Alcoholics Anonymous

AA meeting sign

Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is an international mutual aid movement claiming more than 2 million members, declaring its "primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety", founded in 1935 by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith (Bill W. and Dr. Bob) in Akron, Ohio. With other early members, Wilson and Smith developed AA's program of spiritual and character development, the Twelve Steps. The Twelve Traditions are AA's recommendations for its groups, stressing anonymity, altruism, and inclusion of all who want to stop drinking. The Traditions also recommend that AA groups try to steer clear of dogma, hierarchies and involvement in public issues. Subsequent fellowships, such as Narcotics Anonymous, have adapted the Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions.

AA's first female member, Florence Rankin, joined in 1936, and the first non-Protestant member, a Roman Catholic, joined in 1939. AA membership has since spread "across diverse cultures holding different beliefs and values", including geopolitical areas resistant to grassroot movements.

Although AA views discussions on the medical nature of alcoholism as beyond its scope, AA is regarded as a proponent and popularizer of the disease theory of alcoholism. The American Psychiatric Association has recommended sustained treatment in conjunction with AA's program, or similar community resources, for chronic alcoholics unresponsive to brief treatment. AA's own data state that 64% drop out of AA in their first year, but its program is credited with helping many alcoholics achieve and maintain sobriety.

AA's name derived from its first book, titled Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered From Alcoholism (for subsequent editions the subtitle read "...Many Thousands of Men and Women...") Informally called "the Big Book", it describes AA's program, details its early history, and contains brief autobiographical sketches of AA members. In subsequent editions the first 164 pages of the Big Book have stayed virtually unchanged, while the autobiographical stories which make up the latter half of the book have been subject to removal, addition, or retitling.

Beginnings

Main article: History of Alcoholics Anonymous

AA sprang from The Oxford Group, a non-denominational movement modeled on first-century Christianity. Group members ("Groupers") were not primarily focused on sobriety, but those such as Ebby Thacher found membership in the group an aid in staying sober. In keeping with the evangelistic teachings of the Group that one must convert others to keep one's conversion real, Thacher sought out his former drinking buddy Bill Wilson. Thacher told Wilson he was sober because he "got religion", and that he could do likewise if he set his objections to religion to form a personal conception of God, "another power" or a "higher power".

Sensing a "shared a kinship of common suffering," and awed that a seemingly hopeless alcoholic like Thacher could be sober, Wilson attended a Group gathering though he was noticeably drunk. Regardless, Wilson became convinced that he could get sober, and within days of meeting Thacher had himself readmitted to the Charles B.Towns Hospital for the fourth time to dry out, drinking on the way there four beers, the last amount of alcohol he ever consumed. Under the care of Dr. William Duncan Silkworth (a key early supporter and benefactor of A.A.), Wilson detoxed while being treated with a combination of drugs that included the deliriant Belladonna At one point at the hospital Wilson found himself in a state of despair until he underwent a profound and ecstatic experience in which he reported that God showed himself to him in a bright light.

Upon release from the hospital Wilson joined the Oxford Group and began attempting to help others become sober, but with limited success. Dr. Silkworth advised his patient that he was pushing religion too hard and should focus instead on "the science" of alcoholism. Wilson' first success came during a business trip to Akron, Ohio. He was introduced to Dr. Robert Smith, a surgeon and Oxford Group member who was unable to stay sober. After thirty days of working with Wilson, Smith had his last drink on June 10, 1935, the date marked by AA for its anniversary.

While Wilson and Smith credited their sustained sobriety on working with alcoholics under the auspices of the group, a Group associate pastor sermonized against Wilson for forming a "secret, ashamed sub-group" engaged in "divergent works". By 1937 Wilson separated from the Oxford Group. AA historian Ernest Kurtz explained the split:

"...more and more, Bill discovered that new adherents could get sober by believing in each other and in the strength of this group. Men [no women were members yet] who had proven over and over again, by extremely painful experience, that they could not get sober on their own had somehow become more powerful when two or three of them worked on their common problem. This, then—whatever it was that occurred among them—was what they could accept as a power greater than themselves. They did not need the Oxford Group."

