“No, Ma’am. Other than I made a mistake. And I’m sorry.” 

“Nevertheless, for driving under the influence, I sentence you to pay a $500.00 fine plus court costs. I’m also pulling your license for three months. During that time you must attend 90 Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings in 90 days to reinstate your driving privileges. Failure to comply with any of the preceding will earn you 30 days in jail.” 

The judge peers balefully over her glasses. “Questions?” she asks.  

“No, ma’am,” you say, relieved. It could have been worse. 

“Good. Next case!” The judge pounds her gavel. 

Intent on paying your debt to society, you must attend your first AA meeting the next night. Scanning the list of meetings provided by the Court Clerk, you’re happy to see there are two meetings a day, morning and night, just a few blocks from your house. As an Atheist, you’re not keen on meetings in the basement of the Methodist Church, but oh well. The judge said AA meetings or jail. You push your misgivings below the surface. After all, you really have no choice. 

Arriving a little before eight in the evening, you take a seat at one end of a semicircle of battered folding chairs. Side by side, derelicts, men in expensive suits, and blue-collar types sit murmuring, smoking, and swilling coffee from Styrofoam cups. Shortly one stands, clearing his throat: 

“Hi, I’m Bill and I’m an alcoholic.” 

“HI, BILL!” the crowd roars in unison. 

“Welcome to Bethany Methodist Church’s evening AA Meeting. Let’s begin by reading the AA Preamble:  

AA is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. 

The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for AA membership; we are self-supporting through our own contributions. 

 AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution; does not wish to engage in any controversy; neither endorses nor opposes any causes. 

Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.” (AAWS: 2).

“Jim, will you lead us in the Serenity Prayer?” 

Jim nods gravely. Everyone shuffles to their feet, dutifully joining hands and bowing heads. Remaining seated, and eschewing the proffered hand of your neighbor, you are outside the circle. Feeling extremely uncomfortable, you fold your arms and observe the magic show. 

Jim, hesitating, casts a remonstrative eye your way, but then resolutely plants chin on chest, scrunches his eyes shut, and plods on: 

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen.” (Bufe: 45) 

“Amen,” everyone drones, sitting back down. 

“Thanks, Jim,” Bill says. 

Uneasily, you wonder what’s going on. Just seconds before they had said AA wasn’t affiliated with any sect or denomination. But they have just clearly performed a patently Christian conjuring ritual. What gives? You have no time to reflect as Bill commands: 

“John will now read the 12 Steps for us. John?” 

John drags deeply on his cigarette, opens the thick blue volume in his lap to a marked page and reads: 

“Step One. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol— that our lives had become unmanageable. 

(Horseshit. If my life were unmanageable I’d be institutionalized or on the street.) 

Step Two. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 

(What?! I’m not insane!) 

Step Three. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. 

(He’s got to be kidding.) 

Step Four. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 

(How very Christian.) 

Step Five. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 

(Oh goody, confession. Where’s the little phone booth thingie?) 

Step Six. We’re entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 

(Now I’m defective? And “gawd” is gonna fix me?) 

Step Seven. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. 

(Oh please.) 

Step Eight. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. 

(Wow. Since childhood? Well, lessee, I smacked Willy Braxton in the head with a dirt clod, I … say, what’s this got to do with alcohol?) 

Step Nine. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 

(Great. Penance. Yeah, that’ll do the trick.) 

Step Ten. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. 

(I’m so-o-o-o wrong. I’m so-o-o-o bad. I should be spanked!) 

Step Eleven. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. 

(Baa-a-a-a.....) 

Step Twelve. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.” (Wilson:59-60) 

(Well, there’s the clincher. Gimme an armload o’ Bible tracts and let’s hit the bricks.) 

The rest of the meeting goes by in a blur of drunkalogues (tales of tipsy escapades), exhortations to “Let go and let God,” and people crediting a “Higher Power” for their sobriety. Feeling nauseous, every fiber of your Atheist being rebels, screaming for you to flee and NOW. Only the specter of jail time keeps you seated. Finally, the meeting ends… with a group recitation of the “Lord’s Prayer.” 

