A Struggle Inside AA

These groups are present in the UK as well, most recently going by the name of 'Roads to Recovery' and 'Vision for You'. However, in AA as an entire unit, it encourages thought-terminating language, phobic tendencies ["you can leave any time you want, although you may die"..etc] and an enforced religiosity manifesting itself as a 'spiritual' path. So although the wider sphere of AA is concerned about such groups as Midtown, it is AA as a whole that has specifically identifiable cult qualities that should be worrying to anyone being 'encouraged' to join.

In AA, people are immediately 'diagnosed' when they walk through the door as 'alcoholics', without any concern for their past, them as individuals or the complexities of people's lives. They are offered a blanket 'solution' to a problem, which involves making people feel bad about themselves by saying they are 'defective' and in need of a 'higher power' and by subsuming oneself in the group, only then can they feel better about themselves. AA does not allow any self-criticism whatsoever, with the neat get-out clause of 'group autonomy' and any logical criticisms are dismissed as 'resentments'. This thought terminating process makes people think that it is AA that has stopped the individual from drinking, instead of it being the individual themselves that has achieved sobriety. Dangerous stuff. No-one is 'powerless over people, places or things' and to believe so creates an army of automatons that really believe a group of people repeating the same stories every week has helped them stop drinking.

AA also disallows intellectual enquiry into the nature of addiction. It uses appeals to people's emotions, which is unbalanced. Fear is the watchword of the day in AA meetings. Fear of drinking, fear of other people and fear of the world. These things are not caused by drinking, but by being in the meetings of AA and by being surrounded by people who think in a similar way. It is such a powerful meme that within a couple of months of being love-bombed by the group and made to feel one of them, members start to see the world through these very strange AA tinted spectacles of 'sickness', fear and constantly self-checking for resentments.

The Midtown AA group is really no different from any other AA group, it just has the volume turned up. In the UK, people pay lots of money to see Clancy speak and he is treated as a sober super-hero, which is bizarre at its very least. Although they completely deny that they are in any way cult like, I am glad they exist because maybe at last AA as a whole is put under the microscope as a result of the Newsweek story and people can start to question whether this 1940's cult of Bill W is actually saving peoples lives or actually causing more harm than good. Enquiring, logical minds want to know.

It is vital to everyone who has known AA to be a help to recovering alchoholics to understand what the Midtown Group represents. It is not an isolated group there are groups like it in New Yorki City and Los Angeles and possibly other places.

What is the central connecting thread? While each group is autonymous in most of AA, these groups have a leader his name is Clancy and it is he that has spread his own infectious, exploitive, and selft-serving idea of what AA should be among groups that are subserviant to him. And it is up to AA members and yes AA itself to recognize that the idea's that Clancy is spreading is an atttempt to turn AAj iinto a religiouls cult. The very fact that he has stated that the 12th tradition of anonymity should be disregarded is a direct threat to thw survival of AA. AA has a traditioni that it has no opinion on outside issures. Goed. But this is not an outside issue! And if we, who know what AA's real purpose do noting to stop thiese groups, then as we can see the resulting damage to AA as a whole could be extensive. How can this be done? I believe that concerned AA's must go to the groups and be present for the business meetings, share on what the group is doing that is not in accordance with AA. Becaue make no miistake my friends the people of these groups are agressive in their recruiting and if we do nothing to counteract, and I'm talking about fellow AA members. We may one day find that the entire AA board has been infiltrated and suddenly find ourselves with an AA govenrment. You may think this faar-fetched but look at the history of any human organizatioin. Charismatic Indiividuals have often taken over organizations. Using fear, threats and other subtle forms of manipulation, the list of organizations that have taken adevantage of vunerable people is almost endless. But AA members should understand that we must not allow the real spirit of AA to become a carrier of a virus which will distroy our fellowship. We must stand up to this issue or the lives of countless alcholics in the future may never have the chance to recover in the healthy and wholesome way that we have enjoyed. Let us not be asleep on this issue.

Always a danger with these kind of groups where surrender of personal autonomy is part of the recovery process. Unfortunately there are always individuals and small groups who will take advantage of this necessary step for their own benefit. Midtown is not the only one- in Los Angeles there is the Pacific Group and other Anonymous programs have similar difficulties here and there.

As soon as I saw the title of this article, I knew that they were talking about Midtown. In the summer of 2006, as a young twenty-something, I attended several Midtown AA meetings. I had just recently gotten out of a rehab program and had been sober for six months. I got the creepiest feeling from these people. On my first night, I was just interested in checking the meeting out. I was eager to meet some people in the group, but was astounded by how intense they were. Within minutes of arriving, one of the girls had already offered to be my sponsor. She introduced me to all of her friends, who proceeded to organize the rest of my week for me. " On Monday;s we go to this meeting, on Tuesday, we go to that meeting... so and so will come pick you up at your house." It was extremely invasive. On the second night, some of them invited me to go away with them to the beach. At the time, it seemed like, maybe, they were just trying to be inclusive, but I definitely felt like it was inappropriate. I talked to my therapist about it and she had heard bad things about the Midtown meeting from other people. In fact, I think that she used the word cult-like-- and that is the sentiment that I have about it as well. Glad I got out of there before it was too late!!