I want to address a point often made by AA members in response to AA critics. It’s a two part point, and it goes something like this, “Why do you want to tear down AA when you have nothing positive to replace it with?” And then, in response to anything we have to offer, they say, “You call that something? You got nothing’.”
Well, no, we don’t have nothing. What we do have, though, is nothing at all like AA.
I think that when the conversation devolves to this level, both parties end up blinking at each other, baffled. There’s no where to go from here. We’ve found ourselves on the shores of two different dimensions of reality – there’s just no common ground.
A few days ago, I tossed in a couple of posts that I didn’t comment on much – one about Don Cobb, who believes that the only way out of addiction is through the “real truth” which is God, and the other about Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor who feels that one can only be truly human through belief in God. They both interested me because of their authoritarian worldview: There is only one way to be complete, and that is through the mediation of an outside authority (God, HP™, God as Group, “something greater than oneself”).
Yesterday, I was listening to an interview on the radio with a conservative who was denying the validity of evolution, and he argued that it was a not a theory but a hypothesis, and that evolution cannot explain altruism. Again, this is another instance where we find ourselves mute and blinking at each other from distant shores. Our sense of the plain obvious is just incompatible.
As MA often says, there’s just no point in arguing belief systems. They are the foundation of our realities, and no brilliantly composed, logically unimpeachable argument is going to convince anyone of anything, especially when the support of the very ground we’re standing on is all the proof we need that it is solid. In other words, “We don’t know who discovered water, but we can be sure it wasn’t a fish.”
Both sides of this conversation look at each other wondering how the hell we can navigate through life without any foundation under us. AAs, religious people and authoritarian types look at people without objective rules and truths as having nothing at all to stand on, no organizing principles, no moral code, no universal sense of right and wrong. Thus, to them, the questions “If you don’t believe in God, what’s to stop you from [heinous crime], or to stop the world from complete anarchy?” and “How can you be truly sober without a Higher Power ™?” are entirely rhetorical.
Our response to these questions is “Wait. What?” And we wonder how they navigate through life as actualized people when their experience is mediated and their sense of doing the right thing isn’t about the right thing, but about their adherence to dogma, which tells them what the right thing is. So [heinous crime] is wrong because it’s against the law, rules, Word, steps, traditions? And our rhetorical question is, “So, if [something] didn’t tell you that [heinous crime] is wrong, you’d do it?”
Well, there’s no common ground between these two different ways of approaching the world. Every once in a while, we can connect on certain points. For instance, we, here on this blog, actually seem to have more in common with AAs, like our commenter, Jim, who would like to see AA operate according to its own founding principles, and its members work the program as it was intended, than we do with the more loosey-goosey AAs. The common ground here is that, while we occupy different shores, we do not begrudge each other our own belief systems, and have no interest in “converting” anyone. I might be wrong (Jim can correct me if I am), but I don’t believe that Jim believes that there is only one way to get “truly sober.” He has his way. It works for him, so he spreads the word for those whom it might also work. We don’t have a way, but we have a perspective, and we’re doing the same thing.
But in our case, since AA and 12-step programs have long been considered the gold standard, and conventional wisdom is that it is “the right way” and even the only way, and since the approach to AA that Jim adheres to is not “the norm,” – rather the norm is something pervasive, insidious and alarmingly dysfunctional – we “bash” it. Or, more accurately, we shine the spotlight on it.
I know that the people who say that this is just gratuitous bashing really believe that we bashers cannot offer anything comparable. I believe the point they are trying to make is that “it’s easy to destroy something, children, but how about you grow up and offer something positive to replace it with. So far, you got nothin’.”
Well, yeah. For someone on the other shore, what we have looks like nothing; just like what they have looks like nothing to us. We wouldn’t have the faintest idea of how to offer like for like. We’d just as soon instruct people to boil their underpants and stand on their nose, as tell them they should admit they’re powerless over a substance and ask their Higher Power™ to remove their character defects. Completely Different Universes.
Here’s what’s really interesting: Whatever side we’re on, we all believe pretty much the same things about what’s right and what’s wrong – and we have no fucking idea on earth how the other side adheres to these beliefs with any integrity. We all believe it’s wrong to abuse other people, wrong to cheat, steal, and murder. And we all believe that the other side has taken a position that allows them to play fast and loose with these moral imperatives.
I can see how it would seem to AAs in good standing that we have nothing to offer as a replacement for AA. That’s like a Christian wondering what I’d replace the 10 Commandments with — the question just doesn’t make any sense. Of course they think we have nothing to offer as a replacement for AA. We don’t! That’s the whole point. If we had a replacement for AA, then AA would make sense to us and we’d probably just be at a meeting, not fixing what ain’t broke.
