My daughter was raised in AA (and was thrilled when her parents left). She told me that the Alateen kids dealt drugs, that the one boy she dated in AA snorted smack and that every AA kid she knew ended up as a junkie.

As the irritating AA members say, of course her experience was anecdotal. Your experience may be different.

Dr. Peele’s analysis of the harmful effects of Steppism are spot on, but as usual, he also can’t help himself with the suggestion that if people learned “how” to drink, they would magically be no alcoholism.

“When you hear AAers tell their tales, you can’t help noticing how often it is that they were never introduced to sensible drinking (along with the pain many suffered prior to beginning to drink). And it is this ignorance of how to drink that seems both to be the main source of their problems, and the principal thing they wish to pass along to others.”

I come from a culture where people are taught how to drink, much like the anecdote he cites about the Greek man. The absurdity of the stepper suggesting they need “treatment” is of course spot on, but not Dr. Peele’s unwritten spin on it.

I feel compelled to post this classic article from the Journal of Rational Recovery to balance things out.

Stanton Peele: Dr. Beast at Large

In the Grapevine one guy wrote how he wished his son was an alcoholic so that he would be able to find the spiritual (not religious) path the he himself had so humbly discovered. What a gas bag! A bit more than saying the everyone could benefit from a 12 step program (which is a fairly common statement in AA). No this dude would have his son and those that love him suffer. Ah, that elusive fourth dimension.

I was in an Al-Anon meeting where this woman was so worried about her 8 year old son because “he’s selfish, self-centered – he’s got ALL the characteristics of an alcoholic!” I’m so worried he’s going to grow up and be an alcoholic, I don’t know what to do!”

Of course, AA uses these descriptions for a “practicing drunk” as a longhand way of saying he is CHILDISH. And of COURSE an 8 year old is going to act … childish. No wonder AA and Al-Anon members think all their children are hellbound to be alcoholics.

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So, if we keep teaching youth the wrong things, where does this end? How bad does it have to get before people in charge change the direction? Or, will the delusional model of dealing with substance abuse just keep rolling on and killing more people? Until what? What is it going to take to create a wholesale change in the attitudes and philosophies that AA is sliming the world with?

According to the Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2010-11 Edition, Substance abuse and behavioral disorder counselors are looking at a 21% increase from 2008 to 2018, which is the second highest growth projection closely behind the leader of Mental health counselor growth at 24%.

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos067.htm#projections_data

The problem with allowing AA into the college arena,is that they are being trained as “prospect” hunters for Alcoholics Anonymous and they are mechanizing the the hunt. The “Big Book” teaches followers of the Bill Wilson philosophy to search out “prospects for Alcoholics Anonymous:

BB p.89, Working With Others “Perhaps you are not acquainted with any drinkers who want to recover. You can easily find some by asking a few doctors, ministers, priests or hospitals.”

The Big Book on page 89 should be changed to include fraternities and other college groups. The trend of AA on college campuses is most likely directly proportional to the number of Substance abuse, behavioral disorder and mental health counselors that the facility is producing. They are on the prowl for a group of subjects to study and where else would be the logical place for them to do this? The danger is that in their zealousness to find real life subjects to study, they are also talking people who are just experimenting as part of normal growth into test subjects for life who they make believe that they have a terminal disease for life and future clients.

I think never-addicted psychologists pretending to treat addiction are definitely frauds. They get so close to the truth, but just seem incapable of grasping that once the brain has been altered by the booze, many are out of luck, and no amount of working on “issues” and hangups is going to change it back. The old cucumber turned pickle analogy is overused, but quite true in many cases.

I just got a link from someone who contacted me when I first began my stop13stepinaa blog. This is a horrible story and Im glad she is speaking up but the guy is still free and walking around in young peoples events getting one girl after another. Easy Fucking pickings.

Sickening. Im glad to see Stanton keeping ip the good fight. I hate AA.

@Gunthar2000: I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, but I do hope that wasn’t directed at me…

@PersephoneInExile:

Yes, and I do understand where Stanton Peele is coming from. What Dr. Peele doesn’t realize, since he is American, is that in those cultures that he idealizes, drunkenness is considered sin, and it is expected that people who cannot control their liquor summarily knock it off. Even though drinking with dinner is very common, nobody is going to question you in Spain or Latin America, for example, if you say you don’t drink. They will never ask you where your home group is or if you are in recovery or some other bullshit like in the USA.

Peele is mostly on the mark, but he is idolizing non-temperance cultures from the outside, as a stranger. He does not understand how they actually work from within.

yes! Sorry Im kinda all over the place.

About this thread. I am fuming about this College AA program thingy. Bloody insane. My plan is to just change the way All Americans look at Addiction and it’s treatment of it. Im serious. Change laws. Put up Billboards. Make PSA’s for radio & TV for Smart etc…. Have a reality show about Alternatives. Whatever gets the word out into our culture.

@Jonny

I understand some disagreements you may have with Stanton, but on this, I think you’re exaggerating his positions a bit. He realizes that some of these cultures will not tolerate drunkenness – he cites examples of this in his writings, and how it leads to less substance abuse in those cultures.

He’s not promoting moderation so much as he’s pointing out the danger of saying that anyone who’s ever had a problem with substances must now be abstinent. I think specifically, when young people have bouts of problematic substance use (and the problem could simply be that they were caught using) and then we tell them they’re doomed to addiction and must be totally abstinent – we’re now instilling a self-defeating view in them – a self-fulfilling prophecy. I think that’s the main phenomenon he’s fighting when he brings up this stuff about other cultures.

The example he cites of chinese americans in one of his books is a great one. It’s not that you’re viewed as incapable of controlling yourself in that example – it’s that you’re shunned, and considered to have dishonored your family if you display such behavior. So you learn that people aren’t gonna tolerate your shenanigans – not that you’re powerless.