I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve heard someone speak at a recovery meeting who mentions that they stayed away from AA for the longest time because they were worried it was a cult. I decided to finally look up the definition of the word “cult” on the internet because of hearing this all too often. As defined in one of the sources I looked at, a “cult” is a group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister.
So now that I have that out of the way, let me get one thing clear, once and for all; AA IS NOT A CULT and here’s why…
First of all, AA does not have specific religious beliefs or practices. Anyone, from any walk of life, can attend an AA meeting and hold onto whatever belief they have, even if they have none. I have had friends in AA that are atheist, agnostic, Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Wiccan, Jewish, and more. And none of them have had to alter any of their beliefs to continue being a part of AA.
Second, there are no membership requirements in AA. As they say in just about every meeting I’ve ever been to, the only requirement for “membership” is the desire to stop drinking.
And third, I have never, ever, seen anything strange or sinister being practiced within any meeting I have attended in AA or any other recovery program for that matter. Don’t get me wrong, you might have to come across someone like I have in a meeting, who seems quite strange or possibly has had a sinister past but that’s about the worst of it.
I decided to do a little more research so that one might be able to see some real examples of cults in this world. The following link is to an article which lists the top ten and I encourage everyone to check it out…
Some of the common things amongst cults that I took away from reading this article is that each of them deal with terrible things such as brainwashing, scare tactics, religious zealots, having to donate most of one’s money to it, killings, suicides, and worse. AA is so far from any of this. The main reason why so many continue to flock to AA is simple. It has helped millions of alcoholics and drug addicts find something that no doctor, book, friend, or miracle cure has ever been able to provide…sobriety. The formula in AA to get there is based upon the 12 Steps that Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith created back in the 1930’s. Over the years since then, those steps have helped countless numbers of hopeless alcoholics and drug addicts like me, to find sobriety and recovery from their addictions.
Here are those 12 Steps:
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11. 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.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
The last thing I want to address is a question that often arises after reading these steps. Six of them have references to God which could make it seem like AA really is a religious organization or a cult. Again I want to stress, it’s not. The reason why has to do with the 2nd step. It refers to coming to a belief that a power greater than ourself can restore us to sanity. It doesn’t say what that power is. As the steps go on, while that power is written out in them as God, many in the meetings rooms use the words “Higher Power” instead, because of their issues with religion. For some, that Higher Power has been a deceased loved one. For others, it’s been something in nature such as an ocean or a vast forest. And then there are even those who use the AA fellowship itself as their Higher Power. The key is that power can’t be oneself since none of us have ever been able to find sobriety by relying upon ourselves.
The point I’ve been trying to make in all of this is that AA really isn’t a cult. It never has been. And it never will be. It’s not a religious organization. It’s not a place where people are doing strange or sinister behaviors. No one is ever going to ask you to do anything if you should decide to show up. The only desire any of us ever really has is one to never, ever, drink or drug again. If that’s what you want as well, then I encourage you to come check out AA. It has worked for me, and I know it can work for you too.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson