“For an organization that has expressly denied religious standing and publicly claims a secular—even scientific—approach, it is curious that AA retains these explicit references to a spiritual power whose care might help light the way toward recovery. Even for addicts who opt to interpret this step secularly, the problem persists: why can’t this ultimate power lie within the addict?”
Source: The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry
“Addiction is not a moral defect, and to suggest that does a great disservice to people suffering with this disorder.”
Source: The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry
“The degradation woven through these steps also seems unwittingly designed to exacerbate, rather than relieve, the humiliating feelings so common in addiction. If moral self-flagellation could cure addiction, we could be sure there would be precious few addicts.”
Source: The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry
“There is nothing inherently wrong with apologizing to those who have been harmed, directly or indirectly, by the consequences of addiction. The problem is the echo once more of the fundamentalist religious principle: that the path to recovery is to cleanse oneself of sin.”
Source: The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry
“People suffering with addictions as a rule tend to be well aware of the many “wrongs” they have committed. Awareness of this fact doesn’t help the problem.”
Source: The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry
“I have met and listened to a very large number of people who have “failed” at AA and some who continue to swear by it, despite repeated recidivism.”
Source: The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry
“He also found himself increasingly resentful of the “tally system” that AA uses to measure sobriety: every time he “slipped” and had a drink, he “went back to zero.” All the chips he’d earned—the tokens given by AA for milestone periods of sobriety—became meaningless. This system compounded his sense of shame and anger, leading him to wonder why he lacked the willpower or fortitude to master the incredible force of his alcoholism.”
Source: The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry
“He found a few “old-timers” who believed wholly in the program and who encouraged him to dismiss the great majority of people who fell through the cracks. They just weren’t ready to stop, he was reassured.”
Source: The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry
“When Dominic entered my office, he had accepted as empirical truth that he was a deeply flawed individual: amoral, narcissistic, and unable to turn himself over to a Higher Power. How else to explain the swath of destruction he had cut through his own life and the lives of those who loved him? His time in AA had also taught him that his deeper psychological life was immaterial to mastering his addiction. He had a disease; the solution was in the Twelve Steps. When he was ready to quit, he would. It took eight months of psychotherapy before Dominic stopped drinking for good. Although he remained in therapy for several years after that, the key that unlocked his addiction was nothing more complex or ethereal than an understanding of what his addiction really was and how it really worked.”
Source: The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry
“Once he understood the connection between his lifelong feelings and his urges to drink, he was able to view them with some perspective for the first time.”
Source: The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry