AA Group Accused of Cult-like Practices

Washington, DC group with a focus on young people is said to limit members' contacts outside the group and to encourage sex with older members.  Churches that host the group have discontinued meetings pending an investigation, but the local association of AA groups has taken no action.

A story in Newsweek (Nick Summers) reports on complaints by a number of former members of the Midtown Group, a large AA group with an unusually high number of members in their teens and early twenties.  The critics say that the group exerts too much control over members, encouraging them to break off all contacts with family and friends (even non-drinking ones), discontinue use of medicines, and have sex with other members of the group.  They say that the group applies heavy pressure to keep people from leaving the group or attending other AA meetings. 

Following on the Newsweek story, a local television station has run a series of stories about the group, providing first person accounts of the accusations in the Newsweek articles (with disguised names and faces in shadows to protect the anonymity of the individuals). 

On the heels of these stories, the churches that host the meeting have barred the group. 

The Newsweek article and some of the televised news stories note that the AA office in New York (General Service Board of AA, EIN 23-7282071 Form 990) has no comment except to note that AA is completely decentralized and that each group is autonomous and follows its own conscience. 

But that is not the whole story.  There are local associations of AA groups, like the Washington Area Intergroup Association (EIN 23-7243400 Form 990), which are responsible for publishing local lists of AA meetings, in print and on-line.  WAIA could exert peer influence on an errant group and can exercise the ultimate sanction of excluding the group from published and on-line directories of meetings.  However, Midtown remains a group in good standing, even maintaining its listing in the online directory while the host church has suspended their meetings. 

As with other charity groups, including churches, a failure of internal checks and balances leads to abuses.   But it is noteworthy that these abuses can occur both in highly structured and centralized organizations, like Catholic archdioceses, and highly autonomous and decentralized ones, like AA.  This suggests that the structure itself is neither the cause nor the cure for the problem of sexual exploitation within organizations with lots of young people and a strong fellowship component. 

Instead, the challenge for these groups is whether they can honestly admit the potential for sexual exploitation and come up with ways to deal with it when it does occur, ideally before it becomes the topic of a televised news segment.  Oddly enough, for-profit organizations seem to be better able to do this than are spiritual fellowships. 

Comments

[frank]

Of course AA is a cult.A dangerous brainwashing cult at that.Bill wilson cheated on his wife and he was heavily involved in the occult.

[Mark Ihde]

AA and the 12-Step Programs are slowly killing more americans through neglect than any war we have ever had. It needs to stop now, and those who see the truth need to stand up publicly against contemporary 12-Step cult members.

-MARK IHDE

[AA Member]

AA is what you make of it.
You can find whatever you look for if you look hard enough. Good and Bad. Members are not saints and do not expect anyone to be. They only try to improve themselves and carry the message to other alcoholics.

The article discussed is based on one AA group. There are MANY others. They are all different. The ones that work end up staying around and the ones that don't fade away.

The great majority of members I know and have heard speak believe AA saved their lives. From their point of view, an untreated Alcoholic is on the path to death. AA members did not join AA because their lives were going great.

Conversely, People don't stay in AA because their lives are falling apart. They stay because they see in AA a way of living that helps them deal with the vagrancies of life.

If it doesn't work for you find something that does, don't assume it is wrong or bad.

As for whether AA is a cult or not. AA doesn't demand you believe anything. It is a gathering of people who share their experience, strength and hope, to help other alcoholics. It is people sharing the tools that worked for them on the chance that those tools might be useful to others.

It is sad that there is so much negative press about this. However, AA does not trumpet its achievements. It merely continues on. People helping people without thought of personal gain.

[sherwood]

AA is very disempowering and has most traits of a cult

[sherwood]

Midtown group is not that uncommon in AA.Many groups have similiar behavior all over the United States.Sherwood

[fatasahog]

The great thing about the internet is that people who know nothing about what they are talking about, nor have any personal experience with the subject at hand, can put in their two cents worth to just about anything because they have a connection to the internet. This ability must help the pit of despair and loneliness that they live with diminish some what, if even for a moment...Here's to continuing to live lives of quiet desparation!

[Mark]

Of course we can disregard anyone by saying that they don't know anything. I have lots of personal experience with this pseudo-cult first hand. I believe that it is leading people in the wrong direction whether intentionally or not.

[A.A. Member]

"AA and the 12-Step Programs are slowly killing more americans through neglect than any war we have ever had."

This has to be the most ignorant comment that I have ever seen. Did A.A. create AIDS, as well?

[AVI P]

i think AA helped me got sober...
i come from an orthodox jewish backround, i am a yeshivah bachur... i get shits and giggles from meting shiksas at the meetings...
i do think people are control freaks. they're just scared. they want to protect peopl from failing.they also want to turn people into themselves. Not A SPONSORS JOB TO GIVE ADVICE.
IN AA THERE'S NO ADVICE. "ACCEPTANCE IS THE ANSWER".
THE MIDTOWN GROUP NEEDS TO BE STOPPED. CLANCY'S GROUPS SHOULD BREAKAWAY FROM "NORMAL" aa AND FORM THERE OWN FELLOWSHIP.
TRADITION 2" OUR LEADERS ARE BUT TRUSTED SERVANTS THEY DO NOT GOVERN
.
I AM HAPPY TO NOT BE HIGH OR DRUNK...
OH AND I WON $ 650 IN aTLANTIC CITY ... PEOPLE ARE ALL HUMAN!
GOD DON'T MAKE NO JUNK...

