Bruh this is great. The brainwashing is so complete inside and outside the cult. It is so frustrating to talk to therapists or health professionals, they’re all “it works for millions of people” and assume my objections to it are just me being a bitch. They have no idea of the toxicity of those cesspool meetings. The predators, the mean gossip and backbiting, the cliques and bullying, the all around just plain lack of self awareness and dipshittedness. What’s “cunning baffling and powerful “ is the hold that this idiotic childish bs has on society. Thanks for this great post
39
u/LibertyCash
Wow, I knew about the whiskey but not the rest. It tracks perfectly tho, doesn’t it?
Cancer victims get legitimate treatment. We get a bullshit program that tells us our disorder is because of character defects and spiritual maladies and if we aren’t “cured by AA” then it’s our fault it failed, not that the program is shit. And even our government is good with mandating that shit for people. I mean it tracks with the Christian majority mindset this country is stuck in, but man, is it some shit. Imagine victims of any other major disease/disorder being told to just confess their sins and pray and they’ll be fine (and if they aren’t, it’s because they didn’t try hard enough).
20
u/PippinOfAstora
i cackled like a maniac (in glee) as I read through this. thank you for sharing
18
u/ben_quadinaros_stan
Yeah it’s always felt like it’s own religion to me so I’m not surprised everyone gets the magical version of its history. Frankly although it’s annoying how far the reality from the taught version are I really think even if it were all true AA doesn’t have much to offer besides community. Everything else is kinda just magical thinking.
12
u/nickpip25
This is great! Thanks for posting this. When I left a few years ago, I did a deep dive of research and read a few books, such as the US of AA, that dig into some of this. The Orange Papers are great, too. The one thing you didn't mention is Marty Mann - the "first woman of AA." She was basically the PR wiz who helped spread the word, etc. Attraction rather than promotion, right? Lol
But yeah, AA is a scam like everything else in America, and Bill W was a con man. It all makes perfect sense when you go to meetings and realize he created this whole BS system that continues to this day. He was the original 13th stepper, and the program never worked for him.
Also, the claim that AA "has helped millions of people" isn't supported by any research. While that may be true, it has probably hurt millions of people, too.
10
u/North_Crow_7600
Great post, 318. Have you read the Orange Papers, which are freely available online?
9
u/MembershipSolid7151
This is fascinating! Thank you for sharing. How do I access your substack?
8
u/AnnoyingOldGuy
I was baffled at a meeting where there was a portrait of Bill W. front and center, like he was jeezus
8
u/SouthernEvent6789
My thoughts: Dead on. I studied a lot of AA history and what you have written has made clear a lot of things that just did not make sense. I spent 25 years in AA listening to the BS over and over and over. The belladonna treatment, there is a local pharmacy that has an old bottle of belladonna. The shit that is in that would make anyone have a "spiritual awakening". I know enough about Bill Wilson, he was not the stand up guy the so called big book makes him out to be. He was a womanizer, a cheat, a liar, and everything else you motioned. He was and is a fraud.
6
u/[deleted]
The big book is shitty reading, especially for ancient literature. It’s like a nine year old wrote it. An honors nine year old, but still.
6
u/Sea_Measurement_1654
I always wondered why Bill waffled on for all those pages despite stating his program was simple. So it was a deception? A hustle? Damn!!
I can't stand how recovery language turns people with problems with alcohol into naughty dependent children who "hurt others". Considering that alcohol is marketed as a core part of many cultures and is behind a huge corporate profit machine I've always thought that sparking guilt and shame in drinkers was a smokescreen. The way the whole treatment model institutionalizes people (threatening their jobs and responsibilities) instead of just making at home detox support easily funded and accessible: so Bill and AA started all this? The monetizing of that illness model? He never stopped being a salesman? He was no different to the other 13:step creeps I met whose wives suicided? Ffs.
I'm not surprised, now that you've linked all the information together. Thank you for curing me of aa, permanently.
Thank you. Your research is good. I hope you publish it and mainstream AOD treatment starts to reflect on and question that model.
Vast change is needed.
6
u/Top-Geologist-9213
Wow I didn't know any of this!
5
u/SouthernEvent6789
Bill W. Oh…. Least not forget Dr. Bob. Both are and was frauds.
5
u/gofeedme
Brilliant. I had known most of this, but not all, and your presentation of these facts is compelling.
AA is a deadly scam. In what other area of medicine is 1935 thinking still the standard of care?
5
u/Recent-Log-2999
You hit the nail right on the fucking head. Thanks so much for the history lesson!
4
u/barely_sentient4444
I know to some this may sound just as insane as the story told here, but I feel compelled to share it because it's so simple and true to my experience.
