politics

AA and similar programs are, medically speaking, indistinguishable from telling someone "just quit" or walking into a church and asking the liturgist for guidance.

It's great that they work for some, and I'd hate to suggest anyone to give up on what works for them. But AA is historically cult-like with how they talk about their success rate and that is a major issue.

One of my closest friends had a drinking problem, crappy insurance, and was referred to AA. I went as silent support to his first meeting, but the program absolutely did not take and the net result of time spent was disillusioning him from getting any help at all. He went back to the bottle and died a few years later, yet to hear AA describe it his death was because he "failed the program" and not at all because the program failed to help him.

If your 12 step program helps you and gives you a chance to help others that's a great and wonderful thing. But AA was founded by a drunk who invented a new label for "drinks too much", and there are people who would have loved longer and healthier lives if their take was less "this is the one way for all" and more "this is one way that happened to work for us".

No, I elaborated in another comment but I don't think 12 step or similar recovery programs are cults themselves. However, there are cults and scam operations that use recovery groups as recruiting grounds, sometimes hosting their own meetings masquerading as recovery programs in order to ensnare new members, as is described in the article.

There’s nothing in the big book that says you have to go to meetings. Good meetings are good. Bad meetings are bad.

I should have added another bullet point: "adherents lie about their cult".

In any case, you're not wrong that the Big Book doesn't expressly say meetings are required. And no, I didn't say that it did, either. Both the Big Book (and subsequent publications,) as well as literally every AA group strongly encourages meeting attendance, emphasizes the need for community and unity.

But if that hasn’t been working by itself, modifying one’s behavior is in fact the goal. “Coercion” and “co-dependence” should not be a part of it.

But it is part of it. that is, in fact, the largest part for why the meetings happen. That it's ostensibly for benevolent reasons doesn't make it less manipulative, or that the members or whatever are any less dependent on the whole.

“Spiritual but not religious” … but actually being very religious. Before meds this was pretty much all there was. Groups are pretty varied as to how they handle this. But again, if your group is too Jesusy for you, or otherwise not your jam, find a different group. Anytime someone talks about Jesus or “God” I always think “Okay, good to know: don’t talk to them about that”. The only point is to allow that maybe your standard thinking patterns maybe aren’t the best authoritative source on how to not drink. Mostly because everyone got there by thinking that.

And now that the nature of addiction is better understood, and the nature of it's treatment is more effect, perhaps then your cult should just go away and let secular systems take over. The 12 Steps, though, are inherently religious. the first step requires admitting/accepting that one cannot change by one's on self. 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, and 11 all invoke good to make the change that we are, AA teaches us, powerless to make on our own, and #12 requires the proslytization of that god.

the 12 Traditions don't make that any better, either.

and there's been a fair number of court rulings finding specifically that AA is indeed a religious organization. (DeStefano v. Emergency Housing Group, 2014; Jackson v. Nixon, 2014; Hazel v. Crofoot, 2014; Thorne v. Hale, 2009) Most of those lawsuits centered on whether it was appropriate for the government (or government funded entities) to coerce attendance,

the removal of personal agency. No idea what that’s supposed to be. Are you referencing the “surrender” part of being alcoholic? If so that’s a truly misleading way to say it.

AA teaches that individuals are powerless to change themselves, that is inherently a removal of personal agency. for fucks sake...step one is:

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.

When people speak of religious trauma, and especially "christian shame"; this is what people are talking about. that inability, that inadequacy is deeply harmful.

targeting vulnerable and desperate people This should never happen. It’s always wrong, never endorsed, never intended, never supported by anything about AA. Yes, people do it claiming to be AA but that’s the thing - it ain’t. Very specifically.

AA targets alcoholics who are desirous of becoming sober. They recognize it as a problem, which is great. Many who seek help with that, though are vulnerable. Desperate to make a change, willing to do almost anything, and easily manipulated.

This is an inherent aspect of AA's religious nature. It's ingrained into the structure. It's fundamentally manipulative, and sleezy. And sure, the purpose may be benevolent. There certainly are people leading AA groups that absouletly only want their members to attain sobriety. but this inherent manipulate nature, this targeting of vulnerable people, and the leadership roles create a power dynamic that is attractive to certain kinds of people.

And those kinds of people aren't benevolent. It's inevitable that something lie Brendan Carr's AA sex cult happens. It's inevitable that there will be hundreds of others using that power dynamic to take advantage of, and abuse, the vulnerable people coming to those meetings.

And there is nothing that can salvage that problem, because AA only works by manipulation, and by removing peer pressure, and by stripping agency from vulnerable people, and creating a dependence on the group itself.