In 1955 Wilson acknowledged AA's debt, saying "The Oxford Groupers had clearly shown us what to do. And just as importantly, we learned from them what not to do." Among the Oxford Group practices AA retained were informal gatherings, a "changed-life" developed through "stages", and working with others for no material gain. AA's analogs for these are meetings, "the steps", and sponsorship. Anonymity came about as AA wished to avoid the publicity-seeking practices of the Oxford Group and to not promote, Wilson said, "erratic public characters who through broken anonymity might get drunk and destroy confidence in us."

The Big Book, the Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions

In 1937, Wilson and Smith could count 40 alcoholic men they had helped to get sober, and two years later they counted 100 members, including one woman. To promote the fellowship, Wilson and other members wrote the initially-titled book, Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered from Alcoholism, from which AA drew its name. Informally known as "The Big Book" (with its first 164 pages virtually unchanged since the 1939 edition), it suggests a twelve-step program in which members admit that they are powerless over alcohol and need help from a "higher power"; seek guidance and strength through prayer and meditation from a God (or Higher Power) of their own understanding; take a moral inventory with care to include resentments; list and become ready to remove character defects; list and make amends to those harmed, and then try to help other alcoholics recover. The second half of the book, "Personal Stories" (subject to additions, removal and retitling in subsequent editions), is made of AA members' redemptive autobiographical sketches.

In 1941, interviews on American radio and favorable articles in US magazines, including a piece by Jack Alexander in The Saturday Evening Post, led to increased book sales and membership. By 1946, as the growing fellowship quarreled over structure, purpose, and authority, as well as finances and publicity, Wilson began to form and promote what became known as AA's Twelve Traditions, guidelines for an altruistic, unaffiliated, non-coercive, and non-hierarchical structure that limited AA's purpose to only helping alcoholics on a non-professional level while shunning publicity. Eventually he gained formal adoption and inclusion of the Twelve Traditions in all future editions of the Big Book. At the 1955 St. Louis convention in Missouri, Wilson relinquished stewardship of AA to the General Service Conference, as AA grew to millions of members internationally.

Organization and finances

Main article: Twelve Traditions

A regional service center for Alcoholics Anonymous.

AA says it is "not organized in the formal or political sense", and Bill Wilson called it a "benign anarchy". In Ireland Shane Butler reported that AA is an import that “looks like it couldn’t survive as there’s no leadership or top-level telling local cumanns what to do, but it has worked and proved itself extremely robust.” Butler added that "the AA’s 'inverted pyramid' style of governance has helped it to avoid many of the pitfalls that political and religious institutions have encountered since it was established here in 1946."

In 2006 AA counted 1,867,212 members and 106,202 AA groups worldwide. The Twelve Traditions informally guide how individual AA groups function, and the Twelve Concepts for World Service guide how the organization is structured globally.

A member who accepts a service position or an organizing role is a "trusted servant" with terms rotating and limited, typically lasting three months to two years and determined by group vote and the nature of the position. Each group is a self-governing entity with AA World Services acting only in an advisory capacity. AA is served entirely by alcoholics, except for seven "nonalcoholic friends of the fellowship" of the 21-member AA Board of Trustees.

AA groups are self-supporting, relying on voluntary donations from members to cover expenses. AA GSO limits contributions to US$3,000 a year. Above the group level, AA may hire outside professionals for services that require specialized expertise or full-time responsibilities.

AA receives proceeds from books and literature that constitute more than 50% of the income for its General Service Office (GSO). Unlike individual groups, the GSO is not self-supporting and maintains a small salaried staff. It also maintains service centers which coordinate activities such as printing literature, responding to public inquiries, and organizing conferences. They are funded by local members and responsible to the AA groups they represent. Other International General Service Offices (Australia, Costa Rica, Russia, etc.) are independent of AA World Services in New York.

