Tuesday, March 8, 2011

"Is AA a Cult?"

In my Social Psychology class today, we went over cults. We discussed how they work, how people get drawn in, and some of the crazy things people who get involved in them end up doing. There were even a couple of slides in the professor's powerpoint presentation titled, "7 Steps to Creating A Successful Cult". I found myself thinking about someone I know who has for years refused to go to 12-step meetings because she insists AA/NA/etc. is a cult. She even has family members in Recovery, real living examples that the program works, and these people have patiently tried to explain to her that it isn't a cult. Still she insists it is and refuses to go herself. Talk about a case of not being able to make someone 'get' Recovery.

There are many books out there about the makeup of cults, but I'm going to go ahead and go off these seven points we discussed in lecture today. If you're someone who is wondering about the question, here's the makeup of a cult, how it works, and why 12-steps isn't one.

1. Cults exist in isolation, apart from society. They may start out in a city or a town, but ultimately they break off and form some kind of a commune. There's no AA commune anywhere that I can think of, and the idea goes against the 12 Traditions. The primary purpose of our meetings is to help those who still suffer from the disease.

2. Cults have charismatic leaders. I almost laughed out loud at this. A fundamental piece of Recovery groups is that we don't really have leaders; we're much more like a functioning anarchy. In fact, I've always shied away from groups who talk too much about Bill W. and Dr. Bob. To cite the traditions again, it's principles before personalities. A wise piece of advice you'll hear is to avoid any meeting known as "so-and-so's meeting".

3. Cults have ingroups and outgroups. Some might argue with me that they have been to plenty of meetings where there are cliques, and I answer that by saying no more or less than life outside the meetings. What happens in cults is that ingroups and outgroups are created specifically to create dissent among the members. In every fellowship, there is a strong measure of unity for our common purpose. Meetings that become too clique-ish fall apart and fail. Why? Because they aren't welcoming to newcomers. The members stop growing, stop changing, and for people like us to stop growing is the same thing as regressing. Those of us who've put together some time need newcomers. It's how we remember where we've come from.

4. Cults have a fixation on 'outside' evil. This creates an 'us versus them' mentality. The traditions are clear on this as well--we have no opinion on outside issues. Period. We try to be welcoming to everyone. If we take any position an any issue, we risk alienating someone in need of the benefits the program has to offer.

5. Use a 'foot-in-the-door' approach. This is a psychological manipulation tool where you can get someone to do a big thing by having them do something small first. Now, maybe you're thinking that putting a dollar in the plate is a small thing that will lead to more, but I've never been to a meeting where they asked me to put in $100. We suggest people be of service, but no one is forced to. No one is forced to work steps. The best Recovery sounds like this: "I went to meetings, I took a service commitment, I worked steps with a sponsor. It worked for me. I suggest giving it a try."

6. Distract members. I think a lot of meetings go out of their way to make sure members aren't distracted. Most have a 'no crosstalk' rule to ensure that people aren't interrupted while they're sharing and aren't singled out in any way afterwards. I went to a crosstalk meeting once and I can tell you it was not the healthiest meeting. Not by a long shot.

7. Send members out to recruit others. This is a little sticky. We're supposed to carry the message, that the program works, but we don't put on suits and go door-to-door. We don't stand on street corners, shouting. Mostly, what we do is keep our ears open. When we hear someone say they've had enough, that they can't do it anymore, that they're sick and tired of being sick and tired, we speak up. We don't tell them they need to go to 12-step meetings. We say, "well ya know, I used to be where you're at and then I did this thing. You might want to give it a try and see if it works for you."

That's it. Those seven things are the building blocks of a cult. Pretty far away from what we do at meetings, isn't it? Someone might still try to press their point, insist that 12-steps brainwashes people. My response? It goes something like this: yeah, sure. It brainwashes us into thinking about other people instead of just ourselves. It brainwashes us into becoming productive members of society instead of derelicts. In brainwashes us into accepting our own humanity and having compassion for others'.

How terrible ;-)

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