Many A.A. members participate in a tacit conspiracy to stereotype alcoholics. And the picture they paint of themselves isn't a pretty one.

In the book Bill W. by Robert Thomsen, the author tells the story of how the "Big Book" got its name back in the year 1939:

Akron favored "Alcoholics Anonymous," New York "The Way Out." Another burning issue, another impasse, and one that was resolved only when Bill sent a wire to Fitz in Maryland asking him to go to Washington and find out how many "Way Out"s were registered at the Library of Congress. Fitz's reply informed them that there were already twelve books entitled "The Way Out" and, as far as he could discover, no "Alcoholics Anonymous." That did it. No drunk was going to risk being the thirteenth anything. The book had its title, the fellowship had a name.
Bill W., Robert Thompsen, pp. 285-6.

The key sentence is "No drunk was going to risk being the thirteenth anything." All I can say is: "That's funny. I was an alcoholic for twenty years, and I never had a problem with being the sixth, or the twelfth, or the thirteenth anything. And I can't think of any drinking buddies who were particularly superstitious about the number 13. So why are you writing such garbage about us alcoholics?"

I'm not singling out that particular book for any special criticism; that book is just another pro-A.A. book that follows the standard A.A. party line about everything. The Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous is far worse when it comes to stereotyping alcoholics. And Bill Wilson's second book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions is even worse than that one.

The author, Robert Thomsen, could have described the situation something like this:
"Bill Wilson and the other founders of A.A. decided not to use a name that had already been used, by other people, for other things, a dozen times over."
Or he could have written,
"The A.A. founders sensibly decided to use an original name, rather than one that had been already been used so many times, by so many other people."

Those would have been honest, factual statements. But Thomsen didn't do that; instead, he slipped a stereotyped slur against alcoholics into the text:
"No drunk was going to risk being the thirteenth anything. The book had its title, the fellowship had a name."

Notice how Thomsen implied that those A.A. members were afraid to take a risk, and implied that they were superstitious, afraid to risk the number 13. Notice how Thomsen called those early A.A. members "drunks," in spite of the fact that they weren't drunk. None of those people had any alcohol in their bodies. They were the successful A.A. members who had been sober for months or years. A.A. members often call themselves "drunks" too, even when they aren't drunk.

Such self-deprecation is supposed to be part of the "different" A.A. humor, but it's all part of the tacit wink-and-a-grin conspiracy to stereotype alcoholics. A.A. members actually gladly and gleefully participate in stereotyping themselves, because it makes them feel different from the "normal people", and special, and also part of a group. (It's a propaganda mind game called "creating a granfalloon".)

Also, promoting the idea that "we are all alike" allows some people to avoid their own feelings of inferiority relative to others in the group, and also allows them to avoid assuming personal responsibility for their past actions. It allows some people who have been really vicious cruel sickos to feel that nobody else is any better than them: "Us stupid drunks, ha ha, we are all alike, and just look at what alcohol made us do."

It's just like Flip Wilson's character Geraldine, who was always saying, "It isn't my fault. The Devil made me do it."
In A.A., "Alcohol made me do it. We are all the same because alcohol made us all do bad things."
Promoting the disease concept of alcoholism, and claiming that alcoholics can't control the disease, is just more of the same talk, just another way to avoid taking personal responsibility for one's own life.

Thus, the author, Robert Thomsen, could tell the absurd story that Alcoholics Anonymous got its name because "no drunk was going to risk being the thirteenth anything", and no A.A. members objected to such nonsense. They had plenty of opportunities to object: The author states in the forward that he knew and worked beside Bill Wilson for the last twelve years of Bill's life. (That means that Thomsen was almost certainly an A.A. member, and even worked at the A.A. national headquarters, alongside Bill Wilson.) Many high-ranking A.A. members, including the A.A. archivist and General Service Board staff members helped in the creation of the book. But it seems that none of them objected to that line about how Alcoholics Anonymous got its name because of the mental peculiarities or superstitions of those early alcoholic members. Of course not, they liked such stereotyping. Robert Thomsen probably learned it from them.

That is especially likely in light of the fact that Thomsen's book was based on a set of autobiographical tape recordings that Bill Wilson made before his death. (The Hazelden "autobiography", "Bill W.: My First 40 Years", ostensibly written by Bill Wilson, but actually ghost-written by Hazelden staff members, was also based on that same set of tapes.) So Robert Thomsen got the "Us Stupid Drunks" routine straight from Bill Wilson.

The Alcoholics Anonymous "Big Book" is loaded with stereotypical put-downs of alcoholics:

• Our [alcoholic] actor is self-centered -- ego-centric, as people like to call it nowadays. He is like the retired business man who lolls in the Florida sunshine in the winter complaining about the sad state of the nation; the minister who sighs over the sins of the Twentieth century; politicians and reformers who are sure all would be Utopia if the rest of the world would only behave; the outlaw safe cracker who thinks society has wronged him; and the alcoholic who has lost all and is locked up. Whatever our protestations, are not most of us concerned with ourselves, our resentments, or our self-pity?
        Selfishness -- self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate.   ...
  ... the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn't think so.
  The Big Book, 3rd Edition, William G. Wilson, pages 61-62.

  Notice how Bill Wilson used the preacher's "we" in many of the following quotes. A preacher will say, "We are sinners. May God have mercy on us." when he really means, "You are disgusting sinners. May God have mercy on you." Well, Bill Wilson did that a lot -- "Oh, us nasty alcoholics! We are all so bad! So stupid, so selfish, so self-seeking! We think we are God!"

• We alcoholics are undisciplined. So we let God discipline us in the simple way we have just outlined.
  The Big Book, 3rd Edition, William G. Wilson, page 88.

  That smacks of ego deflation with the intended goal of breaking down a recruit's will to resist indoctrination, and it is yet another veiled demand for surrender to the group. "God disciplining us" really becomes the group and the sponsor running our lives. Like Bill Wilson told his psychiatrist,
        [A.A. members are] impersonally and severely disciplined from without.
        (A personal letter from Bill Wilson to Dr. Harry Tiebout, 9 Nov 1950, quoted in Not-God: A History of Alcoholics Anonymous, Ernest Kurtz, page 129.)

• More than most people, the alcoholic leads a double life. He is very much the actor. To the outer world he presents his stage character.
  The Big Book, 3rd Edition, William G. Wilson, page 73.

• The alcoholic is like a tornado roaring his way through the lives of others.
  The Big Book, 3rd Edition, William G. Wilson, page 82.

• Alcoholics being the argumentative lot that we are, the A.A. membership will undoubtedly come up with a few who will dispute these figures.
  The Big Book, 3rd Edition, page 399.

• Like most sick people before me, I was implacably selfish, and chronically self-centered.
  The Big Book, 3rd Edition, page 401.

• An alcoholic in his cups is an unlovely creature.
  The Big Book, 3rd Edition, William G. Wilson, page 16.

• Many alcoholics are enthusiasts. They run to extremes.
  The Big Book, 3rd Edition, William G. Wilson, page 125.

• Drinkers are like that.
  The Big Book, 3rd Edition, William G. Wilson, page 9.

• ...the body of the alcoholic is quite as abnormal as his mind. It did not satisfy us to be told that we could not control our drinking just because we were maladjusted to life, that we were in full flight from reality, or were outright mental defectives. These things were true to some extent, in fact, to a considerable extent with some of us. But we are sure that our bodies were sickened as well.
  The Big Book, 3rd Edition, William G. Wilson, page XXIV.

• Had we not variously worshipped people, sentiment, things, money, and ourselves?
  The Big Book, 3rd Edition, William G. Wilson, page 54.

• Actually we were fooling ourselves...
  The Big Book, 3rd Edition, William G. Wilson, page 55.

• An alcoholic cannot accept the news that he's an alcoholic unless there is a meaningful explanation given, and an offer of help, such as you get in A.A.
  The Big Book, 3rd Edition, page 406.

• In A.A., I have had to be torn down and then put back together differently.
  The Big Book, 3rd Edition, page 420.

• Even so has God restored us all to our right minds.
  The Big Book, 3rd Edition, William G. Wilson, page 57.

