his 1989 book, , Physician Heal Thyself: 35 Years of Adventure in Sobriety by an AA ‘Old-Timer’:   

• Infatuation, 
• Irritability, 
• Inventiveness, 
• Insight 

“I had my last drink on June 15, 1953,” Earle writes. “I’ve experienced the joys as well as the struggles of a growing, long-term sobriety. The Four I’s of Recovery have always intrigued me, and I have personally—and intensely—experienced each phase.” 

During his Inventiveness phase, Earle crafted a secular Ten Step version of the AA program focused on all addiction, not just alcohol use disorder. While it may have turned the odd eyebrow up, not only was this liberalism in keeping with 1960s San Francisco zeitgeist. It was Bill W who championed the idea of Earle’s story going into the Second Edition. Bill and Earle were close for at least the ten years leading up to The Forum coming to be. Would AA’s Twelve Step author disprove of someone taking artistic liberty with his Twelve Steps? Bill W’s on the record accounts of groups that act autonomously, such as re-writing Steps or ignoring Traditions, was delight expressed by Bill for these group’s pioneering spirit. 

Here are the Ten Steps of the Forum Group of AA (1965):

1.    We realized deeply that we cannot handle mind-altering drugs safely … our attempts to do so courts disaster. 

2.    As we commit ourselves to abstinence, we welcome Nature’s healing process into our lives. 

3.    In the group, we discuss our common problems in recovery; to do so hastens healing. 

4.    We find a friend, usually also recovering, with whom we can discuss our deepest, guarded secrets. Release and freedom become ours. 

5.    By making amends to ourselves and to others, we put to rest past injuries. 

6.    When we face our emotional problems squarely, we discover that change automatically happens. We do not seek change . . . It simply occurs. 

7.    Our lives are orderly and full of meaning as we live second for second. 

8.    Recovery together constitutes a fabric of unity. Each of us, however, follows a unique, personalized pattern of recovery. 

9.    We share our lives with those who are still drinking or using. Many of them decide to join us. 

10.   Our meeting doors are open to all users of mind-altering substances. The welcome mat is in full view. 

Twenty-five years after founding The Forum AA Group with fellow AAs, Earle recounts his pleasure with returning to the Bay-area to see his group still going strong. Earle M had other criticisms of our early writings. Earle didn't believe alcoholism was caused by underlying psychological issues. In his 1989 book, many original AAisms are refuted: 

"Alcoholics have the same psychological and emotional problems as everyone else before they start drinking. these problems are aggravated by their addiction to alcohol. Alcoholism undermines and weakens the alcoholic's ability to cope with the normal problems of living. Furthermore, the alcoholic's emotions become inflamed both when [drinking] excessively and when [they stop] drinking. Thus, when drinking and when abstinent, [they] will feel angry, fearful, and depressed to exaggerated degrees."[i] 

This biogenetic view was broadly introduced to professionals and the addiction/recovery community in 1981’s Under the Influence: A Guide to the Myths and Realities of Alcoholism by James R. Millam and Katherine Ketcham. 

• “Myth: People become alcoholics because they have psychological or emotional problems which they try to relieve by drinking. 
• Reality: Alcoholics have the same psychological and emotional problems as everyone else. These problems are aggravated by their addiction to alcohol.” 

Doctors Earle M was surprised to learn that he informed James Millam's views. Millam had heard a tape of one of Dr. Earle's chalk-talk presentations. Earle was thrilled to finally meet Dr. Millam.

I don't believe addiction is strictly psychological or physical. There is a case for alcoholism as a coping technique for managing trauma, loss, etc. Many identify with this correlation meaning causality.

Today, led in part by expanding neuroscience, the AA idea of addiction as symptom is back in vogue. In 1939 AA’s how-it-works—”Our liquor was but a symptom. We had to get down to causes and conditions.” Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 64. Here's a couple of credible advocates of the environmental cause and addictive effect: 

• Johann Hari, 2015 Ted Talk, “I've been talking about how disconnection is a major driver of addiction… the opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection.”[i] 
• Dr. Gabor Mate In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, “Don’t ask ‘Why the addiction?’ Ask, ‘Why the pain?’”[ii] 

Personally, I’m agnostic about this chicken and egg question of what is cause and what is effect. I think it's complex; I'm not a reductionist. I prefer an abstract vs. binary reasoning approach to such constructs; Is either/or the best way? I'm not convinced. 

My story? I had traumas/emotional turmoil before my drug use. Yes, I did medicate those uneasy feelings with drugs/booze. The medicating started once I experienced how being high made me feel more like a stud and less like a dud. But also, alcoholism is found in my family (another risk factor). So, were my environmental or genetic factors to blame? 

I appreciate what I learned in my time in the rooms with Adult Children of Alcoholics. Many ACAs with my same environmental and genetic issues didn't develop addiction. Instead, ACA members developed other manipulative coping techniques: The Adult Child “Laundry List” articulates some of these: seeking approval, merciless self-criticism, difficulty having fun, hyper-responsible, lying, inability to see projects through to conclusion, etc.[iii] 

Some of us in AA drank with impunity for decades as high-functioning alcohol users, never crossing an invisible line from copious consumption to self-destructive 'survival drinking' until our retirement years. These people seem to have become alcoholic from excessive long-term use. 

It seems that many roads lead to addiction. I’m not married to the “disease” model of addiction, either. “Disease” is way better than the “moral-failing” model but it’s not perfect. We could spend a day on recovered vs. recovering and/or behavioral vs. biogenetic causal factors. These are great debates for a long drive. 

For those who come to San Francisco Summertime will be a love-in there 
In the streets of San Francisco Gentle people with flowers in their hair

Thanks for your hospitality, San Francisco. I spent a week on your west coast during the Symposium on AA History February 1-3, 2019. San Fran feels like a home away from home to a hippy-at-heart like me. To everyone who drove me around, housed me, sat and talked, invited me to their meeting, had coffee or tea, broke bread with me—thank you. 

I’m really enjoying reading, re-reading and quoting Physician Heal Thyself! I know how great it is to share books and music with the people I love. While at a meeting, a member gave me their own cherished Thrift Books copy. How great is that? 

With all due respect and appreciation for Johann Hari, the connection I’ve always felt to books and music didn’t prevent or cure my addictions. But books and music are essential recovery capital builders in the treatment of said chronic conditions. Many a trouble time has been lessened by connecting to the right song or story. 

April 2019 marks 80 years since the Big Book came off the printing presses. Is that a long time or a short time? I’ve heard 100 miles is a great distance to Europeans and 100 years is a long time to Americans. That said, I don’t expect consensus on how long-in-the-tooth AA lore is. I can say this: AA has helped many and fell short for many, many more. But in 80-years, AA wasn’t stopping others from finding a better way; were we? If you or your group finds a method that brings recovery to every addict, my home group and I will stop what we’re doing and start doing what you do. Wouldn’t that be a relief? 

But until we find a way that works for everyone, Vive la difference. Let’s celebrate the pioneering spirit and remember that to question is to be a freethinker. Being critical isn’t being cynical. A beginner’s mind, an open heart and the right blend of cherishing the wisdom of ages and a willingness to test new things is still our best hope against a relentlessness, omnipresent addiction crisis. 

Through a 2019 lens, a book about a Caucasian, hetro, professional male talking about infatuation, irritability, inventiveness and insight challenges today’s attitudes about the privileged vs. marginalized classes. Earle’s book was written thirty years ago. I remember 1989; things have changed; how does Physician Heal Thyself! hold up? Earle comes across as being as self-aware and sensitive as any white male could be from the late-1980s. It didn’t read like misplaced entitlement to me.  I say this as a reader fresh off my research and writing about underrepresented populations in AA navigating the unintended but undeniable systemic discrimination. 

Our LGBTQ members, women, non-theists and youth look at irritability and inventiveness differently that those who hold the privilege of the majority. Infatuation, irritability, inventiveness and insight are described as phases. Being gay or atheist isn’t a phase. The reaction to women, youth, visible minorities informs the irritability more so than a phase or recovery. The need for groups that speak our own language does inspire inventiveness but that’s not best described as a phase either, but more of duty born of our responsibility (declaration). 

If you’re interested in the Symposium on AA History presentation on The Debate Over Special Purpose Groups, click HERE for the YouTube link. 

I really enjoyed presenting at the Symposium. It was an honor to sit in all the other presentations.[i] on AA. Thinking about early women or indigenous members in a white-man’s Alcoholics Anonymous, gay men and lesbians in 20th century AA meetings, young people and atheists/agnostics, in the case of these underrepresented members, irritability in AA, and the need for inventiveness are more acute. While systemic discrimination is rarely intentional, it still drives away more members even as we aim to widen our gateway. 

In the same year Dr. Earle M. was finding sobriety, the April (1953) A.A. Grapevine published an article, “Women are only Tolerated in AA; they are the Orphans of AA.” AA’s meeting in print went on to say: 

“I never dreamed there existed so much hostility toward women alcoholics until I started to attend AA meetings. I bless the woman member who steered me to a woman's discussion group in the hard first months of my sobriety, because without its guidance and intimate group therapy I might have dropped out as countless other women do. 

The few women who have ‘made’ the program have done so despite the tremendous handicaps placed in their way by other women, by men members, and by non-alcoholics. I know for a fact that too many women AAs are suspicious of and hostile toward their own sex. The men, conditioned by their bar experiences, also view the female alcoholic with suspicion and hostility. There are many exceptions, of course, and my present group is one of them.” 

Again, what may be a phase for the privileged majority, is something more for underrepresented populations in AA. For women, indigenous peoples, youth, non-theists, LGBTQ members, The Four I’s of Recovery ensure that “whenever someone reaches out, the hand of A.A. will be there.” Long live infatuation, irritability, inventiveness and insight. 

PDF of This BLOG CLICK CLICK

[i] Pronouns in [ ] replace male pronouns used in the day with gender-neutral terms. 

[ii]https://www.ted.com/talks/johann_hari_everything_you_think_you_know_about_addiction_is_wrong?language=en 

[iii] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARyq_BtCVMo 

[iv] https://www.verywellmind.com/common-traits-of-adult-children-of-alcoholics-66557 

[v] Get the audio for the 2019 Symposium on AA History and hold the date for the 6th Symposium: https://www.aahistorysymposium.org/

[vi] San Francisco, Scott McKenzie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I0vkKy504U

“Suit up and show up!” Who’s heard this Circa 1958 AAism? The picture above is from the first International Conference of Young People in AA, Niagara Falls New York, 1958. Is business-wear the best way to represent AA from the podium today? Let’s think, think, think about this ritual’s potential impact on the future of Alcoholics Anonymous, good bad or indifferent. 

Does wearing formal clothing help our personal self-image and thus, impact how we project ourselves? Do members in evening gowns and suits give the AA gathering credibility with the public? Do suited and skirted AAs at the podium, attract newcomers in ways that casual-wear members can’t? 

Is this AAism true for you?: “The newcomer is the most important person in the meeting.”

“What if someone here, is at their first AA meeting,” is among our considerations when a group conscience sees fit to tell/suggest to each other, how to talk or dress when we chair or speak at an AA meeting. Such discussions are not the prerogative of the group but also a duty. This individuality of our groups is by design, regardless of how structured or spontaneous, how formal or casual, each group chooses to present itself.

My feeling is that there is a principle embedded in the “suit up and show up,” saying that is timeless and noble. But also, the habit is dated and possibly antithetical to attracting new people and coaxing back the good ol’ days of a remembered AA that was growing year-over-year, decade after decade. 

Let’s remember that in the good ol’ days we’re talking about included cancer from second hand smoke in AA meetings and driving our kids in cars without seat-belts. 

My self-image does improves when I take care of myself and treat myself well. Even if dressing nicely is the most superficial of self-care, I think pop-psychology or even common-sense concedes that by applying personal hygiene and dressing for success (whatever that means to us), we feel better. Going to the meeting will improve our mood and/or enrich our sober-swagger. I’ve also adhered to "come as you are," unshaven and in scruffy cloths; I was made to feel welcome. I felt good about being at that meeting, too. 

What I want to explore is if suits and evening wear, worn by speakers at conventions or AA meeting, add value to the new member and/or the long-term health and prospects for AA. My local regional annual AA/Al-Anon/Alateen conference attracts 2,500 to 3,500 annually. This year the Ontario Regional Conference[i] is 76-years-old. When I’m invited to speak, like anyone, appropriate attire is suggested. At our Area 83 Assembly, the Area Committee uniform is suits and ties for men, the equivalent business-wear for women. General service volunteers and others who are presenting over the weekend or standing for an elected position on the biennial election Sunday are almost always suiting up, most likely as coached by the sponsor—or this century-21 label I hear now—”service sponsor.” Sporting a $800 sweater and $400 jeans, you may still be unelectable at my Area Assembly. 

“Suit up and show up” is common in my neck of the AA-woods since I moved to Toronto—the business capital of Canada—in 1985. The purpose of “suit up” then, was to inspire confidence in AA with the public, to make AA sobriety look attractive to the still-suffering alcoholic. Remember the 1980’s “dress for success?” Double-breasted jackets and women’s pant-suits of the 70s gave way to retro 1950s thin ties and suits and body-glove tube dresses for women. And in 1985, AA was still growing, correlation was assumed to mean causality. It was working because we suited up and showed up. 

AA Growth vs USA 

Population in AA stopped growing in 1991 (according to our own communication between the General Service Office and home groups). We were 2.1 million AAs worldwide in 1991. The USA had 253 million citizens. In 2018 there were 29% more Americans: 327 million. If AA grew by the same 29% we would be 2.83 million members. Yet, our data shows 2,087,840 worldwide AAs (1/2 of our membership is in the USA).   

As TV doctor’s would say, “How’s that working out for you now?” AA membership is not growing, and our membership is aging. Is the hipster-Tao wardrobe of Refuge Recovery winning over potential AA members? Does the come-as-you-are of SMART Recovery account for their adding numbers while AA wanes? I don’t think it’s that simple. Many influences of newer offerings—Women for Sobriety, LifeRing, more contemporary 12-Step models like Marijuana Anonymous and Meth Anonymous (just to use the Ms as an example), have a more contemporary vibe. AA’s nostalgia-adoring rituals maybe are a contributing factor in our decline in attractiveness with today’s newcomers.  

