6-step program

[Guest guest]

Hi All

I shouldnt read AA comes of Age too closely; I might reconvert myself.

One hilarious bit is apparently the emergence of Holy Relics: there is a

photograph of " the actual coffee pot with which Anne [] prepared the first

AA coffee " .

states that:

" Most of the basic ideas came from the Oxford Groups, , and Dr.

Silkworth. [Note no mention of Jung here - PW.] .., it all boiled down to a

pretty consistent procedure that comprised six steps. These were approximately

as follows:

1. We admitted that we were licked, that we were powerless over alcohol.

2. We made a moral inventory of our defects or sins.

3. We confessed or shared our shortcomings with another person in confidence.

4. We made restitution to all those we had harmed through our drinking.

5. We tried to help other alcoholics, with no thought of reward or money or

prestige.

6. We prayed to whatever God we thought there was for power to practice these

steps.

This was the substance of what, by the fall of 1938, we were telling newcomers. "

There is also evidence that, as I suspected, Aa grew faster in Ohio than New

York, not because was a " better sponsor " as suggested in " Pass It On " ,

but because Bible-belt Ohio was a more fertile ground for religious devotion

than New York:

" Our ppl [in Ohio] were still active Oxford Group members, while we in New York

had withdrawn a year before. In akron and the vicinity they still talked abt

the Oxford Groups' absolutes: absolute honesty, absolute purity, absolute

unselfishness, and absolute love. This dose was found to be too rich for New

Yorkers, and we had abandoned the expressions. "

There is also evidence for the AA insistence on powerlessness over the *first*

drink (not merely the need for abstinence) and the use of fear and direct

pressure on ppl to convert to the philosophy:

" ...Our steps would have to be more explicit. There must not be a single

loophole through which the rationalizing alcoholic could wiggle out. Maybe our

six chunks of truth should be broken up into smaller pieces. Thus we could

better get the distant reader over the barrel, and at the same time we might be

able to broaden and deepen the spiritual implications of our whole

presentation. "

The use of violent hunting imagery is rather odd for someone " carrying a

message of recovery " as it was later to be styled.

There follows a description where is hinting at an automatic writing

type experience and that they were divinely inspired:

" Finally I started to write. I set out to draft more than six steps; how many

more I did not know. I relaxed and asked for guidance. with a speed that was

astonishing, considering my jangling emotions, I completed the first draft. It

took perhaps half an hour. The words kept right on coming. When I reached a

stopping point, I numbered the new steps. they added up to twelve. Somehow this

number seemed significant. Without any special rhyme or reason I connected them

with the twelve apostles. "

One might expect jangling emotions to be precisely the kind of situation where

emotive religious material might be written with excessive speed, and their

content to be of little value. A very longterm AA on addict-l stated that the

12 & 12 might have been written by a manic-depressive in a manic phase, and

perhaps the same could be said for the original formulation as well.

I was jeered at by AAs on addict-l for noting the religious significance of the

use of 12 (repeated in the Traditions, Promises, and Service Concepts), and

here I read that *noticed it himself at the time*. Again, he is coy abt

what the implications are, but he doesnt say " and then I told myself to stop

being such a jerk " - he is quite happy to let that Xtian reference hang.

Another final point worth mentioning is that the 12-step program is portrayed

in the BB as being the original program, the 'Steps we took' whereas in fact it

was a derivation of it. Even himself acknowledges the variety of

approaches actually used, and there is some indication of this in the 12 & 12.

Yet the BB portrayal is one of great homogeneity in the first 100 members

viewpoints, and is a piece of sponsor rhetoric " These are the Steps we took,

Past Tense!! " . reports the hostile reaction of two New Yorker AAs who

arrived while he reread what he wrote, and they 'reacted violently', one his

" boon companion " A.:

" 'youve got too much God in these steps; you will scare ppl away.' and, 'What

do you mean by getting those drunks 'down on their knees' when they ask to have

their shortcomings removed?'. And, Who wants all their shortcomings removed,

anyhow?' "

A curious feature is that describes atheists and agnostics as " our

radical left-wing " , which by implication acknowledges that religious belief is

by its nature right-wing.

There is too much to comment here, especially when typing in all the quotes by

hand; if youre interested, it's worth a look.

Two other quotes of note are:

" The alcoholic's unreasoning rebellion against the specifically religious

approach had severely handicapped the missions. " and " ... the straight

religious approach had worked with relatively few cases. "

The first one uses the word 'alcoholic in the singular, as if describing a

species of animal, rather than talking of a group of ppl who might vary in

their nature enormously. also, the use of 'rebellion' implies overthrowing an

existing authority, rather than merely refusing to accept one offered, and why

'unreasoning'? why couldnt 'the alcoholic' have *reasonably* rejected religion,

particularly by their own admission, 'the straight religious approach had

worked with relatively few cases.'?

Pete

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Pete Watts

Grant me the Strength

To Change the Things I Can Not Accept

PERSONALITY-DISORDERS SUPPORT LIST:

http://rdz.acor.org/athenaeum/lists.phtml?personality-disorders

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