AA's ties to fascism

[waugs]

I've been to my share of meetings over the years, struggling with an addiction, but i always felt extremely out place and never really got it. Being an atheist/agnostic doesn't help much either.

But today i came across this article about some of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous and their love of fascism. I'm just making my way through this essay, but it appears that these guys were
hanging with the Nazi higher-ups, attending Nuremberg Rallies year after year.


http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-rroot240.html

[norton ash]

Well, the orange papers site is a little frantic, I must say.

But it's unquestionable that AA and the Oxford Group had fascist sympathies... like much of America in the 1930's. (Not like now, hahahahaha.)

The real present danger in the recovery community is a bunch calling themselves Teen Challenge, they're everywhere, have some big dollars behind them, and they're Kwaaaazy Kwistians.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teen_Challenge

[slomo]

I find myself totally unsurprised. I just ended a year-long relationship with a guy who has been a member of AA for a few decades (perhaps I was attracted to him as an extreme reaction to having been partnered to an alcoholic for many years). While my recent ex has many fine qualities, his rigidity, lack of emotional development, and lack of sense-of-humor pretty much ensured that we would not get very far. In one of our final conversations before breaking up, I cautiously made the observation that AA seemed quite "structured" (my euphemism for "rigid") in its behavioral and emotional dictates. His response was that, in general, AA was not that rigid, but that he intentionally had chosen a more structured format. "So you actually chose more formal structure?". "Oh, absolutely."

It may be that some individuals are sufficiently out-of-touch with their core needs, and consequently out-of-control behaviorally, that they require the emotional fascism of AA. But I can't help but think that individuals with healthier emotional ecosystems would experience AA to be profoundly sterile.

[slomo]

On writing the last post, I came to a somewhat chilling recognition. I acknowledge that some people may "need" AA. Might that be true of populations? And if we, as a culture, are totally out-of-touch emotionally and out-of-control behaviorally, is a fascist correction therefore inevitable?

[norton ash]

Slomo, it seems that a large number of people need an escape from freedom. It fills the churches (and the 12-step groups in the church basements) keeps the TV tuned to FOX, keeps the favourites list of websites consigned to echo chambers...

I think many would go mad without their foolish consistencies.

[slomo]

I have only one other experience of AA-type organizations. I once knew a priest who was forced by his order to attend SLAA (Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous). This was after he was sent to one of those psychiatric treatment hospitals for priests with sex problems. Child molester, right? Wrong. His offense was looking at ordinary 20-something-year-old-guys-in-ridiculous-underwear pornography on church computers. Admittedly a bit unwise, but hardly pathological. It turns out that the abbot who sent him on his psychiatric journey was openly abusing one of the other brothers in the order, i.e. using his authority to demand actual sexual favors.

[Nordic]

In my business I know a lot of people who have been to meetings, who are recovered alcoholics, etc.

Recently a fellow who had gone to meetings, and didn't like it, decided to do some research and found (to him) a distinct correlation between AA and the definition of a "cult".

He was convinced AA was a cult.

Also, many of the people I know who have gone to meetings find that the meetings themselves make them REALLY want to do whatever substance they're there to fight. I.E. all the talk of drinking makes them want to drink.

[Simulist]

I have only one other experience of AA-type organizations. I once knew a priest who was forced by his order to attend SLAA (Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous). This was after he was sent to one of those psychiatric treatment hospitals for priests with sex problems. Child molester, right? Wrong. His offense was looking at ordinary 20-something-year-old-guys-in-ridiculous-underwear pornography on church computers. Admittedly a bit unwise, but hardly pathological. It turns out that the abbot who sent him on his psychiatric journey was openly abusing one of the other brothers in the order, i.e. using his authority to demand actual sexual favors.

Sex is a natural bodily function, which is both normal and necessary — but, apparently, the Catholic Church and its incredibly fallible "infallible" pope haven't quite figured that out yet.