• Here I am, a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, a Fellow of the International College of Surgeons, a diplomate of one of the great specialty boards in these United States, a member of the American Psychiatric Society, and I have to go to the butcher, the baker, and the carpenter to help make a man out of me!
  The Big Book, 3rd Edition, page 348.
  (What? If you are a distinguished doctor who has a drinking problem, you aren't really a man? Says who? Why not?
  Was A.A. co-founder Dr. Robert "Bob" Smith not a real man?)

And Bill Wilson regarded alcoholics with even greater contempt when he wrote his second book, "Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions":

• Few indeed are the practicing alcoholics who have any idea how irrational they are, or seeing their irrationality, can bear to face it. Some will be willing to term themselves "problem drinkers," but cannot endure the suggestion that they are in fact mentally ill. ... no alcoholic ... can claim 'soundness of mind' for himself.
  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, page 33.

• We thought "conditions" drove us to drink, and when we tried to correct these conditions and found that we couldn't do so to our entire satisfaction, our drinking went out of hand and we became alcoholics. It never occurred to us that we needed to change ourselves to meet conditions, whatever they were.
  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, page 47.

  "We" were really stupid, weren't we?
  That was one of Bill Wilson's stranger declarations of the cause of alcoholism. Bill had so many different goofy "causes" of alcoholism, ranging from nagging wives to instincts run wild.
  Bill Wilson totally overlooked the simple fact that many people drink because they feel bad and want to feel better...
  And getting drunk to kill pain and feel better is most assuredly "changing oneself to meet conditions", isn't it?

• Alcoholics especially should be able to see that instinct run wild in themselves is the underlying cause of their destructive drinking. ... This perverse soul-sickness is not pleasant to look upon.
  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, page 44.

• By now the newcomer has probably arrived at the following conclusions: that his character defects, representing instincts gone astray, have been the primary cause of his drinking and his failure at life...
  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, page 50.

  "Instinct run wild", "Character defects", and "instincts gone astray" -- that's three more of Bill Wilson's goofy "primary causes of alcoholism".

• No matter how far we have progressed, desires will always be found which oppose the grace of God.
  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, page 66.

• Self-righeous anger also can be very enjoyable.
  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, page 67.

• ...we reluctantly come to grips with those serious character flaws that made problem drinkers of us in the first place...
  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, page 73.

• We naturally congratulate ourselves on what later proves to be a far too easy and superficial point of view. We temporarily cease to grow because we feel satisfied that there is no need for all of A.A.'s Twelve Steps for us. We are doing fine on a few of them.
  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, pages 112-113.

Now Bill really lays on the "Preacher's We" attack ("We are worthless sinners. May God have mercy on us...."):

• ... in A.A. we slowly learned that something had to be done about our vengeful resentments, self-pity, and unwarranted pride.
  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, page 47.

• We alcoholics are the biggest rationalizers in the world.
  The A.A. Way Of Life; a reader by Bill, William G. Wilson, page 160, and
  Alcoholics Anonymous Comes Of Age, William G. Wilson, page 292.

• We never wanted to deal with the fact of suffering. Escape via the bottle was always our solution.
  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William Wilson, page 74.

• We want to find exactly how, when, and where, our natural desires have warped us.
  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William Wilson, page 43.

• If all our lives we had more or less fooled ourselves, how could we now be so sure that we weren't still self-deceived?
  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, page 59.

• As excuse-makers and rationalizers, we drunks are champions.
  The A.A. Way Of Life; a reader by Bill, William G. Wilson, page 267, and
  Alcoholics Anonymous Comes Of Age, William G. Wilson, page 236.

• How persistently we claim the right to decide all by ourselves just what we shall think and just how we shall act.   ...   We are certain that our intelligence, backed by willpower, can rightly control our inner lives and guarantee us success in the world we live in. This brave philosophy, wherein each man plays God, sounds good in the speaking, but it still has to meet this acid test: how well does it actually work? One good look in the mirror ought to be answer enough for any alcoholic.
  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, pages 36-37.

  So, because you screwed up before, you must now choose slavery, and let your sponsor and the other A.A. group old-timers do your thinking for you and tell you what to do and what to think.
  

  Notice how Wilson declared that simply using your own intelligence and will power to manage your own life and take care of yourself is "playing God". Bill claimed that God, and only God, had the right to dictate orders to you and tell you what to do with your life, so if you managed your own life by using your intelligence and will power to take care of yourself, then you were usurping God's authority. Bill says that you don't have the right to make such decisions. Then Wilson implied that you are mentally incompetent and unfit to manage your own life, so you can't do it. You are only fit for slavery. You are only fit to be ordered around by somebody else, like him.
  But who ordered Bill Wilson around, and corrected his thinking and gave orders to him?
  Nobody.
  (That's another standard cult characteristic -- the guru bosses everybody else around, but nobody bosses the guru around.)

• But it is from our twisted relations with family, friends, and society at large that many of us have suffered the most. We have been especially stupid and stubborn about them. The primary fact that we fail to recognize is our total inability to form a true partnership with another human being. Our egomania digs two disastrous pitfalls. Either we insist upon dominating people we know, or we depend on them far too much.   ...   When we habitually try to manipulate others to our own willful desires, they revolt, and resist us heavily. Then we develop hurt feelings, a sense of persecution, and a desire to retaliate.   ...   We have not once sought to be one in a family, to be a friend among friends, to be a worker among workers, to be a useful member of society.   ...   Of true brotherhood we had small comprehension.
  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, page 53.

  Bill Wilson was practicing psychological projection again. He was the one who really exhibited those characteristics. He was the one who treated other people like that.

• Sometimes, when friends tell us how well we are doing, we know better inside. We know we aren't doing well enough. We still can't handle life, as life is. There must be a serious flaw somewhere in our spiritual practice and development.
  Bill Wilson, AA Grapevine, June 1958.
  Also see:
  Daily Reflections; A Book of Reflections by A.A. members for A.A. members, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1990, April 21.
  

• We failed to see that, though adult in years, we were still behaving childishly, trying to turn everybody -- friends, wives, husbands, even the world itself -- into protective parents. We refused to learn that overdependence upon people is unsuccessful because all people are fallible, and even the best of them will sometimes let us down, especially when our demands for attention become unreasonable.
  As Bill Sees It, Bill Wilson, page 265.
  

• What are we likely to receive from Step Five? For one thing, we shall get rid of that terrible sense of isolation we've always had.
  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, page 57.

• To the intellectually self-sufficient man or woman many A.A.'s can say, "Yes, we were like you -- far too smart for our own good.   ...   Secretly, we felt we could float above the rest of the folks on brain power alone."
  As Bill Sees It, quotes from William G. Wilson, published by A.A.W.S., page 60.

• Such gross misbehavior is not by any means a full catalogue of the harms we do.
  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, page 81.

• Few people have been victimized by resentments more than alcoholics.
  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, page 90.

• Thus blinded by prideful self-confidence, we were apt to play the big shot.
  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, page 92.

• We can try to stop making unreasonable demands upon those we love.
  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, page 93.

• We "constructively criticized" someone who needed it, when our real motive was to win a useless argument. Or, the person concerned not being present, we thought we were helping others to understand him, when in actuality our true motive was to feel superior by pulling him down. We sometimes hurt those we love because they need to be "taught a lesson," when we really want to punish. We were depressed and complained we felt bad, when in fact we were mainly asking for sympathy and attention. This odd trait of mind and emotion, this perverse wish to hide a bad motive underneath a good one, permeates human affairs from top to bottom. This subtle and elusive kind of self-righteousness can underlie the smallest act or thought.
  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, pages 94-95.

•       When we insisted, like infants, that people protect and take care of us or that the world owed us a living, then the result was unfortunate. The people we most loved often pushed us aside or perhaps deserted us entirely. Our disillusionment was hard to bear.
        We failed to see that, though adult in years, we were still behaving childishly, trying to turn everybody -- friends, wives, husbands, even the world itself -- into protective parents. We refused to learn that overdependence upon people is unsuccessful because all people are fallible, and even the best of them will sometimes let us down, especially when our demands for attention become unreasonable.
  As Bill Sees It, quotes from William G. Wilson, published by A.A.W.S., page 265.

• Even the newest of newcomers finds undreamed rewards as he tries to help his brother alcoholic, the one who is even blinder than he.
  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, page 109.

• Either we had tried to play God and dominate those about us, or we had insisted on being dependent upon them.
  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, page 115.

• Self-supporting alcoholics? Who ever heard of such a thing? Yet we find that' what we have to be.
  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, page 160.