I was invited to speak when I was out of town at an AA group. It was a traditional meeting and as the secretary prepared me in advance with the meeting rituals—what they do and do not like to hear from the podium—appropriate attire was brought up. A couple of things here… Without prompting, I would have showered, combed or tied back my hair and wore something nice, but I wouldn’t have worn a suit. I don’t work or live in suits, even though I have a fairly professional job. My clients—also professionals—don’t wear ties, either.

Still, I think it’s just fine for meetings to honor rituals in the autonomous manner to which we've become accustomed and be above reproach from fellow AAs; different strokes for different folks. If my meeting inadvertently make one still-suffering feel awkward, we may inspire hope in another still-suffering. Some in our meeting would prefer your meeting; vive la différence 

I don’t feel controlled or constrained or prejudiced because a meeting secretary makes such a friendly request. Again, I don’t think AA ought to be 120,000 uniformed meetings. We are not McDonalds fast-food chain. I don’t think AA meetings ought to be uniformed, either in my image nor anyone else’s. When I visit your group, I want to both respect group customs and be authentic. 

In part, I dawn the hippy-like hair to say, “I got to be me.” Even though I’m a member of the Toronto business world where long-hairs aren't in the majority, authenticity is valued more than insincerity. I don’t think that’s unusual, today. So, my long hair—in the style that I first presented to the world in the 1970s as an emerging adult, just in this new 50 shades of grey—is how I roll. Maybe I’ll change; I have in the past. For a long time, it was quaffed in business-savvy conformity. Maybe you’ll see me doing it again if I feel like it. But today, I tend away from actions that suggests I am trying to win the approval of others. I’m not a rebel for rebellion’s sake but I don’t want to get drawn into establishment trappings mindlessly, either. 

So, I found myself in a foreign city, I’m a guest at someone else’s meeting; what do I do to maintain my non-conformity and also be a good guest? Authenticity and amenability are both values I hold. Well, hair down would be less conforming than tight back in a ponytail, so I lose the hair-tie. Secondly a white shirt screams conformity and lack of imagination, so I didn’t even pack one. I have long held that bow ties are sassier and a little less playing the game, so a bow tie, and never a clip on. Even in non-conformity, I’m still a cultured gentleman. 

There’s still a way to bend the rules or at least, rock the conformity-lite look. I don’t want to offend the group’s long-time members. I am also mindful of, and hold an affinity for, the member who is wondering, “Realistically, is there a place in AA for me?” I know that feeling. I relate; after all these years, I still know doubt. 

I relate to the group who meets, takes inventory and wants AA to flourish and send a message that there is hope, no matter how far down the road one has gone. I want the same. I just don’t know that regurgitating every trick in the good-ol-days book is the right choice for a bright future. Nostalgia serves a mature organization; but a citizenry committed to challenges still to come, adapting to change, or better still, anticipation, offers more assurance for the future. 

Instead of reading, “During the meeting, please silence your mobile devices,” will we ever say, “During the meeting, better utilize your mobile devices to help carry the AA message to the alcoholic who still suffers.” 

What worked for AA back in the day? That's a useful question. More potent still would be, “What are the needs and expectations of those yet to come?”

• Should my home group have a pay-pal account for people who prefer to tap thumbs than dig into pockets?
• Should our group have a blog or a podcast?

Are these not the 21st century version of the pamphlet and the basket? 

The AA I was introduced to, ran a public service announcement in the “Personals” section of the Montreal Gazzette and we had a sandwich-board sign just outside the door to our meeting. So, while I can find clues from what worked for AA before, what is today’s equivalent of the personals-ad and the sandwich-board? Today, how do we convey AA’s message to the public, “If you want to drink and can, that’s your business; if you want to quit but can’t that’s our business—try AA.” Few read a newspaper anymore and the people who would have been walking by our sign in the 1970s have their eyes on their screen today. 

Back to the suits, Back to the Future 

In AA, we want to be credible; maybe even respectable. The means to that end: “suit up and show up,” is based on an era when you and I found suited business and political leaders credible and respectable. Generation-Z’s attitudes might view the same suit on the screen that instilled confidence in us, as untrustworthy—based on the lessons of their informative years. 

Depending who you ask, Generation-Z were born on or after either 1995 or 1999. Since the turn of the century we’ve talked about Millennials as they took their first key-strokes and crafted their first social media pages. Millennials are Gen-Y and some are turning 35-years-old this year. Older Z-gen youth are turning 20 or 24-years-old in 2019. 

Demographic data is being tweeted about the tastes of a new generation; the World Health Organization is concerned about how youth views should shape policy, The UK Guardian is interested in social implications, Inc.com wants to know what Gen-Z buy and how to market to them. How does The Hunger Games generation feel about the suits who are asking young people to buy their products or vote for their candidates? Survey says: 

“One-in-ten trusts the government to do the right thing. The number among millennials is a slightly rosier 20 percent. … a pathetic six percent of Gen Z trust corporations to do the right thing. The number for adults in general is 60 percent.”[ii]  

So, does this picture above inspire trust and confidence? Your age, gender, social status and nationality will have a bearing on how you answer this question. Results will vary. 

So if we greet the next generation with the business look, youth, in turn, will greet us with their business reaction, which is opposite of how Baby Boomers feel about suited stewards. Steve Jobs never wore a tie; he understood that this would lose the next-gen of smartphone consumers. 

Also, AA culture struggles to attract underrepresented populations as our race/age/gender stats reveal in P-48, AA Membership Survey[iii]. America and Canada, as is the case in all of the AA world, is multicultural. Will dawning the attire of an Anglo-Saxon cliché build bridges or barriers to cultural minorities? 

Every principle in AA that we embrace is timeless—as Bill W said, “A.A. was not invented! Its basics were brought to us through the experience and wisdom of many great friends. We simply borrowed and adapted their ideas[iv]”—but while we continue our legacy of borrowing from the past, adaptation remains vital to maintaining our relevance and attractiveness. 

Looking at this picture from the 1958 first ICYPAA at the top of this blog, we Americans and Canadians in attendance dressed and acted appropriately for the day. We carried the message; we made AA proud. But how effective would this wardrobe be at the 61st ICYPAA in Boston, September 1, 2019? I haven’t been to an International Young People's AA gathering for a couple of decades but, while we respected our past at ICYPAA, we represented AA’s future. 

For more on Gen-Z, Rebellion Dogs Publishing recently contributed to TheFix.com[v] as we explore the worldview of youth today and ask if “spiritual-not religious” is a broad enough 12-Step gateway to be relevant to teen alcoholics. Yes, I'm a teen alcoholic; at fourteen, I was brought to my first meeting. AA would eventually work for me. As I turned 20, my fourth clean and sober anniversary was just around the corner. I remember my head going down at meetings when I heard “AA is a fellowship of men and women…” not wanting to draw attention to the fact that, as a teenager, “men and women” didn’t include me. AA Grapevine didn’t intentionally  dis-include me; much of discrimination is subtle, even below our awareness. Still, all of our rituals, attire, readings and meeting customs, if not reviewed from time to time, may grow ineffective for the new person with substance use disorder who is suffering.

With each ritual or reading, we can ask if this does more to attract or more to alienate. If we're not sure, try new things. AA is always trying new things, isn't it? All par for the course in a daily-inventory peer-to-peer group of common suffering like ours.   

OTHER PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT THE FUTURE: On Episode 43 of Rebellion Dogs Radio we have two authors discussing future trends. M. Andrew Tennson wrote Killing the Bear: Surviving Teen Addiction and addiction and family therapist, Jeffrey Munn speaks to a youth more secular than their parents in Staying Sober Without God: The Practical 12 Steps to Long-Term Recovery from Alcoholism and Addiction. Two tunes, two interviews, commentary, all this in less than an hour of February Twos - to kick the February Blues. CLICK HERE from Rebellion Dogs Radio.

[i] https://aaorc.ca/ 

[ii] https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/gen-z-is-anxious-distrustful-and-often-downright-miserable-new-poll-reveals.html 

[iii] https://www.aa.org/assets/en_US/p-48_membershipsurvey.pdf 

[iv] Bill W letter 1966 

[v] https://www.thefix.com/aa-too-religious-generation-z

Read or print PDF version HERE

 Our Summer Box 4-5-9: News and Notes from the General Service Office of A.A.[i] reports about 15,000 less AAs, year-over-year. Also, of us two million +/- members, we are spread between 2,000 more meeting options than in 2017. 

Trends in membership and group totals might reveal changes in AA through the years. People joke, “The only two thing you need to start a new AA group is a resentment and a coffee pot.” Of course, new meetings start for a variety of reasons. 

Sobriety is dynamic for many of us; if we’re doing AA “right,” we change. Maybe, we want our group to change, too. Have you ever brought a motion to your home group to change, add or replace a group ritual or reading? 

How did it go? What did you do about the outcome? 

Yes, groups do change. But it’s also not uncommon for the group to resist change and those who championed the change, they either let it go, or they go start a new group “that does things right.” 

If you follow AA membership trends, you know that AA grew and grew and grew some more; then we stopped growing. We were half a million when I came to my first AA meeting in the 1970s. We doubled to one million before I was six years sober (1,064,784 in 1982) and we doubled again eight years later (2,047,252 in 1990). For 38 years since, we’ve had flat membership totals, up or down 10% from this two million mark. 

The number of groups keep increasing. The last ten years shows that while we had the same population in 2008 as we have today, two million members have spread out over 7,000 extra groups, growing from 113,168 to 120,300 registered groups in a decade. Looking further back, in 1998 we had just a few less members, but we gathered in only 98,710 groups. The members per group isn’t substantially different; 20 members per meeting 30 years ago vs. 17 members per meeting, today. 

History of AA Growth: eighty years of resentments and coffee pots 

Meet someone in the know about early AA… 

Between New York City and San Francisco, for two decades, Jackie B has been a director, playwright, administrator and performing arts producer. Along with her professional endeavors, Jackie is an AA historian. Drawing on her playwright skills, Recovery Plays by Jackie B[ii] creates a living connection between the recovery community and the early experience of AAs and our groups. 

In 2006 In Our Own Words: Pioneers of Alcoholics Anonymous was the first to be created. Jackie’s second AA-history play about the Traditions, Our Experience Has Taught Us closed after four years of touring, raising $30,000 for recovery service organizations in the Pacific Southwest. I Am Responsible[iii] premiered last year (February 2017). A struggling skeptic newcomer—Joe—wonders if there is a place in AA for his atheism. He talks with Lou at their home group; Lou knows a little something about struggling with, “Do I belong in AA?” Lou was the first African American General Service Conference delegate in 1966-67. In 1951, “Blacks weren’t even allowed in the clubhouse,” Lou tells our newcomer. “There was only one meeting in Philadelphia he could attend—the inter-racial group.” 

Jackie B is looking ahead to the International Conference of Secular AA (ICSAA 2018)[iv] where she’ll be presenting some of her research in a workshop called Underrepresented Populations in AA, Sunday August 26th. Also, in Jackie’s foreseeable future, she will be presenting at the 2019 Symposium of AA History[v] which, I found announced on the East Bay AA Intergroup website.[vi] 

I note two things: First, the location for Symposium of AA History has been moved from Sedona Arizona to Northern California; secondly, The Bay Area AA seems to have a lot more fun going on than my Toronto Intergroup website; the grass is always greener on the California side of the fence.   

I remember learning about early LA group history from the characters in Jackie B’s Recovery Plays #2, Our Experience Has Taught Us: A Sensational History of our Twelve Traditions. Through the characters, we hear about the second Los Angeles area group starting in early AA. The first group reacted, “You can’t do that! We’re in charge of AA in California.” 

If you’ve been involved in AA-service, this doesn’t sound so unbelievable. Sometimes, fear and ego take hold when love and humility ought to be guiding us. 

Talking with Jackie by phone, I ask about archives she was drawing upon. Let me share some of those details. If you know Los Angeles history documents and recordings, you know Sybil C. 

“From a 1985 speaker tape, Sybil talks about the second LA group starting, “Instead of going down and listening to the speakers at the mother group, [Tex] said ‘Why, the drunks ought to have a chance to talk. I’m going to start a participation meeting. […] Tex is starting this group out there in Huntington Park, and the powers that be downtown are saying to me, ‘What’s your brother up to?’ and I said, ‘Well he’s starting a group out here in Huntington Park.’ 

‘Well, he can’t do that!’ 

‘Well, he has!’ 

‘He can’t do that, we’ve incorporated Alcoholics Anonymous in California. That means no one can start a group unless they have our permission.’ 

So Tex went down there, and [the founders] bawled him out and they said, ‘We don’t want you here, sir! You came down here a few times, and caught on how to do it, and now you’ve started a rival group out there in Huntington Park!’ ‘It’s not a rival group,’ Tex said. ‘We’ve just got folks who are driving so far from Long Beach to the Friday night meeting, we thought we’d start one halfway [on a different night.] See?’ They said, ‘No, we don’t see! Now our attorney has incorporated Alcoholics Anonymous of California and if you don’t fold that group up, we’ll sue you and we’ll run you out of town, because you are hurting this group!’ […] 

And Tex sat down and laughed, and he said ‘You might as well try to incorporate a sunset. I’ll bet you that in a couple of years, you’ll have groups [all over the state] …” 

Group #2 in LA, started by Sybil’s brother, Tex, was called the Hole in The Ground. Jackie reports that Matt M (Sybil’s sponsee), on the AA History Lovers Yahoo Group elaborated, “Back then, if you started a meeting you owned it. They [LA founders: Cliff W., Frank R. and Mort J.) got furious at Tex A, Sybil's brother, who started the Hole in the Ground Meeting in Huntington park. He told them it was a long rough drive to downtown LA from his home (no freeways back then, no route 10, no route 5).” 

