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Alcoholics Can Be Cured—Despite A.A.
by Dr. Arthur H. Cain
It
is time we made a thorough investigation of Alcoholics Anonymous
in the interest of our public health AA is identified in
the public mind as a God-fearing fellowship of 350,000 “arrested
alcoholics” who keep one another sober and rescue
others from the horrors of alcoholism. Unfortunately, A.A.
has become a dogmatic cult whose chapters too often turn
sobriety into slavery to A.A. Because of its narrow outlook,
Alcoholics Anonymous prevents thousands from ever being
cured. Moreover A.A. has retarded scientific research into
one of America’s most serious health problems.
My
own experience with A.A. began in 1947. As a psychologist
and investigator into the causes and cure of uncontrolled
drinking, I have attended about 500 A.A. meetings in over
40 states and a dozen foreign countries. At first I was
tremendously impressed with A.A.'s altruistic efforts in
alcoholics’ behalf. Its members would perform prodigies
of selfless service, no matter what the hour, by meeting
the helpless and sodden in hospitals, flophouses and homes,
and offering their sympathy, a helping hand, and their own
example that temptation could be withstood. At the weekly
meetings, which all A.A. members attended, there was a true
sense of humility and a devout belief in God (We “came
to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore
us to sanity”) and the fellowship of man--the original
tenets of A.A. New members were given the freedom to question
A.A.'s guiding principles codified in the Twelve Traditions
and the Twelve Steps of Recovery.
Over
the years a disturbing change began to take place. As an
increasing number of alcoholics joined A.A. chapters, many
turned out to be misfits who had rejected Christianity,
Judaism or the Kiwanis Club. Dogmatic and opinionated in
their nonbeliefs, they found in A.A. an instrument for a
new kind of bigotry. Their only meaning in life was that
they had heroically become “arrested” alcoholics.
Arrogant egoists, they soon dominated many of A.A.'s
10,000 chapters. Weekly meetings, once spontaneous and exciting,
became formalized and ritualistic. Anyone who questioned
A.A.'s principles or even expressed curiosity was handed
the slogan, UTILIZE, DON’T ANALYZE, and told to sit
down. The desire to help others degenerated. As one disheartened
former A.A. member told me, “I felt nobody cared what
happened to Mary W. I felt they were just interested in
another alcoholic who would become another notch in their
belts. I felt as if I was being pressed into serving their
cause and building up their oligarchy.”
With
this growing dogmatism came a Dark Ages attitude toward
any scientist who might differ with official AA doctrine.
According to -the AA litany, alcoholism is a physical disease
which can never be cured: “Once an alcoholic, always
an alcoholic.” The corollary is: “A reformed
alcoholic must live A.A. from day to day and never leave
A.A.”
Actually,
there is no scientific evidence that alcoholism is an incurable,
physical disease.
According
to current evidence, the origin of uncontrolled drinking
is psychological. A person drinks to ease anxiety, depression,
boredom, guilt, timidity, inarticulateness. An alcoholic
learns to become one; he is not born that way. This means
that many alcoholics can return to normal drinking without
fear of ending up on Skid Row. Over the past 17 years I
have treated more than 50 alcoholics who no longer need
to attend meetings or receive treatment. Most important,
over 20 of my patients have learned to drink normally, to
use -alcohol as a beverage, not a psychological crutch.
Yet
when scientists have reported similar findings, A.A. members
have often set out to discredit them. In 1957 Doctors Melvin
L. Selzer and William Holloway of the University of Michigan
came up with the then startling report that 13 confirmed
alcoholics had become social drinkers. Because of the pressure
of an influential A.A. member, the state agency that provided
the funds for the study virtually ordered the two scientists
to omit what it called these “embarrassing”
findings. Doctor Selzer published his findings anyway.
In
1962 Dr. D. L. Davies, after a study at Maudsley Hospital
in London, declared that seven men who had been alcoholics
were able to drink normally after treatment; some had been
drinking without problems for as long as 11 years. Doctor
Davies concluded that “the generally accepted view
that no alcohol addict can ever again drink normally should
be modified.” Some AA members branded the scientist’s
report “immoral, because it might cause some members
to drink.”
Dr.