• Alcoholics are certainly all-or-nothing people.
  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, page 161.

• ...our crippling handicap has been our lack of humility.   ...
  We never thought of making honesty, tolerance, and true love of man and God the daily basis of living.
        This lack of anchorage to any permanent values, this blindness to the true purpose of our lives, produced another bad result. For just as long as we were convinced that we could live by our own individual strength and intelligence, for just that long was a working faith in a Higher Power impossible.   ...   That basic ingredient of all humility, a desire to seek and do God's will, was missing.
  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, pages 71-72.

  Bill Wilson constantly declared that all alcoholics were just as arrogant and egotistical as he was -- completely lacking in "humility".

  Watch out. That twist on "humility" is an important redefinition. It completely changes the meaning of a lot of Bill's proclamations and directives. You may have thought that all of the innocent-sounding appeals for "humility" were just appeals to not be egotistical -- appeals to quit thinking you are better than everybody else -- but now they get changed into demands that you spend all of your time doing Step Eleven, "praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out."

  F.Y.I: The American Heritage Dictionary defines 'humble' as: humble -- adj. Marked by meekness or modesty in behavior, attitude, or spirit. Showing deferential or submissive respect. Of low rank or station; unpretentious: a humble cottage. -- tr.v. To make lower in condition or station. It doesn't say anything about practicing Frank Buchman's strange religion or "surrendering to the Will of God". Bill is just playing cultish word-redefinition games again...

  But you must do "God's Will", as defined by your sponsor (because you are supposedly too dishonest to correctly hear the Will of God by yourself), which ends up making all of the appeals for humility into veiled demands that you obey the orders of the cult elders -- the group's old-timers -- as they interpret God's will for you:

  If all our lives we had more or less fooled ourselves, how could we now be so sure that we weren't still self-deceived? How could we be certain we had made a true catalog of our defects and had really admitted them, even to ourselves? Because we were still bothered by fear, self-pity, and hurt feelings, it was probable we couldn't appraise ourselves fairly at all.   ...
        ... At this stage, the difficulties of trying to deal rightly with God by ourselves are two-fold. ... Somehow, being alone with God doesn't seem as embarrassing as facing up to another person.   ...
        The second difficulty is this: what comes to us alone may be garbled by our own rationalization and wishful thinking. The benefit of talking to another person is that we can get his direct comment and counsel on our situation, and there can be no doubt in our minds what that advice is. Going it alone in spiritual matters is dangerous. How many times have we heard well-intentioned people claim the guidance of God when it was all too plain that they were sorely mistaken? Lacking both practice and humility, they had deluded themselves and were able to justify the most arrant [sic.,sp.] nonsense on the ground that this was what God had told them.   ...   Surely then, a novice ought not lay himself open to the chance of making foolish, perhaps tragic, blunders in this fashion. While the comment or advice of others may be by no means infallible, it is likely to be far more specific than any direct guidance we may receive while we are still so inexperienced in establishing contact with a Power greater than ourselves.
  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, pages 59-60.

  Notice the heavy-handed use of propaganda tricks in Bill's sermon:

  • "If all our lives we had more or less fooled ourselves, how could we now be so sure that we weren't still self-deceived?"
    == That is Assume the Major Premise.
  • "Going it alone in spiritual matters is dangerous."
    and
    "...a novice ought not lay himself open to the chance of making foolish, perhaps tragic, blunders..."
    == That is Fear-mongering, Playing On Emotions.
  • "...it was probable we couldn't appraise ourselves fairly at all."
    and
    "...what comes to us alone may be garbled."
    and
    "While the comment or advice of others may be by no means infallible, it is likely to be far more specific than any direct guidance we may receive while we are still so inexperienced in establishing contact with a Power greater than ourselves."
    == Those are Sly Suggestions, finishing up with another trick:
  • Assumption Of Facts Not In Evidence:
    "while we are still so inexperienced..."
    == As if people can only contact God by doing Bill's cult religion, and no alcoholic ever had religious experiences before following Bill's teachings.
    (But what about all of those Catholic priests who ended up drinking too much sacramental wine? Were their lives just spiritual voids before Alcoholics Anonymous?)
    == And as if Bill's Buchmanite practices actually worked to give people "contact with a Power greater than ourselves" and "spirtual experiences" and "spiritual awakenings"...
    == Oh, and who says that the sponsors really know anything about God and spirituality, and can really hear the Voice of God better than the newcomers? That's another groundless assumption. And that is quite an important assumption. If we find that the sponsors are no more spiritual or psychic than the newcomers, then that blows away Bill Wilson's whole reason for making the newcomers obey the "spiritual guidance" of the old-timers.

• Bill continued his criticism of "The Generic Alcoholic":

        We have had a much keener look at ourselves and those about us. We have seen that we were prodded by unreasonable fears or anxieties into making a life business of winning fame, money, and what we thought was leadership. So false pride became the reverse side of that ruinous coin marked "Fear." We simply had to be Number One people to cover up our deep-lying inferiorities.
  ...
        True ambition is not what we thought it was. True ambition is the profound desire to live usefully and walk humbly under the grace of God.
  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, pages 123, 124-125.

  Of course Bill Wilson was arbitrarily redefining words again. The word "ambition" does not mean any such thing.

• In teaching us his methods of prayer and meditation, Bill wrote:

        "Shucks!" says somebody. "This is nonsense. It isn't practical."
        When such thoughts break in, we might recall, a little ruefully, how much store we used to set by imagination as it tried to create reality out of bottles. Yes, we reveled in that sort of thinking, didn't we?
  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, page 100.

  That is complete nonsense, just more of Bill's delusional ravings.
  Our "imagination" was not trying to "create reality out of bottles."
  We did not "revel in that sort of thinking."
  We drank alcohol because we wanted to feel good, period.
  Bill Wilson is trying to claim that our thinking is hopelessly, permanently, broken, just because we drank too much alcohol and got sick for a while, so now we should all just unquestioningly accept all of his superstitious, pseudo-mystical proclamations, including his instructions about how to hear the Voice of God.

  Here we can clearly see that the constant put-downs are a power game, one intended to elicit submission, conformity, and obedience in the followers of Bill.

Other pro-A.A. literature repeats the self-contempt chant:

• People gave me many other good suggestions as well. They suggested that I stay out of relationships. I was young and single, and I rejected this idea out of hand. For the first year I bounced from one sick relationship to another. They suggested that I get a sponsor. I had no idea what a sponsor was and I was too proud to ask, but I was sure I didn't need one. After all, I was smarter than the rest of these people. They might need someone to tell them how to run their lives, but double vision, neck brace, and all, I was doing just fine on my own.
  Window of Opportunity, an excerpt from the 4th edition Big Book, Anonymous, AA Grapevine, December 2001, page 40.
  Also:
  The Big Book, 4th Edition, Window of Opportunity, page 427.

  Laugh Cue!
  -- Meaning: now is when all of the people at the meeting are supposed to laugh knowingly, reflecting with mirth and hilarity on how stupid we have all been. For an alcoholic to actually imagine that he could think for himself, or run his own life without a sponsor, or find happiness in a relationship outside of wonderful Alcoholics Anonymous...
  Ha, Ha.
  How stupid could anybody be?
  

• Another story in the Big Book declares:

  ...   A man calls me on the phone. Will I take a young fellow who has been drinking for two weeks to live with me? Soon I have others who are alcoholics and some who have other problems.
        I begin to play God. I feel that I can fix them all.   ...
        Nothing is right. Finances are in bad shape. I must find a way to make some money. The family seems to think of nothing but spending. People annoy me.   ...
        I'll get drunk! It is a cold-blooded idea. It is premeditated.   ...
        I cannot see the cause of this temptation [to drink] now. But I am to learn later that it began with my desire for material success becoming greater than my interest in the welfare of my fellow man.
  The Big Book, 3rd Edition, page 507, and The Big Book, 4th Edition, page 218.

  What nonsense. That was a poor alcoholic talking, not an Enron executive. And part of his problem was that he was caring for other alcoholics instead of making money, and he felt that he was under a lot of pressure and stress because of it, so he thought about taking a drink to relax. Nevertheless, the author still had to parrot the standard "selfishness" cult dogma (but only after another member told him that selfishness was the cause of his unhappiness, which it obviously wasn't).

