” …(A)ny alcoholic capable of honestly facing his problems in the light of our experience can recover, provided he does not close his mind to all spiritual concepts. He can only be defeated by an attitude of intolerance or belligerent denial.”
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“We find that no one need have difficulty with the spirituality of the program. Willingness, honesty and open-mindedness are the essentials of recovery. But these are indispensable.” – Alcoholics Anonymous, 3rd Edition, 1976, “Appendices,” No. 2 (“Spiritual Experience”), p 570.
By Christopher MacNeil
Freelance blogger
When the person addicted to alcohol, drugs or compulsive behaviors like sex, shoplifting or eating makes the decision to recover, he may face an equally life-altering choice: which recovery program to take.
Those choices were fewer as recently as a single generation ago when most readily available programs were modeled after the 12-step philosophy of Alcoholics Anonymous, the grandfather of 12-step recovery programs and their companion family support groups. Founded 81 years ago in 1935, AA counters criticism that it is religious in nature with the disclaimer that it is “spiritual, not religious” in nature and practice. Yet agnostic and atheistic addicts argue otherwise – along with high-level court systems.
In the 10 years between 1996 and 2007, two state supreme courts and three federal circuit courts (one a single wrung below the U.S. Supreme Court) heard cases from petitioners in state custody who argued they were being coerced to participate in a religious program by being ordered to attend AA meetings. Requiring AA meetings as a condition of their probation, parole or incarceration violated the federal constitution’s separation of church and state, petitioners said.
Perhaps the strongest opinion in the argument – and in favor of the petitioners – came from the New York Court of Appeals in the case of Griffin v. Coughlin, 1996:
Indeed, the A.A. basic literature most reasonably would be characterized as reflecting the traditional elements common to most theistic religions. Thus, God is named or referred to in five of the 12 steps. “Working” the 12 steps includes confessing to God the “nature of our wrongs” (Step 5), appealing to God “to remove our shortcomings” (Step 7) and seeking “through prayer and meditation” to make “contact” with God and achieve “knowledge of His Will” (Step 11).”
Differently worded but similar judicial sentiments were expressed in each of four other court cases – Kerr v. Farrey (1996), Evans v. Tennessee Board of Paroles (1997), Warner v. Orange County Dept. of Probation (1999) and Inouye v. Kemna (2007). The collective influence of those legal opinions has been that some recovery programs have stricken references to God and prayer – a staple in 12-step meetings – or substituted them for non-religious or secular mentions of a “higher power” and “seeking knowledge of His (God’s) will for us.”
Sentencing courts in local jurisdictions across the country are acquiescing in part to higher court opinions by no longer ordering probationers or parolees to AA meetings. Instead, judges are opting for alcohol or drug education classes that are usually facilitated by private counseling firms that have been contracted by the court system. Classes are almost always void of any 12-step discussion and focus solely on the physical and psychological damage of drug addiction and abuse.
Critics of the religious element of AA and other 12-step programs for other addictions it inspired contend they are not discrediting or bashing 12-step programs but, instead, recognize the need for secular programs with which the agnostic or atheistic addict feels most likely to work for him. But they also point out an underlying challenge to 12-step philosophy that some in recovery find disturbing if not factually unfounded.
AA and similar groups for other addictive behaviors are partly based on the premise that their addictions are lifelong and never cured, only arrested by “surrendering” an individual’s will and wants to a “higher power.” Some in recovery resist the implication that they are waging a daily battle to avoid a return to drinking or some other self-destructive conduct. Others are more resistant to the implication that they have no choice in their recovery and must give up any decision-making – in 12-step language, “self-will run riot” – by praying to God’s for “his will for him and the power to carry” it out.
Some commentators have submitted that AA and other 12-step programs that embrace its religious elements (as validated by at least five higher-court systems) are at a “tipping point.” What they mean by that is not entirely clear although the obvious inference is that they may be on the precipice of dissolving. That’s unlikely by virtue of their longevity, public recognition and ready accessibility and that they arguably remain the first consideration of the addict ready to get into recovery.
One writer for a website called aaagnostica.org may have been more accurate and provocative, however, when she wrote: “If the fellowship (of AA) has any hope of being a non-religious fellowship for ALL suffering alcoholics with a desire to stop drinking, and being recognized as such by the Courts and by the public at large, it lies in strengthening its commitment to the 12 Traditions. The Traditions do not require AA groups to embrace religious doctrines and practices” (May 27, 2012).
Whether a recovery program is religious in nature or not may be insignificant to the addict fresh out of active use and eager to get into recovery. But it can be predicted that the ideology of the program may become an issue down the road, especially if the addict is agnostic or atheist. At that point, then, the only relevant question may be which program is most successful for the addict’s recovery and abstention from alcohol, drugs or compulsive behavior that afflicts him.
And then the choice of which program becomes a fairly simple one: Take your recovery where you find it. If it works, you’re where you need to be.
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