Swallowing a burgeoning resentment, you approach Bill to have your court card signed. Hoping for an alternative, you ask: 

“Uh, Bill? The judge said I have to make these meetings. The problem is that I’m really uncomfortable with this religious stuff. Isn’t there a nonreligious group or something I could go to instead?” 

Bill eyeballs you up and down. He decides to take pity on you. After all, you’re just a newbie, a “pigeon” in AA parlance. 

“AA isn’t religious. It’s spiritual,” he says, scrawling his initials on your court card and handing it back. “But to overcome this disease you absolutely must come to believe in some Higher Power outside yourself.” (Wilson:44-45) 

“I have no idea what that means. I am an Atheist. There’s gotta be some other group I can go to that isn’t spiritual or religious.” 

“No, there really isn’t. But give it a chance,” Bill says. “AA is the most effective approach for alcoholism in the world. Keep coming back. It really works…” 

Bill is lying. 

And so it goes from California to Maine to Florida to Washington State, and everywhere  between. Despite common sense, and long-standing empirical evidence to the contrary, thousands of well-meaning people perpetuate the most astounding fallacies in the mistaken belief that AA is the only proven method to overcome alcohol or drug problems. These same people will tell you, straight-faced, that AA is not religious at all, but merely  “spiritual.” Unfortunately, the preachy program of AA and its associated concepts of alcoholism as a disease and spirituality as the only remedy have become part of the social milieu of America. No one asks why we “treat” with “spiritual” medicine what is – in the United States –  widely held to be a disease. 

Sadly, the taboo against goring the sacred cow of AA helps ensure that virtually all treatment clinics in the United States feature it and its principles as the core of their programs (Le: 603; Peele: 47, 58, 75-76). To test the omnipresence of AA in the treatment system try calling every alcohol or drug treatment center in your Yellow Pages. Ask what resources are available for those who decline participation in Twelve Step programs. You won’t find any. You will be told, in so many words, that AA is the only thing that works, that one size fits all, that those who won’t work the Twelve Steps aren’t serious about their problem. You may even be told that some people have to get worse before they can get better, and that AA-refuseniks will inevitably die or go insane (Trimpey, p. 13). 

Incredibly, you can be jailed for refusing to attend court-mandated AA prayer fests. If you are already incarcerated, you can have privileges withheld or your sentence lengthened for refusing to attend. Employee Assistance Programs divert alcohol or drug users into AA as a condition of employment. Service members can be drummed out and given less than an honorable discharge for refusing AA meetings. People who object to Twelve-Step programs are routinely discharged without referral to more appropriate, secular, non-AA programs. Parents are denied custody of their children unless they participate in Twelve-Step programs. Eligibility for certain organ transplants attach AA attendance as a prerequisite for consideration. Health care professionals, under threat of losing their practices, are required to participate in AA to retain their licenses. Family members of people deemed alcoholics or addicts are often coerced into participating in the “codependence” Twelve-Step program (RR-PLAN 1). 

All Americans – but Atheists especially – should be troubled over the critical First-Amendment issues raised by mandatory AA attendance. Concurrently, the erroneous portrayal of AA as the most effective, and indeed the only method, to address an alcohol or drug problem is of concern to all who want their money’s worth when it comes to addiction care. We are all affected. 

Persons of average intelligence immediately peg AA as the religious approach to overcoming addictive behaviors merely by reading the Twelve Steps. Even a cursory reading of AA’s central reference, the “Big Book,” leaves no doubt whatsoever. Yet AA adherents and proponents continue irrationally to insist that their program is not religious but only spiritual. Watch the tap dancing when you ask an AA member to clearly define the difference! 

Along with plain old common sense, let’s arm ourselves with the facts. The three most important questions for the Atheist who has been caught within the grasp of the AA leviathan are: 

Is AA, indeed, religious in nature? 
Is it effective? 
What are the alternatives to AA?

