Go Back  SoberRecovery : Alcoholism Drug Addiction Help and Information > Alcoholism Information > Alcoholism
Reload this Page >

Brief history on how AA got to be where it is today



Notices

Brief history on how AA got to be where it is today

Old 03-31-2014, 10:11 PM
  # 1 (permalink)  
Member
Thread Starter
 
Join Date: Mar 2014
Posts: 100
Brief history on how AA got to be where it is today

The Surprising Failures of 12 Steps - Jake Flanagin - The Atlantic

How a pseudoscientific, religious organization birthed the most trusted method of addiction treatment

JAKE FLANAGIN MAR 25 2014, 12:00 PM ET


posting the second half of the article for relevancy.

So how did AA gain such a place of privilege in American health-culture? How did a regimen so overtly religious in nature, with a 31 percent success rate at best, a five to 10 percent success rate at worst, and a five percent overall retention rate become the most trusted method of addiction-treatment in the country, and arguably the world? It’s a central question Dodes seeks to answer in The Sober Truth. And he begins at the very beginning.


According to Dodes, when the Big Book was first published in 1939, it was met with wide skepticism in the medical community. The AMA called it “a curious combination of organizing propaganda and religious exhortation.” A year later, the Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases described it as “a rambling sort of camp-meeting confession of experiences … Of the inner meaning of alcoholism there is hardly a word. It is all surface material.”

That perception has since radically changed, albeit gradually, thanks in no small part to the concerted efforts of AA’s early pioneers. They “realized early on that to establish true legitimacy, they would eventually need to earn the imprimatur of the scientific community,” writes Dodes. Which they did, with aplomb, largely by manufacturing an establishment for addiction scholarship and advocacy that did not previously exist. They created a space for AA to dictate the conversation.

The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, one of the foremost American advocacy-agencies for recovering addicts, was founded in 1944 by Marty Mann—a wealthy and well-connected Chicago debutante, and the first female member of AA. The Center of Alcohol Studies at Rutgers University, an international leader in alcoholism-related research, was founded at Yale in 1943 under the direction of E. Morton Jellinek. Jellinek, the author of several seminal texts on alcoholism and an eventual WHO consultant on the condition, placed AA-founder and Big Book author Bill Wilson on the faculty—a man who claimed to have been cured of his own alcoholism not through the progress of scientific research, but by divine intervention.

In 1951, based on what Dodes calls “the strength of self-reported success and popular articles” (The Saturday Evening Post was a major supporter), AA received a Lasker Award, which is “given by the American Public Health Association for outstanding achievement in medical research or public health administration.” This despite “no mention of any scientific study that might prove or disprove the organization’s efficacy,” writes Dodes. But it was nevertheless a marked moment AA’s history; the moment it entered the medical establishment, and by proxy, gained implicit trust from the American public on matters of alcohol abuse.

Two decades later, in 1970, Congress passed a landmark bill called the “Comprehensive Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Prevention Treatment and Rehabilitation Act,” precipitating the establishment of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. “Among those testifying to the lawmakers in support of the bill,” writes Dodes, “were Marty Mann and Bill Wilson.”


In 1989, America’s first drug court began sentencing “nonviolent drug offenders” to 12-step programs. Although court-mandated participation in 12-step programs would eventually be deemed unconstitutional (thanks to items like Step Six), Dodes claims “judges still refer people to AA as a part of sentencing or a condition of probation.”

This brings us to the present: an addiction-treatment landscape envisioned and engineered almost entirely by AA. TSF is the law of the land. If you have a drinking problem in 2014, or a drug problem, or a gambling problem, your medically, socially, culturally, and politically mandated solution is a set of 12 steps. The only other options, as asserted by the Big Book, are “jails, institutions, and death.”

And any suggestion that AA might be a flawed program, or not right for every addict, is met with scandalized looks and harsh retorts. AA, simply put, is pretty popular among the non-addicted. “In the absence of sophisticated knowledge,” writes Dodes, “platitudes and homilies rush in to fill the void, many of which obscure far more than they illuminate. Folklore and anecdote are elevated to equal standing with data and evidence. Everyone’s an expert, because everyone knows somebody who has been through it. And nothing in this world travels faster than a pithy turn of phrase.”

