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[TheBiggerFish]

Also, that image is just creepy to begin with.

[Amperzand]

For whatever reason, my browser is having difficulty with images, but go check out the google search.

[Reelya]

I might drop some links. Here are the official 12 steps. Basically step 11 is praying that God will keep you from drinking, and step 12 is to get more members. The short message is that you're a hopeless sinner who will die if you stop attending, praying and proselytizing the program.
http://www.aa.org.au/members/twelve-steps.php

Charlie Sheen calls out AA as a cult, check the comments for more ex-members opinions agreeing with this
http://www.thecleanslate.org/charlie-sheen-turns-on-the-cult-and-feels-the-wrath-of-alcoholics-anonymous/#comment-452288

The Independent on cult-like behaviour of AA
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/cult-or-cure-the-aa-backlash-1160113.html

The Atlantic article about how AA is bullshit
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/the-irrationality-of-alcoholics-anonymous/386255/

Salon article about how AA is bullshit
http://www.salon.com/2014/03/23/the_pseudo_science_of_alcoholics_anonymous_theres_a_better_way_to_treat_addiction/

This guy breaks down AA based on checklists developed to measure cults, includes a lot of language from the official AA literature
http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-cult_a0.html

I really recommend checking some of these out, it's a real eye-opener. The best analysis is that the AA approach is irrational, doesn't work, and is more about getting hooks into members and expanding like a pyramid scheme than it is about treating people for an illness.

Edit: Sydney Morning Herald discussion on AA (for my Australian friends)
http://blogs.smh.com.au/radar/archives/2005/01/now_that_the_pa.html

Edit: testimonials from ex-AA members:
http://stinkin-thinkin.com/why-i-left-aa-stinkin-thinkin-stories/
http://www.recoveringfromrecovery.com/aa-how-alcoholics-anonymous-steals-soul/

Edit: articles on AA and 12-step based programs
http://www.peele.net/lib/aaabuse.html
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/overcoming-addiction/201307/how-the-media-misrepresents-alcoholics-anonymous
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/sep/22/alcoholics-anonymous-aa-women-dating-addition-rehab
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Alcoholics_Anonymous
https://www.csudh.edu/dearhabermas/aacultbk01.htm
http://morerevealed.com/archives/aa--the-unseen-cult--california-sociologist-1984.pdf
http://www.behaviortherapy.com/ResearchDiv/whatworks.aspx
http://ssdp.org.uk/an-open-letter-to-russell-brand/
http://www.substance.com/most-people-with-addiction-simply-grow-out-of-it-why-is-this-widely-denied/13017/

[FallacyofUrist]

Oh. Wow.
I never thought of AA that way before.
Interesting.

[TheBiggerFish]

Aie ye YI.
Well that makes me worried.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

There's also evidence that reduction to just moderate drinking is a feasible strategy to stop displaying addict behavior.

[Reelya]

There was some recent meta-study that found that of people diagnosed with alcoholism according to the DSM definition, a year later 75% of them no longer qualified for that diagnosis, although only about 25% of those people sought treatment. So rather than a solid core of life-long hopeless drunks, it appears that most people go through periods where they drink heavily then decide to cut back just by themselves. So, in other words it's very hard to measure the effectiveness of different programs because it's an illness with a high self-recovery rate.

Getting hooked into a cult-like scenario which wants you there for life and convinces you that you can never escape alcohol is actually worse, and some studies actually suggest AA is worse than nothing. Since they push the blame away from the individual to the disease, while telling you that you don't have any willpower, AA members often binge more heavily when they do rather than trying to show moderation.

