# Is Alcoholics Anonymous a cult? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 27, 2008, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-alcoholics-anonymous-a-cult/450809 "2008-05-27T21:29:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-alcoholics-anonymous-a-cult/450809/103 "2008-05-30T22:18:48Z")
> [@](#): > > [The “Big Book”, Alcoholics Anonymous, contains an entire manual for setting up a cult and recruiting new members](http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-recruit.html) The recruiting manual is all of Chapter Seven of the book. Before that, the author, William G. Wilson, wrote his initial rationalization for selling religious faith as the only solution to a medical problem in Chapter Four of the Big Book: > > > [@William G. Wilson](#): > > > > If, when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, or if when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic. **If that be the case, you may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer**. – bolding of nuttery mine. > [@](#): > > _That is crazy. That is also bad medicine. There is no disease recognized by either the American Medical Association, or the American Psychiatric Association, which “only a spiritual experience will conquer.”_ But this is the dogma, one of the core beliefs, upon which Alcoholics Anonymous is based. A.A. teaches that you can’t ‘just quit drinking’ or ‘just abstain’. You must join A.A., do the Twelve Steps, and have a “spiritual experience”, in order to quit drinking… [Link, in case it was missed the first time.](http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-recruit.html) And it certainly was. ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-alcoholics-anonymous-a-cult/450809/104 "2008-05-30T22:46:49Z")
**Tom** , contrary to what you seem to be reading into my posts, I’ve got no Crusade (there’s is misnomer) against AA. Just putting out the facts as I know and have studied and worked them for a long time. Unless you (or anyone else) can factually prove them differently. Does AA work in better fashion than any other non-faith faith-based program? Hell NO. Does it work for some people already predisposed? Specially the religious kind? Sure, that is their base. But their (poor) rate of success has little to do with “faith-based” cures. IMO it has all to do with people really choosing to quit. Whether they want to attribute that to a Higher Power is irrelevant to reality. Fact is, by far, most people quit using/abusing on their own. But AA certainly has some very cult-like characteristics. Read my cites if you haven’t already done so. Tons of facts involved. Bow, do I want AA to disappear? Nope. Have no reason to. Anyone or anything that helps people out of the doldrums is more than fine by me. But that still has little to nothing to do with the OP. ---
**Author:** ![Phlosphr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Phlosphr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlosphr)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-alcoholics-anonymous-a-cult/450809/105 "2008-05-30T23:52:43Z")
From the article: > [@](#): > > To triumph we must be resolute. We need never allow ourselves or those we love to be coerced into kneeling at the “sacred” altar of AA. Alternatives exist that do not demand we check our brains at the door nor surrender our Atheist beliefs. Damn it! Why didn’t anyone tell me AA had a Sacred Altar??? I’d have placed my offerings long ago! 😃 Heh - first of all, you think this story from American Atheist is saying what exactly about AA??? The really funny thing about this is I have friends in AA who belong to American Atheist! AA is chuck-a-buck full of atheists - take me for instance! Look **RedFury** , I’m not trying to dismiss what you are saying, but posting things like you are only really allows folks to see you as passionate against AA. It doesn’t do too much if you are trying to make an argument. After known people in AA have blatently told you that what you purport is not the truth about AA. You still put your cites all over to prove what exactly? People from thousands of miles apart, from all walks of life from every part of the globe have mentioned things about AA is threads here on the SDMB that blatently contradict the majority of negative “advertising” people out there are doing against AA. I must admit I see what “they” mean… ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2008, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-alcoholics-anonymous-a-cult/450809/106 "2008-05-31T00:07:29Z")
[QUOTE=Larry Borgia] Of course it’s not a cult. It’s a group of people trying to help each other stay sober. [/QUOTE] Couldn’t they be both? That they try to help each other is highly commendable. A cult needn’t be all about negative, nonconstructive actions. I’ll just add however, that my general and somewhat stereotypical view of most cults that I know of is rather negative. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2008, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-alcoholics-anonymous-a-cult/450809/107 "2008-05-31T00:11:29Z")
[QUOTE=RedFury] But AA certainly has some very cult-like characteristics. [/QUOTE] And it appears to have many more non-cult-like characteristics, including some core parts of what most people think of as cults. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Call\_Me\_Shirley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Don\_t\_Call\_Me\_Shirley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Call_Me_Shirley)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2008, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-alcoholics-anonymous-a-cult/450809/108 "2008-05-31T01:27:45Z")
> [@RedFury's article](#): > > But this is the dogma, one of the core beliefs, upon which Alcoholics Anonymous is based. A.A. teaches that you can’t ‘just quit drinking’ or ‘just abstain’. You must join A.A., do the Twelve Steps, and have a “spiritual experience”, in order to quit drinking… Why would A.A. do this? To what end? What do they have to gain by these supposed tactics? You seem to by implying some kind of sinister motives. 1. Dupe suckers into going to free meetings. 2. ??? 3. profit ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2008, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-alcoholics-anonymous-a-cult/450809/109 "2008-05-31T01:44:26Z")
Once again, can anybody come up with a hard definition of cult that we can agree on? Redfury, I read a fair amount of the Orange but it’s not consistent with my experience. I can’t cite my own life so where does that leave us. I’m also out of town and don’t have a book with me; no I don’t need to travel with one, but I will post 2 points. Historically, there were no alternatives to AA when it was being started, that may be why they spoke as if they were the only way. You may consider ‘the doctors opinion’ at the start of the book, written by a non-member, non-alcoholic, MD working in the field as a cite or you may not. You will also find at the end of the book, where it says ‘we realize we know only a little.’ True, it makes a reference to god, but it was never intended that things wouldn’t change or evolve, and they have. You continue to claim that you don’t have personal or emotional involvement with this thread, but your references are so biased that I don’t believe you ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2008, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-alcoholics-anonymous-a-cult/450809/110 "2008-05-31T02:18:17Z")
[QUOTE=RedFury] For instance, would anyone care to debunk this one point by point? It’d would greatly aid my so-called own ignorance on this topic of course: [**“Do you have anything to say for yourself, Mr. X—?”**](http://www.americanatheist.org/spr97/T2/piety.html) [/QUOTE] Well, much of this is allegory, and I won’t go with every point but; I’ve never heard a meeting opened as yadda yadda churchs’ AA meeting that would get shouted down. no one cast remonstative eyes at me when I sat out prayers they make repeated references to christian, which would come as quite a surprise to the members I know who are muslim, jewish, pagan, agnostic, surfers, or not otherwise defined. the vague connection to god controlled facist democracy are laughable, I mean really are you fucking kidding me 90 meeting in 90 days is a suggestion some in AA like and others don’t, I can’t imagine anyone thinks it’s a good idea coercively, can you cite that number being imposed I’ve never heard anybody talk about fighting to retain AA political power. It just goes on like that, bias slanted rhetoric, I’m moving on. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-alcoholics-anonymous-a-cult/450809.md?page=5)