The pope might as well tell his priests, "Boys, if you want to be priests, you must never — ever! — have a bowel movement. God will help you with that."

And then, when one of them inevitably has the bowel movement they're never (ever!) supposed to have (probably in an inappropriate place or possibly in one of several inappropriate ways), they're sent away for "treatment" at a psychiatric hospital to help them deal with their "addiction."

[norton ash]

Sure, it's a cult, but it's not about any dear leader collecting all the $$$, so on the whole, I'd say 12-stepping has helped more people than it's hurt.

Group-going really seems more for the true believers and the lonely, or those imposing a strict schedule of maintenance.

There is a spectrum in AA like there is in any church or religion... from true believers-proseletyzers-fundamentalists, to moderates, to solitaries, universalists, skeptics, mystics.

I WILL, however, tell people trying to beat an addiction to try to develop their spiritual side. AA-NA can help with that, because it involves an intense immersion in spirituality. What you do with it is your business after that... nobody has to join nuthin'.

For atheists, I recommend a personal responsibility-ethical approach. When you're in your addiction, you are hurting, and worrying, and pissing off the people who love you, and the people you work with. 'Do no harm' is a good creed. Or the question "do you want to live and work for your drugs, or for yourself?"

Finding the balance of the need for freedom vs. the need for security in your personality helps, too. Or an unsparing look at what your childhood really was, and what locked you onto the chemical tit.

Anyway, many paths, but AA-NA does more good than harm in my experience, sketchy fascist roots and all.

[Montag]

There's always Narconon...

[norton ash]

Yeah, I tried Narconon too, but after I quit they kept putting rattlesnakes in my mailbox...

[Montag]

Yeah, I tried Narconon too, but after I quit they kept putting rattlesnakes in my mailbox...

Rattlesnakes? Don't you mean more like science fiction novels? Or messages from Xenu?

[Wilbur Whatley]

This thread is a big pile of shit. The founders of AA had no ties to fascism nor any fascist tendencies. The link in the original post is a biased and slanderous slam on some members of the Oxford Movement, who are not AA.

Most of the comments in this thread are incredibly stupid.

I spent about 20 years going to AA several times a week, and I've read all the core literature, and this stuff here is just nonsense.

AA is most certainly a religious/spiritual organization, although it has been extremely wise in the way it stays nondenominational and open to all people, whatever their religious views.

It's not a "cult." People who say that are dumbasses who don't know AA and don't know what "cult" means.

[waugs]

someone sounds a bit defensive.

and AA's central component IS a belief in a higher power. I've been to hundreds of meetings myself and people try to paint in all sorts of light, but it always
comes back to being "powerless" and "giving yourself over to a higher power". For christ's sake, how many times is god mentioned in the freakin' twelve steps?!

not religious or spiritual my ass.

[slomo]

someone sounds a bit defensive.

and AA's central component IS a belief in a higher power. I've been to hundreds of meetings myself and people try to paint in all sorts of light, but it always
comes back to being "powerless" and "giving yourself over to a higher power". For christ's sake, how many times is god mentioned in the freakin' twelve steps?!

not religious or spiritual my ass.

OK, I will admit to something that I did not want to in my earlier posts. At a time in my life when I thought I might have an unhealthy relationship with sex, I went to a few SLAA meetings. I found them to be exactly like Waugs described, culty and obsessed with personal disempowerment. In addition, the members were cliquish and non-welcoming, except for the ones that were interested in sex with me, thus reinforcing the dynamic I later identified: that my interest in inappropriate sex was in direct proportion to my starvation for real human affection.

There is no mystery to addiction. It is indeed a spiritual problem, but not the one that AA and SLAA insist on. "Giving yourself over to a higher power" is not the same thing as having the emotional freedom to recognize, accept, create, nurture, and sustain love, meaning, and connectedness in your social environment. Sometimes these dynamics will be congruent, but oftentimes they will lie in direct opposition to each other.