The roots of AA are buried in the soil of the Oxford Group Movement (OGM), first known as the “First Century Christian Fellowship.” The OGM was founded by a Lutheran minister named Frank Buchman around 1918. Both Bufe in AA: Cult or Cure and Ragge in More Revealed report that in the late 1930s the group changed its name to “Moral Rearmament” in an attempt to dissociate itself from itself after Buchman publicly “thanked heaven” for Adolf Hitler standing as a bulwark against the “anti-Christ of Communism” and claimed that the world’s problems could be solved by a “God-controlled democracy,” a “theocracy,” or a “God-controlled” Fascist dictatorship (Bufe: 23; Ragge: 20). Buchman’s goals are clear in an excerpt from a speech given during the 1930s. Ragge quotes Buchman as saying: 

…The secret is God-control. The only sane people in an insane world are those controlled by God. God-controlled personalities make God-controlled nationalities. This is the aim of the Oxford Group. The true patriot gives his life to bring his nation under God’s control. Those who oppose that control are public enemies… 

World peace will only come through nations which have achieved God-control. And everybody can listen to God. You can. I can. Everybody can have a part (Ragge: 3).

He continued to drink until December when he found himself in the hospital again. Here he took the “belladonna cure,” consisting of an interesting cocktail of morphine, henbane, psychoactive drugs, and belladonna – in large doses, a potent hallucinogen. In the hospital, and under the influence of these potent drugs, Bill Wilson underwent his “spiritual awakening.” In the book AA Comes of Age, quoted by Bufe, Wilson  recounts his experience thus: 

I found myself crying out, “If there is a God, let Him show Himself! I am ready for anything!” Suddenly the room lit up with a great white light.… All about me there was a wonderful feeling of Presence, and I thought to myself, “So this is the God of the Preachers” (Bufe: 36).

He became an ardent activist in the Oxford Group Movement and slowly started— along with “Dr. Bob” Smith in Akron, Ohio—  to build a group of drunks who attempted to remain sober using the Movement’s teachings. In late 1937 a schism developed, and the unnamed alcoholic group split from the OGM. 

In 1938 Bill Wilson began writing the central reference of AA, its famous “Big Book.” Here, for the first time, the core of AA’s teachings is distilled as the Twelve Steps. Except for the first and last, all the Steps are the immediate offspring of OGM principles. Predictably— according to AA legend— the writing of the Twelve Steps was “spiritually inspired,” or in other words, directed by the Christian god. Ragge quotes an AA source: 

As he started to write, he asked for guidance. And he relaxed. The words began tumbling out with astonishing speed. He completed the first draft in about half an hour, then kept writing until he felt he should stop and review what he had written. Numbering the new steps, he found that they added up to twelve – a symbolic number; he thought of the Twelve Apostles, and soon became convinced that the Society should have twelve steps (Ragge: 19).

The book is a curious combination of organizing propaganda and religious exhortation. It is in no sense a scientific book.… The book contains instructions on how to intrigue the alcoholic addict into the acceptance of divine guidance in place of alcohol in terms strongly reminiscent of Dale Carnegie and the adherents of the Buchman (Oxford) movement… the book has no scientific merit or interest (Buffe: 44).

The best evidence for AA religiosity remains the Big Book itself.  

Within just the first 164 pages of text and its twenty pages of preliminary material alone, God and associated words, e.g., Godly, God-given, etc., are used 174 times. Use of personal pronouns referring to the Christian god, with the first letter capitalized, total 62 – for a sum of 236 usages in the first 184 pages. Other terms relative to the Christian god, e.g., Creator, Boss Universal, and so on, are used 55 times. The words spiritual, religion, and religious are used 142 times. Direct biblical references or paraphrases are quoted 11 times (Fox: 50-53). All religious references and words are used in a positive sense. 

Pages 171-561 of the Big Book consist of 43 purportedly true-life stories of alcoholics who gained sobriety through the auspices of AA. Each reads as a tale of personal helplessness, sin, and redemption. Each contains passages that exhort the reader to find the Christian god through prayer and adherence to the Twelve Steps.  

Chapter Four, entitled: “We Agnostics,” is a barely veiled, but direct attack, on Atheists and Agnostics. In tone, this chapter is arrogantly self-assured. It savages those who would be silly enough to use their critical thinking faculties and natural self-sufficiency instead of relying on mystic faith in the hypothetical Christian god. A common admonishment in AA circles is: “You’re a prisoner of the intellect.” This platitude springs from the visceral anti-intellectualism of Chapter Four. The unmistakable message of the chapter, taken as a whole is: Don’t think; just believe and your troubles will be solved. For those who won’t or can’t comply with this pithy advice, the message is equally clear: You are insane and will die unless you come to believe as we do. 
 
