Who needs a certain recovery group that is nothing more than a thinly veiled cult? A group that teaches us that we are powerless over our addcition(s) and that we must surrender to a higher power lest we should fall into the pit of drinking again? I guit drinking by myself. I choose to drink or not. No higher power did it for me. And just because I am not drinking, that does not make me a so-called “dry drunk” as they say. It is time that people wake-up to the reality of this cult.
This article appears in May 1-7, 2008.
I’ve always questioned that ‘Higher Power’ crock of crap. What if you don’t believe in a Higher Power? Then what? This ‘cult’ has created ‘victims’ out of people who are unable to demonstrate any level of self control. I always think about that episode of South Park where one of the kids’ fathers went to the ‘cult’ and claimed he now had a ‘disease’. To which his kid basically said, why do you have to stop drinking totally when all you have to do is control what you do drink? Made a hell of a lot of sense to me.
It’s good that you found your own way OP. Fortunately that “cult” also helps a lot of people. Everyone needs a support net, let the anonymous one’s have theirs. If it is helping someone overcome/manage an addiction that might be ruining their lives, how bad can it be?
Ha Ha! You guys must be kidding right? If you don’t like it don’t go – I had the priviledge of taking my father to his first “cult” meeting and now he is 16 years dry. I like it. I like it alot. Whenever I hear people getting all upset about it I understand that their addiction is really threatened. What you resist persists.
Jan (I presume that is your cult-name)- I am the OP. You sound like one who has been thoroughly brain-washed into believing that “he who is an unbeliver must be a sinner”- in other words blindly follow and do not question. I direct you to the Cult test- I suggest you read it and learn soemthinghttp://www.orange-papers.org/orange-cult_a0.html
http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-Cult_Called_AA.html
To all the people agreeing that this is a “cult”; it just makes me sad. I agree the program may not work for some people, but it helps millions of others, and it is not your responsibility to decide for them that the tactics used are “cultish”. Do you actually know anything about alcoholism? If you are judging an alcoholic because they “all they have to do is control what they drink” then just stop posting, stop wasting everyone’s time. You don’t know what your talking about. I am 24 years old and both of my parents have been alcoholics their entire lives. I don’t completely understand the disease, but I know that my parents can’t control themselves. They are out of control. Why is it that someone will undoubtedly argue this point because they are alcoholics, but would probably not make the same argument for a (illegal or prescription) narcotics addiction? Addiction is experienced through the body but lives in the brain; it just upsets me so much when people pass judgement on something they don’t understand. Back to “the cult”; my father was sober for 12 years after regularily attending meetings. I know it was the backbone of his sobriety. It was only when his sponsor and good friend died that he started drinking again. My mother never took to “the cult” because she doesn’t believe in a higher power. She is still drinking and the longest time she was sober was for 3 months when she tried to make “the cult” work. As for me, I don’t believe in a higher power so I can understand why my mom stopped going, and I don’t hold that against her. Much the same as I’m very very happy that the poster has the resolve to become sober of his own accord. But “the cult” brought 12 years of sobriety to my father; and hence, gave me 12 years with a man I really love, a man I will not see again until he decides to stop drinkiing.
I think the ‘higher power’ reference in the 12 step program is appropriate given the root of addiction most often lies with a person’s ability to forgive (others, themselves, etc). Forgiveness, as you know, is most commonly rooted in religion as actual forgiveness is only a small step up from ape-like empathy and compassion.The addicted do not control their drug of choice (save for the first one). In fact, it’s totally the other way around and why it is considered disease.We turn to a higher power when mortality is in question. The addicted will succumb to their addictions by way of a horrible life followed by a horrible death. Is it any wonder, really, we turn to a higher power to overcome addictive behaviors?A more clinical perspective also supports the higher power approach. The patient who submits to treatment (ie ‘higher power’) may get well (ie “may get to heaven”). In the end it’s mind over matter. Whatever works, right? These are actual lives we’re talking about here, right? The 12 step program works for those who submit to treatment.To cast effective treatment in such negative light as is suggested by the OP is scary because people actually read this stuff. “Cult”… pffffft! Small minded, indeed.Consider gambling addiction. The 12 step program extends to the successful treatment of this disease. There is no foreign substance taken in and yet the consequences of this addictive behavior is the same… devastation for the addicted and everybody around them. Disease. Sure, if the gambler stops spending money but still goes to the casino for days on end is that person cured of the disease? I say no.A “dry drunk” is a person who continues behavior associated with their addiction failing to facilitate it with their drug of choice (alcoholics drinking soda with their drunk friends for days on end). To the OP I don’t know if you’re a dry drunk. Do you? Did you discover why you were drinking the first place? Only by discovering the root cause of your addiction and correcting that will you overcome the disease with a lifetime of positive results. Anything less is stubbornness at work and not the curing of disease.
Cyril, to what end do you think AA “cult” members are operating? What does AA have to gain by your sobriety? The extent people will go to protect their addictions is astonishing. BTW The ‘cult’ was founded by a couple drunks with a winning therapeutic formula so your cult pages attacking their personalities is laughable. The program works. Submit!
kay, I think the point is, not everyone has to submit to be successful and stop abusing alcohol. Some do, and that is what the 12-step programs are good for, but not everyone needs that treatment method.
AA was founded by a guy whose idea for sobriety came to him in a spiritual epiphany. He told a friend who believed his experience, applied it to his own life, and in turn, it worked for him, too. Then they spread the word. Like Mormonism and Scientology, which also ‘works if you work it’, ‘cult’ sounds like a negative term, so let’s just say it’s an organized fellowship, wherein its members are told to accept and apply the fundamental ideology being handed to them (and told that if they don’t, they are in denial).