Critiques of Alcoholics Anonymous - Part 2
Calling out my perceived shortcoming of AA - why they don't matter and how the program can save your life
In last week’s post, I covered two of the biggest pushbacks (cough, excuses) that I have heard as to why individuals do not give Alcoholic’s Anonymous a chance. Today’s post is going to cover my own perceptions of the organizations shortcomings. I want to highlight, it’s unfair of me to criticize a program that has saved untold numbers of individuals from their own personal hells, but at least one of these items was purposefully omitted from the programming that I believe deserves attention, even though it is highly controversial, though the tides seem to be shifting somewhat in our culture.
These omissions from the AA program are items that I have experienced have had profound effects on my recovery journey (not personally with the last one, but we’ll get to why I included it). As I begin to engage with other struggling alcoholics, these first two items are ones that I speak to from experience with purpose because I know that they are missing from the AA literature and feel their imperative for living the most meaningful life in recovery.
Little mention of the importance of nutrition, movement and breaking a sweat
AA literature and discussion very seldomly center around the benefits of filling your body with the right nutrition or of breaking a sweat, ideally while moving your body through space. The evidence is overwhelming at this point, and while “experts” may argue over petty details, the general concept seems pretty clear. Fueling your body with healthy, clean substances as well as moving and breaking a sweat have physical, emotional and sometimes spiritual benefits that have significantly lasting effects.
As soon as I had the bright yellow band cut off my wrist in rehab signaling that I had completed my detox period I did two things. First, I called my wife to talk to her for the first time in three days. And then as soon as I hung up the phone, I went to the small gym they had in the building and put my ass in the rowing machine and just started moving.
Movement is something that makes us all human. We were born to move our body’s through three dimensional space. Addiction cripples that ability as all addicts start allowing their body to waste away. I knew that establishing a routine where I was focused on just moving my body through space was going to be imperative to my recovery journey. In fact, it’s so critical it developed into the first of five practices of recovery that I use as a model to guide myself and others on this journey.
I threw out the use of “exercise” and “workout” from my vocabulary. I realized in rehab that I needed to connect with the more fundamental aspect of being human and to me that meant movement. Yes, I complete what one could call form workouts and exercises today as a part of my daily routine, but I view them through the lens of moving my body through space, not of checking a box on a certain routine.
In AA literature there is no mention of physical activity and its healing potential for the body, mind and soul. This is a missed opportunity that can likely be traced to the fact that the majority of the literature and programming was put in place during the 1930s, a time when movement was more of a part of the daily routine.
Additionally, the talk of nutrition and fuel for your body is slim in the program. There is mention of the idea that your cravings for chocolate and other sweets will go up dramatically after you have walked away from alcohol. This is true. Your body is going to be searching for the sugars that you used to provide it through alcohol, and so it is incredibly common for alcoholics, especially early in their recovery journey, to smash an unholy amount of sweets.
Yet, there is no mention of the benefits that one receives once they do settle their sweet tooth in normalizing their intake on a well-balanced diet and all the benefits that come along with nutritional consistency. I found that many of my worst emotional and physical states that I have found myself in while in recovery can be traced back to going over the top on food that gave me nothing nutritionally, but served a purpose only in the short term.
As I have started engaging with those that are new to the program or looking for a way to solve their issue with addiction, on top of AA I always encourage them to be conscious of what they are eating and strive to move their body and break a sweat.
Downplaying the importance of healthy selfishness
From page 87 of the Alcoholic’s Anonymous book (emphasis mine):
We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no request for ourselves only. We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped. We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends. Many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that and it doesn't work.
Lucy taught Alyssa and I how to pray in a very powerful and meaningful way. Every single time that we pulled into the parking lot of the hospital we would pause for a moment and hold each other’s hand. And then our prayer went as follows:
“God, we selfishly hope to hear our little girl’s heart beat today. But we understand that might not be a part of your plan. Please grant us the strength to accept whatever the plan may be.”
As an alcoholic, I am an especially selfish individual. I knew that I was not going to rid myself of these selfish tendencies in a single moment, but expected the process to be much more gradual (which it has turned out to be).