 The Big Book of AA clearly exposes the inherent religiosity of the program. But for those yet unconvinced, consider what just a few court decisions indicate. 

Fox, in Addiction quotes Grandberg v Ashland County, a 1984 Wisconsin ruling concerning judicially mandated AA attendance, the court said: 

Alcoholics Anonymous materials…and the testimony of the witness established beyond a doubt that religious activities, as defined in constitutional law, were a part of the treatment program. The distinction between religion and spirituality is meaningless, and serves merely to confuse the issue.…(Fox: 56).

A 1994 federal court case, O’Connor v Orange County and the State of California, found AA to be religious and ordered the State of California to offer alternatives to Twelve-Step programs in any state-funded or mandated program. 

In Griffin v Coughlin on June 11, 1996, the New York Court of Appeals ruled that the substance abuse program in use by the New York Department of Corrections was unconstitutional because, “after a fair reading of the doctrinal literature of AA, [the Twelve-Step program was found to be] unequivocally religious.” 

In August of 1996, the U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh District ruled in Kerr v Lind, et al., that due to AA’s religiosity, an inmate’s rights were violated when privileges and consideration for parole were withdrawn as a direct result of his refusal to participate in Twelve-Step meetings. 

In December of 1996, the U. S. Supreme Court turned down, without comment, New York’s appeal to have the Griffin v Coughlin ruling overturned, in effect agreeing with the Court of Appeals’ finding (RR-PLAN: 3-4). 

Fox again, in Addiction, refers to Ellen Luff of the American Civil Liberties Union who said that nearly all criminal defendants who fight AA attendance on religious grounds win, and that similar lawsuits don’t even have to go to trial because “the case that it [AA] is a religion is so strong.” 

This ain’t rocket science, folks. Bluntly, anyone who tells you that AA is not religious is either stupid, suffers from some sort of perceptual deficit, and/or has a certain AA philosophical axe to grind. This more than passes the crap test, and with flying colors. If it looks, smells, feels, and sounds like crap, it probably IS crap. And, legally, no one can force you to swallow a plateful for confirmation. 

Turning our attention now to the question of the effectiveness of AA – what would you imagine the “cure” rates are for an approach predicated on god-belief? Remember, AA holds that to overcome alcoholism you must come to believe in a “Higher Power” outside yourself – namely, the Christian god. What do you think? If your answer includes the word “lousy,” give yourself a cookie. Unsurprisingly, the AA religion is no panacea for problems of alcohol or substance dependency. 

Stanton Peele, in his courageously unflinching book, The Truth About Addiction and Recovery, says: 

What about joining a support group such as Alcoholics Anonymous? Here, too, research reveals the opposite of what we have been led to believe. AA is a valuable community resource for those who find support in a certain type of religiously oriented group ritual. But the best we can say about AA is that it works for those for whom it works. Meanwhile, there are plenty for whom it doesn’t work. There is no scientific evidence that AA works better than other approaches when randomly selected alcoholics are assigned to AA or other treatments. In fact the evidence is that the people who are now often compelled to attend AA --after being arrested for drunk driving or being sent by a company Employee Assistance Program— do worse than those who are left on their own (Peele: 29).

Jock Trimpey or Rational Recovery also cites an analysis of major research on AA. This analysis “…found only a .2 correlation (slightly better than chance) between AA involvement and drinking outcome.…” (Fox: 39). 

Peele, in Diseasing of America, cites a study conducted by noted Harvard psychiatrist George Vaillant, who followed 100 alcoholic men over a period of eight years. (One of the longest studies of its kind ever done.) Vaillant’s candid assessment: 

It seemed perfectly clear… by turning to recovering alcoholics [AA members] rather than to Ph.D.’s for lessons in breaking self-detrimental and more or less involuntary habits, and by inexorably moving patients… into the treatment system of AA, I was working for the most exciting alcohol program in the world. But then came the rub. [We] tried to prove our efficacy.… After initial discharge, only five patients in the Clinic sample never relapsed to alcoholic drinking, and there is compelling evidence that the results of our treatment were no better than the natural history of the disease.… Not only had we failed to alter the natural history of alcoholism, but our death rate of three percent a year was appalling (Peele: 73-74).

