Alcoholics Anonymous is a religious organization. We’ve known that for a long time. These are the infamous “Twelve Steps” (PDF) you must overcome to cure yourself of alcoholism, according to AA (emphases theirs):

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. 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. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Half the steps have a direct reference to God (or some “higher power”).

So groups like Smart Recovery, Rational Recovery, Secular Organizations for Sobriety, and Women for Sobriety have sprouted in order to offer secular alternatives for people who want to cure their addiction without introducing another one into the mix. None of them are officially affiliated with AA.

It brings up a question: If you like the principles behind the Twelve Steps, but don’t want to use the language offered by AA, can you still be considered an AA affiliate?

Right now, two secular recovery groups in Toronto, Beyond Belief and We Agnostics, have been disaffiliated by Alcoholics Anonymous.

They’ve been removed from the list of local meetings, they’re no longer on Toronto’s AA website, and they won’t appear in the upcoming AA directory. And it’s all because they used a revised version of the Twelve Steps.

Here’s their version (with changes in bold):

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable. Came to accept and to understand that we needed strengths beyond our awareness and resources to restore us to sanity. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of the AA program. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Admitted to ourselves without reservation, and to another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs. Were ready to accept help in letting go of all our defects of character. Humbly sought to have our shortcomings removed. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. Sought through mindful inquiry and meditation to improve our spiritual awareness, seeking only for knowledge of our rightful path in life and the power to carry that out. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

It’s essentially the same thing, but with no reference to a higher power. But that’s enough for AA to say no to them:

“They took issue with a public display of secular AA,” says Joe C., who founded Beyond Belief, Toronto’s first agnostic AA group, 18 months ago. (In keeping with AA’s tradition of anonymity, members are identified by first names only.) … “They (the altered Twelve Steps) are not our Twelve Steps,” says an AA member who was at Tuesday’s meeting of the coordinating body known as the Greater Toronto Area Intergroup. “They’ve changed them to their own personal needs. They should never have been listed in the first place.” … One man wept in dismay over the delisting at Beyond Belief’s Thursday night meeting at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education on Bloor Street West. Thirty-two people, mostly men, sat at desks in a classroom. “I do believe in God,” he said after the meeting. “But you don’t need to believe in God to recover and I don’t think it’s appropriate at AA.”

As hard as it is for me to say it, I think AA is right. If you’re not going to use the Twelve Steps exactly as written, then you can’t really call yourself an AA group. You might be equally as effective — hell, one peer-reviewed research paper has shown that secular version of the Twelve Steps is more effective than the “spiritual” version — but you’re still not technically an AA group.

No one is telling Beyond Belief and We Agnostics that they can’t exist, only that they can’t call themselves an AA-affiliated group. The problem with that is, without the acknowledgement of the groups’ existence that comes from AA, it becomes much harder for people who need help to find these secular alternatives. When alcoholics want help, they’re going to search for “Alcoholics Anonymous,” not “Beyond Belief.” Most probably aren’t even aware that AA has anything to do with a god in the first place.

It’s unfortunate because everyone involved wants to help people get off of alcohol addiction, but AA has every right to disaffiliate the secular alternatives.

(Thanks to Heather for the link)