But society at large is guilty of more than just perpetuating the dominion of AA and TSF with “folklore and anecdote.” We are just as guilty of driving addicts into the program as the program is of raising the specter of a sole avenue to recovery.

Despite the popular glorification of TSF, addiction remains an oft-trivialized topic, and the addict an oft-ridiculed figure. A night of heavy drinking might be punctuated with an off-the-cuff comment like, “I am such an alcoholic!” Or incredulity expressed through hyperbolic questions like, “Are you on crack?” The meth-addict, as portrayed on TV shows like Breaking Bad and Inside Amy Schumer, is the commonly accepted lowest form of human-scum, deserving of not just ridicule, but violent death. The addict is disposable. Or a recyclable punchline.

When, as a culture, we ascribe the addict the lowest possible social value, is it any wonder why they flock to a fellowship of equally alienated individuals with common lived-experiences? Organizations like AA? It’s true addicts are deserving of treatment plans based in something more than blind faith—Dodes’s argument is more than persuasive in that regard—but pills and therapy and data and evidence aren’t necessarily enough to treat a condition so inherently linked to emotional wellbeing and self-worth. The addict, like any human, craves community. And if the greater community persists in shunning and shaming addicts, and AA remains the only door left ajar, then it’s to AA the addicts will go. And who could blame them?




.
AAnoob is offline  
Old 03-31-2014, 10:17 PM
  # 2 (permalink)  
Administrator
 
Dee74's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 211,043
Whats with the relentless negative slant, Noob?

D
Dee74 is offline  
Old 03-31-2014, 10:42 PM
  # 3 (permalink)  
Member
Thread Starter
 
Join Date: Mar 2014
Posts: 100
negative slant??

all the articles I posted before this one are pro-AA as an recovery program.

Plenty of people have thanked me for those articles.

I view those articles as "constructive", instead of "negative"


This article is anti-AA as a recovery program, but still has plenty to offer in terms of perspective and has good synopsis on the history of AA.

And considering Dr. Lance Dodes is an addiction specialist with over 20 years of experience. I find his opinions worthy of my time and maybe others...


.
AAnoob is offline  
Old 03-31-2014, 10:56 PM
  # 4 (permalink)  
Member
 
afloatsober's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Engerland
Posts: 897
noob
your interest is both touching and a credit to you..
Your point (whatever it is) made yet?
I have seen many intellectualize themselves drunk.
I'm sure someone as smart as you won't fall into that trap.
Be safe.
G
afloatsober is offline  
Old 03-31-2014, 11:15 PM
  # 5 (permalink)  
Administrator
 
Dee74's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 211,043
Originally Posted by AAnoob View Post
negative slant??

all the articles I posted before this one are pro-AA as an recovery program.

Plenty of people have thanked me for those articles.

I view those articles as "constructive", instead of "negative"


This article is anti-AA as a recovery program, but still has plenty to offer in terms of perspective and has good synopsis on the history of AA.

And considering Dr. Lance Dodes is an addiction specialist with over 20 years of experience. I find his opinions worthy of my time and maybe others...


.
I've read everything you've posted - and I've seen you use the 'what you thought I said is not what I said' argument a lot.

I'm not going to pull out every thread you've written but I'm gonna go with my original assessment.

My purpose in asking was trying to open a dialogue that might stop threads being closed and posts pulled.

No harm no foul.
D
Dee74 is offline  
Old 03-31-2014, 11:27 PM
  # 6 (permalink)  
Member
Thread Starter
 
Join Date: Mar 2014
Posts: 100
Originally Posted by afloatsober View Post
I have seen many intellectualize themselves drunk.
I sure there are others that intellectualize themselves sober as well.


My interest in these articles is due to my recent involvement with AA.

As with anything I am interested in, I research on the internet to get more information on it.