“And we know about Clarence in early-day Cleveland,” Jackie adds, “Largely from How It Worked, by Mitchell K[vii],” Jackie adds. On pages 150-151, we read, “Clarence was fond of saying ‘All you need to start a meeting is a resentment and a coffee pot.’ He said felt that if there were any real unity, all that there would be in the world is one very large and boring meeting. He said, ‘A.A. didn’t start, or grow in unity. A.A. started and grew in riots.’ 

“Clarence also said, ‘When we had our first UNITY in Cleveland, we didn’t split into two groups. We did one better. We split into three.’” 

From Akron to Cleveland, from the G. Group to the Borton Group to the Orchard Grove Group, Ohio AA grew the same way it sometimes does everywhere, “Fine then! We’ll go start our own meeting; we’ll show you.” 

This year at the Ontario Regional Conference of AA in Toronto, the 24-page glossy booklet, 75 Years of A.A. in Ontario was given to attendees. It reports the first Canadian gathering of AA in January 13, 1943 where six alkies and two friends of alkies met at Little Denmark Tavern and Restaurant. Later they moved to a church where six attended the first AA meeting January 28th. 

Along the highway from Toronto to Detroit, meetings started in Windsor and London Ontario. More Toronto groups and an AA clubhouse were added. By 1945, meetings were started in Ottawa, Sterling and Hamilton and a Women’s group started in Toronto. 

Dorothy C was at the first AA gathering in 1943. The booklet reports, “This fledgling [Women’s] group had only twelve members. Frequently less than eight were in attendance. In 1945, for women, family responsibilities were supposed to come before their own sobriety. 

GSO records reports that within ten years (1953), there were 503 AA groups in Canada. The 75th booklet celebrates other firsts through the years, too. Our first correctional meetings (in jails) are recorded, the adventures of Pat, Rubin, Jerry and Dennis—founders of the first young people’s group (1950), the December 1973 first Gay AA, encouraged from a California group, Alcoholics Together (AT). “The name came about because the local intergroup office would not allow the group to be listed as an A.A. group. The Toronto members faced a similar problem here.” 

Care to take in a little Canadian AA history next month? ICSAA 2018 Attendees can visit the Friday 5:30 PM open Big Book group called Stained Glass in Trinity Anglican Church where the first Gay meeting was held in Toronto. The church is on the same property as our Marriott Toronto Easton Centre Hotel. “The founding members were David C., Jack M., Kevin B. and Ron P. Combined, they had a total of about 35 years sobriety and were well known in Toronto A.A. and active in their home groups. 

”Grupo Nueva Esperanza opened its doors April 24, 1984” as the first Spanish speaking Ontario group. Little know in secular AA circles the booklet reports, “Secular meetings are first documented by Bill W. in A.A. Comes of Age. District 22 [Toronto East] Minutes of Sunday September 10, 1995 show in New Business, the formation of We Agnostics, a new group with two founding members.” 

I never knew about the meeting at the time, or I would have enjoyed going. AAagnostica.org recently posted an article from Moncton New Brunswick’s Michael who travelled in early sobriety and had gotten to Quad-A meetings in Chicago (AA for atheists and agnostics) and he started what might be Canada’s first: “I started to think my home city of Moncton, New Brunswick, needed a similar meeting. With one other member with similar “grievances” we started a secular group in 1992 – the “AA 4AF” group – Alcoholics Anonymous For Atheists, Agnostics and Freethinkers. The group was registered with GSO February 14 with the Service Number 000170694.”[viii] 

Michael moved to another town and the meeting didn’t last—maybe an idea ahead of it’s time for Atlantic Canada. 

75 Years of A.A. in Ontario also includes a shout out to the first International Conference of Young People in AA, intentionally held on a border town—Niagara Falls, NY, 1958—both American and Canadian AA’s conspired to put it on. The 60th ICYPAA will be in Baltimore at the end of August. Keep reading for info and a cool, new video from ICYPAA. 

The LGBTQ Toronto Gratitude Round Up is recorded in the Ontario history booklet as is the upcoming ICSAA 2018 in Toronto. Kudos to the archivists/editors for remembering that AA’s history is still being made and always has been a work-in-progress.  The 75 Years of A.A. in Ontario is quite polite—not much of “the dirt” or the riots that we heard Jackie attribute to Clarence’s recollection of AA beginnings.   

I recently acquired Quebec’s history booklet. The Beginnings of AA in Quebec: The Charisma of an Ambassador is published by La Vigne Inc (French Grapevine 2010). This is 82 pages with pics of old Bill W letters and other memorabilia. It also has some of the dirt. The book is mostly about Dave B. Dave wasn’t the first AA sobriety in Montreal, but the founding member lost interest and lost contact with New York. When GSO heard from Dave they were happy to pass on a bundle of “please help” letters from 400 fellow Montreal alcoholics. Dave joined AA April 7, 1944. He went to work on the 400 prospects. By 1945 the 28 members meeting at Dave’s home needed a bigger space. Montreal growth included growing pains. The Forum, where the Montreal Canadians hockey team played, was renting a hall to AA. “In 1947, when there was about a hundred members, the Forum took back their hall after having discovered that certain members stayed there till three or four in the morning to play cards… Sainte-Mathias group opend so as to better welcome members from the city’s west. Preston Hall became home to the first French Canadian group (p. 31).” 

According to La Vigne AA, Vol 21, no 1, April-May 1985, “In 1949, Montreal had 400 members and 18 AA groups.” 

We’ve talked about some of the early Canadian secular AA meetings (agnostics/atheists/freethinkers/humanists/skeptics). It was overseas Buddhists that started the first AA meetings without prayer or gods; the first North American Quad-A (AA for atheists and agnostics) was held in 1975. 

At the time of posting the blog, there’s just seven weeks to ICSAA 2018, August 24-26 in Toronto. Courtney S of SecularAA.org reports there are currently 451 secular meetings in 363 locations. In 2015, there were 200 worldwide secular meetings, 100 in 2012 and ten years ago, we had about 50 agnostic/atheist groups. 

Over the last ten years, this subculture has doubled in size, twice. Is the population of natural vs. supernatural worldview holding alcoholics growing? Are non-believers coming out of the closet and saying, “To tell you the truth, I don’t believe in a prayer-answering higher power so, I’m going to stop talking like I do”? Some closet-agnostics/atheist just prefer meetings where they need not self-edit the experience of our recovery. 

One thing this rapid growth in secular AA might suggest, along with the overall growth in other new groups, could there be an overall demand for more specialized/ personalized AA? I expect that back-to-basics is growing just as rapidly as secular AA. Some like more of “this” and others need more “that.” 

We’ve looked a bit at how meetings/groups got started in different regions and wherever you’re from—I’d love to hear the story of your region’s early AA. Jump into the discussion. 

We’ve talked about—for lack of a better word—special purpose groups (women, youth, LGBTQ, other-language and secular meetings). If membership numbers stay stagnant and the number of groups keeps getting larger, are we fracturing into more and more special-interest echo chambers? 

Speaking of early AA, in 1946 Cleveland, from a club house wall, a poster reflected AA attitudes of the day: 

“AA groups are fundamentally little bands of people who are friends, who can help each other to stay sober. Each group therefore reflects the needs of its own members. The way a group is managed is the way its members want it to be managed for their common benefit. As a result, we have large groups, small groups, groups with refreshments, groups which never have refreshments, groups which like long meetings, groups which like short meetings, social groups, working groups, men’s groups, women’s groups, groups that play cards, groups which specialize in young people and as many other varieties as there are kinds of people. Each group has its own customs, its own financial problems, and its own method of operation. As long as it follows as a group the same principles AA recommends for individuals on selfishness, honesty, decency and tolerance it is above criticism.”[ix] 

 This is pre-Twelve Traditions; this is early mid-West AA. Say what?!? Does that sound a little more permissive that your last district General Service meeting? Wouldn’t you love this poster hanging on your meeting wall when someone goes all bug-eyed and says, “You can’t read that at an AA meeting!” You could just say, “Show me where it says what is forbidden or sacred on the wall… take your time.”   

The pamphlet “The AA Group (P-16)[x]” is worth reading if your home group no longer gets your juices flowing. The pamphlet might give you some ideas for what you like or don’t like in a meeting. Maybe you want more structure in your group. Maybe more spontaneity is how you’re sobriety roles, today. 

HOT OFF THE PRESS: A Resentment and Video Software – starting your own video… 

Getting active is going to be a must if you’re thinking of stating a new group that better suits your style. AA’s young people just put out a video on service (June 20, 2018); Millennials are so You-Tube! It’s called Service is The Secret[xi] - check it out, it’s very contemporary… as always, controversially so. Anyway, here’s what Millennials say about running their grandparent’s AA. It’s 7 ½ minutes. 

When I was on the EastBayAA.org site I noticed things going on in the hood. Camping for Young People, a weekend workshop called, “Legal, Tax, and Insurance Considerations for A.A. Groups,” “12th annual Courageous Women in AA,” Giants vs. A’s baseball outing, 23rd annual LGBT AA at Yosemite, “Unity & Service Conference,” “In-Between Fellowship 58th Anniversary (I don’t even know?!?!)” and of course—who’s coming (I know I am)—Symposium on A.A. History February 1-3, 2019. 

Under the East Bay group list, you can shorten your preferences with the following choices of AA Meeting: Fragrance-free, Dual Diagnosis, Cross-dressing permitted, Child-friendly, Living Sober, Smoking permitted, People of Color, Tradition Study, Transgender, Sign Language, Wheelchair Access, Candlelight, Spanish, Cross Talk Permitted and all the other garden-variety speaker, discussion, Big Book, open, closed, Women, Men, secular, Young People, LGBT, etc. Now there a variety of groups who prefer meditation over reading, some have Al-Anon participation, some leave it entirely up to the chair to pick a format. 

I expect each of these groups meets the criteria of the 1946, Ohio “What is an AA Group” definition, don’t you? We have meetings for AA doctors, lawyers and pilots, too. Fewer of these options were available when I first came around. Maybe the creation of more AA for specific demographics is why our meeting choices keep increasing while our population stays the same. Social media (and other internet sites) has provided AAs and the larger recovery community to commune under any number of umbrellas, too. 

I’ve heard, “If you haven’t met anyone you don’t like in AA, you haven’t been to enough meetings. Maybe if you don’t have a group that’s just right for you, you haven’t started one, yet. 

Is there a down side to AA groups continuing to be fractured into smaller more individualized groups? 

There is something to be gained by exposing ourselves to views and approaches outside our comfort zone. That has to be weighed against the benefits of a save, predictable atmosphere. I don’t know if it’s a “down” side but there is a financial cost to fewer members in more groups.

In family life, when mom and dad split up, kids and assets get divided between two homes. If kids are old enough they have a choice where they live; if they’re young, the parents or courts decide how much time they spend here and there. This might not be a broken home like many of us call it; it could be a healed home. In some cases, the environment(s) are better for all involved if mom and dad have grown incompatible. But when a family unit on a fixed income adds the cost of an extra home, that can lead to both mom and dad spending less time with kids (more work hours), it can thin out discretionary spending at best and cause financial chaos or collapse in a worst-case scenario. Two households increase cost of living and breakup rarely increases income to meet the new cost of living. 

AA groups are the same way; if half of a 20-member group start their own group then there’s less people at each meeting—less total financial contribution and (like the split-family) added costs. AA operates, by design on a corporate poverty model. Our service structure owns no, or very little, property, groups try to maintain their own prudent reserve but any excess seventh tradition accumulation above that prudent reserve, is sent to district, area, GSO or and/or our local central office to contribute our share to their expenses. Member and group participation is never predicated on ability to carry our weight. AA is never going to try to make a profit, but we do run on a razon-thin margin. GSO’s overall operating budget is about $16 million which is about $8 per member. Collective wisdom is that it would be great if General Service was 100% funded by groups/members/Areas but contributions only fund about ½ of our General Service expense; the balance is subsidized by publishing sales. The publishing world is going through changes right now and the dependence on a consistent income from future book sales in a digital era as a model for long-term viability has its critics. 

So at one end, GSO is wanting to be move towards being solely group/member funded (dependent) and at the same time members are starting more groups and taking on more local expenses so we don’t realistically have the prospect of extra money in the coffers to sent on to General Service. 

The resentment is free; the coffee pot has to be paid for by group contributions, just like the room rent where the power-outlet is that we plug that coffee pot into. 

Still, GSO’s long-term financial peril isn’t supposed to be the first consideration when thinking about breaking away from your current home group and starting one more to your liking. But it’s worth thinking about periodically and that’s part of what we like to muse over, once a year—our annual “AA by the numbers.” 

If you want to know more AA World Service income and expenses, ask your group GSR to get your group a copy of the latest General Service Conference Final Report. It’s a confidential document with some AA members names, addresses and phone numbers in it so it isn’t a publicly posted document. But it is every member’s right to read it each year. The 2018 68th General Service Conference Final Report will be printed in French, English and Spanish and available soon. Most GSRs have a 2017 report in their group binder. 

Thanks for following along.

[i] https://www.aa.org/newsletters/en_US/en_box459_summer_2018.pdf 

[ii] Recovery Plays by Jackie B http://www.recoveryplaysofjackieb.org/ 

[iii] Jackie's play:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SnH1Wwp9Qc 

[iv] https://www.secularaa.com 

[v] https://www.aahistorysymposium.org/ 

[vi] https://eastbayaa.org/symposium-on-a-a-history-february-1-3-2019 

[vii] https://orlandorecoveryfamily.com/2015/06/03/how-it-worked-the-story-of-clarence-h-snyder/ 

[viii] https://aaagnostica.org/2018/06/14/addiction-recovery-and-personal-character/ 

[ix] More on early AA with Ernie Kurtz and Bill White: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEab222byp0 

[x] https://www.aa.org/assets/en_US/p-16_theaagroup.pdf 

[xi] AA Service Video by ICYPAA participants:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utl2Xy1_vK4

PDF version to read/print/post or save

More on member/group trends from 2017

Rebellion Dogs Blog, May 2018 

read/download as PDF

Why Now? 

