I remember telling my mother in the 90s that my 'substance abuse' was a symptom, not the problem itself. I was self medicating. No one wanted to hear it.
In the time since, it often feels like we've gotten worse at recognizing this. Meanwhile, proper treatment for mental health issues continues to be difficult to find (many if not the majority of so-called professionals are anything but), as well as increasingly expensive and inconvenient. To say nothing of how much of psychiatry has devolved into pinning you to a DSM category and throwing drugs at you in as short of a session as possible-- "come back in 2 months and we'll just as quickly throw some different drugs at you if those aren't working"... rinse and repeat ad infinitum. Anyone struggling to get through each day is not going to be well served by this.
We need at least 10x more therapists willing to spend time with patients and address their many intertwined issues, using logical, rational, evidence based methods. Right now, I don't see how we even start to get there from here.
12 step can be a lifeline for people at the end of their rope who have no other options, but it also inevitably fails anyone who doesn't buy into the narrative about a higher power. [I would argue it fails even those who do, as it teaches powerlessness.] Some may benefit from such an extreme approach, but it is deeply, deeply flawed. The main strength it does have is connecting you with other people and being very accessible. But we can & should do better.
>12 step can be a lifeline for people at the end of their rope who have no other options, but it also inevitably fails anyone who doesn't buy into the narrative about a higher power. [I would argue it fails even those who do, as it teaches powerlessness.] Some may benefit from such an extreme approach, but it is deeply, deeply flawed. The main strength it does have is connecting you with other people and being very accessible. But we can & should do better.
oh indeed. I found myself in the rooms of AA/NA at the age of 19, still very foolish in my youth, confused, pretty desperate. Even in that state I had such a hard time buying into just the first few steps. it all seemed so utterly nonsensical to me and I realized believing in god was a prerequisite I could never meet. for those unfamiliar with the 12 steps of alcoholic anonymous this is how they begin...
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
Note that I don’t have a dog in this fight as I’m no longer in AA, but I have to nitpick: “a power greater than yourself” can be a pretty big umbrella, especially depending on the meetings you attend.
It doesn’t have to mean “God”, and it certainly doesn’t have to be the Judeo-Christian definition of God. It just has to mean “something other than yourself”. It can be the meetings themselves, the cute dog you saw in the dog park the other day who let you rub his belly, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or whatever.
The idea behind it is that, if your best thinking brought you to rock bottom, and you’ve tried everything you could think of to stop drinking without success, then maybe it’s time to let something else take the wheel.
Again, let me stress that I don’t have an opinion on this one way or the other, I am simply correcting the record here. It wasn’t for me, and I certainly don’t think AA/NA has a monopoly on sobriety. But I had 5 good years of being clean and sober before going back out, and when I finally did start drinking again, it was in a MUCH healthier way. It also helped a lot of good friends, and I’m grateful for that.
While this is in theory true, and as much as the literature of AA attempts to separate itself from Christianity or any other religion, the reality is that the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous were derived from the 4 steps of the Oxford Group- an Evangelical Christian organization. The word god is constantly thrown around in meetings and throughout the literature and, make no mistake, that is a Christian god they are talking about. Christian prayers are fairly common in meetings as well, especially the Lord’s Prayer- and 12-step meetings are typically held in churches.
> the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous were derived from the 4 steps of the Oxford Group
This is true. It's also true that AA broke off from the Oxford Group ("kicked out", according to Lois W, the wife of founder Bill W) for being too agnostic. Apparently it was pretty dramatic- see "AA Started In Riots" by Roger C. for more. [1]
> The word god is constantly thrown around in meetings and throughout the literature and, make no mistake, that is a Christian god they are talking about.
The meetings I went to were quite secular. I'm vehemently agnostic, and I never once felt like the people there were proselytizing to me. If they had, I would have left real quickly and not gone back.
Most of the meetings I went to were in SF, LA, NYC, Shanghai, etc.), making it easier to find secular meetings that were run by people like me. Someone living in small-town America might have a different experience from mine. Hopefully with the advent of Zoom meetings, this is now less of an issue, but I can’t say since I left AA before Zoom became a thing.
Each meeting is meant to be independent from the others, and each has its own bent. You'll find meetings for Christians but also meetings for atheists, just like you'll find mens' meetings, womens' meetings, young peoples' meetings, etc.
> 12-step meetings are typically held in churches.
I've been to meetings in church basements and Sunday school rooms, but I've also been to meetings at American Legion halls, recreation fields, City Halls, even the basement of a donut shop.
Consider the cost of running a meeting. Literally their only revenue source is donations from attendees. Giving a donation might be hard for someone who has just hit rock bottom, and it can be expensive to rent a room for use as an Alano Club. Churches might be more likely to cut AA groups a break on the rent.
I don't want to be accused of promotion by either HN or AA, so I won't link to them, but secular AA meetings are plentiful and pretty easy to Google. Secularism is part of AA’s "12 Traditions", as well. [2]
All that said, if AA still feels too religious for someone, there are other groups out there which don’t make use of the “higher power” concept in any capacity. Again, I maintain that AA doesn’t have a monopoly on sobriety.
My background is I used to run a national harm reduction org and I’ve also spent countless nights and mornings in AA and NA meetings in cities and towns throughout the country- places like Baltimore, Miami/Dade County, Tucson, Santa Ana, Denver/Boulder, Newport Beach and nearby suburbs of all these places
That’s great you were able to access secular meetings in SF/LA/NYC, but the reality for most Americans is that those meetings you attended might as well not exist, they are elusive, infrequent, and make up a tiny percentage of the total meetings online or otherwise
Having said all that. and while we are nitpicking- it’s probably worth mentioning that “secular” meetings still have 12 steps and still involve handing your will and life over to a higher power of some more palatable flavor (such as “the program”)- so definitionally we are still talking about faith-based treatment. This will never work out well for atheists and that’s the point me and others are making.
I remember telling my mother in the 90s that my 'substance abuse' was a symptom, not the problem itself. I was self medicating. No one wanted to hear it.
In the time since, it often feels like we've gotten worse at recognizing this. Meanwhile, proper treatment for mental health issues continues to be difficult to find (many if not the majority of so-called professionals are anything but), as well as increasingly expensive and inconvenient. To say nothing of how much of psychiatry has devolved into pinning you to a DSM category and throwing drugs at you in as short of a session as possible-- "come back in 2 months and we'll just as quickly throw some different drugs at you if those aren't working"... rinse and repeat ad infinitum. Anyone struggling to get through each day is not going to be well served by this.
We need at least 10x more therapists willing to spend time with patients and address their many intertwined issues, using logical, rational, evidence based methods. Right now, I don't see how we even start to get there from here.
12 step can be a lifeline for people at the end of their rope who have no other options, but it also inevitably fails anyone who doesn't buy into the narrative about a higher power. [I would argue it fails even those who do, as it teaches powerlessness.] Some may benefit from such an extreme approach, but it is deeply, deeply flawed. The main strength it does have is connecting you with other people and being very accessible. But we can & should do better.