WHY ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS IS PROBABLY DOING ITSELF AND ALCOHOLICS MORE HARM THAN GOOD BY ITS INSISTENCE ON A HIGHER POWER

WHY ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS IS PROBABLY DOING ITSELF AND ALCOHOLICS
MORE HARM THAN GOOD BY ITS INSISTENCE ON A HIGHER POWER

Albert Ellis, Ph.D., Executive Director
Institute for Rational-Emotive Therapy
New York, New York

Alcoholics Anonymous is a complex and profound book that has probably helped millions of addicts. It includes so many good -- and so many questionable - points that I find it impossible to review it in the 500 words I have been allowed. Nor can I possibly answer the five important questions the Associate Editor has asked of reviewers. Let me focus, therefore, on the last of his questions: "In your opinion, does the Big Book represent an effective therapeutic model for alcoholism and/or other addictive behaviors?" As a psychotherapist for more than 40 years and as the founder of the most popular form of cognitive- behavior therapy, rational-emotive therapy (RET), I shall - all too briefly! - review the 12 steps outlined in Chapter 5 of Alcoholics Anonymous in regard to their therapeutic effectiveness.

The seven therapeutic steps in A.A. that seem very useful to many alcoholics are steps 1,4,5,8,9,10, and 12. These urge them to admit their addictive and self-destructive ways, make amends to those they have harmed, acquire a philosophic awakening, and carry their message to other alcoholics. The five A.A steps that are of dubious value and that may easily do more harm than good in keeping people away from Alcoholics Anonymous and in preventing their sobriety are steps 2,3,6,7 and 11.

These urge alcoholics to believe in, rely on, and humbly pray to a Higher Power who will remove their shortcomings and give them the will to stop drinking.

Steps 2,3,6,7 and 11 are potentially unhelpful and dangerous for many reasons -- which I expound in detail in an article I am writing, "Why Alcoholics Anonymous Is Probably Doing Itself and Alcoholics More Harm Than Good By Its Insistence on a Higher Power." Let me (very briefly!) summarize some of the points I am making in this article:

1. Obviously, not everyone needs a Higher Power to stop drinking, since millions have done so while remaining agnostics and atheists.

2. Believing in a Higher Power is an indirect, and I would say hypocritical, way of believing in your own power to stop drinking. For you clearly choose to believe in this power and you choose to assume that it exists and will help you.

3. There is no convincing evidence against the existence of a Supreme Being who personally audits and obeys human supplication.

4. For every person turned-on to A.A. by its insistence on belief in a Higher Power probably two or three are turned-off and will not join or remain a member.

5. Belief in a Higher Power or God may easily lead to devout belief in Absolute Truth and other forms of dogma that (a) are often serious emotional disturbances in their own right and that (b) leads to dictatorship, terrorism, war, and enormous social harm.

6. By calling on God to remove your defects of character, you falsely tell yourself that you do not have the ability to do so yourself and you imply that you are basically an incompetent who is unable to work on and correct your own low frustration tolerance. Since God presumably only helps those who help themselves, this is essentially a lie - and a lie that strongly contradicts A.A.'s fine therapeutic stand for honesty.

7. To pray for knowledge of God's will is again hypocrisy. For who decides that there is a God, that He or She has a will, and that this deity will give you "Godly" knowledge and power. Patently, you do. So "God's will" is largely your choice and your invention. Which, if you want to be truly honest, and fight the rationalizing that often goes with addiction, you had better fully admit!

8. Although you may well have a philosophic awakening as a result of taking A.A.'s 12 steps, calling this (in step 12) a "spiritual" awakening is unscientific and anti-therapeutic. "Spiritual" is a vague word that means anything from intellectual and philosophical to incorporeal, sacred, and ecclesiastical. Many people who have had a profound philosophical and intellectual awakening and have thereby quit drinking have been distinctly agnostic, atheistic, and not at all "spiritual."

In sum, Alcoholics Anonymous or the Big Book has some excellent views and directions - and again, has unquestionably helped millions of alcoholics to stop drinking. But for the above reasons (and many more I could add) it also contains some questionable and often iatrogenic ideas. I fervently (but prayerfully and unspiritually!) hope that these will be revised before the fourth edition appears. A.A. is too good an organization to bow to the will of anyone - including any hypothetical Higher Power.