I find these articles help me in the overall understanding of AA as a whole, instead of a narrow focus on the TSP.

As I said before, I still go to AA meetings and enjoy it. And would recommend others to go, if they feel that they might have a problem with alcohol.

And even the author of this article offers some credibility to AA, "pills and therapy and data and evidence aren’t necessarily enough to treat a condition so inherently linked to emotional wellbeing and self-worth."

Which I wholeheartedly agree with.



.
AAnoob is offline  
Old 04-01-2014, 12:04 AM
  # 7 (permalink)  
Member
Thread Starter
 
Join Date: Mar 2014
Posts: 100
Originally Posted by Dee74 View Post
I've read everything you've posted - and I've seen you use the 'what you thought I said is not what I said' argument a lot.
LOL, because it's true. So far, I mostly just post articles I like, and highlight the part that is interesting to me. Some people want to read into what I wrote or highlight. Some accused me of having a secret agenda. Some took what I wrote and flipped it 180 degrees opposite. Some guy thinks I like to kick dogs. (actually it's cats)



The reason behind it has been pretty obvious to me,
and it is explained here pretty well.

But because human beings tend to have opinions about matters vital to their welfare, and because alcoholics as a group are probably more prone to having and expressing strong opinions than average, it is not uncommon to find AA members here and there who are convinced that their understanding of the AA program is the only possible correct one, and hence that failure to adhere to their beliefs and practices will inevitably lead to ruin on the part of anyone unwise enough to disregard their superior wisdom. - Floyd P. Garrett, M.D.
AAnoob is offline  
Old 04-01-2014, 12:14 AM
  # 8 (permalink)  
Member
Thread Starter
 
Join Date: Mar 2014
Posts: 100
Interview with Dr. Lance Dodes on NPR

Author Interview: Lance Dodes, Author Of 'The Sober Truth' : NPR

I gonna pick up his book, The Sober Truth,
AAnoob is offline  
Old 04-01-2014, 12:52 AM
  # 9 (permalink)  
Sober Alcoholic
 
awuh1's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Posts: 3,539
Where to start? I guess with the tile lol. AA is characterized as a “pseudo scientific religious organization”. Wrong on both counts. AA does not offer a solution based on empirical research, pseudo or otherwise. Nor is it based on religion. It is a spiritual program. The author does not even understand something this basic about the AA program. It was hard to continue to read the article after that seeing the title. I found so many errors that I don't have time to comment on them. I'll just comment on one that is easily verifiable. Marty Mann was not the first female in AA. It was Jane Sturdevant.

If the author cannot get the basic facts correct, how can you trust his analysis?
awuh1 is offline  
Old 04-01-2014, 01:08 AM
  # 10 (permalink)  
Member
Thread Starter
 
Join Date: Mar 2014
Posts: 100
Originally Posted by awuh1 View Post
Wrong on both counts.
You say tomato, he says tomahto.
AAnoob is offline  
Old 04-01-2014, 01:15 AM
  # 11 (permalink)  
Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2011
Posts: 1,126
You know, I admire your tenacity in posting the results of your Google expertise as you try to get an intellectual grasp on the AA program, and I won't bother getting in my story that I have hashed out in other sub-forums about my first brush with AA more than 15 years ago and how I how I exhaustively explored recovery methods ad nauseum.

I relished books that criticized AA (check out Rational Recovery) and plunked down hundreds of dollars on addiction textbooks (like $75 a pop back in 2000; check out Ellis and Valant) and tried to wrap my head around addiction in a detached, unbiased, investigative way. Besides, AA was filled with Big Book Thumpers who chained smoked and lived in their mother's basement and they certainly couldn't teach me.

But what I never did was detach my fascination and intrigue in the subject from my ego, the belief that I could beat addiction simply by gaining an intellectual understanding of it. If I knew what the experts said then I certainly would be able to apply that knowledge to my own behavior.

Hell, I even took on a debate in a public forum with the director of addiction medicine for the Tulane School of Medicine over the disease model of addiction and was convinced I won! (I didn't think it was a disease, of course).