Program

See also: Twelve-step program: The Twelve Steps

The scope of AA's program is much broader than just abstinence from drinking alcohol. Its goal is to effect enough change in the alcoholic's thinking "to bring about recovery from alcoholism" while abstaining from alcohol, one day at a time. A spiritual awakening is achieved by following the Twelve Steps, and sobriety is furthered by volunteering for AA and regular AA meeting attendance or contact with AA members. Members are encouraged to find an experienced fellow alcoholic, called a sponsor, to help them understand and follow the AA program. The sponsor should preferably have experience of all twelve of the steps, be the same gender as the sponsored person, and refrain from imposing personal views on the sponsored person. Following the helper therapy principle, sponsors in AA benefit as much, if not more, from their relationship than do those they sponsor. Helping behaviors correlate with increased abstinence and lower probabilities of binge drinking.

AA's program is an inheritor of Counter-Enlightenment philosophy. AA shares the view that acceptance of one's inherent limitations is critical to finding one's proper place among other humans and God. Such ideas are described as "Counter-Enlightenment" because they are contrary to the Enlightenment's ideal that humans have the capacity to make their lives and societies a heaven on earth using their own power and reason.

Sociologists David Rudy and Arthur Greil evaluated AA's literature and observed AA meetings for sixteen months. They note that although AA's ideology denies AA is religious in nature, for an AA member to remain sober a high level of commitment is necessary. This commitment is facilitated by a change in the member's world view. To help members stay sober AA must, they argue, provide an all-encompassing world view while creating and sustaining an atmosphere of transcendence in the organization. To be all-encompassing AA's ideology places an emphasis on tolerance rather than on a narrow religious world view that could make the organization unpalatable to potential members and thereby limit its effectiveness. AA's emphasis on the spiritual nature of its program, however, is necessary to institutionalize a feeling of transcendence. A tension results from the risk that the necessity of transcendence, if taken too literally, would compromise AA's efforts to maintain a broad appeal. As this tension is an integral part of AA, Rudy and Greil argue that AA is best described as a quasi-religious organization.

Meetings

AA meetings are "quasi-ritualized therapeutic sessions run by and for, alcoholics". They are usually informal and often feature discussions. Local AA directories list a variety of weekly meetings. Those listed as "closed" are only for those with "a desire to stop drinking", while "open" meetings are available to anyone. At speaker meetings one or two members tell their stories, while discussion meetings allocate the most time for general discussion. Some meetings are devoted to studying and discussing the AA literature. Except for men's and women's meetings, most meetings for specific demographics (including newcomers, gays, and young people) do not exclude other alcoholics. While AA has pamphlets that suggest meeting formats, groups have the autonomy to hold and conduct meetings as they wish "except in matters affecting other groups or A.A. as a whole". Different cultures affect ritual aspects of meetings, but around the world "many particularities of the AA meeting format can be observed at almost any A.A. gathering".

Confidentiality

Although a statement is sometimes read during meetings saying that what is said there should remain confidential, AA members, unlike lawyers or clergy, are not legally bound to maintain confidentiality.

Disease concept of alcoholism

Main article: Disease theory of alcoholism

More informally than not, AA's membership has helped popularize the disease concept of alcoholism, though AA officially has had no part in the development of such postulates, which appeared as early as the late eighteenth century. Though AA initially avoided the term "disease", in 1973 conference-approved literature categorically stated that "we had the disease of alcoholism." Regardless of official positions, from AA's inception most members have believed alcoholism to be a disease.

While cautious in regarding the medical nature of alcoholism, AA has let others voice opinions. The Big Book states "we are told that alcoholism "is an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer." Ernest Kurtz says this is "The closest the book Alcoholics Anonymous comes to a definition of alcoholism." In his introduction to The Big Book, non-member Dr. William Silkworth suggested that those unable to moderate their drinking have an allergy. However, AA said, "The doctor’s theory that we have an allergy to alcohol interests us. As laymen, our opinion as to its soundness may, of course, mean little." In fact AA later acknowledged that "alcoholism is not a true allergy, the experts now inform us." Wilson explained in 1960 AA had avoided using the term "disease":

"We AAs have never called alcoholism a disease because, technically speaking, it is not a disease entity. For example, there is no such thing as heart disease. Instead there are many separate heart ailments or combinations of them. It is something like that with alcoholism. Therefore, we did not wish to get in wrong with the medical profession by pronouncing alcoholism a disease entity. Hence, we have always called it an illness or a malady — a far safer term for us to use."