The chief reason for AA’s dismal record is obvious to the Atheist. Any “treatment” predicated on belief in an imaginary despot-in-the-sky must fail. We might as well turn our lives over to the Energizer Bunny. 

So let’s pretend that you’re faced with the prospect of attending an alcohol or drug self-help group. As an Atheist, you sensibly abhor the fundamentalist fervor organic to the AA approach. What can you do? 

Happily, secular alternatives have appeared and you can – should –demand the right to attend one in lieu of AA. The status quo is being challenged– by scientists, in the courts, in the arena of public opinion, and wherever people have stood up and said enough! If you are still somehow coerced into AA, you can with confidence sue, secure in the knowledge that there is a growing body of jurisprudence in your favor.

What are these non-spiritual alternatives? The groups that have, on a national scale, recently emerged to confront the Twelve-Step behemoth are: 

• Rational Recovery (RR)
• Self-Management and Recovery Training (SMART)
• Women For Sobriety (WFS)
• Men For Sobriety (MFS)
• Secular Organizations for Sobriety (SOS)
• Moderation Management (MM)

While still dwarfed by AA, these groups are viable and available, although it may take  effort to find them in some regions. Let’s take them one-by-one and capsulize their respective approaches. 

Rational Recovery: In California, in 1986, Jack Trimpey, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, founded RR in response to a perceived need for a secular self-help group. Probably the largest and best known of the alternatives, free RR groups now exist in hundreds of locations around the country and overseas. Commercial Rational Recovery Centers have opened near Chicago, in Sacramento, and in Orange County, California. More are planned. 

The RR method is completely antithetical to AA in every regard except one: both programs have total abstinence from alcohol as the goal, although RR’s emphasis on this preferred outcome does not seem quite as absolutistic. RR does not regard “alcoholism” as a disease in any real sense of the word, and sensibly asks how a voluntary behavior could be a sickness. RR encourages participants to become recovered and get on with their lives by learning to regard their past drinking as a regrettable phase of their lives now over. RR discourages adoption of the forever “recovering” drunk persona as a hindrance to sobriety. Once members have internalized the RR method they are expected to leave the group, completely recovered and not return. Great emphasis is placed on self-efficacy. In fact, the need to even attend meetings is openly questioned as evidence indicates most people recover independently. There are no steps and zero consideration to religious matters, making RR a good choice for the Atheist.  
 
RR vigorously opposes and is publicly, some would say vehemently, critical of what it terms the “Recovery Group Movement” (RGM), a euphemism for AA, its clones, and the Twelve Step-based treatment industry. Trimpey holds that there is no such thing as a treatment for alcohol or drug addiction and characterizes the entire RGM as a huge scam, peddling religious snake oil. 

Therefore, RR considers and characterizes its approach as education and not treatment. The most important component of RR is Addictive Voice Recognition Technique (AVRT). AVRT theory holds that the sole reason anyone drinks or drugs is for pleasure. Anger, rotten spouses, dysfunctional childhoods, and the like are regarded as merely the rationales or excuses used to justify drinking or drugging. 

Using AVRT, a “student” learns to recognize his “Addictive Voice,” defined as any thought, idea, or mental imagery that supports drinking or using – ever. After learning to recognize the Addictive Voice in all its forms, participants are taught to dissociate from this Addictive Voice by labeling it as their “enemy” and not their “true” selves. Mental techniques are then taught to figuratively “slay” this enemy – no negotiation, no surrender. RR members internalize AVRT so that it becomes automatic, running in the background like a computer program, unnoticed but active. 

RR is also involved in planning legal actions against the RGM, under the auspices of the Rational Recovery Political and Legal Action Network (RR-PLAN). The RR-PLAN web page minces no words:  

The purpose of RR-PLAN is to end the coercive and deceptive tactics commonly used by the chemical dependency counseling professions, and to end mandated participation in the recovery group movement and its business arm, the addiction treatment industry. In effect, the purpose of RR-PLAN is to put AA out of business – the addiction treatment business they say they aren’t in, the business of politics they shouldn’t be in, and the daily business of health professionals, educators, civil servants, and elected officials... (RR-PLAN: 1).

