Is Alcoholics Anonymous a Cult?
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Is Alcoholics Anonymous a Cult?
Is Alcoholics Anonymous a Cult?
Posted: Aug 5th, 2008 | Comments: 4 | Views: 402 |
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Is Alcoholics Anonymous a Cult?Author:
Copyright (c) 2008 Brian Cuban
What comes to your mind when you hear the word cult? Jim Jones Kool Aid? David Koresh? Charles Manson? The Texas Polygamist Compound? Maybe even Scientology. Do the words Alcoholic’s Anonymous come to mind? I certainly have never thought of Alcoholics Anonymous as a cult and I am a member. As many people know from my recent blog post, I have been in AA for over a year.
I received many emails and comments in response to that post. Many of those commenting believed that Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is a cult. I frankly take those comments with a grain of salt. All of them were from former AA members. When you are at a low point in your life and counting on something to help you turn that life around but that something does not work, what do you do? You don’t look to yourself because you know you cannot change by yourself. You blame everyone else. You blame the program. You dismiss, you denigrate, you destroy. You do anything except take personal responsibility for your failure. I know this because I have been at that low point. Turning to AA for assistance in moving past that point does not make AA a cult; it makes you human.
Let us start with the premise that AA as an overall organization cannot possibly qualify as a cult because it has no central authority structure. No one is handing down edicts from the top saying you must do this or that to stay in the group. This is because there is no top. To be a cult, an organization, as a whole, must have a “top” in terms of its authority structure.
This leaves us with the question of whether the AA philosophy encourages “cult- like behavior” in its thousands of chapters. Perhaps the personality makeup of the specific chapter can cause the group to function like a cult. I believe, however, that it is the very rare exception rather than the rule.
The other day someone who read my blog, sent me an article about an AA chapter in Washington D.C that was accused of being a cult. The members of this chapter of AA basically encouraged younger female members to have sex with older male members and encouraged members in general to discontinue all ties with anyone who was not a member of this AA chapter. Does that ring the “cult bell” in your head? It certainly does in mine. You can read that article here.
Yes, I agree that this particular chapter probably qualified as a cult, but to say that the actions of an isolated group within a larger organization classifies that larger group as a cult is ludicrous. When these allegations were made public, this group was, in fact, disbanded as an AA sanctioned group.
What else would classify AA as a cult? The biggest book on this subject is AA: Cult or Cure by Charles Bufe who delineates a litany of conditions that qualify AA as a cult. I am not going to debate his criteria. Why? Words are like statistics
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Is Alcoholics Anonymous a Cult?