• Terence Gorski says:
  

  In most Twelve Step literature, the addictive self is called the "ego." Whenever I hear or read the word ego, I substitute the words addictive self.
        The goal of a Fourth Step is to deflate the ego -- or, in other words, to deflate the addictive self. The addictive self is marked by grandiosity (addicted people feel that they are more than or better than everyone else) and self-centeredness (they believe that they are the center of the universe and there is little room left for anyone or anything else).
  Understanding the Twelve Steps, Terence T. Gorski, page 81.

  That whole statement is ridiculous. Alcoholics and addicts do not get high because they suffer from delusions of grandeur; they get high because they feel bad and they want to feel good.

  And Gorski gives us a grossly incorrect definition of "ego". Nobody else uses that definition.

  A more realistic definition is:
  Your ego is your idea of what you are,
  or,
  Your ego is your opinion of yourself, including your self-respect and your feelings of self-worth.

  The American Heritage Dictionary defines 'ego' as: ego -- n. The self, esp. as distinct from the world and other selves. Psychoanal. The personality component that is conscious, most immediately controls behavior, and is most in touch with external reality. Self-love; egotism. Self-confidence; self-esteem.

  So why must your feelings of self-worth, self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-respect be destroyed?
  To burden you with guilt, to weaken your independence, and to make you more amenable to surrender to the cult, that's why.

• Mr. Gorski continues with the guilt-inducing party line. (Remember that "character defects" was redefined above, by Bill Wilson, to mean "sins".)

  In completing Step Six you: Acknowledge that in sobriety your character defects often drive you into self-defeating behaviors with problematic consequences. Acknowledge that your character defects give you temporary pleasure that you enjoy. Identify the character defects that you are ready to give up. Ask for the willingness to do what is necessary to remove the character defects that you are ready to give up. Identify the character defects that you are still unwilling to give up. Ask for the willingness, at some time in the future, to give up the character defects that you still choose to hold onto. Understanding the Twelve Steps, Terence T. Gorski, page 117.

  Character defects give you pleasure???

• A rehash of the Big Book that targets teenage drinkers declares:

  We must rid ourselves of this selfishness or it'll kill us. It's that serious. Selfishness usually leads to relapse. And relapse, in our case, is often fatal. Now, we can't rely on ourselves to be rid of our self-centeredness -- it would be rather self-centered to think we could, don't you think? There's help. God can deliver us from our self-centeredness.
  Big Book Unplugged; A Young Person's Guide to Alcoholics Anonymous, John R., page 24.

  Question:

  • What study or poll found that "selfishness usually leads to relapse"? Where did that come from?
    
  • How many people participated in that study or poll? For how long?
  • How much more did the selfish people relapse than the non-selfish people?
    
  • How much selfishness was required to trigger a relapse?
  • How did they define and measure selfishness? Self-centeredness?

  Obviously, that is just a bunch of made-up propaganda, based on nothing but the dogma of a cult religion -- just some more parrotting of the teachings of Bill Wilson, which he copied from the fascist cult leader Dr. Frank N. D. Buchman, who insisted that everybody had to give up selfishness by coming under "God-control" -- that is, by becoming his slaves.

• Jack Alexander, the famous Saturday Evening Post magazine writer, and true believer Alcoholics Anonymous convert, suggested that Bill Wilson write to the condemned convict Caryl Chessman because he thought that perhaps the 12-Step program could help criminals, because:

  "There is a close resemblance between the criminal psychopath and the alcoholic mind. Both are grandiose, resentful, defiant, and hating of authority; both unconsciously destroy themselves trying to destroy others."
  'PASS IT ON' The story of Bill Wilson and how the A.A. message reached the world, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. staff, 1984, page 364.

  Wow. Obviously, alcoholics are such terrible people that they should all be put in San Quentin prison.

• And a story in the AA Grapevine tells us:

  "The First Step showed me that I was powerless over alcohol and anything else that threatened my sobriety or muddled by thinking. Alcohol was only a symptom of much deeper problems of dishonesty and denial."
  Listening to the Wind, anonymous, AA Grapevine, December 2001, page 34.

  Again we get Bill Wilson's lecture that alcoholics drink because they are dishonest. The author was just parrotting Bill Wilson's rap on page 58 of the Big Book, which declared that drinkers were "consitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves", and "naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty".

• An A.A. true believer wrote in a newsgroup that alcoholics are pretty much mental midgets:

  I'd say that few alkies, especially while still drinking, can handle the concept of quitting, even if they've tried to do just that a hundred times. Stopping... or putting it on hold for today or right now... is something we can grasp. http://groups.google.com/group/alt.recovery.addiction.alcoholism/msg/52f7483a01340ba4

  Well, since the Harvard Medical School reports that more than 50% of all alcoholics eventually quit drinking, mostly on their own, alone, apparently alcoholics really can handle the concept of quitting drinking.

• A.A. slogans say:

  "You have a thinking problem, not a drinking problem." "The only thing alcoholics do in moderation is the 12 steps!" "We're All Here Because We're Not All There." "I was stuck at stupid." "I don't have the solution - but I certainly admire the problem." "My plan doesn't work. All I want to do is get high." "Some people are so successful in recovery, they turn out to be almost as good as they thought they were while drinking." "All I want is a little more than I'll ever get." "The most difficult thing I have ever had to do is follow the guidance I prayed for." "If you think you're happy, you are. If you think you're wise, you're not." "My life has a superb cast but I can't figure out the plot." "Why don't you write and give me a chance not to reply?" "Have a GREAT Day -- Unless you don't want to." "Keep It Simple, Stupid."

• The pro-A.A. web site "Barefoots World" says:

  We each arrived at the doors of AA with an intensive and lengthy "History of Things That Do Not Work".
  http://www.barefootsworld.net/aalibertymag1939.html

  But what about all of the other things that did work? Nobody fails all of the time.
  And what about all of the people who walk out of A.A. and successfully quit drinking anyway?
  What about all of the people who quit a week or two before their first A.A. meeting?

• A story posted in the newsgroup "alt.recovery.aa" said,

  ...my sponsor shared with me that on the day he made five years and feeling a bit full of himself and a little too comfortable in his sobriety, his sponsor congratulated him and asked if he could show him those five years.
  Thread: "Heavy Drinking: The Myth of Alcoholism as a Disease", Thurs, Mar 23 2006.

• In 1976, the Rand Corporation released a report, Alcoholism and Treatment, R-1739-NIAAA, which stated that many alcoholics recovered from their self-destructive drinking behavior by tapering off into moderate drinking. A.A. and the alcoholism treatment industry were outraged. They claimed that publishing such information was irresponsible and would kill many alcoholics by encouraging them to drink and not seek treatment. They claimed that the stupid alcoholics simply could not handle the truth, so we should not tell them the truth.

  Ariel Winters reported in her book,

  In a news item in the Los Angeles Times on June 12, 1976, California members of the Alcoholism Advisory Board, who met in San Francisco, were quoted as calling the Rand Report "methodologically unsound and clinically unsubstantiated. The lives of many persons with the disease are now endangered." But Dr. Robert Moore, a San Diego, California, physician and researcher, says that he found the study was "carried out in a reasonable manner" and that the critics were merely "nitpickers."
  Alternatives for the Problem Drinker: A.A. Is Not The Only Way, Ariel Winters, 1978, page 29.

  Under the heading "Report Enrages Ex-alcoholic," Ann Landers printed a reader's letter complaining that the statement that some alcoholics can drink again was "tantamount to tossing a firebomb into a crowd at a football stadium." The irate reader went on to say: "Rand deserves a kick in the collective pants for their irresponsibility in releasing such destructive materials." Ann Landers was "horror-stuck" by the Rand release and added: "I hope that enough high-powered experts in the field of alcoholism will clobber that report sufficiently so that we will soon be reading a retraction." She blasted the report as being "idiotic and dangerous."
  Alternatives for the Problem Drinker: A.A. Is Not The Only Way, Ariel Winters, 1978, pages 30-31.

  Morris Chafetz responded,

  "The paternalistic attempt to protect alcoholics from themselves by suppressing the study's conclusions is a gesture of profound contempt that only increases the social stigma alcoholics have experienced for far too long."
  Alternatives for the Problem Drinker: A.A. Is Not The Only Way, Ariel Winters, 1978, page 33.