With over 90% support of voting members, the 68th General Service Conference (2018), for USA/Canada, adopted and approved the pamphlet “The ‘God’ Word; Agnostics and Atheists in AA.” What has changed inside and outside of AA in such a short order? 

Rebellion Dogs Publishing and AA Beyond Belief are teaming up soon for a detailed look at the long road that brings this pamphlet to our home-group literature tables. I’m looking forward to that presentation which I hope you will find entertaining and informative. 

This is not that. 

Today, let’s look at changing mood, changing demographics and the continuing history of Alcoholics Anonymous. We see demographic shifts, particularly in America. Let’s also look at how the USA born Alcoholics Anonymous is managing outside the most monotheistic leaning of developed nations, the United States of America. 

Background: Just a few years ago, under the stewardship of then-chair of the General Service Board, Rev. Ward Ewing, the trustees’ Literature Committee had collected agnostic and atheist stories from Canada and the USA to create a home-made pamphlet. The format was like others, welcoming other underrepresented populations in AA: youth, the LGBTQ community, African Americans, women, indigenous people, persons with disabilities and/or requiring accommodation, etc. 

This noble endeavor failed to illicit the 2/3 majority that any advisory action requires on the General Service Conference floor. Instead, the rejected pamphlet was replaced with a working title pamphlet called “AA: Spiritual not Religious,” which would eventually be affirmed as “Many Paths to Spirituality.” 

How did we get from “the nays have it,” a few years ago, to “yes we will,” this spring? 

Here’s where our General Service Conference stood in 2011: 

“…the trustees’ Literature Committee continue to develop literature which focuses on spirituality that includes stories from atheists and agnostics who are sober in Alcoholics Anonymous. The committee expressed support for the trustees’ efforts to develop a pamphlet which reflects the wide range of spiritual experiences of A.A. members and asked that a draft pamphlet or progress report be brought to the 2012 Conference Committee on Literature for consideration.” 

As history recalls, the draft agnostics and atheists pamphlet didn’t get the substantial unanimity that “conference approved” requires. Instead, in 2014 we ushered in, “Many Paths to Spirituality.” Personally, I think “Many Paths” is a pamphlet with merit; but it falls short of satisfying the unmet need of atheists and agnostics stories in our own language. If other underrepresented populations have such a pamphlet, why not us? 

In Laval Quebec, the biennial Eastern Canada Regional Forum welcomed feedback from members in 2014. I remember asking Class B (alcoholic) literature committee trustee Joe D, standing at the podium, if the view of AA World Services Publishing was that “Many Paths” met the need of agnostics and atheist seeking a pamphlet. Joe D replied that, “Yes, ‘Many Paths’ was thought to satisfy the unmet need for atheist/agnostic literature.” 

I respectfully offered that in my discussion with members from my atheist/agnostic home group to the larger online secular AA community, it is widely felt that “Many Paths” does not satisfy our request. We still feel, literature with nonbelievers expressing what it was like, what happened and what it’s like now, belonged alongside, “AA for the Woman,” “AA for the Gay/Lesbian Alcoholic,” “Young People and AA,” “AA for the Native North American, “AA for the Black and African American Alcoholic.” 

Amy B of Grapevine and other Grapevine staff were in attendance. That’s when the idea first germinated for a previously published Grapevine atheist and agnostic stories be collected for a book. First, they got home from Quebec and put out a call to readers to tell our agnostic/atheist stories for the October 2016 issue of Grapevine. This Fall (2018), Grapevine books will include a collection of some of these stories and previous Grapevines going back to Jimmy B and other contributions.    

Through other regional forums and communication between AA groups and meetings with the General Service Office, it was affirmed that there was still an unmet need. I am sure that several of you, reading now, had your say. AA owes you a debt of gratitude for speaking up; if nothing happens, nothing happens. 

Meanwhile, the General Service Conference of the United Kingdom, which has the autonomy to create any literature requested by their own constituents, drafted a collection of atheist and agnostic AA stories from Britain. In 2016, “The ‘God’ Word: Agnostics and Atheists in AA”[i] was conference approved. 

“The ‘God’ Word” contains ten stories of experience, strength and hope. Some of these include recoveries from alcoholism in AA without our literature or 12-Step process. Other stories include experiences of adapting theistic Steps with more secular higher powers such as the AA group, the power of example, the healing power of one alcoholic talking to another. Unabashedly, “The ‘God’ Word" stories are told the same way believers stories go, take what you like (what works) and leaving the rest. 

As we’ve discussed before the General Service Conference has a president for adopting British conference approved literature for USA/Canada. In 1980, “A Newcomer Asks” became part of the USA/Canada literature offerings. “A Newcomer Asks” is the second most ordered pamphlet, next to “Is AA for You?”  This year, our General Service Conference approved the following advisory action:   

The pamphlet “The God Word” (currently published by the General Service Board of A.A., Great Britain) be adopted by A.A. World Services, Inc. with minor editorial changes. 

If you’re wondering what has changed so dramatically in mood and attitudes inside AA over just a few years, let’s consider how moods and attitudes are changing in America, where a little over ½ of AA’s approximately two million members go to meetings. 

Tobin Grant blogs for Religion News Service at Corner of Church and State, a data-driven conversation on religion and politics. He is a political science professor at Southern Illinois University and associate editor of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.  In March of 2015 in The Christian Century, Tobin Grant reported on the following changes in Americans beliefs and behaviors: 

• Fewer Americans Pray: The percentage who say they never pray climbed from 10% in 2004 to 15% in 2014. 
• 34% of Americans “never attend a worship service (other than weddings and other ceremonies). This is a three-point increase from just a few years earlier.
• The 2014 General Social Survey… shows that since 2012, the United States has about 7.5 million more Americans who are no longer active in religion. 
• “When asked their religious preference, nearly one in four Americans now say, “none.” … There are nearly as many Americans who claim no religion as there are Catholics… If this growth continues, in a few years the largest religion in the United States may be no religion at all.[ii] 

To a more secular audience, in The New Republic,[iii] Isaac Chotiner points out that demographic changes are no changing of the guard. There is no score to settle, even if that’s to the chagrin of the anti-theist camp of secularism. Chotiner concludes his essay this way: 

“The truth is that this wave of secularism, like previous waves of secularism, will leave believers in perfectly fine shape. Religion, much to the dismay of diehard atheists, has a way of adapting itself to current conditions. This era will prove no exception.”  

Some of the discrimination that nonbelievers have suffered in AA and other 12-Step meetings comes from an ignorance that nonbelievers will become believers if they open their mind. Some discrimination is from a secularphobia that sees irreligion as a threat to the majority faith-based Americans and/or AA member. But Chotiner’s conclusions are that we’ve been here before, secularism isn’t contagious. To the grounded theist, secularists having their say or their own space is no threat to any true-believer. Perhaps in AA, there is more of a unity vs. uniformity vibe and less of an “AA under siege” fear. 

Consider that this vote wasn’t nonbelievers outvoting believers on the General Conference floor. The "yes" vote was inclusive-minded AA’s wanting everyone to feel included. Any slippery slope dread of what might happen if vulnerable newcomers are exposed to secular AA literature, has dissipated with moderate AA members. “The ‘God’ Word is blunt, but it doesn’t throw stones at traditional AA. The stories display a range – from those who disregard the 12-Step process to those who adapt strongly held AA tenets about powerlessness and power-sources to more behavioral/educational narratives of overcoming “a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.” 

If AA reflects a cross-section of the world outside our meeting room doors, then fewer AA’s hold a supernatural view of what “a power greater than ourselves” means to each of us, personally. 

Also, if AA is like the rest of the community, apostacy affects some of our membership. In the rooms, I hear about members jumping into the AA idea of a loving higher power listening to our prayers and sending guiding messages. Some of us were outspoken about letting go and letting god (of our understanding). Gradually, some of us outgrow this conception of an intervening higher power. This isn’t to say a secular worldview is more evolved that a supernatural worldview. The point is that a secular approach to AA is no longer considered an intellectual holdout. Not-god is a perfectly workable view to AA sobriety. 

And the world we live in isn’t just theists vs. nonbelievers; some religious adherents don’t believe in an anthropomorphic higher power and others who believe in such an intervening supernatural power, don’t envision a “Him.” The creator is not called, “God” by all theists. 

From the Washington Post in 2014, Reid Wilson looked at the second-largest religion (next to Christianity) in each State: 

“In the Western U.S., Buddhists represent the largest non-Christian religious block in most states. In 20 states, mostly in the Midwest and South, Islam is the largest non-Christian faith tradition. And in 15 states, mostly in the Northeast, Judaism has the most followers after Christianity. Hindus come in second place in Arizona and Delaware, and there are more practitioners of the Baha’i faith in South Carolina than anyone else.”[iv] 

As for AA as-a-whole, AA’s greatest growth is coming outside the USA/Canada. Many developing countries are not monotheistical in their dominant culture. The Spring 2018 Box 4-5-9: News and Notes for GSO celebrated AA growth outside of our conference’s jurisdiction. Iran has 400 meetings, there was a women’s AA convention in New Delhi India, AA is growing in Uzbekistan.[v]  

The Spring Box 4-5-9 also announces under Items and Ideas on Area Gatherings for A.A.s, “August 24-26: Toronto, Ontario, Canada. 3rd.International Secular Conference Info: https://secularaa.com. 

While we await the 2018 member/group estimates (posted Summer Box 4-5-9), the 2017 report showed that 50,555 of AA’s 118,305 groups and 705,850 of our 2,103,184 members are from outside the USA/Canada jurisdiction. Year-over-year, membership held firm with thanks to double-digit increases in new members, internationally. While monotheism is known worldwide, polytheism such as Hinduism and non-theism such as Jainism or Buddhism will continue to account for more of AA’s cultural background. It’s great to ponder, as we have accommodated non-supernatural worldview members, will we continue to accommodate a growing variety of views of AA recovery, both natural and supernatural?

In that first United Kingdom pamphlet that USA/Canada adopted and amended, one of the “A Newcomer Asks”[vi] queries is answered this way: 

There’s a lot of talk about God, though, isn’t there? 

“The majority of A.A. members believe that we have found the solution to our drinking problem not through individual willpower, but through a power greater than ourselves. However, everyone defines this power as he or she wishes. Many people call it God, others think it is the A.A. group, still others don’t believe in it at all. There is room in A.A. for people of all shades of belief and nonbelief.” 

It would be interesting to poll members to understand who, A) “Calls it God,” B) think of it as the A.A. group” or C) don’t believe in it at all.”   Maybe a future triennial membership survey will ask us and then track changes in our beliefs through the years. 

I’ll look for reader help in sourcing our closing line. Peter Drucker, Abraham Lincoln and Alan Kay are all credited for saying this: 

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” 

[i] http://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk/download/1/Library/Documents/Literature%20Downloads/3267%20The%20God%20Word.pdf 

[ii] https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2015-03/75-million-americans-lost-their-religion-2012 

[iii] https://newrepublic.com/article/116509/secularism-america-good-everyone-including-christians 

[iv] https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/06/04/the-second-largest-religion-in-each-state/?noredirect=on 

[v] https://www.aa.org/newsletters/en_US/en_box459_spring18.pdf 

[vi] https://www.aa.org/assets/en_US/p-24_anewcomerask.pdf

What’s the Future of the Word “Alcoholic”? 

Written for (reprinted from) www.GeniusRecovery.com by Joe C. January 18, 2018 [Click links below for videos, blogs and Genius Recovery resources]

Read in PDF (CLICK HERE)

Here’s a couple of thought experiments for fellow AA (and other 12-step) members: 

First, if you were asked to change one way you do things, which may make you uncomfortable for a while but might help others, would you do it? 

Here’s Question #2: would and could Alcoholics Anonymous adapt to a world whereby none of us called ourselves “alcoholic”? The same can be asked about your 12-step fellowship if you identify as a sex, food or marijuana addict. 

Medical, legal and cultural language evolves. In healthcare, person-first is replacing problem-first language. This isn’t hyper-liberalism; studies verify that person-first language promotes dignity and diminishes stigma. “Disabled people” or “the disabled” is problem-first language. Societal norms dictate “persons with disability” is less stigmatizing. We call ourselves alcoholics in AA. Outside our meeting doors, caregivers address us as “persons with alcoholism” or “persons with alcohol use-disorder.” 

The word “alcoholic” had a good run; great. We made it part of AA’s name; will that be a problem? If the word is going out of circulation, two-million people may feel duty-bound to preserve the word, "alcoholic."

Can we? Should we? 

AA was a breath of progressive, fresh air in the 1930s. “Alcoholic” identified people like me as having a medical problem instead of a character flaw or a moral depravity. Nobody in AA identifies as an “inebriate” or “deviant” in 2017; that sounds old-fashioned. In society at large, “alcoholic” is being retired. A younger, more empathetic, next-gen, person-first label will take over. 

Here are some insights I sought out from professionals early in the summer of 2017 and finally found a place to be shared on Genius Recovery January of 2018. 

William L. White is Emeritus Senior Research Consultant at Chestnut Health Systems / Lighthouse Institute and author of the award-winning Slaying the Dragon – The History of Addiction Treatment and Recovery in America. Bill reminds us of pre-alcoholic labeling. “Since the early 1900s, persons entering treatment for such problems have been labeled inebriates, dipsomaniacs,” and White continues with unflattering monikers that we still hear, “drunkard/drunk, sot, tippler, wino, boozer…suggestions have been made that the addictions field and the larger culture abandon all such terms, and like the larger health care and disabilities fields, embrace person-first language.” 

Back in January 2017, then director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Michael Botticelli put out a memorandum from the Executive Office of the President focusing on “Changing the Language of Addiction” to de-stigmatize our attitudes towards persons with alcohol and other drug-use disorders. On Here and Now in August, 2017, Botticelli told Robin Young that when looking at reasons that people cite for not seeking treatment, the #1 answer is stigma; they don’t want their neighbors finding out, they don’t want friends finding out. And one of the contributory factors to that stigma is our language. Botticelli said, “Often when we call people things like ‘addict’ or ‘junkies,’ not only are they incredibly judgmental words, but they also kind of pigeonhole someone’s entire being to that one single characteristic. And, again, this is where we’re beginning to have much more direct clinical evidence that words matter.” 