I was in AA for a year and four months. I was totally in-deep and brainwashed. At this time I was on the precipice of being given leadership roles and a becoming a sponsor...even though I wasn't ready. I was on step 6.
By suggestion of a friend I went to a healing session with a Shaman from Peru...at random. I'd had a horrible week with my untreated ptsd and I was extremely mentally and physically unwell as a result--something that AA always swept away and attributed to the sickness of addiction, not trauma.
For the ceremony I laid on a bed and the shaman spent about an hour performing a cleansing ritual, doing a shamanic journey to a beating drum, and he blessed me. At one point he said my ancestors wanted to come into the ceremony. I said sure.
When I left the ceremony I noticed two things were different: I felt completely restored to my equilibrium from the trigger episodes and I had one extremely clear message my mind. I was in a cult. I just very suddenly understood that I was inside something harmful to me and to others. That I was being healed to mold other people into a servant of this problematic program. I booked out hang outs with friends for the next 4 weekends and packed my shit up, did not look back.
I was so vulnerable! AA may be a spiritual program, but it is not true sprituality. This read is very creepy and disturbing...I lived in Ohio during all this and it's so creepy to think back to the "pilgrimage" people would take up to the Oxford house in Akron. And that no one in my life was like "hey are you ok? You know I've heard AA is a cult right?"
That whole part of my life almost feels like a fever dream.
4
u/MysteriousSyrup6210
Now I understand what it is to be free. For real. Thanks
3
u/papitaquito
OP… can you share some sauce for this? Just want to be able to provide sauce other than a reddit post if possible thank you!
3
u/MyNameis_bud
Your write up reminds me of the Addiction Solution podcast. Especially where you wrote that it was the individual driving their recovery the whole time. Gotta break free from the conditioning that it’s impossible to develop new disciplines by reevaluating alcohol and other substances. Thank you for posting
3
u/sirensideeffects
Wait sorry if this has been asked but could I possibly be directed towards some of the reading that supports these claims? This is so interesting (though not entirely surprising) and I want to know more/ verify
2
u/Ill-Address1151
When is the book coming out? I’m thinking of writing one myself this stuff is so interesting. A great read above. I have one question. In every market there is demand and supply. You are arguing against the supply above - $42b recovery market in bed with AA…but what about demand? Why does it work for a lot of people?
2
u/Lifespupil
I especially laughed at the use of hallucinogens and preying on young women (a tradition that goes on to this very day) and fascist recruiting material (cuz I know a bunch of fascists that love the ef out of 12-step) Bunch of moronic assholes that preach this garbage as the only way to get sober/clean make me want to puke.
2
u/[deleted]
"Constitutionally incapable of of honest" Its abuse. Makes me angry. Really. pissed. Oh, he can't get this program lets marginalize and shun him, treat him like he's a lesser animal.
or
He left the program, lets tell every one that he's miserable hopeless alcoholic that will nerver stay sober. Only people that do what we do can't be miserable.
2
u/hollowblink55
The history is definitely a lot messier than the official version they tell in meetings. Learning about the Oxford Group and the early power struggles really changes how you see the whole "spiritual" foundation. It’s better to know the facts than follow a myth.
2
u/strawberitadaydream
Just curious if you have some sources you can cite?
1
u/Ok-Magician3472
Much information here. I can smell remnants of the religious authoritarianism in the halls. Though also see spiritual marginalized speaking and forming groups where all are welcome.
Interesting topic. Any source recommendations? I have hear of oxford group, but not much else.
1
u/Background-Ad3308
While im willing to believe this and none of this surprises me because I understand how powerful capitalism is in the US...where are you getting this info?
1
u/Lewt007
Is this from the orange papers?
https://orangepapers.eth.limo/orange-cult.html
1
u/TheTankIsEmpty99
Does posting this help your recovery?
-1
u/dr-nc
I never had that addiction, and never took that program. However, since it helped many people around the world, despite the shortcomings of its founder/founders, that was not due to his own mind, but due to the fact, that the program's principles are to some degree, a bit distantly, related to the principles of self-examination, acknowledging one's evils before God, and shunning them as sins later on, with the help of God, and also with the friendly moral support of others. The fact, though, that it was somewhat deprived of its true spiritual essence, that is, from the principles out of the religious books, made it work only superficially, not without problems of its own. In its more authentic form, when divested of all additions and simplifications, those principles are instrumental in dealing with various kinds of unhealthy and evil addictions, of both natural and spiritual nature.
Perhaps, it is the lack of a number of the more immediate spirituality related aspects of those principles, with their reference to the Lord and the Word, that made this program less effective with regard to certain challenging areas of Bill Wilson himself.