And Hazelden has plenty of insults for you, too:

• Alcoholics love to wrestle with authority figures.
  The Way Home, Hazelden Foundation, page 79.
  

  ("So quit resisting authority, and surrender to the cult, darn you!")

• Alcoholics have consistently poached on the tolerance of humankind.
  The Little Red Book, Hazelden Foundation, page 57.

• Arresting our alcoholism is not possible until we have knowledge of our defects; therefore, we take definite steps toward correction of our physical, mental, and spiritual disability.  ...
        The beginner cannot fail to be impressed with the array of flaws he or she will uncover and wish to correct. The caution to be observed in taking this Step is few of us are ready and willing to surrender all of our defects. We wish to cherish a few...
  The Little Red Book, Hazelden Foundation, pages 48-49.
  

  Once again, we see the medical-to-moral morph in action -- alcoholism isn't caused by an allergy to alcohol, or a defective gene, or a disease, or poverty, or even by child abuse -- alcoholism is allegedly caused by "an array" of sins, "defects of character", and "moral shortcomings"...
  And then they sneer at us and declare that we are so sinful that we wish to "cherish" some of our "defects".

• Mental handicaps stand between us and recovery. Our lack of self-criticism defeats an honest evaluation of our alcoholism. Use of the word sanity offends our false pride. We admit our illness but rebel against questions of mental soundness.
  The Little Red Book, Hazelden Foundation, page 24.

• Most of us saw our self-appraisals as exact; because we had conceded to God the error of our former alcoholic thought and conduct, we saw no need to go further. We reasoned God knew and would forgive us, so the matter was closed.
        This is sugarcoated alcoholic thinking. It follows the old pattern and is but a pretense, a new form of escape from responsibility. We must give our long-hoarded secrets to another person if we are to gain peace of mind, self-respect, and recovery from alcoholism.
  The Little Red Book, Hazelden Foundation, page 68.
  

  You must neurotically wallow in guilt, telling another person all about your sinful defects of character and moral shortcomings, if you wish to feel good?

  And precisely how does confessing your most embarrassing personal secrets to another person cure alcoholism?

  What study, survey, or poll established that we must give our secrets to another person in order to "gain peace of mind, self-respect, and recovery from alcoholism"? Who proved that to work?
  (What A.A. Trustee Prof. George Vaillant and other doctors proved is that it does not work -- that it raises the death rate, and it increases the rate of binge drinking.)

  And what happened to the slogan about "There are no musts in A.A., only suggestions"?

And it isn't just Alcoholics Anonymous that loves to induce guilt. Al-Anon likewise burdens the wives of alcoholics with masochistic self-contempt and self-doubts, so that the whole family can be neurotic:

• While the alcoholic picked up a drink and became drunk on alcohol, I picked up the alcoholic and became drunk on control and approval-seeking.
  One Day At A Time In Al-Anon, Al-Anon staff, Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc., New York, 1990, page 254, September 10.
  Also: Hope for Today, published by Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc., page 254.
  

• If you're living with an alcoholic, no way you're not going to be sick yourself. You've got all the symptoms without the glass in your hand.
  Getting Better Inside Alcoholics Anonymous, Nan Robertson, page 217.

• The longer I am in Al-Anon, the more clearly I perceive that alcoholism is indeed a sickness, a compulsion, an obsession. But haven't I, too, been afflicted with a sick compulsion? Wasn't I determined to "save" the alcoholic, and that to the same degree as he was addicted to alcohol?
  One Day At A Time In Al-Anon, Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, 1990, page 72.

  So, ladies, if you actually want your husbands to quit drinking themselves to death, you are some real sickos... You need to do Bill Wilson's Twelve Steps to Buchmanism, and get down on your knees and confess all of your sins.

• The most important thing to consider is this: Am I desperate enough to try the Twelve Steps, even if I don't believe anything is wrong with me?
  One Day At A Time In Al-Anon, Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, 1990, page 70.

  "Am I desperate, irrational, and stupid enough to practice a bunch of guilt-inducing cult religion nonsense, even though I'm not a brain-damaged alcoholic?"

• A condescending Al-Anon slogan declares:
  

  "It's what you learn after you know it all that counts."
  How Al-Anon Works for Familites and Friends of Alcoholics, Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, 1995, page 195.

• Al-Anon continues with:
  

  The self-searching suggested by Step Four is a long-term undertaking. It must go on for as long as I remain blind to the flaws which create so much trouble for me.
        I must go on day after day trying to face myself as I am, and to correct whatever is keeping me from growing into the person I want to be.
  One Day At A Time In Al-Anon, Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, 1990, page 70.

  The lady says, "Let's see now... The biggest flaw that is creating so much trouble for me is my husband's suicidal drinking... It bothers me, watching him kill himself. I guess I'd better do the Fourth and Fifth Steps again, and list and confess my sins some more..."

• We are told in Al-Anon that there can be no progress without humility. This idea is confusing to many at first, and it almost always encounters a stubborn resistance in us. "What!" we say, "am I supposed to be a submissive slave to my situation and accept everything that comes, however humiliating?" No. True humility does not mean a meek surrender to an ugly, destructive way of life. It means surrender to God's will, which is quite a different thing. Humility prepares us for the realization of God's will for us; it shows us the benefits we gain from doing away with self-will. We finally understand how this self-will has actually contributed to our distress.
  One Day At A Time In Al-Anon, Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, 1990, page 61.

  So, you got it right the first time, lady. You are supposed to be a meek, submissive slave. You must surrender to the cult. Remember that Bill Wilson declared that an attitude of proper humility must include "a desire to seek and do God's will." (12X12, page 72.) So all of the innocent-sounding appeals for humility are not requests for people to avoid egotism; they are really demands that people to give up "self-will" (taking care of yourself, making your own decisions, and running your own life) and "surrender to God's will" (as "God's will" is defined by their sponsors and other group elders, of course).

• When a newcomer to Al-Anon tells his or her sponsor about the alcoholic conflict in the home, we must realize this is only one side of the story.
        At first these reports of our grievances are highly-colored and dramatized by our confusions. A small incident may be blown up out of all proportion to its reality; constant tension, anger and frustration have deprived us of a rational perspective.
        Growth in Al-Anon brings us to compassionate understanding of the alcoholic's deep guilt and unhappiness. As we apply the program day by day, we become willing to acknowledge that we, too, must share the responsibility for the family troubles.
  One Day At A Time In Al-Anon, Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, 1990, page 162.

  What vicious, guilt-inducing lies. The housewife must accept blame for her husband's drinking? The family troubles are her fault?

  That's like Bill Wilson's rationalization that his wife Lois' nagging him to quit drinking is what drove him to drink. (And it was also allegedly what drove Bill to his mistresses' beds). It was all his wife's fault for being such a nag and a killjoy.

  Nina Brown described living with a narcissist: Off-loading Blame If your partner has a Manipulative DNP [Destructive Narcissistic Personality], you are likely to be accustomed to [his] tendency to off-load blame, and many times you are the recipient of the blame. It doesn't matter how big or small the offense is, your partner never accepts responsibility for mistakes as errors. Worse, you may be blamed for things that are not your fault or are not under your control.       This tendency to off-load blame is a manifestation of the inflated self. Your partner feels that [he] can do no wrong and is superior. Other words to describe this self-perception and attitude are grandiose and omnipotent. Loving the Self-Absorbed: How to Create a More Satisfying Relationship with a Narcissistic Partner, Nina W. Brown, Ed.D., LPC, NCC, page 123.

  And don't you just love the part about how the housewife cannot even see clearly: "her grievances are highly-colored and dramatized by her confusions" -- "this is only one side of the story."?
  

  Bill Wilson really hated his wife Lois nagging him to quit drinking and smoking himself to death. He hated her criticizing him for throwing drunken temper tantrums and messing around with other women, so he struck back at her at every possible opportunity, claiming that she couldn't see clearly, and was confused, even writing in the Big Book that she was silly, unspiritual, selfish, and dishonest, while she worked in Loesser's department store to support his crazy unemployed drunken thieving philandering ass.
  

  Like the American Psychiatric Association says: Vulnerability in self-esteem makes individuals with Narcissistic Personality Disorder very sensitive to "injury" from criticism or defeat. Although they may not show it outwardly, criticism may haunt these individuals and may leave them feeling humiliated, degraded, hollow and empty. They may react with disdain, rage, or defiant counterattack. DSM-IV-TR == Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision; Published by the American Psychiatric Association, Washington, DC. 2000; pages 658-661.