RR can be contacted by writing to: 

Rational Recovery 
Box 800, Lotus, CA 95651 
Telephone: (916) 621-4374/2667.

rr@rational.org

http://www.rational.org/recovery/

The group uses the principles of Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) to help members learn to abstain from alcohol or drugs. Like RR, belief in a “Higher Power” is not required. SMART also shuns the disease model of addictive behaviors. Meetings usually consist of small discussion groups that concentrate on fostering the motivation to remain abstinent. Members are taught to recognize the emotional patterns that precede drinking, and ways to change those emotions by changing their thinking patterns. Attendance may be as long as two years. 

As with RR, there is no requirement to self-label as an alcoholic or addict. SMART asserts that by learning REBT principles that enable one to change their emotional state at will, members can empower themselves to abstain from drinking or using. SMART groups focus on REBT, present-day events, and the causes of self-destructive behaviors. The object is to recognize and change those causes to achieve a more positive lifestyle. SMART emphasizes: 

• Enhancing motivation,
• Refusing to act on urges to use,
• Managing life’s problems in a sensible and effective way without substances, and
• Developing a positive and healthy lifestyle (1-3).

SMART may be contacted by writing: 

SMART 
35000 Chardon Road 
Willoughby Hills, OH 44094 
Telephone: (216) 951-0515

SRMail1@aol.com

http://www.smartrecovery.org/

...to help all women recover from problem drinking through the discovery of self, gained by sharing experiences, hopes, and encouragement with other women in similar circumstances... WFS is unique in that it is an organization of women for women... (Kirkpatrick: 6).

Kirkpatrick’s WFS “New Life” Acceptance Program contains six “Levels of Growth,” which are:  

• Accepting alcoholism as a physical disease;
• Discarding negative thoughts, putting guilt behind, and practicing new ways of viewing and solving problems;
• Creating and practicing a new self-image.
• Using new attitudes to enforce new behavior patterns;
• Improving relationships as a result of our new feelings about self;
• Recognizing life’s priorities: emotional and spiritual growth, self-responsibility.

These levels of growth incorporate thirteen total “Statements of Acceptance.” These statements are: 

1. I have a life-threatening problem that once had me;
2. Negative emotions destroy only myself;
3. Happiness is a habit I will develop;
4. Problems bother me only to the degree I permit them to;
5. I am what I think;
6. Life can be ordinary or it can be great;
7. Love can change the course of my world;
8. The fundamental object of life is emotional and spiritual growth;
9. The past is gone forever;
10. All love given returns;
11. Enthusiasm is my daily exercise;
12. I am competent and have much to give life;
13. I am responsible for myself and my actions (Kirkpatrick: 2-4)

While these Levels and Statements have a somewhat touchy-feely tone to them, WFS seems to lack or push any real religious or spiritual fervor. This writer could find no mention of organized religion or gods of any stripe in the literature provided. 

WFS may be contacted by writing: 

WFS 
P.O. Box 618 
Quakertown, PA 18951

Men For Sobriety: MFS utilizes the same approach and principles as WFS. Contact information is the same. (Note that the 1-800 number answers to WFS but is also listed for MFS in the brochures.) 

Secular Organizations for Sobriety: Also known as “Save Our Selves,” SOS came into being after James Christopher published an article, “Sobriety Without Superstition,” in the Summer 1985 issue of Free Inquiry, a leading secular humanist magazine. The article received such a good response that Christopher organized SOS for others who wanted sobriety without the god-stuff. Today SOS holds meetings in every state. SOS is a subcommittee of the Council for Secular Humanism. 

SOS adheres to the disease model and supports total abstinence as the only way to overcome alcoholism. It is similar to AA in another way: insistence on a need to self-label as an alcoholic or addict in order to defeat an addiction. Christopher describes SOS as: 

...an alternative recovery method for those alcoholics or drug addicts who are uncomfortable with the spiritual content of widely available 12-Step programs. SOS takes a reasonable, secular approach to recovery and maintains that sobriety is a separate issue from religion or spirituality. SOS credits the individual for achieving and maintaining his or her own sobriety, without reliance on any “Higher Power... (Christopher: 1).

SOS may be contacted by writing: 

SOS National Clearinghouse 
The Center for Inquiry - West 
5521 Grosvenor Blvd. 
Los Angeles, CA 90066

Email may be addressed to: sosla@loop.com. Place "ATTN Clearinghouse" in the subject line. 