E. M. Jellinek, a co-founder of the Yale School of Alcohol
Studies and a dean of researchers in the field of alcoholism
until his death in 1963, was drawing on his own experiences
when he declared: ". . . Alcoholics Anonymous have
naturally created the picture of alcoholism in their own
image . . . and there is every reason why the student of
alcoholism should emancipate himself from accepting this
exclusiveness as propounded by A.A."
Not
only has A.A. interfered with scientific investigations,
it has prevented medical and psychological treatment which
runs counter to its own theories. At one New York City hospital,
for instance, the physicians preferred using paraldehyde
to treat acute intoxication. But then A.A. members implied
that they would stop referring patients there if paraldehyde
was used. The doctors were persuaded to switch to another
drug, chloral hydrate. As the physician in charge of the
alcoholics’ ward explained, the A.A. non-scientists
had discovered that paraldehyde was a form of alcohol. Actually,
chloral hydrate is the more toxic drug. In fact, its Indiscriminate
use in another New York hospital has left some patients
more intoxicated upon discharge than when they were admitted.
While
A.A. adherents battle scientific inquiry that does not fit
A.A.'s narrow theories, its chapters often attempt to assume
total control of members’ lives. Purporting to offer
everything needed for human fulfillment, the fellowship
now boasts of a “ladies auxiliary,” called Al-Anon,
for spouses of members and even a division for members’
children called Alateen. It suggests that the youngsters
open their meetings by reciting this incantation: “We
will always be grateful to Alateen for giving us a Way of
Life and a wonderful, healthy program to live by and enjoy!”
Implied is the distressing theory that there is no other
way of life for alcoholics except that of A.A.--a life in
which every waking hour is devoted to the struggle for sobriety.
The
wife of a Texas member described some unfortunate consequences
of A.A.'s creed that the struggle against alcohol must be
the most important ambition in a member’s life. This
must be placed above wives or husbands, children, homes,
or jobs. They must be ready to abandon these things at any
time . . . . The tragic part is, some of them while searching
for this sobriety and serenity actually do exactly that.”
How pervasive the obsession with A.A. can become was poignantly
demonstrated by a patient who had come to me because of
worries about her A.A. husband. He had proposed that they
move their bed into the AA clubhouse so they might be “available
24 hours a day just in case an alcoholic wandered in.”
For
many members, of course, staying sober is a fierce challenge
daily. But under the A.A. program, the lives of many are
so sterile that their growth as human beings is hindered.
Taught to rely on slogans and compulsive A.A. routine, some
are unable to face the fact that they are alcoholics because
they are psychologically sick. It is for this reason that
many A.A. members never recover.
A
New Hampshire novelist and former A.A. member, who has been
continuously sober for eight years, described this human
waste when he wrote me: “I have met members who are
actually afraid to think. They have made a high fence of
A.A., which shuts them out from all pleasurable and vital
aspects of life.”
Behind
the A.A. fence the original principle that alcoholics must
be humble before God has been turned into the dictum that
alcoholics are God’s chosen people. This theme is
preached in meetings and through books and pamphlets. A
typical illustration is a booklet titled, “Around
the Clock With A.A.,” published recently by an A.A.
group in California. One passage declares: “God in
His wisdom selected this group of men and women to be the
purveyors of His goodness. . . . He went right to the drunkard,
the so-called weakling of the world. Well might He have
said to us: ‘Unto your weak and feeble hands I have
entrusted power beyond estimate. To you has been given that
which has been denied the most learned of your fellows.
Not to scientists or statesmen, not to wives or mothers,
not even to my priests or ministers have I given this gift
of helping other alcoholics which I entrust to you.“
Such idolatry causes the believer to see himself as all
knowing, and turns the missionary into the zealot.
A.A.'s
creeds not only infect its own members but pervade public
education. Most of what we hear or read about alcoholism
is inspired by A.A. adherents spouting A.A. dogmas. City,
state and private agencies frequently fill all key posts
with A.A. members. One western state actually requires that
personnel assigned to its alcoholism program be A.A. members
for at least two years. No professional experience is needed.