  Bill Wilson was so arrogant that he didn't consider his wife Lois qualified to even have an opinion about him, and he was so thin-skinned that he just couldn't tolerate her criticizing him at all, so he routinely counter-attacked and put her down.

  And even today, Bill's fawning followers in Al-Anon still parrot Bill's denunciations of 'the wife':

  • "You are just a silly housewife, suffering from 'confusions'...
    
  • "When you think that your husband is getting drunk and yelling and throwing drunken raging temper tantrums and tearing up the house and kicking out the door panels and throwing a sewing machine at you, and then stealing money out of your purse to go buy more booze, and drinking himself to death...
    
  • "Well, that isn't really what he is doing.
    
  • "You are confused. Your vision is highly colored. You are just a nagging killjoy housewife who is blowing things out of all proportion."
    

• And Al-Anon continues to teach, with biting sarcasm and condescension, how the husband's alcoholism is really all the wife's fault:

        Once upon a time there was an Enormous Thumb belonging to a woman with an Alcoholic Husband and Three Teenaged Children.
        The four of them lived under her thumb, so of course they couldn't do much growing up. Often their spirits writhed under the weight; every time they tried to get out from under, they'd do something wrong and the thumb would clamp down on them again.
        Father managed by keeping himself flattened out drunk most of the time; he was so cute about escaping to a bottle that, no matter how much mama watched, she couldn't catch him at it until he'd drunk himself into unconsciousness. Everyone thought she was a Very Nice Lady, and they were sorry she was having such a hard time with her family.
        There was really no reason for her to come to Al-Anon to solve her problems because she always knew just what to do about everything. But she did want to make her husband stop drinking, so she thought she'd try it. She was quite unhappy at first because some of the members were not inclined to Pull any Punches. She was quite indignant when they tried to show her what she was doing to her family, but to everyone's amazement the Thumb began to shrink and lose weight, and things looked brighter.
        More and more she realized what she was doing and, being a Determined Character, she applied the program every day and her other problems took care of themselves very nicely.
  One Day At A Time In Al-Anon, Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, 1990, page 286.

  Yes, Mrs. Housewife, you are such a bitch. It's all your own fault that your husband drinks alcohol while you keep the family together. But if you just practice Bill Wilson's 12-Step religion and grovel and confess enough, your husband will stop drinking.

  By the way, that condemnation of the wife really is alcoholic thinking codified into formal 12-Step church dogma. Some alcoholics rationalize their drinking with complaints to their wives like, "You've been nagging me all day long. I did the only thing I could do -- drink to block you out!" So, by that logic, it is the wife's fault that the guy drinks too much. And the housewives who are fooled by that routine will feel guilty and say things like, "I should't be so hard on him. He'll get over it. It's just a phase he's going through..."2 Alas, it ain't necessarily so.

A.A.W.S. (Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.) publishes plenty of stereotypical put-downs of alcoholics too (in addition to Bill Wilson's). The following confessions make heavy use of the technique of "I'm saying 'I' but I mean 'you', because us stupid alcoholics are all alike, and you also need to learn what I learned..."

• When I came to A.A. my spiritual life was bankrupt; if I considered God at all, He was to be called upon only when my self-will was incapable of a task or when overwhelming fears had eroded my ego.
  Daily Reflections; A Book of Reflections by A.A. members for A.A. members, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1990, page 314, November 1.
  

• An admission of personal powerlessness over alcohol is a cornerstone of the foundation of recovery. I've learned that I do not have the power and control I once thought I had.
  Daily Reflections; A Book of Reflections by A.A. members for A.A. members, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1990, page 11, January 3.

• It's the side of myself that I refuse to look at that rules me. I must be willing to look at the dark side in order to heal my mind and heart because that is the road to freedom. I must walk into darkness to find the light and walk into fear to find peace.
  Daily Reflections; A Book of Reflections by A.A. members for A.A. members, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1990, May 1.

• For so many years my life revolved solely around myself. I was consumed with self in all forms -- self-centeredness, self-pity, self-seeking, all of which stemmed from pride.
  Daily Reflections; A Book of Reflections by A.A. members for A.A. members, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1990, page 71, March 3.

• I allowed selfishness to run rampant in my life.
  Daily Reflections; A Book of Reflections by A.A. members for A.A. members, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1990, page 326, November 13.

• Some of us have spent many years trying not to grow up.   ...  
  Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me grow up into a happy, grateful adult.
  Action for the Day: There are happy grown-ups. I'll find one to be my sponsor.
  Daily Reflections; A Book of Reflections by A.A. members for A.A. members, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1990, April 26.

• When I did my personal inventory I found that I had unhealthy relationships with most people in my life- my friends and family, for example.
  Daily Reflections; A Book of Reflections by A.A. members for A.A. members, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1990, April 24.

• If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of the normal men, but for alcoholics these things are poison.
  Daily Reflections; A Book of Reflections by A.A. members for A.A. members, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1990, April 26.

  So ordinary people can handle anger, but those wimpy brain-damaged alcoholics cannot?

• My higher power created me for a purpose in life.     ...
  God has allowed me the right to be wrong in order for our Fellowship to exist as it does today.
  Daily Reflections; A Book of Reflections by A.A. members for A.A. members, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1990, page 311, October 29, and page 306, October 24.
  

  "Higher Power" created me for a purpose, and God says that my purpose in life is to be wrong so that A.A. can be right?
  God gave me the right to be wrong?
  That is some strange twisted Calvinism -- you are doomed, predestined to be wrong, the day that you are born. The purpose of your life is to be wrong.

  Why didn't God give me the right to be right?
  Especially, why didn't God give me the right to be right without Alcoholics Anonymous?
  HINT: I think He did.

• The last three steps invoke God's loving discipline upon my willful nature.
  Daily Reflections; A Book of Reflections by A.A. members for A.A. members, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1990, page 317, November 4.

  Such masochistic nonsense... Break out the black leather and the whips and call Donna the Dominatrix.

• When I prayed, I used to omit a lot of things for which I needed to be forgiven. I thought that if I didn't mention these things to God, He would never know about them.
  Daily Reflections; A Book of Reflections by A.A. members for A.A. members, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1990, page 185, June 25.
  

  (Aren't us alcoholics really silly and stupid? Ha ha.)

Then Bill Wilson fired some more shots at the stereotypical alcoholic:

• I thought of talking about the good old days because, you see, the alcoholic doesn't like to live any place but in the past.
  Bill Wilson, in a speech given at a Spiritual Healing Seminar, March 25th, 1954, in New York.

• Most of the alcoholics ... were still childish, emotionally sensitive, and grandiose.
  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, page 123.

  Yes, that is an accurate description of William Griffith Wilson, but not everybody else. In fact, that is exactly how Dr. Harry Tiebout, Bill's psychiatrist, diagnosed Bill Wilson: "he had been trying to live out the infantilely grandiose demands of 'His Majesty the Baby.'" Again, we are seeing Bill Wilson practicing psychological projection -- accusing others of having the very character flaws that he himself exhibited, and accusing others of committing the sins and crimes of which he was guilty.

• We "constructively criticized" someone who needed it, when our real motive was to win a useless argument. Or, the person concerned not being present, we thought we were helping others to understand him, when in actuality our true motive was to feel superior by pulling him down. We sometimes hurt those we love because they need to be "taught a lesson," when we really wanted to punish. We were depressed and complained we felt bad, when in fact we were mainly asking for sympathy and attention. This odd trait of mind and emotion, this perverse wish to hide a bad motive underneath a good one, permeates human affairs from top to bottom.
  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, page 94.

  Such a poisonous hatred of life and the human race.

  It is easy to see why Bill Wilson was suffering from an 11-year-long spell of deep, crippling, clinical depression when he wrote that.³ Wilson just went on and on, ranting and raving about how bad we all are... Poor old Bill was really insane.

• If our tempers are consistently bad, we arouse anger in others. If we lie or cheat, we deprive others not only of their worldly goods, but of their emotional security and peace of mind. We really issue them an invitation to become contemptuous and vengeful. If our sex conduct is selfish, we may excite jealousy, misery, and a strong desire to retaliate in kind.
          Such gross misbehavior is not by any means a full catalogue of the harms we do.
  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, page 94.