But what I didn't do was stay sober. That didn't happen until Oct. 15, 2010.

AANoob, you've professed you're not a low-bottom drunk. In 2000, I wasn't either. But I wish you would look around you at some of those bottom feeders in your next AA meeting and picture that guy coming here to SR, lonely late at night, looking for some like-minded people battling early recovery. After they scroll through a few Newcomer threads they land on a sub-forum that has their label on it -- Alcoholism -- and get sucked into one of your threads. DO you really think what you post would help them?

I get that debate is part of the learning process, but sometimes the tone of your posts just aren't that supportive, they just don't have that ring of tolerance and seeking and sharing that so embodies what SR is all about. Heck, you even told RobbyRobot to get therapy! I mean, the guy has a few decades of sobriety under his belt, and is probably one of the most versed dudes here when it comes to recovery methods and from my recollection he's more than dipped his toe in studying them.

I'm glad you are immersing yourself in the subject of recovery, even your reading about the history of AA. But the posts just come off as baiting for an argument when what folks come here for is to share their questions, battles, stumbles and successes.

If you want to debate AA, why not take it to the Alcoholism 12 Step sub-forum where folks who actually work the AA program can give you feedback?

You know, maybe the reason some of your posts spark ire is because many respondees have been exactly where you are right now: a few months into sobriety trying to think their way out of a problem and using good-old deductive reasoning to find the right and wrong way to recover and with that fledgling knowledge feeling more than capable -- no, in fact, obligated -- to point out the faults and benefits of AA or any other program.

You know, many of those bottom feeders in AA meetings had to be totally humiliated by drinking and drugging in order to find some open-mindedness (gleaned through desperation) to find a shred of humility that led them into the doors of AA.

And now this brings me to Dee, who has been on these boards for more than seven years I think, and is probably one of most dedicated moderators of any online forum, who've you already accused of having an Internet addiction and who has probably been positively involved in the recovery of several thousand SR users. When it comes to SoberREcovery, Dee has seen it all. And when even Dee posits that this thread may be headed for closing like others, your duty-bound to argue with him.


I've only taken the time to write this because I recognize myself in you. I was you 15 years ago, and I had a shred of critical thinking left in me back then. I was sober for like a grand total of 30 days when I first started digging in addiction literature and recovery methods and since my habit consisted of smoking a doobie or two at night as I sipped on my expensive craft beer I could see every hole there was in AA. I wasn't a pass-out, ****-your-pants, DUI homless drunk, so I could beat this!

This business we are in is a beguilingly progressive one, my friend, and I played the game you're playing and I gotta tell you, I became one of those bottom of the cess pond types sitting in an AA meeting next to you, something I never would've imagined 15 years ago as I set out to to find the right or wrongs in recovery. I really wish I would have been able to set my discerning, deductive reasoning behind back them, garnered some humility, listened to old-timers even though I thought they were quacks, and displayed tolerance and open-mindedness.

I gotta go now. It's time to take RobbyRobot to his therapy session and then hack Dee's router because, man, that' Aussie needs a break from the Internet.
MemphisBlues is offline  
Old 04-01-2014, 01:49 AM
  # 12 (permalink)  
Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Sydney Australia
Posts: 47
Well I for one appreciate the link Noob provided. Always fascinates me how defensive people get about AA
hopefulinAus is offline  
Old 04-01-2014, 05:30 AM
  # 13 (permalink)  
Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Miami, FL
Posts: 1,701
Maybe we need a "History of Recovery" forum that can allow for this kind of critical history. This material may be fascinating, but it is not based on the kind of personal experience and support people expect to find in a post labeled "Alcoholism"
miamifella is offline  
Old 04-01-2014, 05:31 AM
  # 14 (permalink)  
Forum Leader
 
ScottFromWI's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Wisconsin, USA
Posts: 16,945
I'm with Dee on this, your posts are what they are Aanoob. I am not an AA member and there are several things I don't agree with in the program, but I don't feel the need to spend the majority of my time on SR bashing or discrediting it.

Your point is made...you don't like AA..please give it rest.
ScottFromWI is offline  
Old 04-01-2014, 05:52 AM
  # 15 (permalink)  
Member
 
WritingFromLife's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Texas
Posts: 478
To use, ironically, a religious analogy....It's like we are all on a "religious" board that believes in the same God, but have different denominations. If I am Catholic, I am not going to point out all the negatives of my fellow forum mates that are Baptist. Nor am I going to point out the negatives of my own faith. The goal is "God".

Again, just an analogy, I am by no means saying this is a religious forum, of course :-)
WritingFromLife is offline  
Old 04-01-2014, 05:58 AM
  # 16 (permalink)  
Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: C.C. Ma.
Posts: 3,697
Things have changed in recent years in AA as a result of being "watered down" mainly by rehabs. However I recall from years ago when someone asked "how does it work" the KISS answer was "FINE."
I add "IF YOU WORK IT."

BE WELL
IOAA2 is offline  
Old 04-01-2014, 06:21 AM
  # 17 (permalink)  
Adventures In SpaceTime
 
RobbyRobot's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Ottawa, Canada
Posts: 5,827
Hey Noob. Still banging away at the hard sell I see. Your continuous rhetoric reveals your soft on actual addiction recovery and hard on self-importance. Your true motivations for such slanted links in your postings will continue to become clearer as you become more frustrated with the growing results of your SR contributions.

What goes around comes around. As you continue to defend your rights to post such negative slants you'll also continue to erode your credibility. Its really only a matter of due consequence and you'll talk yourself right off your soapbox of self-importance.

I caught on early to you back in your first posts. I'm not surprised you have continued to ignore some very fine contributors in turn. You've also early on managed to catch Dee's attention. Well, it won't be long really before your game is done, and you'll have caused that ending yourself. For a guy who posts his declared interest in the critical opinions of others, its plain and clear you yourself have no use for the opinions of credible and established SR members. Your loss, dude.

BTW awesome post MemphisBlues. Well said indeed.
RobbyRobot is offline  
Old 04-01-2014, 07:45 AM
  # 18 (permalink)  
Member
 
GracieLou's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2013
Location: Ohio
Posts: 3,785
*sigh* A simple program for complicated people.
GracieLou is offline  
Old 04-01-2014, 07:52 AM
  # 19 (permalink)  
RIP Sweet Suki
 
suki44883's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: In my sanctuary, my home
Posts: 39,726
Originally Posted by ScottFromWI View Post
I'm with Dee on this, your posts are what they are Aanoob. I am not an AA member and there are several things I don't agree with in the program, but I don't feel the need to spend the majority of my time on SR bashing or discrediting it.

Your point is made...you don't like AA..please give it rest.
Same here. I don't use AA, but it has helped and continues to help many people. If it's not your thing, then don't use it. I think it's wrong to post negative things you pick up on Google. A person can find pretty much anything they want on Google, depending on their agenda.
suki44883 is offline  
Old 04-01-2014, 08:39 AM
  # 20 (permalink)  
EndGame
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: New York, NY
Posts: 4,677
Originally Posted by AAnoob View Post
negative slant??

all the articles I posted before this one are pro-AA as an recovery program.

Plenty of people have thanked me for those articles.

I view those articles as "constructive", instead of "negative"


This article is anti-AA as a recovery program, but still has plenty to offer in terms of perspective and has good synopsis on the history of AA.

And considering Dr. Lance Dodes is an addiction specialist with over 20 years of experience. I find his opinions worthy of my time and maybe others...
Most of us figured out what you were up to early on. No need to continue confirming it in one comment and then denying it in another and then confirming it yet again. You're left chasing your own tale. Though observing this may carry limited entertainment value to watch, it also demonstrates a level of frustration on your part, born of intolerance, among much else.

It's generally best to move on once you've made your point.
EndGameNYC is offline  

Currently Active Users Viewing this Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are Off




All times are GMT -7. The time now is 02:55 PM.