[quinnr]

I might drop some links. Here are the official 12 steps. Basically step 11 is praying that God will keep you from drinking, and step 12 is to get more members. The short message is that you're a hopeless sinner who will die if you stop attending, praying and proselytizing the program.
http://www.aa.org.au/members/twelve-steps.php

Charlie Sheen calls out AA as a cult, check the comments for more ex-members opinions agreeing with this
http://www.thecleanslate.org/charlie-sheen-turns-on-the-cult-and-feels-the-wrath-of-alcoholics-anonymous/#comment-452288

The Independent on cult-like behaviour of AA
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/cult-or-cure-the-aa-backlash-1160113.html

The Atlantic article about how AA is bullshit
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/the-irrationality-of-alcoholics-anonymous/386255/

Salon article about how AA is bullshit
http://www.salon.com/2014/03/23/the_pseudo_science_of_alcoholics_anonymous_theres_a_better_way_to_treat_addiction/

This guy breaks down AA based on checklists developed to measure cults, includes a lot of language from the official AA literature
http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-cult_a0.html

I really recommend checking some of these out, it's a real eye-opener. The best analysis is that the AA approach is irrational, doesn't work, and is more about getting hooks into members and expanding like a pyramid scheme than it is about treating people for an illness.

Welp, I never really looked into AA, but now am sufficiently creeped out. I could understand maybe a token inclusion of religion in their program (since they are often housed in churches and whatnot, AFAIK), but reading through the steps (and I double checked on a couple sites because I am always suspicious of the internet) is actually legit creeping me out. Religious groups in general aren't my favorite, but this is way extreme and definitely cult-like in multiple ways, just reading through their own official materials. Ugh.

If anyone out there likes podcasts, This American Life has an interesting episode where they talk with someone who (used to? I forget) was a member of AA since the age of 13 and then started to think back about it and...well, I won't spoil anything. You can just click Act 3 and just listen to that part, if you so wish.

[AlleeCat]

-snip-

As someone who has been to 12 step meetings against their will, I can say without a doubt that all 12 step programs are fucking evil. Plus, they make you completely irresponsible for your own actions by putting it in the hands of your "higher power," which they say doesn't have to be God, but it basically is the same thing.

[Reelya]

I'm looking into versions of the 12-step program that's supposed to help child abuse victims. Here are the twelves steps to be healed if you were assaulted by kiddy-fiddlers:

http://www.asca12step.org/ASCAA-12steps.htm

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

1. We admitted we were powerless over the abuse and trauma of our youth -- that our lives had become unmanageable.


2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.


3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.


4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.


5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.


6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.


7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.


8. Make a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.


9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.


10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.


11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.


12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other still-suffering adult survivors of child abuse, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Disgusting enough stuff to put alcoholics through, this self-flagellation. 100 times more disgusting to subject child abuse victims to this sort of self-blaming bullshit. I can find at least two 12-step programs for child-abuse victims and at least another one for rape victims, and all of them use the alcoholic 12-steps verbatim.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/2002-10-14-rape-survivors_x.htm

In meetings, members share how they're working at the "12 steps," such as seeking forgiveness of others they have harmed by their behavior after the rape and relying on the care of God or a higher power after "admitting" they had become powerless. Grateful participants say the 12-step method can help victims heal, but critics say it might be pointless or even harm some women.

I'm now thoroughly sickened that there are christian rape victim support systems that get women to talk about all the people they did wrong by because of being raped. In fact, that sort of self-blaming is the bulk of the 12 steps, not a minor part.

[TheBiggerFish]

I wrote a post with two actual swears in it, before deleting.

I do not normally use anything of the sort.

Those people deserve to be slapped in the face.

I mean, seriously, it's bad enough when there's actual addiction at play, where you CAN be out of control, but that, that's just unforgivable.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Wow, a whole new dimension of religion to hate. That does not come along every day.

[TheBiggerFish]

No, that's an entirely different RELIGION.

I don't know how they manage to survive scrutiny by any church at all.

[Amperzand]

Okay what the shit. The alcoholism at least is partially your own fault, but rape? No thank you.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Arguably, even that's not true. The empirical data on addiction in general suggests it actually comes from outside influences. People are substantially better at shrugging off addictive behaviors when not deprived of things to enjoy and hold onto other than whatever they're addicted to. This is why many of the strategies to break addiction, from cold turkey to replacement, have weirdly asymmetrical success rates. They aren't fully dependent upon their own efficacy, but the circumstances of the person attempting.