Person-first language is part of a bigger effort to destigmatize all marginalized minorities.

The American Psychological Association (APA), in a policy paper on disability, advises:

"Non-handicapping language is to maintain the integrity of individuals as whole human beings by avoiding language that implies that a person, as a whole, is disabled (e.g., disabled person), equates a person with his or her condition (e.g., epileptic)…” The APA emphasizes, “In focusing on the disability, an individual’s strengths, abilities, skills, and resources are often ignored. In many instances, persons with disabilities are viewed neither as having the capacity or right to express their goals and preferences, nor as being resourceful and contributing members of society.” 

William White draws from history:

“The twin challenges such movements face—from the civil rights and women’s movements to the disability rights movement—are to expunge (or re-purpose) objectifying, disempowering words and images and forge new words and images that convey respect, inspire new possibilities, and invite inclusion. The import of such efforts far transcends matters of superficial political correctness.” 

Last year (2017), with my brain locked on how words stigmatize and/or empower, I found myself in a conversation with David B. Bohl MA, CSAC, MAC, Director of Addiction Services at Rogers Memorial Hospital in Wisconsin [recently, author of his memoir, Parallel Universes: A Story of Rebirth]. I wanted to get his take on language, stigma and shame. Our conversation is broader than “is the word alcoholic outdated?” The entertainment industry exceedingly stigmatizes addiction and objectifies sufferers, for fun and profit: 

"I watched A&E’s Intervention on YouTube. Larry Peterson, CEO at Astoria Pointe treatment, is characterizing Ivan, who’s completed treatment, 'He’s faced his demons and the wreckage of his past. He’s done everything he can do on an in-patient basis.'

I switch to Episode One (2016); A&E depicts the story of ...'Jennifer: A young mother’s eating disorder has been a life-long affliction, now compounded by drug and sex addiction–but to get rid of her demons she’ll have to eliminate more than just her food'.”

I wanted to get Bohl’s feedback about these carefully chosen words the writers crafted. 

“‘Demons?’ Really? Is this the way we articulate a chronic, treatable brain disorder?” Bohl quipped.

“I went to A&E’s website just to see what they say because I have some notions about this. What jumped out at me was, ‘Each addict must confront their darkest demons, in order to begin their journey to recovery and turn their lives around before it’s too late!’ That’s the passion, the plea, the shaming that evokes emotions from the people they want to watch.

Demons? What happened to the medical language around the disease, or disorder, of addiction? This language ignores 20 years of exciting neuro-biological research and results. Addiction is a chronic brain disorder; in my opinion, that’s what it is.

Stigmatization remains the greatest barrier to people getting treatment and getting engaged. ‘You’re just a junkie, unworthy of medical care’—that’s the extreme, right? ‘You’re not deserving of these services or self-efficacy or being treated as a human first; look at your history,.” 

After we trashed TV's depiction of addiction, David B. Bohl (pictured) pointed me towards an American Psychiatric Association blog, Talking about Addiction: Language Matters (January 2017). Staff writers emphasize:

“Stigma about people with substance use disorders exists even among clinicians. One study found that even mental health professionals judged an individual identified as a substance abuser more harshly than an individual identified as having a substance use disorder. The language used about addiction reflects, and can perpetuate, negative perceptions about people with substance use disorders.”

The article emphasizes that we ought to:

“..Use person-first language, such as has been widely adopted for use with other conditions and disabilities, for example ‘person with substance use disorder’ (or replace with specific substance) rather than ‘substance abuser’ or ‘addict’ or ‘alcoholic'.” 

Personally, I’m desensitized by any stigma the word “alcoholic” may carry; I’ve been sober a while.

But, it’s not about me, is it? It’s about the still suffering. I’m convinced by the evidence that while “alcoholic” was an improvement over “dipsomaniac,” people—individuals impacted by addiction to alcohol and other drugs/processes, along with the healthcare professionals that serve us—can’t transcend our visceral, derogatory reactions to the stereotypes of problem-first language.

In the rooms, some members are already adapting how they self-identify. Maybe we’ve all heard, “My name’s Olga and I’m in long-term recovery.” The idea is to identify with the solution—not the stigmatized problem.

Another member says, “My name is _______ and I have alcoholism.” For him, while he still uses the stigmatized “A” word, it’s not who he is, it’s just one of many things that defines him. “My name is ______ and I’m an AA member,” is another that I’ve heard. 

No one is going to tell AA to change our name or forgo an age-old ritual of what we say before we share. But, if we want to change things—even our name—we can. Nothing is scared; nothing is forbidden. 

Bill W. wrote in the July 1965 Grapevine:

“Let us never fear needed change. Certainly, we have to discriminate between changes for the worse and changes for the better. But once a need becomes clearly apparent in an individual, in a group, or in A.A. as a whole, it has long since been found out that we cannot stand still and look the other way. The essence of all growth is a willingness to change for the better and then an unremitting willingness to shoulder whatever responsibility this entails.” 

Personally, the need for change has become apparent; so, what responsibility will I shoulder? I’m not going to petition the General Service Office. I’m not going to tell you what I think you should do. I’m going to do what I think I should do. 

I’m going to try changing the way I identify in the rooms. Others have already. The evidence suggests that it will benefit the still suffering. Why wouldn’t this old dog try new tricks, if only for other’s benefit? “My name’s Joe and I have alcohol use disorder.” That felt weird. I’ll keep trying. 

VISIT GENIUS RECOVERY:

Joe Polish & Dr. Gabor Maté VIDEO

Genius Recovery Video with Best-seller and editor, Anna David

Genius Recovery Video with Dr. Patrick Cares: Sex & Love Addiction

More blogs, stories and video on Genius Network

other links:

View the A&E Intervention episode "Ivan" that David B Bohl and Joe C discussed

View the A&E Intervention episode Jennifer that David B Bohl and Joe C discussed

David B Bohl's Parallel Universes: The Story of Rebirth

Rebellion Dogs Blog, January 2018 

Your Best Thinking got you where!?!? Freethought, 12-Step Rooms and Conflict Resolution 

READ, VIEW OR DOWNLOAD AS A PDF CLICK HERE Online bullying led to the suicide of another youth. I was moved by what I read. It was an Australian child; of course, it could be anyone’s daughter or sister. In a striking reaction, the father invited the perpetrators to the funeral. I read on the BBC website: 

One in five children in Australia say they were bullied in the past year. 

In his emotional Facebook post, written on Sunday, Dolly's father, Tick Everett, gave no details of the bullying, but said she had wanted to "escape the evil in this world". 

He said he hoped the attention on Dolly's death last week might "help other precious lives from being lost". 

He also invited the bullies to her funeral, saying: "If by some chance the people who thought this was a joke and made themselves feel superior by the constant bullying and harassment see this post, please come to our service and witness the complete devastation you have created." 

On Wednesday, the family released a statement to media outlets saying Dolly had been "the kindest, caring, beautiful soul".[i] 

Wow. A lot of parents wouldn’t want the perpetrators anywhere near their grieving friends and family. In part, the dad wanted those who took his daughter to suffer from the loss, too. I see this not so much as revenge but an understanding (wisdom). In a corrupt system—as bullying is—everyone engaged in the corrupt system, victims, persecutors, enablers and rescuers are all controlled by the corrupt system. In an elaborate sense, everyone engaged in the system is corrupted, is victimized by the corruption. It’s natural to demonize the perpetrator and who can blame those who suffer for feeling angry or vengeful; full stop. Trauma and grief have stages and the perspective (and empathy) demonstrated by the suffering father, is remarkable. 

But this Australian father wants the corrupt system, that took his daughter, to end. He doesn’t want the system taking any more victims. That demands an understanding of the system; that asks the seemingly unthinkable—empathy for your perpetrator. Resolution requires truth and reconciliation. 

I can’t avoid a 12-Step slant; I didn’t learn everything I know in an AA meeting, but 12-Step culture intervened in my accelerating trip down a dead-end street. It gave me a chance to stop, to think, to breath and learn to think more better. I’ve been persecuted by injustice in my life. Also true is that I am a white male in a world that offers me privilege at the expense of others.

Example: Everyone In 12-Step communities have been discriminated against; there remains a persistent stigma foist upon we addicts. How many people with eating disorders have not been body-shamed?

Have you ever tried asking the pastor where your local AA meeting is or the facilities coordinator in the local library if you Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous group can meet there every week, maybe right after daycare, just before Palates? If you haven’t, can you imagine the fish-eye you might get from someone who’s also the landlord to parents and child-care professionals? Are sex and love addicts a bigger risk to toddlers than a random group from the public? I don’t know. But what do you think the general attitude is towards people with sexual compulsions looking for a place to hang out? 

Here’s a personal example: I’ve faced discrimination. As a youth—I was 14-years-of-age at my first meeting and sober by age 16—I had older members roll their eyes at me, dismissively. Also, as someone who is skeptical about the popular AA belief that a loving, intervening higher power is the agency to our sobriety, I have faced the typical suggestion that I am the one with a closed mind, I should save time (and my life) by seeing it their way. I’ve been told that my candidly expressed views could be damaging to impressionable newcomers. You know and I know that it’s wrong to treat minority atheists any differently than the majority theists but you and I also know it happens.

But for me, I walk out (or storm out—my choice) of that meeting and I’m a peer among peers on the streets. My beliefs or lack thereof are invisible to the crowd outside. Now let’s consider a woman in a meeting who expresses the injustice of AA literature that treats her as the second-sex who is told her feminism is an outside issue… She can storm or walk out of the meeting too, but she walks onto the streets of a city or town that still pays her $0.75 on the dollar for the same work a man does and where she’s inclined to be objectified and judged without even opening her mouth. A woman alcoholic’s suffering from systemic discrimination doesn’t end her victimhood when she rejects the meeting. So that’s very different than my predicament isn’t it? I walk out the door, leave discrimination behind and re-join privilege. 

Creating a better society requires thought and empathy and cooperation. I’d like to strike up a conversation about such things. The relationship with thinking and recovery is evolving. AA, of course had something to say about thinking and addiction—denial, distortion, rationalization, these are thinking traps that have led some to think of addicts as having a different brain than others, “That’s your addict’s brain taking there, boy.” I do find it remarkably powerful how, that while in addiction, with all the harmful consequences that ought to repel me from continued self-destruction, quite irrationally, I rationalize, minimize, postpone or avoid help and stay married the pay-off despite the diminishing returns and mounting consequences. It is hard for me to remember how compelling and habitual my own addictive cycle was. When I hear it, I relate to the idea that addiction seized control of the bridge (to borrow a Star Trek term) and I seemed powerless to help myself. Yes, that’s the same brain that I rely on to avoid temptation today, to make measured, healthy choices for myself, and to guide me to being a helpful member of my family, home-group and society at large. 

I’ve borrowed from author/brain scientist/addict Marc Lewis, Memoirs of an Addicted Brain: A Neuroscientist Examines His Former Life on Drugs & Doctor Vera Tarman, Food Junkies: The Truth About Food Addiction who have shared on Rebellion Dogs Radio about chemistry and science of a brain hijacked by addiction. Long before YouTube videos and Ted Talks about neuroscience and addiction, the idea of addiction distorting or circumventing brain functions had at least a metaphorical place in addiction/recovery talk. Here’s a clip of what we learn since 1939; this is now covered in the first week in treatment or easily accessible from browsing the web. We have a whole language around “your brain on drugs” now: 

"In the brain, pleasure has a distinct signature: the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the nucleus accumbens, a cluster of nerve cells lying underneath the cerebral cortex. Dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens is so consistently tied with pleasure that neuroscientists refer to the region as the brain’s pleasure center. All drugs of abuse, from nicotine to heroin, cause a particularly powerful surge of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens. … Addictive drugs provide a shortcut to the brain’s reward system by flooding the nucleus accumbens with dopamine. The hippocampus lays down memories of this rapid sense of satisfaction, and the amygdala creates a conditioned response to certain stimuli. …According to the current theory about addiction, dopamine interacts with another neurotransmitter, glutamate, to take over the brain’s system of reward-related learning. This system has an important role in sustaining life because it links activities needed for human survival (such as eating and sex) with pleasure and reward. The reward circuit in the brain includes areas involved with motivation and memory as well as with pleasure. Addictive substances and behaviors stimulate the same circuit—and then overload it.”[ii] 

Our addiction/recovery community’s understanding of thinking and recovery evolves. By the time Alcoholics Anonymous was written, we had slogans, folk-therapy to help reconceptualization in early recovery, which in today’s language is in part the “cognitive” component of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Let’s talk for a moment about what might be my favorite AA slogan: 

“Think, Think, Think…” Show me another AA slogan that doesn’t get the respect it deserves. Everyone loves, “Easy Does It,” and “Live and Let Live.” I’ve seen sober club houses that hang “Think, Think, Think” upside down. What is that supposed to mean? Meditation isn’t Step One in AA so perhaps it’s a more advanced tool in the kit than, “First Things First.” 

On the other hand, some of our members have reduced AA’s creed into bumper-sticker rebuttals. One member who quotes the Big Book is contradicted by another member quoting the Big Book, both borrowing an authority that neither the book nor its author(s) laid claim to. Have you seen the Monty Python’s Flying Circus skit called “Cheese Shop?”[iii] Fans of the comedy troop have made up a Cheese Shop game from this skits premise. Here’s how the game works: player 1 is buyer. you come up with a type/brand of cheese. Player 2 is the shopkeeper; you come up with a new excuse why that cheese isn’t available, today. Whoever runs out of cheese varieties or excuses first, loses. AA members could bet each other a second cup by seeing who runs out of AA slogans first. Sounds like fun? Try it with a friend. Someone’s buying coffee refills; maybe it won’t be you. 

