I'd love to hear any peoples thoughts, views, and especially their experiences with the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, specifically with the program of recovery as outlined in the main text, as well as perhaps discussing the common misconceptions so often heard in conjunction with AA.

The Twelve Steps:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.

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

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

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

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

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

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

9. Made direct amends wherever possible except when to do so would injure them or others.

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

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

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practise these principals in all our affairs.

The deepest and most permanent changes comes when people learn to have faith and belief in a "higher power" - does not have to be God. This higher power could be an ideal like 'democracy and freedom' for for the United States during the Revolutionary War; a "mission" for the "Good to Great" and "Excellent" companies; "victory" for a soccer team, and so on.

Placebos work 35% of the time to cure physical ailments. Placebos use faith and belief. So does Alcoholics Anonymous. This is a good thing. This is praise worthy and I hope science digs deeper into this.

My view is that this is all physical, psychological, and biological. Spirituality - the act of trusting something bigger than us - is all in our minds and our bodies.

I have never been to AA, but I've had a drinking problem in the past. I always found their steps to be a bit redundant. I went several years without drinking, but now I have a drink now and again, something that AA does not condone, afaik.

From what I understand, the best thing about AA, besides the community of help, is that you make your problem official, which is one of the hardest parts of substance abuse, imo.

Humility, honesty, and self awareness will take you a long way. You don't need to go to AA, or church, or therapy to access these tools. They are always available.

I went to aa meetings with someone and was shocked that the meeting ended with The Lord's Prayer

In general I think a belief in powerlessness is incredibly dangerous to teach an addict. In that sense I think AA is catastrophic.

Luckily, most people probably don't pay all that much attention and instead use AA mostly for social support and as a place to learn specific behavior. in that sense AA is probably pretty decent.

You can change addict to human being and AA to religion in your quote. Humility is healthy but submissiveness is not.

I don't know how it compares to other methods in terms of results but I've heard not that well. I've also heard it said that a large problem lies in their reporting as they consider commitment to AA a life long deal. As such, the program never fails. If a person stops going to AA or disputes the concepts, then they have failed to "complete" the program.

But mostly, it's that the tents are arbitrary. I don't think there's any justification to them as concepts.

Why are you powerless? What is it about the unnamed "higher power" that has any control over you?

I don't think there's any strong evidence that these things are required. And this isn't to say that AA isn't effective, just that it's not shown to be more effective than other arbitrarily formed programs. It's not a particularly good approach to the problem.

This "higher power" is your subconscious mind. "God", "higher power", "the Universe", and "universal consciousness" are just metaphors of the person's subconscious mind, which is very powerful. While the conscious mind can only focus on 7 bits of info at a time, the subconscious mind can focus on 2,000 bits.

When you trust a higher power, you are not being powerless.

Then why say "higher power" at all?

And why suggest that our "subconscious mind" is good at quitting alcohol?

Currently at the 49th National Convention of Alcoholics Anonymous in Adelaide, Australia. It's the second day, so far it's excellent. Look forward to writing about it later.

This is like exactly the opposite of how I would begin to design an addiction recovery program. I would want to emphasize that people DO have the power to change their lives and fight their addiction, and this program is going to help teach them the skills to be able to do that. But that the strength and capacities are drawn from the individual and the community, not helplessly thrown to the whims of some capitalized word.

I'll admit to not have an intimate knowledge of 12-step programs, but my understanding is that 12-step programs are geared towards people who have tried and tried, but have not broken their addiction. In a sense, the admission of powerlessness is a relief of the burden of repeated failure, thus clearing the slate for a new set of (primarily external) mechanisms to be developed.

I understand the opposite angle as well, and think that (with addiction programs in general) the best approach depends on the individual's history, personality, and proclivities.

No objection to this, and its probably pretty important to recognize past failures, to remove personal shame and judgement over said past failures, and to take a new approach with a new set of mechanisms. My objection is to the idea that the individual themselves are powerless to make the changes, that their only hope lies in submitting to some amorphous deity. I would aim to empower people to move on from their past failures by giving them tools they can personally use (such as the kind of community support structures and tactics like righting past wrongs that AA and others offer) to make an actual difference in their lives.

That said, religion is clearly a very powerful effect whether that is placebo or other psychological processes. So perhaps a 12 step program where half the steps are basically just appeals to God is going to be incredibly effective for wide swathes of the believing population. My guess is that AA is probably moderately less effective than it could be and harmed by its religious baggage even despite the above qualifier...but I have no idea if this is born out in studies and the like.

Do they call it the AAAA in Adelaide, Australia?