[Amazed Waldo]

I've seen a lot of AA meetings, and I think it's just not a cult by any objective standards.

I've read through a number of anti-AA sites. The most intense criticism seems to be from someone trying to make money by selling an alternative (RR comes to mind), or from those who felt harmed because they were mandated by a court or licensing board to attend AA. Those individuals felt they were having AA & religion shoved down their throats.

I can sympathize with their view. Having to attend AA in order to keep your freedom or your livelihood is humiliating and painful. As a general rule, though, I've not seen people mandated to AA for helping too many little old ladies across the street.

The cases I know of personally involved operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated, practicing a profession (such as medicine) while in an impaired state, or domestic violence.

The Court REALLY wanted those folks to stop those behaviors and was hoping that attendance at AA would stop the behaviors before the Court had to impose the full penalties that the offenders had incurred by their previous conduct.

I absolutely agree that everyone should be free from other's religion. By the same token, I hold that everyone should be free from the danger of drunk drivers and domestic violence. I also maintain that those who practice professions that deal in life and death (doctors, for example) should be free of impairment while practicing.

Just food for thought...

Maybe I should look again for the page on some of those sites where the writers acknowledge harming or endangering other while loaded. When I find one I'll let ya know.

[Looking for info]

Please send info about Rob K and CFG to libertyflagship@gmail.com.

[ANDY]

The only reason the Washington Intergroup left midtown up is because they only change it every so often. Midtown is very disliked amongst AA's and is not considered like other AA groups. Ive been to midtown and many other DC area meetings and it is TOTALLY diffrent. AA is not a cult. It asves lives.

[TERI]

I was a part of the Pacific Group in Los Angeles for five long horrid years. Clancy I is the guru of all gurus. The shit that went on in this group was beyond the pale. Sex, infidelity, neglect of children, mind control, absolute sexism, you name it. Of course, anyone who spoke out, was a dry drunk and needed to go to more meetings. Or better yet, go to the Yard. Clancy I's dumpy house where newcomers were made to happily clean up shit in his backyard. Frightening that I stayed as long as I did, but that's another story.

[StillSober]

There is so much to think about here and what has been said.

After 20 plus years I made the decision to leave AA as a whole.

I was also a former member of the Pacific Group and I was a witness to the all of the good that out weigh all of the bad that goes on with any large or small groups in AA, Churches or anywhere else.

What people forget is that we are SICK! People trying to get well.

Many do recover from the gates of Alcoholism, Addiction and Insanity to become productive people in society.

There are those who will never recover because they are NOT willing to go to any lengths to be SANE or SOBER!

They have made a conscious decision to remain SICK. Or they just do not posses the mental capacity to achieve any recovery in or out of the rooms of AA.

I left PG and AA as a whole because I found a different spiritual path for me and a different way of living. I am not here to knock anyone’s way of finding GOD or Sobriety! Might I add I do not recommend this unless you have actually lived or done the program's way of life and have some type or program, church or spiritual way of living to keep you SOBER!

The Big Book of AA states that many of us will at one time leave this way of living to go back to church or a another calling.
I have found my calling else where.

I have known Clancy I. For many years and have never seen a man that has given to AA, PG and the Midnight Mission as much as this man has given over the many 40 plus years.

I have never seen him take a one selfish moment for himself to rest while doing doing GOD’s work.

Is Clancy a GOD or a Guru no but many who have made him their Higher Power it may appear that way.....

I have known Clancy to kind and giving of his time. Is he perfect? Hell no but as they say he is good AA.

To judge a group overall for the resentments or short comings of others is insane.

Look at all of the Churches and what goes on there to judge the church for a few bad priests is wrong when there are so many good one’s that do GOD's work every day all over the world why should AA be any different?

With every group evil hides in the corner willing at any moment to dim the light of GOD's good work.

I no longer go to meetings or have an AA sponsor and yet my former sponsor has remained as my friend. And the few friends that I have made over the years in the Pacific Group no longer call me friend they call me family......I spent over 20 + years there doing the "deal."

I am a better person for it. People ask me why I left the only answer I can give is that:

"I have left the tribe yet the tribe has changed my life"

I am still SOBER and I am still a productive person in society. I have left AA but the tribe will never leave me.

There are those who will not look at me or talk to me and that’s ok. May GOD always bless them.

Will I ever go back? I take it one day at a time today the answer is No! Tomorrow is another day.

For the millions of SOBER members of AA that remains SOBER may GOD always light your path as he lights my path for me today.

I must say it was and honor and privilege to clean Clancy’s yard on Saturdays how else are you gonna play volleyball without stepping in shit………Keep it simple…..

XAAStillSober……..