  This is just a never-ending assault on any few shreds of self-respect or feelings of self-worth that A.A. members may have left. It's guilt induction to the max. No wonder A.A. has such a high suicide rate.

• Since defective relations with other human beings have nearly always been the immediate cause of our woes, including our alcoholism, no field of investigation could yield more satisfying and valuable rewards than this one.
  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, page 81.

  So now alcoholism is caused by "defective relations", is it?

  Earlier, Bill Wilson declared that our self-destructive drinking was caused by our sins, moral shortcomings, defects of character, instincts run wild, instinct gone astray, self-will run riot, self-seeking, selfishness, desires that far exceed their intended purpose, and failure to practice religious precepts properly...
  What will it be next?
  (Hint: "Natural desires warping us" and nagging wives.)

Mr. Wilson even claimed that the Twelve Steps had to be written because alcoholics were so dishonest. While writing the Big Book, he had this problem:

Well, we finally got to the point where we really had to say what this book was all about and how this deal works. As I told you this had been a six-step program then.
...
The idea came to me, well, we need a definite statement of concrete principles that these drunks can't wiggle out of. There can't be any wiggling out of this deal at all and this six-step program had two big gaps which people wiggled out of.
-- Bill Wilson, Transcribed from tape, Fort Worth, 1954, was on http://www.a1aa.com/more%2012steps.htm [Dead Link]

Bill Wilson considered his fellow alcoholics to be such a bunch of dishonest slippery cheaters that they had to be locked into an iron-clad contract from which no escape was possible, or else those drunken bums would "wiggle out of" the "spiritual" work. That's a pretty poor opinion of your fellow A.A. members. How can A.A. be such a wonderful organization if the members are all so bad?

And note that A.A. was not a democracy, or an easy-going self-help group of equals. A.A. was a dictatorship run by Bill Wilson, who locked the alcoholics into contracts that they couldn't "wiggle out of".

In his second book, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Wilson even declared that alcoholics are such worthless, immoral louts that they must be beaten into submission:

Why all this insistence that every A.A. member must hit bottom first? The answer is that few people will sincerely try to practice the A.A. program unless they have hit bottom. For practicing A.A.'s remaining eleven Steps means the adoption of attitudes and actions that almost no alcoholic who is still drinking can dream of taking. Who wishes to be rigorously honest and tolerant? Who wants to confess his faults to another and make restitution for harm done? Who cares anything about a Higher Power, let alone meditation and prayer? Who wants to sacrifice time and energy in trying to carry A.A.'s message to the next sufferer? No, the average alcoholic, self-centered in the extreme, doesn't care for this prospect -- unless he has to do these things in order to stay alive himself.
      Under the lash of alcoholism, we are driven to A.A., and there we discover the fatal nature of our situation. Then, and only then, do we become as open-minded to conviction and as willing to listen as the dying can be.
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, page 24.

So, alcoholics are such bad people that they don't want to do good or be good?

• "Who wishes to be rigorously honest and tolerant?"
  
• "Who cares anything about a Higher Power, let alone meditation and prayer?"
  
• "Who wants to sacrifice time and energy in trying to carry A.A.'s message to the next sufferer?"
  
• "No, the average alcoholic, self-centered in the extreme, doesn't care for this prospect..."
• Alcoholics are not willing to admit their faults and convict themselves of sins and spiritual crimes until they are close to death.
• Only then will they become "open-minded" to the idea of joining a cult religion like Buchmanism, and "convicting" themselves of numerous sins.

[A.A. members are] impersonally and severely disciplined from without.
(A personal letter from Bill Wilson to Dr. Harry Tiebout, 9 Nov 1950, quoted in Not-God: A History of Alcoholics Anonymous, Ernest Kurtz, page 129.)

We saw we needn't always be bludgeoned and beaten into humility.
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, page 75.
"Gee, thank you Massuh. You mean that today I can grovel before you without getting whipped? You are so kindly, Massuh, even if it is just for today."

In 1955, at the A.A. twentieth anniversary convention, Bill Wilson said,

...drinkers would not take pressure in any form, excepting from John Barleycorn himself. They always had to be led, not pushed. They would not stand for the rather aggressive evangelism of the Oxford Group. And they would not accept the principle of "team guidance" for their own personal lives. It was too authoritarian for them. In other respects, too, we found we had to make haste slowly. When first contacted, most alcoholics just wanted to find sobriety, nothing else. They clung to their other defects, letting go only little by little. They simply did not want to get "too good too soon." The Oxford Groups' absolute concepts -- absolute purity, absolute honesty, absolute unselfishness, and absolute love -- were frequently too much for the drunks. These ideas had to be fed with teaspoons rather than by buckets.
      Besides, the Oxford Groups' "absolutes" were expressions peculiar to them. This was a terminology which might continue to identify us in the public mind with the Oxford Groupers, even though we had completely withdrawn from their fellowship.
Alcoholics Anonymous Comes Of Age, William G. Wilson, pages 74-75,
and
Not-God: A History of Alcoholics Anonymous, Ernest Kurtz, page 46.

Note the deception inherent in that program:

• Bill Wilson believed that he could foist Oxford Group theology -- Buchmanism -- on his followers, and they wouldn't know it if he changed the names of things like The Four Absolutes.
• The old-timers dispense the truth about Alcoholics Anonymous to the beginners "by teaspoons, not buckets." Newcomers learn the true nature of the Alcoholics Anonymous program only a tiny bit at a time.
  
• They won't find out what membership in the group really entails until they are committed members and well-indoctrinated, and attending meetings has become a habit.
  
• That is deceptive recruiting, another standard cult characteristic.

Bill Wilson even faulted alcoholics for not liking the fascism inherent in Frank Buchman's cult religion: "It was too authoritarian for them."
So, according to Bill Wilson, you should even feel guilty and inadequate for not liking authoritarian fascism -- you wish to "cling to your other defects."

Frank Buchman's cult used the very same technique -- that is where Bill Wilson learned it -- they accused anyone who dared to criticize Frank Buchman, his teachings, or his pro-Nazi politics, of being immoral and sinful: guilty of "perhaps the rationalization of some grave hidden weakness or the sin of jealousy or laziness or cowardice" -- "...opposition to Moral Re-Armament has special significance. It always comes from the morally defeated".

And of course Bill Wilson assumed that he was spiritual enough to handle high-falutin' morality like The Four Absolutes, even if the average A.A. member was just a stupid loser who didn't want to get too good too soon.

Obviously, William Wilson had nothing but hatred and contempt for his fellow alcoholics. I know that that directly contradicts the conceit that Bill spent the second half of his life selflessly helping other alcoholics and serving their needs like some great self-sacrificing saint. He didn't; he spent the second half of his life building a cult religion, making himself the leader, and making other alcoholics his fawning followers and brown-nosing slaves who supported him in luxurious comfort for the rest of his life. Bill Wilson got a free house in the country ("Stepping Stones"), a free Cadillac car, and enough money that he never had to work again, as well as countless mistresses, while he exhorted all of the other alcoholics to abandon self-seeking, to quit being so selfish, and to give up all thought of the profit motive. Bill Wilson even wanted the national Alcoholics Anonymous headquarters to pay his mistress, Helen Wynn, for him, but they balked at that one, and told Bill to pay her himself. Bill was furious at their effrontery.

The first two standard rules of any cult are:
      1) The guru is always right.
      2) You are always wrong.

The greater the guru is, the less you are. The guru and his teachings are above questioning, and you are completely unqualified -- too stupid, too ignorant, too unspiritual, too sinful, too evil, too new -- to judge the guru or his teachings. The properly-behaved followers never question the guru; they accept their subservient role.
The guru criticizes the followers, but they never criticize the guru.

But the average alcoholic "out on the streets" would not believe in Bill Wilson's grandiose delusions, or join his cult religion, or follow his orders, or even agree with him, so Bill hated them and spoke of them with nothing but sneering contempt:

Let's look first at the case of the one who says he won't believe -- the belligerent one. He is in a state of mind which can be described only as savage.
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, Page 25.

... we agnostics and atheists chose to believe that our human intelligence was the last word... Rather vain of us, wasn't it?
The Big Book, 3rd Edition, William G. Wilson, page 49.