How do you know but ev’ry Bird that cuts the airy way, Is an immense world of delight clos’d by your senses five? – William Blake
May 20, 2009 at 11:29 am
AA is a nothing. It is a cipher. It is a bus station. Simple: replace it with something better. Something that is more humane; more rational; more accountable.
As for the AA zealots who make the gormless argument, “What would you replace it with?” : Send them back to their cloister.
There is no argument to be made with those luddites. They are blind kittens. The discussion is with professionals who want to do their job better.
May 20, 2009 at 5:22 pm
ftg,
once again,a terrfically written, well-argued, heartfelt post.
in as friendly terms as i can put it, however, i (me, one, single, solitary, individual) am not buying it. it’s not your illustration of the dilemma that i’m not buying, mind you; it’s the grounds upon which the ‘dilemma’ is founded.
it’s absolutely false.
it’s absolutely fabricated.
two points:
1 – the “well, what’s your solution?” question — especially when it comes out of the mouths of one of the AA/12X12 faithful — is a canard; it’s supposed to be the rhetorical equivalent of a trump card; if you word an informed critique in civil enough terms, even the most thick-headed of steppers see the futility of the ‘you must be angry’ accusation; the final card in the deck, then, becomes the ‘solution’ card.
as we both know, there are several group-based therapeutic options akin to AA’s ‘meeting’ structure, but whose focus tends to reside in the individual, rational ability to overcome addiction (e.g., SMART). these options by design are terminal. there are also pharmacological options (sometimes coupled with therapy) that also show very promising results (i.e., the work of both Drs. Volpicelli, Dr. Domenica Deluca, Dr. David Sinclair, etc.) in treating alcoholism. again, these options are usually designed to be terminal.
but ‘options’ are not ‘solutions’. when you engage the debate over a ‘solution’ with a stepper, you’ve immediately yielded the terms to the stepper. AA does not seek to cure ‘alcoholism’ any more than it seeks to ‘treat’ it. AA, explicitly & in no uncertain terms, says (in its quaint, hyperbolic 70 year old manner) says there is only a single spiritual ‘solution’ for the ‘real alcoholic’; it’s right there in the chapter’s title: “There Is A Solution”.
that solution is a lifetime of AA meetings & endless practice of AA’s (at best) quasi-religious 12 steps. that ‘solution’ has never been (& never will be) empirically verified. it’s not so much a cure, a treatment, or even a real ‘solution’ for alcoholic behavior as it is a channeling of one obsession (alcohol) for another (‘spirituality’ & ‘conscious contact with god’). whether that trade-off is a good or bad thing, i won’t comment on.
i will say this: a ‘trade-off’ is not a ‘solution’.
problems that are ‘solved’ usually imply a finality to the conditions originally brought up by the problem. (i.e., i have a problem with a leaky roof so i patch it; i have a problem with my ulcers flaring up so i change my diet & take medications over a period of time to ‘treat’ it.)
when AA’s use the absurd diabetes/alcoholism analogy (or, even worse, when they invoke cancer) & apply the canard of ‘solution’ to both they are willfully mischaracterizing both conditions. diabetes is ‘treated’ on a daily basis (diet, exercise, insulin, etc.) & in some cases, both diabetes & cancer have been known (& documented) to have gone into permanent remission.
bottom line: when you engage the discussion in terms of a ‘solution’, you’re playing on bill wilson’s antiquated, contradiction-riddled, god-of-the-gaps playing field. you’re also arguing with a ‘solution’ that claims to have ‘worked’ for ‘millions’ yet cannot provide a shred of even the most basic scientifc evidence to substantiate it.
2 – “We don’t know who discovered water, but we can be sure it wasn’t a fish.”
again, you’re almost certainly right, but i can’t prove that empirically. further, i don’t know that there was a ‘discovery’ of water so much as an acknowledgment of its existence by both land- & water-based life forms. for fish who are taken from their natural habitat (water) … they certainly come upon that ‘discovery’ (in however rudimentary a way) right quick.
and, not to be a stick in the mud, there are plenty of seagoing mammals who are well aware of the difference between the oxygen-rich atmosphere above their natural environment (water) as the relatively oxygen-impoverished atmosphere in which they spend virtually the whole of their existence.
bottom line: people are not fish. we did discover the three dimensions of common experience & a fourth dimension of space/time. we did discover a universal language by which to describe it — higher mathematics. we did discover the reality of quantum probability, the inarguable ‘theories’ of evolution by natural selection, & the ‘big bang’. we are on the verge of spectacular discoveries in the world of neuroscience & epigenetics & those discoveries will almost speak directly to the dilemma of the ‘alcoholic’ — & a whole host of other neurologically-based (or behavioral) conditions.
james’s own “varieties of religious experience” was not an exercise in promoting an evangelical, quasi-religious transformation. it was a distinctly scientific attempt to catalogue individual experiences of religious and/or ‘spiritual’ phenemona so that he might come to a better, larger scientific understanding of it & its ramifications. james was a scientist, pragmatist & a psychiatrist. he had no time nor patience for ‘faith-healers’, ‘spiritualists’ or the occult.
bill wilson was a salesman. (and if you read the original monograph version of ‘Alcoholics Anonymous’, you’ll find a lot more usages of the verb ‘sell’ than what actually ends up in the published version.)
human beings, almost certainly unlike fish, are capable of abstract & inductive thought. we can theorize & test. we can look at the results of our testing, refine our theories & test further. we can come to real, verifiable ‘solutions’ in that matter.
i don’t have to discover ‘water’. i don’t even have to know the atomic breakdown of a liquid substance versus a non-liquid substance to enjoy a good swim in the ocean without drowning myself. but if i want to, i can go to the library, do the research, & come up with very detailed, verifiable answers for both exercises.
AA — that’s a non-starter. its ‘proof’ is anecdotal; its practice (however loosely applied) is dogmatic; its successful results (by even its own numbers) are far less than even ‘fair’.
the better metaphor (as far as AA is concerned) is that they are like fish who haven’t ‘discovered’ the water that they swim in … nor have they ‘discovered’ the glass walls of the fish tank that keeps them captive.
for the most part, that’s just the way they like it (stinkin’ thinkin’ & all that bullshit).
so, i don’t think it’s the purpose of this blog to (in the monumentally stupid words of george w. bush) “teach the controversy” as it concerns AA. there is no equal & opposite viewpoint of any intellectual rigor that can support AA/12X12’s dubious claims & primitive practices.
babies, bathwater … i won’t even countenance that argument. anything of any value that is in the AA ‘literature’ or said in an AA meeting has almost certainly been said or written before & with greater conviction & subtlety.
there are those among us who can ‘discover’ the curvature of space/time and (astonishingly enough) prove it such that it is employed today in the GPS systems sold in most new cars. there are those among us who can ‘discover’ the ‘truth’ of the 12X12 & ramble on about it in the most circuitous, catch-as-catch-can fashion. their arguments — outside of their own small sphere of experience — are hardly grounded in reality.
constitutionally incapable,
speedy
May 20, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Oh my gosh, speedy… I had a really hard time with that post. I’m not happy with it; it just didn’t go exactly where I tried to take it at all, which probably means I should have kept it under my hat until I figured it out. But I decided to go more slim pickens style kamkazi with the publish button and hope someone would come along and kick my ass — so glad it was you. I’m going to give this more thought, and give your response a very close read.
May 20, 2009 at 6:47 pm
ftg,
keep it simple [heh].
as you’ve probably gathered by now, i’m in ‘no quarter’ mode. h says it best & most succinctly: “AA is a cipher.”
there may be two sides arguing (& almost certainly an immense third side who’s decided that the argument is a fruitless, meaningless, & ultimately draining one that’s best left alone; the multitude that quietly left AA & are pursuing meaningful, happy lives outside it); but there aren’t two intellectually rigorous & valid sides to the argument.
there’s 12X12 ‘faith’.
and there’s ‘the bulk of the data by & large suggests otherwise when it comes to efficacy’.
that’s not a debate. that’s not an argument. that’s not even a stalemate.
that’s the rhetorical equivalent of a child jumping up & down & shouting, “is so! is so! is so!”
if the man who so earnestly penned that 12-step solution in 1938 (“Alcoholics Anonymous”) & later expanded on it in the early 1950’s (“12 Steps & 12 Traditions”) was so convinced of this ‘solution’, why did he find it necessary to dabble in other ‘solutions’ (e.g., LSD, niacin, roman catholicism, various & sundry occult practices, etc.)? why is there no documented evidence that he himself even formally ‘worked’ the 12 steps (& every reason to believe that he didn’t, since his initial sobriety [as described in his own words] came through the practices of the Oxford Group — which had only a 6-step process)?
we laugh (or get righteously upset) when holocaust deniers say that nazi’s couldn’t possibly have killed the 6 million jews & millions of others in their concentration camps. there’s enough evidence of the slaughter to bury these savages up to their ears.
but AA’s spout the completely unverifiable ‘millions saved’ claim & they are taken seriously. based on … their say so.
i’m not equating AA to the nazi party (or hitler); i’m just saying call bullshit for what it is.
don’t drink. go to meetings. maintain ‘conscious contact’ & live your fucking life without hurting anyone else. but don’t yank my chain about ‘solutions’ & ‘millions saved’ when you haven’t got a leg to stand in either category.
speedy
May 21, 2009 at 2:35 am
You are correct, I don’t believe that there is one true way to sobriety anymore than there is one true to way to enlightenment. Not a right way nor a wrong way, but everyone has their “best” way.
By the way, I too am a fan of Blake.
Jim