I have seen what the effects of Alcoholism and drug abuse can do to a life, a family, a town, a society, and I cannot help but wonder if there is more to the addictions groups than what meets the eye? Take one of the most popular ones for example; A.A. Alcoholics Anonymous. This group is widely known and widely respected, yet they have this thing for secrecy that I find rather James Bond-ish. I understand the addicted person’s need for anonymity, that’s not what I have a problem with. What I fail to comprehend is the need to keep the program itself a secret. Al-anon is different, they allow family and friends to attend meetings so you can learn firsthand what you are up against. Why does A.A. require so much secrecy?
I have uncovered a small handful of A.A.’s little secrets over the years, having an Alcoholic in the family. They offer religious life lessons, but oddly enough, those lessons do not appear to come from a religious book. They do not come from the Holy Bible, or the Koran, the Torah or any other type of religious book. It appears that the entire A.A. “religious theory” comes exclusively from two sources: A thick, blue paperback book titled simply: Alcoholics Anonymous, and the mysterious, all-powerful “Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous”, which I doubt anyone outside the program has ever seen. Having acquired a copy of the little blue book, I have found that overall, the religious tone of A.A. seems to be more attuned to New Age Theology than it is to anything else. To sum up the chapter on spirituality in my own words after having read it very carefully, I can only come to the conclusion that, while quite often Alcoholics look toward a higher power through the course of their treatment, when they go to meetings they are taught that this power is a “God Consciousness” of some kind, sort of a generic “one-size-fits-all” kind of God, and that the REAL power lies only within.
That is classic New Age theology at work, making people believe that there is no force in the universe higher than the will of man, and we all control our own destiny. Certainly I agree that we do control what we do, think and say, but there must come a point where things get beyond normal human capacity to control. The normal thing to do at that point is to call upon God and seek help, but A.A. teaches that while there is help beyond yourself, it is apparently not a very potent one, being unable to work around human genetic bonding. Physically and spiritually speaking, this leads to the grandest catch-22 in history. A.A. teaches that an Alcoholic is born that way, that they have the “disease” programmed into them from conception, and cannot veer away from that course no matter what. They do not have any will of their own, nor do they control their destiny because their destiny is automatically the bottle.
As horrifying as it may sound, Addicts readily embrace this concept, because it enables them to declare to the world at large that nothing is their fault. They like the idea that they have no control over the choices they make because it’s written in their genes to do things a certain way, so why fight it? All responsibility is thus placed squarely on the shoulders of whatever genetic bond created that particular individual. With all that guilt gone, the Addict can then sit on the throne of irresponsibility, doing as he or she pleases without repercussions. In A.A., they follow a twelve step program, most of which involves either confessing their wrongs to others, or working towards restoring broken relationships. Many Alcoholics never complete the twelve steps, or if they do, somehow it doesn’t “take” and they have to do them over and over again. It’s like the snake that bites itself on the tail until it finally consumes itself completely. Which explains why most Alcoholics stay with this program for the rest of their lives.
I’m certain that there is a lot of good in A.A. as well, and a lot of successes, but just how successful can a program be, when the majority of its members have now been attending meetings for decades, and the whole concept for them is so familiar that it has become literally nothing more than a social event where good buddies get together and chat, eat, and generally make merry--without booze. On the other hand, the greater successes seem to lie within the realm of the deeply-rooted, God-based, fire and brimstone type of program. When God is brought into the program in a strong fashion so that He cannot possibly be ignored, or be set on a back burner, the program seems to actually be capable of leading people completely out of the depressing cycle of Alcoholism, never to return to it. Sounds like a cure to me.