From meetings like these—that most of us know where to find—whereby members spout out AA platitudes as keepers of the holy grail, some critics of AAism label AA as anti-intellectual. This characterization asserts that members who gather together to gang up on freethought with a bludgeoning of well intended, yet out-of-context quotes from the book Alcoholics Anonymous is disparaging towards a more individualized approach to recovery. This could be a CA meeting, an AA meeting and of course some NA bleeding deacons delight in wielding Basic Text quotes with the same smack down insensitivity towards neophytes or NA titan vs. NA titan. 

How many AA slogans are there? Some would say, “Three, because the Big Book says so:” 

We have three little mottos (p 135, Alcoholics Anonymous “The Family Afterward”) which are apropos: 

First Things First 

Live and Let Live 

Easy Does It.

Others would say, “Five,” because GSO has added two to your AA Literature Catalogue. Look up specialty item, MS04 Slogans (Set of 5) $4.50. Along with the three slogans mentioned above, we AAs added: 

But for the Grace of God 

Think, Think, Think 

These two additions, viewed with the hindsight of today’s polarized society, do these two add-ons seem to have evolved from two diametrically opposing camps in the rooms of AA? In today’s context, “God” and “thinking” seem to some people to be juxtaposed coping mechanisms. But going back to the meetings I attended in mid-1970s indoctrination into AA, these five slogans in their AA stylized letterings and humble frames, hanging on a wall, this is what I see when I close my eyes and think, “What does an AA meeting look like?” Not only were these five mottos ubiquitous in the day, I remember them as yellowed—they had been there for a long while before I got there. 

So, who wins the “how many slogans are there, officially” debate? 

In 1980 the General Service Conference looked to resolve this issue and the Literature Committee was recommending that defining “the slogans” be added to As Bill Sees It. The Conference said, “No.” Why? Here was the thinking at the time: 

“The suggestion to add to the book As Bill Sees It a definition of the slogans not be accepted because it was felt that the slogans may be defined in many different ways.” Advisory Actions of the General Service Conference of Alcoholics Anonymous 1951 – 2012, p. 69 

So, back to thinking… Here’s one of the great misunderstandings of AA platitude-nation: “Your best thinking got you here.”

The suggestion is that you ought to not rely on your reasoning because, “Now, now, didn’t your best thinking fail you, delivering you and your compromised situation to the doorway and then a chair inside a 12-Step meeting?” 

Don’t trust your thinking; get a second opinion, trust the group, trust Yahweh as you understand Him. 

Fact checking: It wasn’t my best thinking that led me from indulgence to addiction and the risky, reckless life that necessitated some form of intervention. It was my impulsive thinking, not my best thinking whereby my addiction thrived and me—not so much in the thriving department. My life was nearly snuffed out. Impulsive thinking is to be avoided; “best thinking” is something to strive towards, something to cultivate. 

Deep thoughts… addicts write about thinking and mind: 

I interviewed Jack Grisham about his book, A Principle of Recovery. If you haven’t already heard the show, there’s a link below (You’ll also find interviews with Marc Lewis and Dr. Vera Tarman mentioned above). 

As a totally unrelated aside, inside this “thinking” aside, around the 18-minute mark of the podcast, Rebellion Dogs Radio Episode 19, you’ll hear Jack G and me talking—I am in the home studio of Rebellion Dogs and Jack is heard calling in from Huntington Beach California over the phone—and you’ll hear my call-waiting notice (from my phone) go off. I didn’t take the message, of course. I continued on with our discussion. It was bad news. It was the Royal Canadian Mounted Police calling from Saskatchewan to notify me that my mom had died. It was October 28, 2015 that I interviewed Jack Grisham. Every time I hear that recording and that call-waiting tone sounds off, I think of my mom. My mom’s a writer, too. She is also one of the two editors I relied on for Beyond Belief: Agnostic Musings for 12 Step Life. Amelia C, Beyond Belief Agnostics & Freethinker's AA Group (Toronto)'s current serving General Service Rep. That “beep, beep,” gets me every time. It got me now. Anyway, back to Jack. 

Jack Grisham who has a Punk Rock something to say about a good many things, doesn’t shy away from thinking and AA. In fact, he makes a pretty good case to rebut those, “Your best thinking…” automatons. Jack, like many of us, points to the supreme leader and his Big Book for validation. 

“… we’ve awakened, we’ve become aware that a life based on selfish will is one of pain and strife. Our thinking has changed—maybe only slightly as we are still new, but it’s changed enough to move forward. We’ve had an awakening and been given a new mind and now, a new way of thinking. On pg. 86, Bill hits us with this: 

‘On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonesty or self-seeking motives. Under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with assurances, for after all God gave us brains to use. Our thought-life will be placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives.’ 

Seven times he asks us to think. Seven times, in one paragraph—read it. If I turned a paragraph like that into an editor I’d be called up on redundancy. Bill seemingly didn’t care. He wanted to develop our thinking…” Jack Grisham, A Principle of Recovery: An Unconventional Journey Through The Twelve Steps (2015)[iv] p. 133 

Jack Grisham 2016 Rebellion Dogs Book Review in Renew Magazine[v] 

Jack Grisham as Guest on Rebellion Dogs Radio Episode 19[vi] 

So, these 12-Step members, who liberals might call anti-intellectual, can they also find confirmation for their biases in the Bill Wilson words on page 86? First, the bolding in the Big Book quote above is Jack G’s highlights (bolded in the pages of A Principle of Recovery). I am sure that some Big Book zealots don’t find thinking to be repulsive or counterproductive to sobriety, what about some of the others who see the devil holding court in the playground of alcoholic’s thoughts? 

If there is a class of members we dare look down at as anti-intellectual, they would highlight their own choice words and phrases. It’s just as easy to downplay the pro-thinking ideas. The same page 86 passage also says, “we ask God to direct our thinking (we don’t rely on our free will)” and that the brain we have is a gift from God. This argument pits God’s will as diametrically opposed to the alcoholic’s self-will. Most believers wouldn’t see freethought disciplining our self-will to serve us better as demonic, blasphemous or un-AA. Members who characterize the thinking alcoholic as on a slippery slope are a minority (not a majority), a vocal minority who might hold themselves out as representing AA as a whole.

I don’t think so. Do you?

Worth noting, various AAs with various worldviews have found success in AA. Skeptics, zealots and every variety of belief-construct and IQ score have the miracle (or cause and effect) of AA to prove they’re right. Many are the paths from addiction to recover, in AA meetings and in the ever-growing larger recovery community beyond 12-Step meeting walls. 

The Refuge Recovery approach to thoughts is a holistic one. While addicts have a proclivity to impulsive thought and snap judgement such as, “What a lucky break!” or “This is the worst luck!” the whole point of recovery is to learn better coping strategies. Noah Levine writes about “intentional nonreactivity” and in a chapter on Mindfulness/Meditation, we’ll find: 

“Rather than reacting with our usual attachment or aversion, taking everything personally and felling the need to do something about it, we relax into the experience, seeing it clearly and simply letting it be, just as it is. 

This is important on two levels. First, we become intimate with our mind states and with how they affect our mood and actions. Second, we begin to see more and more clearly that states of mind and emotions, like everything else, are impermanent.” Noah Levine, Refuge Recovery: A Buddhist Path to Recovering from Addiction (2014)[vii] p 81 

So, the think, think, think idea or mindfulness is about first, taking a more scientific or critical or even curious look at our thoughts (along with feelings and sensations). Instead of impulsive reaction, I’ve learned to ask if what I’m observing is as it appears, what else could it mean, why do I see it as either good or bad? Secondly, as Noah Levine suggests, I remind myself that feeling are not facts; I think of them as indicator lights. How I feel may change. Sometimes a wider view, including what might be going on for others in the scene, may lend some context. 

Here is personal example of how exercising mindfulness, problem solving and/or thinking situations through, is something that I’ve learned to do better, thanks in part to what I’ve learned in the rooms. This is a small, interpersonal issue but I hope that dealing with this better, can help me with more global issues than this petty personality clash. 

It bugs my ass when someone starts to share with, “What you need to do, if you’re going to stay sober, is…” 

I don’t want to be told what to do; I don’ think 12-Step meetings have teachers and students; we are equals, we are peer-to-peer. So, anyone who sounds like they are instructing, intimidating or dominating, I get my nose out of joint. “Tell your own experience,” I think. “AA has no expertise, we merely have our individual experiences.” 

I sometimes get just as bent out of shape with “We” talk; “We, in our turn, sought the same escape with all the desperation of drowning men,” “We will be amazed before we are half way through…” The nice thing about talking in we-authorship is it includes, or aims to include, the reader with the larger group. Isolation is a common problem for newcomers to recovery. Addiction is a demanding mistress and many have suffered a loss of intimacy as we isolate and deny, lie & minimize when it comes to talking to others. So, it’s good to try to, or want to, make the reader (or another member) feel included. The downside to a narrative like, “We stood at the turning point…” is that some readers will surmise, and even promulgate the erroneous idea, that we have some universal experience. The idea that we are the same, we are having a collective experience, is not true at all. I believe we may be a fellowship of common suffering. That said, while the labels are the same—fear, shame, self-loathing, resentment, self-pity—the particulars remain unique and individual (not universal).

Recovery is a pathless land; no two members share the same clean/sober path. No two people who follow the same suggestions find identical results. Similar themes? Yes. Identical needs, process or results? No. 

Utilizing Mindfulness Where Reactiveness Comes So Naturally 

Here’s how mindfulness or “intentional nonreactivity” helps me. So, let’s say a member at a meeting starts sharing with “We” or “You;” I feel hostility—a knee-jerk reaction. Could there be a difference between the way this member is expressing themselves and the message meant from her/him/them? Assuming I catch myself, I picture this person sharing their own personal experience through the lens of their own biased explanation. That’s the message, regardless of pronouns. Members might use the word, “You,” or “We” but they mean I or me. Could it just be a language thing and have nothing to do with them presuming to teach newcomers? Can I interpret what she/he/they are saying instead of getting hostile or defensive? Isn’t it fair to say that what’s being said is, “This is what worked for me and I really feel strongly about it.” 

So, I can let the We/You thing go or I can cross my arms and clench my teeth. Those are my choices, aren’t they? If I overlook the pronouns and finger-pointing, maybe there are some take-aways from what my fellow traveler is sharing that I can benefit from. And maybe I don’t care for or relate to what is said; is it possible that someone else will be helped to stay sober another day by what they have to say? 

Then, there’s how I get touchy about some 12-Step literature, AA’s Big Book for instance. Personally, there are principles I support underneath the wording I am sometimes disproving of, within AA’s Twelve Steps. Letting go is just as effective as Letting go and letting God—that’s not two separate ideas, one is secular and one is religious. But it’s the same principle. As for our Steps and any benefits they yield; are they only accessible for theists? Or were the Steps, back in 1939 written by theists in the native tongue of theists at the time? The underlying principles transcend a belief in supernatural guidance in the lives of women and men. Because the explanation of the Steps—in Alcoholics Anonymous—is written in Judeo/Christian language will I protest about inequality, or shall I translate them in the language of my worldview? Everyone has to translate something in the Big Book to personalize the narrative. If and when I’m attending a meeting that reads or refers to the book, I have the right to interpret any way I want, or go to a different meeting. 

I want to make a distinction, here. AA is discriminatory. Having a book that members tout as the “basic text” of the AA way which is blatantly theistic, favors those who believe in a personal higher power. As long AA stays stuck in a 1939 explanation of the world, which cared little for anywhere or anyone beyond the Ohio—New York corridor that made up our membership, we’ll appear naïve or arrogant to many religious adherents from the rest of the world. Imagine how AA founders might have felt if they were sent to a mosque to find their sobriety. “Keep an open mind; Allah of your understanding; don’t be argumentative; If you’ve had enough of booze, you’ll kneel to the East and praise Allah.” 

To a feminist, youth or member of the LGBTQ community, there are greater barriers in Alcoholics Anonymous than to a white, middle-class, middle-aged, heterosexual man. Suggestions for modernization of AA language (including the 164 pages of the Big Book) may go unheard or be met with hostility. While a gender identifying/sexual-orientation/de-stigmatizing/creed and culture neutral language would clearly be fair, and I argue, more effective to AA’s sworn purpose, the tyranny of the majority is an unyielding opposition that is arguably, evidence of AA systemic discrimination. I am against such discrimination. For the sake of the fellowship and in terms of standing up for my own rights, I oppose such discrimination.

In the recent Ontario Human Rights case (Larry K vs. Intergroup & AA World Services), we learned that failing to accommodate members based on creed (just like sexual orientation, gender, disability, race and other identified characteristics) is a violation of the law. We are protected by and bound by the Human Rights Code. I am for the law; I am for fairness. When confronted by the tribunal, AA yielded. Other than the legal fees and hurt pride from kicking up a fight and losing, AA really didn’t lose. Other groups or AA as a whole, the imaginary victim that anti-atheist AA’s claimed to defend, never suffered the imaginary injury or indignity projected by a rigid, rule-making Intergroup 

If it came down to a vote, I would vote for a newly written Alcoholics Anonymous, written with modern, culturally inclusive wording. Add a newer “Doctor’s Opinion” while we’re at it, along with psychological and therapeutic updates. So, when the vote comes up, let me know. In the meantime, I have a choice every day to voice dissatisfaction with what is read and/or interpret accordingly. 

Thinking more about this of course, I can ignore the Big Book completely and have a perfectly happy AA life. No one checks AA member’s homework. I am sure there is a larger percent of membership than we think who never worked the Steps to didn’t complete them. Not every member has read Alcoholics Anonymous and the 12 & 12 in their entirety. I certainly know plenty who have candidly dismissed the Steps along with any form of psycho-babble navel gazing. Others still want a thorough self-assessment but there are more therapeutic options now than ever before. 

