Last week, the New York Times published an essay “People Have a Right to Religious Rehab,” calling AA a form of “faith healing,” leaving the deliberate misimpression that AA is not an effective treatment for addiction and perpetuating the harmful stereotypes that AA and its members are actually part of a secret religious cult; that AA is just a covert form of Christian worship. So “Your Sponsor” and I teamed up and wrote a response. We sent it to the New York Times Editorial Board and even invited them to come to some AA meetings with us. Our chances? There’s only one way to find out!
But here’s the thing: If we were to read this and share it, then it won’t matter so much if the New York Times isn’t willing to publish this perspective on alcoholism and addiction. If they won’t do it, we can.
We write to you as alcoholics and as people who believe Alcoholics Anonymous saved our lives. As lawyers, we agree no one should be compelled to seek “faith-based healing” for actual diseases, and not just on First Amendment grounds. Unfortunately, Maia Szalavitz’s essay: “People Have a Right to Nonreligious Rehab” is an uninformed repetition of long-lived misperceptions about AA. There is already too much stigma surrounding addiction, recovery and Alcoholics Anonymous. We think it is thoughtless and reckless to characterize a treatment method that has helped millions as “faith healing.”
Ms. Szalavitz correctly zeroes in on one horrifying statistic—only about 42% of those who attend AA meetings stay sober for a year.1 But she left out the end of the sentence from the study abstract2:
That’s the real point. AA is an effective treatment for addiction. “Opinions,” like Ms. Szalavitz’s, that AA is just a support group, a covert form of worship, a religious coffee-klatsch, ignores contemporary evidence and the basic literature of the AA program. Even ChatGPT acknowledged that AA ought to be considered an evidence-based treatment for addiction;
“AA has been shown to be as effective, if not more effective, than some other evidence-based treatments in achieving and maintaining sobriety.”
ChatGPT, March 10, 2023.
It is a worse sin to repeat the false notion that AA is actually a form of Christian worship, or what you hear more often, AA is just too religious.This misperception is the real tragedy and it keeps people away from AA. The statistic we wish Ms. Szalavitz had cited is this one:
We can argue about one-year sobriety rates for different treatment modalities, meanwhile, the house is on fire. Nine out of ten of us are afraid or unwilling to seek help. Publishing an editorial alleging that AA is a para-religious organization requiring cult-like adherence to outdated principles that are ineffective in treating addiction is not just untrue, it keeps people from discovering for themselves whether AA is for them.
While Ms. Szalavitz refers to Bill Wilson at the end of her essay, we don’t get the feeling she’s really read his masterwork, the thing that spawned all of those 12-Step movements: The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. She correctly points out that Bill W. was not a conventional thinker, he did experiment with LSD and sometimes employed an Ouija Board in his pursuit of spiritual connection.The suggestion he simply parroted Christian orthodoxy in the Big Book not only seems pretty unlikely, it certainly doesn’t survive a reading of even the first chapter, “Bill’s Story,” much less the highly-specific and not very religious, “We Agnostics” and “Working With Others.”
The essay cites the influence of the Oxford Group on the development of the 12 Steps as proof of the crypto-Christian nature of AA. Again, Ms. Szalavitz left out the end of the sentence. Bill Wilson parted ways with the Oxford Group in 1937, two years before he published the Big Book. Lois Wilson said they were “kicked out” because she and Bill were “focused too much on the alcoholism and not enough on Christ.” To be honest, there are more traces of Stoicism and Buddhism in the Big Book than Christianity. It’s worth noting that the book Bill cited for his spiritual awakening was not the Bible, it was“The Varieties of Religious Experience,” by William James. AA’s focus on a power greater than oneself has more to do with its understanding of the nature of the disease than the pursuit of God or a religious calling.
The program of Alcoholics Anonymous does not require adherence to the tenets of any religion. It does not set forth any plan of worship. There is no one in charge of AA and no master strategy, other than bringing its Program to the still sick and suffering. For many in AA, the healing that comes from sharing the solution becomes their higher power, a purpose larger than themselves that reconnects them in a healthy and positive way.The spiritual awakening that animates Alcoholics Anonymous is borne of the simple recognition that there just might be a power greater than us in the universe. It does not require the acceptance of any particular deity. What ultimately swayed Bill W. was the notion he could construct his own higher power, rather than adhere to someone else’s. If you’ve ever tried to find your own purpose, determine your own principles, and then worked to align your life with those principles and that purpose—well, that’s all the “religion” that’s necessary to work the 12-Steps. The necessary spiritual condition is summarized in one sentence:
Alcoholism and addiction are terrible diseases that waste too many lives and devastate too many families Things are getting worse. We wish there were more effective treatments available, too. We wish we had way more tools than a book written in 1939. But the truth is, the principles in that book, as detailed in the 12-Steps, is the most effective thing we have today.The NewYorkTimes labelling AA as “faith healing” would be laughable if it weren’t so harmful.
As lawyers, when people present themselves and speak honestly and truthfully about their experiences, well, we call that evidence. Come to an AA meeting with us—we’ll introduce you to a lot of evidence that AA works.
Randall B.,
Thomas M.
Members of Alcoholics Anonymous
Ummm, how about a little, “Don’t hate the Player, hate the Game?”
Here’s the study abstract.
Great response! My takeaway from all this has been that we just need to give AA a better PR rep (cut scene to Sober HQ).