Neither was the average alcoholic "as open-minded to conviction and as willing to listen as the dying can be" -- that is, eager to masochistically Convict himself, to find himself guilty of sins. This is another one of the peculiarities of Frank Buchman's sick cult religion slipping into Alcoholics Anonymous, again -- Conviction, one of the "Five C's".

      Under the lash of alcoholism, we are driven to A.A., and there we discover the fatal nature of our situation. Then, and only then, do we become as open-minded to conviction and as willing to listen as the dying can be.
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, page 24.

Only the truly desperate, dying people could be made to do what Bill Wilson wanted, so, according to Bill, those horrible evil alcoholics had to be beaten with the lash of alcoholism, and forced to do the good and right thing -- to join A.A., and surrender their minds to the group, and do Bill's Twelve Steps, and Convict themselves of all kinds of sins...

I have sat in A.A. meetings, and heard people share the "wisdom" that all alcoholics have short fuses, and are quick to anger, and have little ability to tolerate frustration or pain. I've also heard that all alcoholics are selfish and care about nothing but drinking and getting their own creature comforts. I've also heard that all alcoholics become violent brutes when they get drunk, and beat up their friends and wives and kids. But that doesn't match my own experiences at all. It doesn't match even half of the alcoholics I've known. It does match a rare few, but only a very rare few.

But new A.A. members get indoctrinated with such ideas as soon as they start attending meetings. You just wanted to quit drinking, and now you are being told what all of your standard character defects (sins) are? And if you object, and say that you aren't like that, your sponsor or another elder is liable to accuse you of being in denial about your true nature. Somehow, I don't think that is helpful. In fact, I believe that it is very harmful to a lot of people.

The A.A. coins say,
"To thine own self be true",
not
"Use this coin to buy stereotypes of yourself."

It's interesting to note that A.A. isn't alone in this habit of applying negative stereotypes to alcoholics and drug addicts. Chuck Dederich, the leader of the drug and alcohol recovery program turned crazy cult called Synanon, said,

"Addicts are emotional children who won't gamble. Addicts, like children, want a sure thing."
The Tunnel Back, Synanon, Lewis Yablonsky, page 398.

This is obviously false, totally untrue, and complete nonsense. Addicts take crazy chances, totally insane chances, and live lives of great uncertainty, and often lose their lives on a bad gamble, like, "I think I can do this much without overdosing. This isn't too much, is it?" or "I think he gave me smack, not cleanser, so I'll shoot it and see."

Another Synanon member echoed the attack on Synanon members:

"You lifestylers are so goddamn dumb that you think the Synanon miracle has no limitations -- not true! When you are up against nine-fingered cats like me -- you are dealing with 'damaged goods'. Can't you get that through your skull? Give a dopefiend an inch and he'll take your ruler. Bring something broken in two pieces to one of our Homer Half-Heads and say 'Fix it,' and he'll return it to you in four pieces, exulting that 'It's fixed!' It may interest you to know that management has, in fact, decided to eliminate repair jobs from our service stations. The risk is just too great. The Peter Principle of our monkies is exceeded when they are asked to do more than get the gas in the right hole."
Escape From Utopia: My Ten Years in Synanon, William F. Olin, page 139.

It's interesting to note that those remarks were addressed to the author, William F. Olin,, a "life-styler" who was a successful architect outside of Synanon -- a non-addict who joined Synanon for the Utopian communal lifestyle. And Synanon also had another member who was a doctor, and there were many more members with professional skills. But according to that condescending speaker, all Synanon members were stupid dope fiends who couldn't be trusted with anything more complex than pumping gasoline.

Such denigration of the addict is just another way for the cult or its leader to control the individual members by making them feel small and inferior. Calling them "children" enhances the effect of making the leader more powerful and the followers weaker. In some cults, like Reverend Jim Jones' People's Temple (the one where 914 people committed suicide for Jones), the leader was even called "Father," while he called the followers "my children."

Bill Wilson had the same condescending attitude towards his fellow alcoholics:

We shall have our childish spats and snits over small questions of money management and who is going to run our groups for the next six months. Any bunch of growing children (and that is what we are) would hardly be in character if they did less.
The A.A. Way Of Life; a reader by Bill, William G. Wilson, page 143, and
Alcoholics Anonymous Comes Of Age, William G. Wilson, page 233.

Bill Wilson used the same wording when he explained how everyone had to be "controlled by God", which is pure Buchmanism. Wilson denounced taking care of yourself and being free to live your own life as "playing God":

First of all, we had to quit playing God. It didn't work. Next, we decided that hereafter in this drama of life, God was going to be our Director. He is the Principal; we are His agents. He is the Father, and we are His children.   ...
... We had a new Employer.
The Big Book, 3rd Edition, William G. Wilson, Chapter 5, How It Works, pages 62-63.

But being "controlled by God" ended up being "controlled by the A.A. elders" who interpret the neophytes' "Guidance" for them, and tell them what God really says.

I strongly suspect that a big part of the reason for this "Us Stupid Drunks" routine is to break down the ego of the new convert, to subvert his will to resist. The newcomer won't surrender to the cult until he despairs of saving himself. The newcomer must believe that he is incapable of helping himself, that he is so flawed and broken and defective that he has to give up on himself, and believe that something, some Power greater than himself, like the group or God, will fix him. Many parts of the program are designed to break down the newcomer's mind, will, and self-confidence, by inducing guilt and self-doubt, and this "Us Stupid Drunks" conspiracy is one of them.

Note that there is a strong power game going on in the "Us Stupid Drunks" conspiracy. At a meeting, the speaker will denigrate himself, and list all of his terrible character flaws and shortcomings. He tells the tale of his horrible alcoholic history and all of the bad things that he did. He makes himself unassailable by doing that. You cannot very well then jump on him and accuse him of being a sack of motherfuckers. He just said that he was. But then a subtle mind game starts: the speaker implies that you are just as bad. "Alcoholics are like that," he says, and everybody around you grins and nods. (And they might say that he is being completely honest, and if you would be completely honest too, then you would admit that you also had such defects of character and moral shortcomings.) But then he claims or implies that because he has been working on the problem for many years, with the help of A.A., he has made at least some small amount of progress in overcoming the problem. But you, you immoral newcomer, you have not. So he is your moral superior, and you should surrender your will to him and let him be your sponsor and tell you what to do with your life.
(And then there is the threat that if you won't conform and follow the program, your fate will be "Jails, Institutions, or Death".)

The Alcoholics Anonymous literature teaches self-contempt and self-loathing. One of the saddest examples of this is Bill Wilson's second book, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. By the time Bill wrote that, in 1952, he was deep into his madness, in the middle of an eleven-year bout of deep, crippling, clinical depression, and he just raved hatred of alcoholics nonstop for 192 pages. He had jewels of self-contempt and self-loathing like this to offer to newcomers:

      Now let's ponder the need for a list of the more glaring personality defects all of us have in varying degrees. To those who have religious training, such a list would set forth serious violations of moral principles. Some others will think of this list as defects of character. Still others will call it an index of maladjustments. Some will become quite annoyed if there is talk about immorality, let alone sin. But all who are in the least reasonable will agree upon one point: that there is plenty wrong with us alcoholics about which plenty will have to be done if we are to expect sobriety, progress, and any real ability to cope with life.
      To avoid falling into confusion over the names these defects should be called, let's take a universally recognized list of major human failings -- the Seven Deadly Sins of pride, greed, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, sloth. It is not by accident that pride heads the procession. For pride, leading to self-justification, and always spurred by conscious or unconscious fears, is the basic breeder of most human difficulties, the chief block to true progress. Pride lures us into making demands upon ourselves or upon others which cannot be met without perverting or misusing our God-given instincts. When the satisfaction of our instincts for sex, security, and society becomes the sole object of our lives, then pride steps in to justify our excesses.
      All these failings generate fear, a soul-sickness in its own right. Then fear, in turn, generates more character defects. Unreasonable fear that our instincts will not be satisfied drives us to covet the possessions of others, to lust for sex and power, to become angry when our instinctive demands are threatened, to be envious when the ambitions of others seem to be realized which ours are not. We eat, drink, and grab for more of everything than we need, fearing we shall never have enough. And with genuine alarm at the prospect of work, we stay lazy. We loaf and procrastinate, or at least work grudgingly and under half steam. These fears are the termites that ceaselessly devour the foundations of whatever sort of life we try to build.
Twelve St