So, if I feel strongly about our literature being discriminatory, why not rail against those who demonstrate this harassment and discrimination? To do so is to personalize the complaint. The problem is a corrupt system. Even those who protect it and/or are entitled from it are also victimized by this corrupt system or limited or controlled by it. To fault people for finding comfort in the theistic view of recovery dripping with early 20th century outdatedness isn’t helpful. That isn’t in any way, solution-based. I need—we need—the majority (who do relate to the 164 pages, as written) on our side to right a ship that is veering off course. AA intended to be a refuge for everyone. In the context of mid-20th century middle America, AA did welcome everyone—all the white hetro guys. Seriously, it was a different time then and I argue that AA was ahead of our time in terms of accommodating anyone who had a desire to stop drinking. 

Some of our literature and some of our meeting rituals have not changed with the times. We’ve discussed the nature of AA literature before. Our literature is sub-standard because it is sexist, hetro-normative, theistically biased, American-centric, etc. Again, I’m for following AAs principles of inclusion, love, service. I’m for laws such as the Human Rights Code in Canada and civil, rights enshrined in the Constitution of the United States of America and UK’s Equity and Human Rights Commission. Every developed world has their code; the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights says: 

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.”[viii] 

I find something poetic and profound with the3ThinKs: looking at Think, Think, Think hanging on the AA meeting wall. I struggle with: 

1. my impulse thoughts 
2. how I think I ought to feel and 
3. how I really think and feel about something. 

Then there is the question of what others need, think, feel and what impact do I have on their rights? Often tribunals in domestic matters or diplomats in international matters, navigate competing needs. How does one individual or group’s right get elevated without impinging on the rights of another? 

For women to vote the support of men was needed. USA civil rights required the advocacy of the white majority. For change to take place the system ought to be demonized; not the benefactors of such injustices. Tyranny of the majority presents challenges. How does a minority or individual overcome an angry, frightened, hasty or indifferent majority? Since 1975, atheists and agnostics have lobbied the General Service Office of USA/Canada for a pamphlet; you’re likely aware this petition will be heard once again in April of 2018. The trustees’ Literature Committee has already begun preparations. Over ten times this benign request has been entertained by previous committees and it’s always been denied. Was it fear? Haste? Indifference? Ignorance? Hostility? I don’t know; that never makes it into the General Service Conference Final Report that is available to all AA members to read. Only the outcome of advisory actions, financial data and edited versions of speeches and reports are printed or reported. 

Who’s seen any of the latest David Chappelle routines?

In a comedy club in LA, Chappelle gets real; that’s how he describes it; others would say he offended everyone. He talks about oppression, discrimination, Black Lives Matter and Me Too headlines. American football player Colin Kaepernick’s protest movement against police brutality merits a shout-out. USA civil rights, the #MeToo movement and Apartheid are all discussed. Trigger alert: Many have been offended or incensed by Chappelle’s critique of group-think (political correctness), public outrage and issues that any audience would surely line up on one side or the off these topics. Many comics would stay the hell away from this hot-politico. 

Neither for nor against, here are some uncensored highlights from Chappelle’s latest—and maybe last for a long time (depending on how it goes for him): 

“Every fucking person who takes a stand for someone else gets beat down and we watch, over and over and over again and we watch. … We should fight for one another… real talk, man. It’s not a racial thing; it’s about us making our society better. It’s like these women who are coming forward (Me Too); we say they’re brave and many of them are … That’s a huge omission from the narrative; this wouldn’t have gone as far if some women weren’t willing to do it. You can’t expect every woman to hold the line. Some women can carry things heavier than others. We should fight for one another; we should forgive the ones who are weaker and support the ones who are stronger. Then we can beat the thing. 

You [guys] keep going after individuals; the system is going to stay intact. You have to have men on your side. I’m telling you right now; you’re going to have a lot of imperfect allies. 

Ladies, I want you to win this fight. I’ve got a daughter so I’m rooting for you; if you win she wins. I don’t know if you’re doing it just right but who am I to say. I don’t think you’re wrong, but you can’t make a lasting peace this way. You got all the bad guys scared; that’s good. But the minute they’re not scared anymore it will get worse than it was before. Fear does not make lasting peace; ask black people. 

Without irony, I’ll say this: the cure for L.A. is in South Africa. You motherfuckers need truth and reconciliation with one another. The end of apartheid should have been a fucking bloodbath by any metric in human history, and it wasn’t. The only reason it wasn’t is because Desmond Tutu and [Nelson] Mandela and all these guys figured out that if a system is corrupt, then the people who adhere to the system, and are incentivized by that system, are not criminals. They are victims. The system itself must be tried. But because of how the system works, it’s so compartmentalized as far as information, the only way we can figure out what the system is, is if everyone says what they did; tell them how you participated.” Dave Chappelle, E-qua-nim-i-ty & the bird revelation Nexflix (2017) 

The front cover to summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada[ix], in block letters, reads: 

“Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future” 

This is the 2015 report on a 100-year lasting residential school program that targeted indigenous youth, separating them from family culture and indoctrinating children into the legally dominant Euro-Christian society. Within the report, 6,000 victim testimonies are heard including cases of sexual, physical and emotional abuse. Truthing was intended not to shame and blame. As a nation that prided ourselves on a reputation of democracy, peace and kindness, we—the majority—had to take our own inventory and hear from those we had harmed. Those who had been discriminated against, harassed, abused and dehumanized, needed to be heard. The aim of honoring truth was in aid of reconciliation. 

I attended the 2017 Indigenous Health Practice and Research Conference in Hamilton, Canada. One of the speakers, a York University professor, Maya Chacaby[x] said something that sounded both poetic and profound to me. She is Anishinaabe, Beaver Clan from Kaministiquia (Thunder Bay, Canada) and she refers to Canadians in two categories: indigenous and settlers. What can settlers do who care about truth and reconciliation?

Maya Chacaby says, “Get un-settled.” True-that; confronting my own privilege and the historical oppressive context of it is … unsettling. I have committed to trying to mindfully be more un-settled. 

Honoring the truth and reconciling is akin to taking inventory and making amends? These are also good themes for group inventory (or fellowship-wide inventory) and how to right wrongs and/or improve our society. We need to unabashedly record and face truth, as victims and perpetrators of harms done to us, to ourselves and to others. Recovery peer-to-peer programs aim to make a better future—we embody a program of action. A better future, as far as I’m concerned involves thinking globally and acting locally. I’m an atheist in AA. Yes, I welcome an AA whereby literature better addresses underrepresented minorities. I will lobby for this. Also, what can I do, in my home group, in my larger 12-Step community, in my own way, taking into consideration my skills and limits? Not every improvement requires consensus or waiting around for others. 

David Chappelle reflected on South Africa overcoming Apartheid without revenge upon the ruling white class. Would I be happy to see the dawn of a new, inclusive 12-Step community without calling out those who have promulgated our systemically discriminatory ways? Yes, I am. It helps to see them as—in a way—victims—or controlled by—the same oppressive system. What enjoyment can there be from fear-based stewardship that stifles any attempt to try something different? In an unfair, unbalanced system like AA, it’s not like there is financial reward for being a Big Book fundamentalist. There is no 1% because there is no wealth. Winning—if there are winners and losers of a dysfunctional system, doesn’t look like what I think of as winning. 

Examples of a fellowship, refusing or avoiding accommodation of reasonable requests from minorities, sets a course for reification, a hardening of the attitudes leading to our own self-engineered extinction. Many would blame outside forces for our demise but only our own intolerance and unwillingness would be to blame for our downfall.

Old-fashioned AA and Tradition-talk includes, unity. What does unity mean in our increasingly multicultural, label-resisting society? I think, think, think unity is best achieved by accommodation. Our current system, from the group to our General Service Conference, requires the many to give their blessing to the few. The literately-challenged can’t have a simplified Big Book without the approval of those who will never read or need the book. A contemporary title for the Gay and Lesbian AA pamphlet requires the cooperation of the hetro-normative majority. Maybe, I think, think, think it would be better to try a policy of accommodation where decisions-by-substantial-unanimity have held us back. 

Human Rights Tribunals favor requests for accommodation when asked. The exception would be when granting them causes undue hardship to the larger society. Yes, there will be time, expense and growing pains to any accommodation. While that’s hardship, is the not the kind undue hardship that would bankrupt or render an organization dysfunctional.

In AA for instance, following the General Service Conference in April, every new advisory action costs money and takes time away from limited staff and volunteers already doing their share. So, if change for the better costs money and takes time, that’s not undue hardship; that’s simply the price we pay for progress. There should be hardship when it comes to bettering AA. Any claim of undue hardship ought to hold the onus of proof. 

For example, the plain-text request for an easy-reading Big Book would have cost money and taken time. That isn’t undue hardship. I am inclined to believe that this request was denied because of fear—not a fear about what would happen but a catastrophizing of what could happen, “If we make changes for this group then the women and the trans-genders and the atheists will all want changes and our message will be lost.” 

Accommodation will change the way things are. “But it’s always been this way,” is a poor excuse to not grow, improve and widen our gateway.

Why fear change? There is no basis for slippery slope (or opening the flood-gate) arguments for not accommodating most requests made of 12-Step fellowships coming from underrepresented minorities. Remember one of the objections to listing Gay/Lesbian meetings? “If we start listing these meeting what’s next—child molester AA meetings?” 

The anger and polarization that this catastrophizing brought, delayed the agenda for a whole year. That argument wouldn’t be entertained or have derailed the Conference in an accommodation model. Accommodation would have proceeded this way: “We’ll allow the Gay/Lesbian group to hold themselves out as such. Then, if—and we mean if—an AA meeting for child molesters asks to be so-identified, we’ll deal with that at the time.” 

Slippery slope arguments are not rational; they are raised from hidden emotional catastrophizing. To use 12-Step folk-language, “That’s your disease talking there buddy. Turn it over; Easy does it.” 

"Since my release, I have become more convinced than ever that the real makers of history are the ordinary men and women of our country; their participation in every decision about the future is the only guarantee of true democracy and freedom." Nelson Mandela 1990. The Struggle is My Life 

The struggle is our life. I’ve heard some say, “the struggle and hardship IS the spiritual journey.” Archbishop Desmond Tutu was the chairman of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) which was created by Nelson Mandela’s Government of National Unity in 1995 to help South Africans come to terms with their extremely troubled past. Archbishop Desmond Tutu was the chairman of South Africa’s TRC in this is his guidance on forgiveness, informed I’m sure by his own personal story. 

To forgive is not just to be altruistic. It is the best form of self-interest. It is also a process that does not exclude hatred and anger. These emotions are all part of being human. You should never hate yourself for hating others who do terrible things: the depth of your love is shown by the extent of your anger. 

However, when I talk of forgiveness I mean the belief that you can come out the other side a better person. A better person than the one being consumed by anger and hatred. Remaining in that state locks you in a state of victimhood, making you almost dependent on the perpetrator. If you can find it in yourself to forgive then you are no longer chained to the perpetrator. You can move on, and you can even help the perpetrator to become a better person too.”[xi] 

The examples are out there. I’ve seen an unfortunate inclination for AA to look only to our own history for clues; how limiting. Learning from others is not—I don’t think—an outside issue. As Uncle Bill W thought, thought, thought, with over 20 years of sobriety: 

“A.A. was not invented! Its basics were brought to us through the experience and wisdom of many great friends. We simply borrowed and adapted their ideas.” 

Thanks, thanks, thanks, Bill W. We’ll try to keep your pioneering ways alive in AA. 

[i] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-42631208 

[ii] https://www.helpguide.org/harvard/how-addiction-hijacks-the-brain.htm 

[iii] Based on a Monty Python sketch Cheese Shop, a purchaser enters a Cheese Shop and asks for various cheeses only to be disappointed by various excuses as to why that cheese type isn’t available in the store today. Some people – Maybe even Monty Python’s Flying Circus in book form—have turned the skit into a game of skill. Who will run out first, the customer listing cheese types or the shop owner coming up with original excuses. The original skit was performed in audio and TV forms. Here is one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3KBuQHHKx0 

[iv] https://www.amazon.com/Principle-Recovery-Unconventional-Journey-Through/dp/0692520538/ref=as_sl_pc_ss_til?tag=rebeldogspubl-20&linkCode=w00&linkId=HBEMLVACQRECWHDK&creativeASIN=0692520538 

[v] http://www.reneweveryday.com/principles-of-recovery-from-the-punk-rock-pulpit/ 

[vi] https://rebelliondogspublishing.com/rebellious-radio/blog/a-book-a-priciple-of-recovery-a-comedy-show-sober-but-never-clean 

[vii] https://www.amazon.com/Refuge-Recovery-Buddhist-Recovering-Addiction/dp/0062122843/ref=as_sl_pc_ss_til?tag=rebeldogspubl-20&linkCode=w00&linkId=7MMQGES2X2DE72X5&creativeASIN=0062122843 

[viii] http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/index.html 

[ix]http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/File/2015/Honouring_the_Truth_Reconciling_for_the_Future_July_23_2015.pdf 

[x] Maya Chacaby http://www.amikobiin.com/ 

[xi] http://theforgivenessproject.com/stories/desmond-tutu-south-Africa/

Download or view PDF Many Paths and Many Myths about AA Graduates

This May, Steve K posted an essay by Lisa Martinovic on 12StepPhilosophy blog. Lisa shares wise words about “neuroplasticity … the phenomenon by which the brain changes itself through experience. It does so by strengthening the neural connections (synapses) associated with a particular course of action every time we take that course.” This is important in understanding addiction and recovery...

But that’s not what I’m writing about. Lisa Martinovic shares her story about “graduating” 12-Step meetings--a phenomenon more popular than we 12-Steppers know. We should talk about more, understand the various paths of recovery more. What really happens to all those who leave 12-Step meetings? 

People once believed our world was flat. If you lived on the coast you would be told that when you looked to the horizon you were seeing the end of the world. Anyone who sailed past the horizon, out of view, fell off the earth; so we would be told. Do you and I tell the same fables about people who stop going to meetings? True enough, the tragic and familiar relapse stories that we hear often, start with complacency, disconnection and then, boom! Disaster strikes. I would have to wager that all of us, sober ten years or more, knows someone who got on with their life without meetings and is still fine. What are the numbers? What are the chances? Is there myth-busting that is needed to clear up misconceptions? We are well-served to understand recovery more broadly. Some of us feel that maintaining this "every slip starts with not going to meetings" is a necessary negative reinforcement that is keeping people alive, keeps drunks from sailing over the edge of the earth. I do not share that view.

Not everyone who stops meetings will get very sick and die. Yes, some relapses have a starting point that included reducing/stopping going to meetings. I’m not going to quit meetings any more than I’m going to stop exercising. I don’t know for sure that either activities extend the length of my life, but exercise as well as attending recovery gatherings are enjoyable parts of a balanced life. I like recovery and I’m still learning at meetings. 

I don’t feel confined to 12-Step rooms. AA, NA (etc.) meetings is more to me than somewhere for sober people to gather where people remember my name. Recovery, for me, is entertaining, social, rewarding and educational. 

So, we hear the relapse horror stories. What we hear less about is that many rich and remarkable lives start with freeing up the time and commitment that are taken up by meetings and 12-Step service. At least, we don’t hear about it in meetings. Since I’ve been a consumer of podcasts and blogs and other peer-to-peer content, I hear how these stories of transcending meeting/sponsor/service-dependency. While we don’t have a pamphlet on the literature table about life after meetings, is this not a legitimate track for successful recovery?

Some leave AA angry or frustrated. True, that. Sometimes the loudest in the room are the anti-social, cantankerous bullies that seemingly raise their self-image by crushing others instead of encouraging their new, or long-term recovery fellows. So, I understand that there comes a time when AA meetings are more re-traumatizing than helpful for any of us who've been abused. 

The site leavingaa.com is a community for recover from recovery. The 12-Step are not a sanctuary away from predators who sexually, financially or emotionally prey on the vulnerable. Sharply critical of AA’s laissez faire resistance to a central authority, outrage is voiced that AA doesn't impose and enforce rules. Why won't GSO directs and discipline members or groups? This heated criticism/concern is felt on-line, in magazines and in the rooms, too. 

Hot off the press (September 2017), the General Service Office of AA published, Safety Card for A.A. Groups: Suggested Statement on Safety which states: 

“Our group endeavors to provide a safe meeting place for all attendees and encourages each person here to contribute to fostering a secure and welcoming environment in which our meetings can take place. … we ask that group members and others refrain from any behavior which might compromise another person’s safety. 

…If a situation should arise where someone feels their safety is in jeopardy, or the situation breaches the law, the individuals involved should take appropriate action. Calling the proper authorities does not go against any A.A. Traditions and is recommended when someone may have broken the law or endangered the safety of another person. … problems found in the outside world can also make their way into the rooms of A.A. For this reason, groups and members discuss the topic of safety—to raise awareness in the Fellowship and to seek through sponsorship, workshops and meetings to create as safe an environment as possible.”[1] 

I’ve worked through some issues of my own. As a young person I faced periodic dismissiveness. As someone who declines dependence on a deity for my own recovery, I have faced discrimination and hostility. There have been periods of time I didn’t go to AA. Too be clear, in some cases it was career or family. Other times, I tired from a certain anti-intellectualism that—if not a condition of AA, is widely tolerated in certain regions of 12-Step meetings. There have been years in which I went to six or seven meeting in the whole year. Of course, there have been times when I go to that many face-to-face meetings every week. 

Regarding aggressors in the room, I found them to be more bark than bite. Still, plenty of our members find a more tranquil network outside the rooms, away from bullies and bleeding deacons. So, it’s a personal decision to stay or go. There is no obligation. I feel that I owe something to the still-suffering, so I stay. I still find stimulation and community. To some extent, in my case, some of that duty is codependent, and some of it is gratitude. 

Some get what they need from us and move on to new routines. They don’t leave us to spite us; they graduate. Here’s what Lisa says about her turning point after double-digit years of sobriety: 

From the very beginning, I challenged certain aspects of the twelve-step party line. … But the basic framework of the program did work for me, so I kept coming back and kept staying sober. Ten to fifteen years in, I started to chafe. … So, did I still need to go to meetings to maintain my sobriety? Our community was rife with people who had returned to meetings after trying and failing to stay sober alone. We were constantly warned that catastrophe awaited anyone who stopped working the program. (Such fear-mongering is but one of the reasons twelve-step is called out as a cult by detractors.) … Though I never made an official break with twelve-step, I found myself going to meetings less and less often until eventually I stopped altogether. The habits that I had practiced with such devotion for so long had made permanent changes to my brain and behavior. And they live in me to this day. 

I would not suggest that everyone should ultimately graduate from twelve-step. It’s just what worked for me. 

Over the years, good friends in AA (and other 12-step fellowships) have found what they needed in the rooms and move on. Sometimes, this transition is after decades of regular meeting attendance and personal enmeshment (being a sponcee, being a sponsor, service work, etc).  Is it frightening or liberating to leave your NA, OA or other 12-Step fellowship behind? Does everyone get the same hyperbolic warning: "Don't sail to far from shore; you'll fall off the end of the world"? Maybe graduates knew they would be okay. Maybe it’s a new leap of faith. Maybe for some, it’s gradual—tapering off 12-Step dependency. 

Being a parent is a series of worries as our kids reach new stages of independence. It can feel the same way with my close recovery network. I've been indoctrinated with the stark warning from those who drift from meetings, then lost their way and suffered, often met with near-death encounters, re-enslaved to their drug of choice. Returning to the fold, they share their tragic tale. So I worry (a little) when loved ones take a sabbatical from 12-Step engagement. 

A personal view that I have of 12-Step rooms is that there is a false intimacy in AA. We may feel a close bond that proves to be illusionary when it meets a real test. I’ve seen members who take a sabbatical and no one calls from their home group. After years/decades of intimate discussion, picking up the phone late at night, during work or meal time, countless favors, and then a year after leaving their home group, members are left to wonder, “Why did no one call?” Now, it’s understandable—even healthy—that we don’t stalk newcomers. If they stop coming, should we track them down or leave them to their own devices? Attraction rather than promotion is a personal boundary issue, isn’t it? But if you’ve known a person and said, “Good to see you,” for years and then you don’t see them for a couple of months, are they out-of-sight-out-of-mind? How cold is that? Damaged people—and let me just speak for myself, here—have boundary issues. Behaving badly is still a regular occurrence for me and I have said, well-meaning but inauthentic things, platitudes, and I try today to be clear about how I communicate but I am not always skillful and vigilant. 

For the record, I have my own experience as far as drifting away from meetings. I never quit Adult Children of Alcoholics; but I haven’t been to a meeting in over 15 years. Has my “laundry list” of mal-adaptive coping techniques come back to overwhelm my life? Not often. I’ve been to SLAA, NA, Al-Anon, DA, GA, and other process or substance use disorder fellowships and I haven’t quit any of them. But have I been to a meeting in the last year? No. I go to AA and mostly secular AA and service meetings (hospitals and institutions).  I spend more time online (podcasts, YouTube, blogs, chat groups) than I spend in my face-to-face AA groups. I feel akin to several other fellowships, but I haven’t been back and don’t know when I’ll be back. 

Lisa Martinovic’s account is the opposite of the relapse horror stories when it comes to moving on from AA indoctrination. We have much to learn from ex-12-Steppers? 

AA doesn’t study these patterns, but researchers do.

Lee Ann Kaskutas et al, in 2005, published Alcoholics Anonymous Careers: Patterns of AA Involvement Five Years After Treatment Entry. Over 300 of us were recruited for this long-term study as we were going into treatment. While it may not be definitive, it offers more subjectivity that my or your anecdotal observations and I find these studies worth noting: 

“Some individuals just never connect with the program; some connect but do not stay with it; some immediately feel at home in AA and rely on meetings daily or almost daily; and some embrace AA but their life is not dominated by meeting attendance. It will be important to replicate these results in other treated (and untreated) samples, and to follow AA participants over longer periods of time to more fully understand patterns of meeting engagement and disengagement throughout recover. 

Of course, meeting attendance is but one component of AA engagement. As shown in our mapping of meetings with others AA beliefs and activities, decreasing in AA meetings do not necessarily signal disengagement from AA (especially with respect to feeling like a member of the fellowship).”[2] 

 A 2003 Heath C. Hoffmann offering called, Recovery Careers in Alcoholics Anonymous: Moral Careers Revisited[3] looked at 12-Stepers and identified four AA 'careers' an academics term for what we call, 'many paths.' Here are the four 12-Step carriers (trajectories): 

1. Insiders (including rank and file members, bleeding deacons/elder statesmen and circuit speakers) 
2. Tourists 
3. Chronic Relapsers 
4. Graduates. 

We have plenty of stories of insiders—some become circuit speakers, sponsors, sponsors, sponsors or trusted servants. Others are the rank and file members. Tourists are motivated to attend AA by outside forces (court, employer, doctor, family, etc.) Graduates—and this is what I would characterize Lisa and others we are talking about as—have had their experiences documented by researchers. Graduates… 

“…experiences some level of conversion to the Twelve Step ideology of AA but at some point ‘graduates’ from the program after he has been able to resolve conflicts.” 

Note that, according to Hoffmann’s findings, not all graduates stay stopped. Some, 

“…having been able to resolve conflicts surrounding his drinking … no longer requires frequent attendance at AA meetings and might even resume alcohol consumption without experiencing related conflicts.” 

Hoffmann notes that this means that AA dogma that “once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic” may not be true for everyone. Also, Hoffmann notes that some AA argue that these cases were never “real alcoholics” in the first place, satisfying their need to defend the once a drunk—always a drunk position to which they seem to find comfort and satisfaction. 

The tourist may do 90-meetings-in-90-days, go to conferences, get a sponsor, work the steps, maybe even get booked and after six to 18 months, they have gotten what they needed—sustained sobriety—and they get on with their life. Some say, "The only time I thought about drinking was when I went to AA meetings." Other tourists—members who were coerced to go to meetings—change their attitude and become insiders. 

Chronic relapsers come back to our meetings, remorseful, desperate and in a act of purging, flog themselves with testimony of their humiliation. Some don't come back, because sometimes they die. And if we ever cared enough or were engaged enough to get their last name, we might hear about their death and attend their funeral. In many more cases, we wonder, "What ever happened to Sandra?" Sometimes the relapser becomes the rank and file member and they have a happy ending. 

Lisa Martinovic ́ is a native San Franciscan who — to the surprise of everyone, most especially herself — spent most of the 1990s in Hogeye, Arkansas.  Yet it was there that she came into her own as a slam poet, writing and performing political satire, ribald erotica, Ozark character studies and a genre she calls poemedy—a hybrid art form combining the most compelling qualities of poetry and stand-up comedy. She has ten self-published books to her credit and the CD Snake Dreams, a joint production with fellow Ozark poet Brenda Moossy.  Lisa has toured as a performance poet throughout the US, featuring everywhere from New York City, San Francisco and New Orleans Lollapalooza.

The AA graduate stays longer than the tourist and has a career path that looks like the insider member for many years (or decades); then life changes. I've seen member who moved towns. They never feel the community in their new AA environment that they enjoyed at home. They didn't get engaged and they faded from the 12-Step scene, without fanfare. Sometimes they still had plenty of AA friends that they kept in touch with and sometimes I was lucky to be one of the few. Sometimes they out-grow their community.

In some cases, they see their group(s) changing for the worse, becoming more dogmatic or anti-intellectual. More conservative members might feel the same way about a completely different set of changes. It could be the meeting gets more spontaneous and less structured. Drug talk, cross-talking or texting starts to make them feel uncomfortable in their own meeting. After a while they stop enduring the bad experience of going to meeting and find they prefer their nights off to their home groups and/or other AA service commitments. 

We need more of these graduate stories. I am not asking for volunteers. I am just saying we should collect and celebrate these personal accounts, just as we celebrate the insider 12-Stepper. 

Jon Stewart is an online friend who’s no enemy to AA but his recovery community has expanded and his meeting attendance has faded to periodic. He’s still a great contributor to the recovery community, talking about the Sinclair Method and other avenues to recovery. He’s an active online recovery participant and there’s nothing about his recovery that appears to me to be any shakier than rank-and-file NA, AA, SLAA (and other process and substance addiction mutual-aid societies) members I know. 

While relapse can happen when someone stops going to meetings, relapse also happens to treatment professionals that enjoyed decades-long engagement in 12-Step rooms. No one is immune from relapse. More of these graduate stories would help us replace our current mythology. Who wants to trade one slave-master for another? I don’t want to go to AA because it’s a crutch that I can’t get along without. I want to go because I want to go. AA doesn't fail someone who stops going. And people who recovery with the help of AA don't owe a lifetime debt of repayment. It's an AA success story that some graduate—not to take anything away from the individual commitment to sobriety. How do we know that the people who leave AA aren't our best success stories? 

Life offers opportunity. Opportunity imposes risk. For me, I want to hear all the stories of the many paths of recovery. Thank you, Lisa, for sharing your success story. It isn't disloyal to AA to point out our flaws. I thought Lisa posted a very balanced account of AA's attributes and some of our shortcomings. I've found some of these other graduates. Podcasts, like The Bubble Hour, and several others, offer stories of people whose life choices don't always include a meeting a day or even a meeting every week. 

I hope this story gets shared and enjoyed. I for one, highly recommend it. Steve K, surely feels the same.Steve writes for recovery lifestyle magazines including In The Rooms. He is author of The 12 Step Philosophy of Alcoholics Anonymous: An interpretation by Steve K. and host/blogger to 12stepphilosophy.wordpress.com From his website you can read the whole article by Lisa about how the brain reacts to addiction and recovery. There are plenty more good blogs posted by Steve, so take your time and scroll around.

https://12stepphilosophy.wordpress.com/2017/05/17/what-gets-you-sober-god-or-your-neurons/ 

http://leavingaa.com/about/ 

Lisa's BLOG http://slaminatrix.com/

[1] https://www.aa.org/assets/en_US/f-211_SafetyCardforAAGroups.pdf 

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16340455 

[3] http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/009145090303000306 Contemporary Drug Problems 30/Fall 2003 pp. 647 - 684