AA is Ruining the World

I was invited to the UK and Denmark to speak by harm reduction activists who are worried about the impact of AA and the 12 steps in their countries. Both Patrick O’Hare, who founded in Liverpool the organization now called Harm Reduction International, and Nanna Gotfredsen, founder and director of Copenhagen’s Street Lawyers, who run a clean needle program and other services for drug users and addicts, watch with alarm as the gains they have made dealing with addicts over previous decades erode. You see, both the British and the Danish governments are increasingly buying into the AA line that abstinence is the best and most achievable goal, both for individual addicts and for their nations. Daytona NA meetings in Daytona Beach, Port Orange, Holly Hill and Ormond.

Oddly, in Denmark, the newly-elected socialists are most susceptible to AA’s abstinence uber alles message, while in Britain it is David Cameron’s conservatives who seem to be swallowing the AA message hook, line and sinker. Politicians of all stripes tend to like magic bullet solutions, especially ones that hold out the promise that their constituents will stop taking drugs. Drinking is a thornier matter, since politicians and public health servants themselves drink, and the issue there is obviously over-drinking. (Of course, in reality, drugs present the same problem.)

Here are four reasons AA is harmful and will hurt their societies.

AA denies reality. I present data generated by the American government’s own research showing that each age cohort after the 18-25 age group has a substantially lower percentage of problematic drinkers and drug users — including alcoholics and addicts. Yet, the large majority of former abusers do not enter treatment or join AA — they have simply “matured out.” Since the 12-step mantra is that substance use problems only grow worse without their intervention, AA members must deny this reality (“All the youthful drug users have died!”). I then ask how many members of the audience have quit smoking — which they acknowledge to be the hardest drug addiction to quit. Of the large number who raise their hands, I then ask how many did so due to medical treatment (e.g., nicotine gums and patches) or support groups. If 1 in 10 former smoking addicts present raise their hands, it’s a lot. Continue reading →