Therefore, I decided that I would take advantage of that selfishness and so I focused my selfish tendencies towards practices, activities and thought patterns that maintain me on the road of active recovery. I found this practice and perspective entirely rewarding and supportive of my recovery journey.
I selfishly created and kept to the boundaries that I set in various aspects of my life from relationships, to recovery practices to work. Having a healthy degree of selfishness, especially early on in your recovery journey, allows you to focus on maintaining your own journey while also granting you some grace if you don’t feel abundantly loving and giving on any particular day in your life.
I hear old timers, with decades of time in recovery, express that their selfishness is still present in their lives. My pushback with the AA programming is the seemingly unrelenting perspective that all selfishness should be done away with and never pursued once you have found the solution.
Based on my experience, I just don’t see that as the case. Take the entire Chapter 3 Stigma body of work and an additional unannounced project that I have in the works right now. No offense to you, the follower and reader, but my primary reason for doing this work is for myself. This work helps me sort my thoughts out and ensure that I am setting myself up to “trudge the road of happy destiny” for life, however long that may be.
But then, after creating and producing work that does have a selfish bend to it, I get contacted by one of you. And then there’s a flash of a realization that I am serving others, and the meaning and motivation behind the work picks up in an extraordinary manner.
No mention of founder’s push for psychedelic assistance
I have started, and then deleted, numerous openings to this section. I’m finding that I’m attempting to explain in some eloquent manner the symbiosis that exists between us humans and the plants and animals of the natural world that has largely been severed over the past few centuries of modern living. I’m getting too cute with it and over my skis in terms of my writing ability, so I’ll just be blunt.
There is mounting evidence that points towards the healing powers of psychedelic experiences, whether through natural or synthetic forms, when they are coupled with ceremonial or integrated therapy activities. One of the co-founders of AA believed whole heartedly in this concept, and actually died somewhat at odds with the AA organization due to their hesitation to incorporate psychedelic induced mystical experiences into their programming.
They could hardly be blamed, as the outfall of the LSD craze in the late 60’s came down extremely hard on any individual or organization who stuck their heads up on the topic. Yet Bill W was convinced that psychedelic experiences were part of the solution and to this day, no evidence or topics of discussion exist on this topic within AA literature.
I can probably expand on my story in another post here, but simply put by the end of my battle with alcoholism I was seeking a magic pill that could rid me of my struggles. I think recently psychedelics often get the label of panacea placed on them, and I would strongly caution anyone of thinking about the experience in such simplistic terms.
The evidence is becoming strong that the experience, when coupled with targeted and focused integration therapy can serve great benefits, but it can never be expected to be a one time drop and your alcoholism is washed away. There’s a wonderful analogy that I have read about the topic below that explains why having some targeted integration therapy involved is so key to helping the experience stick.
If higher spiritual planes are a building, exploring your spirituality, meditating and learning is like taking the stairs. You get to explore every level and eventually gain natural access to them all. Taking psychedelics is like taking the elevator straight to the top, but once you get there you can only pop your head out and look around while you’re experiencing the effects of the substance. So while it can open doors, it’s probably not going to give you the fulfilling relationship with your spirituality that you’re looking for and may possibly make you want to keep chasing it through those drugs, hoping one day you might just be able to get off the elevator.
In the end, I did not need to ever take psychedelics to discover my spiritual connection. Yet, I think it is robbing thousands of individuals from the freedom of their healing journey by not allowing them to pursue this meaningful healing path. The co-founder of AA experienced this himself, yet the idea never is brought up in the AA programming.
That’s pretty much all the gripes that I have with the program. I have to recognize that it’s not my place to try to solve them, I just wanted to share with the reader some of the very minor shortcomings that I have seen in an otherwise miraculous program.
Seriously, there is no other programming that has saved so many lives as Alcoholic’s Anonymous and I feel lucky to have found the program and the group that have now become such a key part of my life and the maintenance of my recovery journey.
It literally has saved my life.
That’s all I’ve got,
Kyle