The website may be accessed at: 

http://www.secularhumanism.org/Council/CouncilOrgs/sos/

- A supportive mutual-help environment that encourages people who are concerned about their drinking to take action to cut back or quit drinking before drinking problems become severe.

- A nine-step, professionally reviewed program which provides information about alcohol, moderate drinking guidelines and limits, drink monitoring exercises, goal-setting techniques, and self-management strategies. As a major part of the program, members also use the nine steps to find balance and moderation in many other areas of their lives, one small step at a time..... (Kishline: 1).

• Attend meetings and learn about the program of MM. (The MM program can be followed without attending meetings.)
• Abstain from all alcoholic beverages for 30 days and complete steps three through six during this time.
• Examine how drinking affects your life.
• Write down your priorities.
• Take a look at how much, how often, and under what circumstances you used to drink.
• Learn the MM guidelines and limits for moderate drinking (provided at meetings and in MM literature.)
• Set moderate drinking limits and start weekly “small steps” toward positive lifestyle changes.
• Review your progress and update your goals.
• Continue to make positive lifestyle changes, attend meetings for ongoing encouragement and support, and help newcomers to the group (Kishline: 3).

MM
P.O. Box 6005
Ann Arbor, MI 48106

The MM website address is:

http://www.moderation.org/

Formidable in its own right, the AA colossus commands powerful allies in all branches and levels of government, the medical establishment, and within the religious community. AA – like all religions – will fight to maintain its power. It will use every tactic and expend all reinforcements in the battle. The issue is in doubt.

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. We must demand our right to attend the group we deem best.

The First Amendment is both our shield and sword. Use it. If you go to court, you will win. It may be but a small victory in a lengthy campaign, but that is the nature of war. And have no doubt that is what we’re fighting. This is another skirmish in the ancient confrontation between reason and religion, hope and tyranny, the candle and darkness.

For our children, ourselves, for all humankind— we must prevail.

Alcoholics Anonymous World Services (AAWS). This is AA... an introduction to the AA recovery program. New York: AA, 1984.

Bufe, Charles Q. Alcoholics Anonymous: Cult or Cure? Tucson: Sharp, 1991.

Christpher, James. "SOS Home Page." 28 January, 1997. Website posting: http://www.codesh.org/sos/. Worldwide Web. (Initial Posting date unknown)

Fox, Vince. Addiction, Change and Choice: The New View of Alcoholism. Tucson: Sharp, 1993.

Kirpatrick, Jean. Women & Addictions: A Way to Recovery. Quakertown: WFS, 1976.

Kishline, Audrey. "Moderation Management Home Page." 28 January, 1997. Website posting: http://www.comnet.org/mm/. Worldwide Web. (Initial posting date unknown)

Le, Chrstine, Erik P. Ingvarson, and Richard C. Page. "Alcoholics Anonymous and the Counseling Professions: Philosophies in  Conflict." Journal of Counseling and Development. (July/August 1995): 603-609.

Peele, Stanton. Diseasing of America: Addiction Treatment Out of Control Boston: Houghton, 1989.

The Truth About Addiction and Recovery. New Yor: Simon, 1992.

Ragge, Ken. More Revealed: A Critical Analysis of Alcoholics Anonymous and The Twelve Steps. Henderson, Nevada: Alert!, 1991.

RR-PLAN (Rational Recovery Political and Legal Action Network) "Common Twelve Step Coercions." 25 January 1997. Website posting: http://www.rational.org/recovery/PLAN.html. World-Wide Web. (Initial posting date unknown.)

SMART "Self-Management and Recovery Training." 28 January, 1997. Website posting: http://www.netwizards.net/recovery/smart.html. World-wide Web. (Initial posting date unknown) Note: SMART is now at http://www.smartrecovery.org/.

Trimpey, Jack. The Final Fix for Alcohol and Drug Addiction: AVRT. Lotus, California: Lotus, 1994.

Wilson, William G. Alcoholics Anonymous ("The Big Book"). New York: AA, 1995.
 

Ron Larsen is a professional writer who is continuing to develop his skills in journalism and creative writing at the University of Nebraska. He is the American Atheists state director for Nebraska and operates the Nebraska Dial-an-Atheist^® service.