Canadian and United States demographics

AA's New York General Service Office regularly surveys AA members in North America. Its 2004 survey of over 7,500 members in Canada and the United States concluded that, in North America, AA members who responded to the survey were 65% male and 35% female. Average member sobriety is eight years with 36% sober more than ten years, 14% sober from five to ten years, 24% sober from one to five years, and 26% sober less than one year. Before coming to AA, 64% of members received some type of treatment or counseling, such as medical, psychological, or spiritual. After coming to AA, 65% received outside treatment or counseling, and 84% of those members said that that outside help played an important part in their recovery. The same survey showed that AA received 11% of its membership from court ordered attendance.

Effectiveness

Main article: Effectiveness of Alcoholics Anonymous

Research limitations

AA tends to polarize observers into believers and non-believers, and discussion of AA often creates controversy rather than objective reflection. Moreover, a randomized study of AA is difficult: AA members are not randomly selected from the population of chronic alcoholics, with the possible exception of those who are mandated by courts to attend AA meetings; they are instead self-selected. There are two opposing types of self-selection bias: (1) drinkers may be motivated to stop drinking before they participate in AA (2) AA may attract the more severe and difficult cases. Controlled experiments with AA versus non-AA subjects are also difficult because AA is so easily accessible. Twelve-step groups, like AA, are not conducive to probability sampling of members. Research on AA is therefore susceptible to sampling bias.

Studies

Studies of AA's efficacy have produced inconsistent results. While some studies have suggested an association between AA attendance and increased abstinence or other positive outcomes, other studies have not. It should be noted, however, that the book Alcoholics Anonymous does not suggest meeting attendance as a program of recovery, but instead suggests the Twelve Steps. A Cochrane Review of eight studies, published between 1967 and 2005, measuring the effectiveness of AA, found "no experimental studies unequivocally demonstrated the effectiveness of AA" in treating alcoholism, based on a meta-analysis of the results of eight trials involving a total of 3,417 individuals. To determine further the effectiveness of AA, the authors suggested that more studies comparing treatment outcomes with control groups were necessary.

Survey results

See also: Effectiveness of Alcoholics Anonymous

Every third year since 1968, AA has issued a pamphlet summarizing its latest triennial survey of meeting attendants. Additional published comments and analysis for academics and professionals have supplemented the survey results from 1970 through 1990. The 1990 commentary evaluated data of triennial surveys from 1977 through 1989 and found that one quarter (26%) of those who first attend an AA meeting are still attending after one year. Furthermore, nearly one third (31.5%) leave the program after one month, and by the end of the third month, over half (52.6%) leave. After the first year, the rate of attrition slows. Only those in the first year were recorded by month. About 40% of the members sober for less than a year will remain another year. About 80% of those sober less than five years will remain sober and active in the fellowship another year. About 90% of the members sober five years or more will remain sober and active in the fellowship another year. Those who remained sober outside the fellowship could not be calculated using the survey results.

Loran Archer's analysis of AA's triennial membership surveys conducted from 1977 through 1989. deduces that:

The 95% dropout rate, claimed by some of A.A.'s modern critics,

is inaccurate and based on flawed statistics.

Rather than 5% of A.A. members remaining at the end of one year a more accurate estimate is that 36% remain attending A.A. at the end of one year and 32% are still attending at the end of 20 years.

Archer also faulted AA for under-counting its membership: "

The limitations of the A.A. membership surveys are well described in the GSO internal memo on page 4. A major limitation is the significant under counting of the A.A. membership resulting from the many groups that were not surveyed.