The A.A. philosophy also dominates the National Council
on Alcoholism, the only nation-wide public-information agency
on alcoholism. N.C.A., which is supported by public donations,
has over 60 affiliated information committees scattered
throughout the country. Although both N.C.A. and A.A. deny
that they are officially connected, many members of N.C.A.'s
staff and some directors are A.A. members. A.A. members
serve as directors in eight out of ten N.C.A. information
centers in the largest cities in the United States.
Thus,
it is not surprising that N.C.A. continues to parrot the
A.A. line that alcoholism is a “progressive disease
for which there is no known cure, but which can only be
arrested.” Further, N.C.A. in a series of radio and
TV commercials actually stated that the American Medical
Association has declared alcoholism to be a disease, although
the A.M.A. has restricted itself to general statements that
the alcoholic is “sick.” Time and again, I have
heard public figures recite A.A.-N.C.A. myths and propaganda
as if they were gospel.
I
once heard Arthur Flemming, former Secretary of Health,
Education and Welfare, read verbatim a pronouncement on
alcoholism which I knew had been prepared a year earlier
by N.C.A.'s public-relations firm. Flemming offered the
now familiar “statistic” that there are five
million alcoholics in the United States. This figure is
based on a study Doctor Jellinek of Yale conducted 18 years
ago in a small community; he thought he had found that three
percent
of the population were alcoholics. N.C.A. applied this percentage
to the whole nation. Doctor Jellinek, a great physiologist
but no statistician, repudiated his own formula in 1956.
The five-million figure is only a guess, for no scientific
count of alcoholics has ever been made.
While
N.C.A. issues well-intended but sometimes questionable facts
and theories, A.A. officials, when pressed, often hide behind
the famous Tenth Tradition, which states that “Alcoholics
Anonymous has no opinion or outside issues, hence the A.A.
name ought never be drawn into public controversy.”
This device enables members of A.A. to make outrageous assertions
which A.A.'s headquarters promptly disavows when challenged.
“Many people I have tried to help,” said one
Chicago member, “have abandoned the program because
they couldn’t take the ex cathedra homilies on drugs,
alcohol, psychiatry, medicine, sociology, biology, to name
a few subjects on which they speak with authority.”
Much
of the A.A.'s failure can be blamed on a lack of forward-looking,
constructive leadership. Writer Jerome Ellison recently
spent several months as a paid consultant to A.A. evaluating
the fellowship’s publications and activities. At national
headquarters in New York City, Ellison declared, committee
politics took up half the working day, and gossip was venomous.
Everybody was an expert, Ellison went on, “with a
cluster of ideas closed to amendment.” He related
how one member had submitted to the A.A. monthly bulletin
an article which showed that nearly all southern and a great
many northern A.A. chapters were racially segregated, and
that AA. had failed to keep pace with the growing problem
of Negro alcoholism. The article was turned down on the
ground that it “might disrupt A.A. unity.”
Ellison’s
most damning indictment concerned the rule made by A.A.'s
non-alcoholic board of trustees that no change can be made
in A.A.'s theories on alcoholism even though they are nearly
a quarter of a century old. “Despite the fact that
the rank and file teems with exciting, relevant, informed
and up-to-the-minute experience,” Ellison declared,
“none of it is permitted to appear in book form. To
publish such literature, it is felt, would be to risk heresy.”
Needless
to say, I do not suggest that A.A. be abolished or that
a single member quit. That A.A. helps many thousands stay
sober is obvious. But Alcoholics Anonymous should return
to its original purpose of being a much-needed first-aid
station. The “arrest” of uncontrolled drinking
is the essential first stop in becoming a recovered or cured
alcoholic. During this critical period, the alcoholic needs
the sympathy and understanding that only another alcoholic
can give. But after three months or so, when the shakes
have subsided and the cobwebs are beginning to clear, the
recovering alcoholic should go ahead. He should not be taught
that he must remain forever crippled and bound by the paralyzing
concept “Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.”
It is at this point that the patient needs a different kind
of understanding: an objective, dispassionate, clinical
understanding that physicians, psychologists and pastoral
counselors, not A.A. members, are trained to give. Only
after he has undergone a rigorous and lengthy revision of
his personality should he attempt to drink normally again,
and then only if he desires to do so.
After
all, sobriety in itself is not a way of life. It is simply
the absence of intoxication. It is what one does with his
sobriety and his life that is important.
(Source:
Saturday Evening Post, September 19, 1964)
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