“A lot of kids don’t make it in AA ” according to Jack who runs Las Vegas AA because they are kids. Actually Alcoholics Anonymous fails teenagers in so many ways. AA actually does not have any meetings just for minors. The ones that are called young peoples meetings actually have a lot of adults into their 30’s and older. AA Public Relations department likes to give the public the impression they have meetings for minors. But the hard cold truth is they do not!
AA mixes minors with all ages of alcoholics, including those convicted of violent felons and sexual offenses like rape and sexual predators that have sexually assaulted children.
In fact AA is well aware of the sex abuse by AA members on minors attending their meetings. Yet headquarters has voted to not do anything to prevent it. They just continue to encourage minors to come to all meetings regardless of safety issues. No one is in charge in AA. I mean no one.
Teen substance abuse: Lots of questions, no easy answers
With a Propel bottle full of Malibu rum in her bag, Leticia sat through high school programs that warned her about the dangers of drinking.
But her spiral into alcoholism, then drug addiction, began years earlier.She was 8. She walked in on her dad having sex with her nanny on the family room floor. He begged Leticia not tell her mom, but she did. The nanny was fired, and her parents stayed together. Leticia, now 22, started her story there. She didn’t exactly know why. It just felt connected to her alcoholism and marked when she started feeling “yucky”.
snip
The fall into drugs can be effortless for some teens, said Jack, manager of Las Vegas AA and a member for 43 years. A lot of kids don’t make it in AA “because they’re kids,” he said. But, “Every once in a while, you get one who runs against a brick wall and says, ‘That’s it.’ ”
Rest of story-
http://www.lvrj.com/news/teen-substance-abuse-lots-of-questions-no-easy-answers-159339725.html
Predators Lurk In Alcoholics Anonymous- By Dan Holmes
The structure of AA actually serves to help the individual who wants to prey on people. New members are encouraged to seek out a “sponsor”, a person who has been clean and sober for some time and knows the 12-step program. This person must be of the same sex. This is ostensibly to prevent men from preying on women, but same sex predators can – and do – exploit the AA system.
But more sickening than this is the way the AA predator exploits the new AA member (called “newcomers”) by pouncing on them when they are most vulnerable. Most newcomers in the Traverse City recovery community are either in a rehab clinic or have recently completed one. Their last drink is only days or weeks removed from them. Their mental state is fragile. They’ve just recently lost jobs, spouses, and families because of their drinking. They may have been in jail. These people have “hit their bottom” and predators seize on this.
While Glenn is portraying himself as a sponsor with almost encyclopedic knowledge of “The Big Book” he’s also plying a few of his young sponsees with gifts, a bed, and alcohol.
“I’ve been to meetings where [an individual] will seat himself near newcomers he’s never seen before,” says one AA regular. “[They] want to meet as many young people as possible. The motive is clear and it has [absolutely nothing] to do with [AA’s 12] steps.”
Glenn is a master showman, a charlatan of the highest order. In AA meetings he sits humbly, striking an innocent pose. When he shares during the meetings he uses the standard AA vernacular: he speaks of himself in third-person, and uses biblical references and canned sayings. The phrases add to the mind-controlling ritual that an AA meeting can become for those who are in a fragile mental state.
“These people are just off the streets, they’re hungry for someone to care for them to tell them they’re going to be alright,” says Drew, an AA old timer from Acme who attends 4-5 meetings a week. “If an older man takes them under their wing, gives them rides to meetings, maybe some spending cash, they are influenced by that person. I’m not saying every sponsor is like that, [they’re not], but there are those, and Glenn is one of them, who take advantage of these people. It’s sickening.”
Ironically, the regulars in the AA community are usually aware of who the predators are, in fact Glenn came under scrutiny from a local AA chapter, when their leadership council voted to ban him from their meeting place after accusations of inappropriate behavior with sponsees.
“It wasn’t about homosexuality,” says an AA regular who was present at the meeting to ban Glenn, “it was about an AA member misusing the program to prey on people in a desperate situation.”
Indeed, if a program had a pattern of men preying on young women in a desperate state, it would be criticized, perhaps investigated by authorities. But AA has not, as it is an autonomous organization with very loose and cryptic leadership policies. Despite the rumors that people like Glenn prowl in the Traverse City AA community, the 86th District Court continues to order convicted drunk drivers and others to attend meetings.
After Glenn was banned from that AA location, a general meeting was held which drew a standing-room-only crowd and resulted in heated debate. Glenn admitted he had engaged in homosexual behavior in his past but denied inappropriate actions with members of AA. Many were unconvinced, but the crowd voted to allow Glenn back in the meetings. One member said, “Who are we to exclude anyone? Our program teaches us to be inclusive.”
But that member seemed to ignore the fact that members are encouraged to match up with a sponsor, and if predators like Glenn are waiting to take advantage of the vulnerable, it’s a dangerous situation.
For many, especially the newcomers, an AA meeting replaces the ritual of the bar. Instead of beer and liquor, the members slurp coffee and suck down cigarettes. Instead of telling the same old stories slumped over a barstool, AA members recite the serenity prayer and the 12 steps. Instead of embarrassing themselves with drunken behavior, AA members retell their drinking stories, almost bragging of their exploits.
It’s in this atmosphere that Glenn does what he does – attract young alcoholics with his promises. To some Glenn seems like a hero, a savior to these young men. There was a time when Glenn was asked by the 86th District Court to actually teach a course on AA, a course required for participants in the Sobriety Court. Glenn greets people at his church, he’s chaired meetings in the county jail, and he visits recovering alcoholics at Munson Medical Center. It’s not exactly clear how much of his “service work” is genuine, if any at all.
But if there are any people Glenn actually helps in the AA community in Traverse City, it doesn’t matter to those addicts like Christopher, who have prostituted themselves to Glenn in exchange for alcohol and other favors. As long as the Christopher’s are out there, Glenn will hover near them, offering his brand of recovery.
http://www.danholmes.com/essays/predators-lurk-in-alcoholics-anonymous/
The young people’s meetings I went to all over Los Angeles featured a revolving cast of men that I would call perverts. They weren’t the obvious kind of creeps, either, with windowless white vans and long trench coats. They looked like everyone else at the meetings: tattooed and cool and smoking cigarettes. These men swarmed me, as they did every other newcomer too young and inexperienced to distinguish between the loving hand of AA and the clammy hand of a predator. They welcomed me to the meetings, they gave me over-long hugs, they offered me smokes when I was still too young to buy my own. I felt absolutely enveloped by the program. I had never had so many people pay attention to me in my life. But what I thought of as harmless flirting—and all flirting is harmless when you’re 17 and your curfew is 10 pm—these men rightly interpreted as vulnerability.