The most recent "A.A. Fact File" that I received from GSO shows the estimated A. A. membership in the U.S. as 1,168,990 members.

This is a significant undercount of members.

Using a national representative survey of the U.S., in the NIAAA 1991-1992 National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiologic Survey (NLAES), I found that in 1991-1992, 2.4 million individuals reported attending an A.A. meeting during the last year.

Health-care costs

As a volunteer-supported program, AA is free of charge. This contrasts with treatments for alcoholism such as inpatient treatment, drug therapy, psychotherapy and cognitive-based therapy. Research has found that institutional use of AA in certain circumstances has reduced health-care expenditures by 45%.

Relationship with institutions

Prisons

In the United States and Canada AA meetings are held in hundreds of correctional facilities. The AA General Service Office has published a workbook with detailed recommendations for methods of approaching correctional-facility officials with the intent of developing an in-prison AA program. In addition, AA publishes a variety of pamphlets specifically for the incarcerated alcoholic. Additionally, the AA General Service Office provides a pamphlet with guidelines for members working with incarcerated alcoholics.

United States Court rulings

United States courts have ruled that inmates, parolees, and probationers cannot be ordered to attend AA. Though AA itself was not deemed a religion, it was ruled that it contained enough religious components to make coerced attendance at AA meetings a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the constitution. In September 2007, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit stated that a parole office can be sued for ordering a parolee to attend AA.

American treatment industry

Although Alcoholics Anonymous does not endorse and is not allied with any outside facility, since 1949 when Hazelden treatment center was founded by some AA members, alcoholic rehabilitation clinics have frequently incorporated precepts of the AA program into their own treatment programs. A reverse influence has also occurred, as AA receives 31% of its membership from treatment center referrals.

United Kingdom treatment industry

A cross-sectional survey of substance-misuse treatment providers in the West Midlands found fewer than ten% integrated twelve-step methods in their practice and only a third felt their consumers were suited for Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous membership. Less than half were likely to recommend self-help groups to their clients. Providers with nursing qualification were more likely to make such referrals than those without. A statistically significant correlation was found between providers' self-reported level of spirituality and their likelihood of recommending AA or NA.

Soviet and post soviet Russia

According to a 'Forbes Magazine' 2007 report, in the Soviet Union, AA was unofficially banned: It was defined as a religious sect, since it requires members to believe in a higher power that heals", and "the idea of self-help didn't exist in a regime where educated higher-ups knew best." In post Soviet Russia, Forbes said, "Doctors in Russia still don't endorse AA," but nonetheless, AA "is taking root in Russia, with 300 groups across the country."

Criticism

See also: Twelve-step program: Criticism

Moderation or abstinence

For more details on this topic, see Alcoholism: Management

Stanton Peele argued that some AA groups apply the disease model to all problem drinkers, whether or not they are "full-blown" alcoholics. Along with Nancy Shute, Peele has advocated that besides AA, other options should be available to problem drinkers who can manage their drinking with the right treatment. The Big Book, however, acknowledges "moderate drinkers" and "a certain type of hard drinker" able to stop or moderate their drinking. The Big Book suggests no program for these drinkers, but instead seeks to help drinkers without "power of choice in drink."

Cultural identity

One review of AA warned of detrimental iatrogenic effects of twelve-step philosophy and concluded that AA uses many methods that are also used by cults. A subsequent study concluded, however, that AA's program bore little semblance to religious cults because the techniques used appeared beneficial. Another difference is that, unlike what happens in cults, AA does not seek to prevent a member leaving or renouncing the movement. Another study found that the AA program's focus on admission of having a problem increases deviant stigma and strips members of their previous cultural identity, replacing it with the deviant identity. A survey of group members, however, found they had a bicultural identity and saw AA's program as a complement to their other national, ethnic, and religious cultures.

Other criticisms

• "Thirteenth-stepping" is a disparaging euphemism referring to AA members who approach new members for dates or sex. The Journal of Addiction Nursing reported that 50% of the women that participated in a survey (55 in all) experienced 13-stepping behavior from others. To avoid this type of behavior, AA suggests that typically men be sponsored by men and women be sponsored by women.

