Christopher Hitchens asserted, that Alcoholics Anonymous with its millions
of members throughout the world was a cult?
However this is not so devastating a Hitchonian apercu for AA or NA members as it
would first appear to be.
Drinking or drugging is clearly not a rational or intelligent pursuit and it could be argued that such self-destructive people may need something as crude as a cult to assist them.
And it is of some interest that the spectrum of cult theology ranges widely, from
Jonestown to the catacombs of Rome. Most of these cults share a methodology,
but they do not share a theology. And it must be remembered that today's
principal religion - Christianity - originated as a cult.
And it is reasonable to assume that many Roman families, circa AD 200, would
have been made slack jawed at the event of losing one's child to this new cult of
Christianity and would have gone out and sought or welcomed a 'deprogrammer'
to save their son or daughter from following a path, 'Christianity' that enveloped
their child, removed him\her from the family, and led them into a life they could
neither fathom nor condone.
Today AA has its 12 Steps and its Big Book and Christianity has its Bible
(a self-help manual) and 10 Commandments. In both eerily similar frameworks
fundamentalism abounds
But if AA is a cult how does it work? Well, when you walk
through those AA doors you are going to get a family, who will tell you,
'..we understand you because we are like you and we know what your life is really like.
Because we did it too.Welcome!'
And they will be keen to get you onto the 'Programme' because it worked for them'
so it is '...We recommend the following: try to get to 90 meetings in 90 days
(a good dose of brainwashing) get a Sponsor, someone who has been around
'a day at a time' for yonks. He/she, the sponsor, will more often than not, will have
many 'sponcees'. This relationship of sponsor/sponcee is reinforced to you as 'members'
'share' at meetings how grateful they are to their Sponsors.
Soon you may be standing up at meetings and 'sharing' that you chose your 'sponor'
because he/she had what you wanted.
However it would be fair to say the majority of these Sponsors,
by the very fact of being in AA are emotionally shaky themselves,
some are emotional voyeurs, others have deep sexual problems.
Does all this smack of a slightly sinister cult. Yes, it does because AA is a cult.
However let us follow the newby neophyte to AA. As he/she attends more and
more AA meetings and goes to coffee houses after the meetings with new friends,
their old frame of reference may get steadily eroded and denigrated into a position
of little value, whereas their 'new' family, the cult, AA, the group dynamics of AA
is substituted as the new family.
So their day now has one primary aim, not having a drink, or drug one day at a time.
Before they go to bed they may feel vulnerable so they phone their Spnsor.
They get through the night andand in the morning and get themselves along to a morning meeting.
During the lunch break they might '...pop in to that meeting which
is near you...' etc.
The newcomer is saturated with endless slogans to short circuit rational thought. Soon they may be voicing AA jargon, 'a day at a time', 'easy does it'
'keep it simple'; 'leave your brains outside the door' (not a problem for many) and now they are finding your sober feet and attending AA conferences where they may be seated with other devotees, people genuinely willing to extend a helping hand and a soupcon
of advice and a large proportion of narcissists in homage to them selves
Does all this sound like a cult? It does to me. So, if it is a cult,
who founded it?
AA sprang from The Oxford Group , a non-denominational movement modelled after first-century Christianity
The Oxford Group was a movement that had a following in Europe, Scandinavia and America in the 1920s and 30s. It was theosophical in nature - that is any of a number of philosophies maintaining that a knowledge of God may be achieved through spiritual ecstasy.
Its leader, Frank Buchman, made the cover of Time Magazine in 1936. The group was unlike other forms of evangelism in that it targeted and directed its efforts to the "up and outers": the elite and wealthy of society. It made use of publicity regarding its prominent converts, and was caricatured by critics as a "Salvation Army for snobs". Buchman's message did not challenge the status quo and thus aided the Group's popularity among the well-to-do. Buchman
became a millionaire and when criticised on the cover of Time
as a millionaire cultist, his defence was, 'Well, isn't God a millionaire?'
Taking its lead from this flaky start we arrive at the 'sobering' fact that the founders of AA, Dr Bob and Bill W. were a fairly rum duo. They were both members of Moral Rearmament and with their wives and associates regularly held seances in their homes. They were Ouija Board
practitioners - that is the Ouija Board Occult "game" of using a wooden board and pointer which spells out messages allegedly from the dead (a form of necromancy). Many such messages are derived from the subconscious of the operators; however, there is always potential for demonic influence.
Following on with this direct communication with the dead and with the spirits. Bill W claimed that he received the '12 Steps' from a spirit Boniface while in a trance, Bill W's wife was a Swedenborgian and Dr Bob was a Freemason. both of which systems deny the divinity of Christ.
Not unlike the Freemason handshake, '..are you a friend of Bill?', is a secret question used by AA member to determine whether you are in AA. Let us say you are. However on the Ouija Board evidence alone it would seem more prudent to give 'Bill' a wide berth.
Moving quickly on to 'literature'. Before the 'Big Book' was written newcomers were handed Emmet Fox's Sermon on the Mount. The resulting self-indulgent spirituality espoused in AA is the terra firma or terra incognita of spiritually, depending on your view. The the Road to Freedom is another asinine tome beloved of AAs which is a 'must read' for the new 'member'
As to alcoholism being a 'disease' these days it is the norm of 12 step consciousness to cope with the burden of your failings by redefining them. Drunkedness, drug use, compulsive shopping, compulsive gambling, illicit sex, gorging on food,
are eradicated by destigmatiing language. And 'Hey Presto' none of
it was your responsibility because guess what? you had an illness
and all those awful things you did are all deemed diseases in the self help manual It is OK you had a disease. Well, thank you American for giving us your 12 Step
Template.
Oh, by the way if you happen to be in a healthy and living
relationship, and your on the 'programme', you better start examining that relationship, because such excessive concern for another person is viewed as pitiable co-dependency by some of the elders, in the 12 step universe. And if you speak up that is rubbish, then you are in 'denial' and that is not a river snaking along in Egypt.
What self help has done has champion the selfish self
the 12 step victimisation template has seeped into our cultural consciousness, just dig deep enough and you will be afforded an
acceptable rationalisation for anything. Obsessive compulsive? well that is it understandable wasn't your Uncle Albert as compulsive ans a mountain rescue dog.
I have been critical of AA in this article but I believe that criticism to be healthy. I also accept that AA and its offshoots such as NA has helped maybe hundreds of thousands of people transform themselves for the better. And as they have become useful members of society again, this has benefited not only them but those closest and dearest to them and indeed benefited society at large.
Christopher Hitchens' gnomic aphorisms that AA is a cult, spewing
out inane banalities in Church basements across the land, needs to be put to the rack. Human beings need ceremony, patterns and indeed cults. And those in the swirling ignorance of confusion
and lack of education doing themselves harm through drink and drugs perhaps more than most, need the iron cast nature of a cult to lead them out of their emotional wilderness.
So is AA a cult? In my view, it is. But that is what is needed for those people who enter it.
Is AA nonsense. I believe it is. But it is useful nonsense.
Read Peter Cheevers' account of Bosco Redmond's audition when he was an actor
Not Even a Recall! Now where is that Revolver?
Published by Ether Books
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