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Sentenced to AA

Recently, a guy was shot to death while trying to rob an AA group in South Carolina. The shooter was an AA old-timer. An attorney who has remained sober since 1981, who was lawfully carrying a concealed weapon, and I think rightfully defending himself. The first question that came to my mind was why this AAer felt [...]

“It’s in the book”

Bullshit slogan of the day:
It’s in the book
Translation – any answer to any question or objection can be settled with a quote from the ‘Big Book’. The ‘Big Book’ is the bible of AA, and its authority is unquestioned, which is baffling when one considers its origin. This is nothing more than a compilation of [...]

The Pseudoscience of Alcoholics Anonymous

Mario Bunge is a physicist who has written on the characteristics of pseudoscience, science, and how to tell the different between the two. Below are some characteristics of pseudoscience according to Bunge, and how each characteristic applies to AA:
A field of pseudoscientific research is made up of a pseudo-community of researchers, which is a group [...]

Authoritarian Alcoholics Anonymous

I have long been baffled by people who cannot separate God from morality. I’m talking about those people for whom the two are so inextricable from each other that they don’t see how someone without God could possibly have any sense of morality at all. These are the ones who ask – with every intention [...]

“13th-Stepping:” Why Alcoholics Anonymous Is Not Always a Safe Place for Women

Below is an abstract from a survey study of 13th Stepping in AA. It was published in the Journal of Addictions Nursing.
“Thirteenth-stepping” is a euphemistic term used among members of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) to refer to people (particularly men) who target new, more vulnerable members (typically women) for dates or sex. Previous research suggests that [...]

AA: Addicted to Addiction

Here is an nice editorial from someone in the UK who was able to escape Alcoholics Anonymous:
AA: Addicted to addiction
I particularly liked his last paragraph:
Too often, meetings were infused with a rigidity, repetition and joylessness that I contrasted unfavourably with the fun-loving, flexible and empowering ambience I began to discover in Buddhism. Though they are [...]

What You Can Look Forward to If You Stab Someone In the Head While Drunk

From CTV in Montreal:
She was stabbed in the head. Her cheek, jaw and eye socket were smashed. She spent two months in a coma and sustained brain damage.
On Monday, a judge ruled that her attacker– a man who pleaded guilty– will not spend any more time in jail.
In September 2005, Marcia Langleib, then 52, was [...]

12-Step Virus Cure

Hi. I’m MA, and I feel like shit.
You know how you feel in the morning when you wake up after a night of raising hell and drinking cheap booze all night? Of course you do. I wish I felt that good. Which is to say I am feeling like shit. No, I didn’t get liquored [...]

Stinking Thinking

A recovering alcoholic in AA has to be vigilant or risk relapse (That makes me wonder why they use the term “recovering” at all, as “recovery” is the logical conclusion of the process, but, in AA, the word has no logical conclusion; perhaps “remission” might be more honest?), and the first sign that one is headed [...]