• Arthur H. Cain in 1963 said that AA members rely too heavily on dogmatic slogans and become overly dependent on the group. He also said AA "has turned into a religious movement — and a hindrance to research, psychiatry, and to many alcoholics who need a different kind of help."

Literature

Alcoholics Anonymous publishes several books, reports, pamphlets and other media, including a periodical known as the AA Grapevine. Two books are used primarily: Alcoholics Anonymous (the "Big Book") and Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, the latter explaining AA's fundamental principles in depth.

• Alcoholics Anonymous (June 1, 1976). Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous World Services. ISBN 0916856593. OCLC 2353981.
• Alcoholics Anonymous (February 10, 2002). Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. Alcoholics Anonymous World Services. ISBN 0916856011. OCLC 13572433. {{cite book}}: More than one of |author= and |last= specified (help)
• The A.A. Grapevine. Alcoholics Anonymous. ISSN 0362-2584. OCLC 50379271 http://www.aagrapevine.org/index.php. {{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

AA in film

• My Name Is Bill W. - dramatized biography of co-founder Bill Wilson
• When a Man Loves a Woman - an airline pilot's wife attends AA meetings in a residential treatment facility
• Clean and Sober - a cocaine addict visits an AA meeting to get a sponsor
• The Answer Man - AA meeting at 0:59 ("burning desire", "newcomer")
• When Love Is Not Enough: The Lois Wilson Story - a 2010 film about the wife of founder Bill Wilson, and the beginnings of Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon.
• Days of Wine and Roses - a 1962 film about a married couple struggling with alcoholism. Jack Lemmon's character attends an AA meeting in the film.
• Drunks - a 1995 film starring Richard Lewis as an alcoholic who leaves an AA meeting and relapses. The film cuts back and forth between his eventual relapse and the other meeting attendants.

See also

• Addiction recovery groups
• Alcoholism
• List of twelve-step groups
• Recovery model
• Self-help groups for mental health
• Stepping Stones (home)
• Substance abuse

References

• Bill W. (1955), Alcoholics Anonymous: the story of how many thousands of men and women have recovered from alcoholism (2nd ed.), New York, New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, OCLC 269381
• Bill W. (2002). Alcoholics Anonymous: the story of how many thousands of men and women have recovered from alcoholism (4th ed.). New York, New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services. ISBN 1893007162. OCLC 408888189.
• Edwards, Griffith (2002). Alcohol: The World's Favorite Drug (1st ed.). Thomas Dunne Books. ISBN 0312283873. OCLC 48176740. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Klaus Mäkelä (1996). Alcoholics Anonymous as a mutual-help movement: a study in eight societies. Madison, Wis: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0299150003. OCLC 33242907. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Mitchel, Dale (2002). Silkworth: the little doctor who loved drunks. Center City, Minn: Hazelden. ISBN 1568387946. OCLC 51063745.
• Speak, Darius (2009). "aaspeak: www.aaspeak.com". online. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help); More than one of |host= and |last= specified (help)
• Pass It on: The Story of Bill Wilson and how the A.A. Message Reached the World. New York, NY: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. 1984. ISBN 9780916856120. OCLC 12308065. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Peele, Stanton (1999). The Diseasing of America: how we allowed recovery zealots and the treatment industry to convince us we are out of control. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. ISBN 0787946435. OCLC 39605271.
• "Questions & Answers on Sponsorship". Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. 2005. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-12-15. Retrieved 2009-12-15. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
• Roberson, Nan (1988). Getting Better: Inside Alcoholics Anonymous. London: Macmillan. ISBN 0688068693. OCLC 17260252.
• Vaillant, George E. (1995). The Natural History of Alcoholism Revisited. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. ISBN 067460377X. OCLC 31605790.
• Wilcox, D.M. (1998). Alcoholic thinking: Language, culture, and belief in Alcoholics Anonymous. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0275960498.

External links

• AA official website
• A Private Collection Of Images Of AA Material