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.
A Struggle Inside AA
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The group's practices have raised concerns among some recovery professionals. Jay Eubanks, who oversees the Gaithersburg, Md., branch of the Kolmac Clinic chain of intensive outpatient rehabs, says patients who come to him from Midtown often need "damage control" to unlearn what the group taught them. "They start isolating people, getting them away from any feedback other than their own ... Only go to their meetings, only talk to people in their group. If you're seeing a therapist, stop seeing a therapist; if you're in treatment, stop going to treatment; if you're being medicated, stop seeing a doctor."
Midtown's approach to treatment so concerned Dr. Ellen Dye, a clinical psychologist in Rockville, Md., that she wrote an open letter to the Washington recovery community in August 2006, detailing two patients' experiences with the group. One young woman, she wrote, was "assigned a boyfriend" and pressured to go off antidepressants; she became actively suicidal and was hospitalized. The second was bossed so severely that he is now unwilling to attend any AA meetings, despite his worsening alcoholism. "At this point," Dye concluded, "I am very apprehensive about referring any clients to AA even if they are severe alcoholics. I think that it is essential that this group be eliminated from AA so that my colleagues and I can feel safe making these referrals again." While most recovery specialists know about Midtown, Dye said, parents and general therapists don't. "We're all saying, 'Go to AA, go to AA,' and we may be sending people into this terrible situation and not realizing it."
Other recovery specialists are more conflicted. Beth Kane-Davidson, director of the addictions center at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Md., says that the center stopped steering patients to Midtown during the past year. But, she adds, "the flip side is, I know people in the group that have long-term sobriety and are doing great." For some recovering alcoholics, she says, "Midtown has been a real godsend. It's taken them in and structured their activities, and filled the void left because they're not using anymore. But where do you draw the line? Given that the line is so fine, we try to err on the safe side."
David Hanrahan has a similar perspective. He got sober in 1985 while attending some of the meetings that later coalesced into the Midtown network; in his mid-30s, he drifted away when he decided he was more comfortable around recovering alcoholics closer to his own age. Hanrahan says a little disorder and disagreement inside AA isn't necessarily a bad thing—in fact, it almost always works out for the good. "I think AA is a miraculous organization that is run by nobody and controlled by nobody, and is complete, pure anarchy—as long as it's tied to the 12 steps—and I mean that in a good way," he says. "There are meetings all over the world, and anyone can start one, and nobody's in charge of it. That's AA's strength and weakness, right there." Hanrahan is concerned by the direction Midtown has taken in the past 20 years, but he also fears that its most organized critics care more about harming the group than reforming AA.
What does Alcoholics Anonymous itself have to say about Midtown? Nothing. A completely decentralized organization, AA has no spokesperson and no national leaders. Its worldwide headquarters in New York—which largely serves to distribute its literature and help people set up local meetings—declined to comment. AA has always relied on locals to govern themselves. Midtown can claim as much right to the Alcoholics Anonymous name as more traditional AA groups. For struggling alcoholics already wary of seeking help, it's another reminder that it isn't always easy to find someone to trust.
© 2007
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