The Culty Magic of 12-Step Programs

What the church can learn from the alcoholics in the basement

Photo by adrianna geo on Unsplash

Six years ago, my therapist started hinting that I might benefit from joining a 12-step support group for family members of alcoholics. Whenever she brought it up, I politely declined—the whole concept was off-putting: I imagined a bunch of sad sacks who sat around complaining and drinking bad coffee. My own judginess aside, my family’s substance use disorder was something I could barely admit to myself, let alone a room full of strangers. A large part of me believed their disease was my fault. In my family, I was the only daughter and the big sister. Surely if I could be protective enough or caring enough, they would be able to overcome this problem. If only I could find the right words, gift the right self-help book, grit my teeth through another meandering, drunken phone call, surely they would quit and we would be the perfect family.

Then I got the call. Spontaneous phone calls from my family tie my stomach in knots. Is someone going back to rehab? Is someone dead? This time it was just my parents canceling their Thanksgiving visit due to a family member’s dangerous drinking. I hung up, turned on a movie for my kids, ordered a pizza, and gave myself over to grief, crying for hours. Forget a perfect family, I just wanted one that wasn’t in danger of drinking themselves to death.

That was when I knew I needed to talk to someone who understood. The Tuesday after Thanksgiving, I programmed my GPS with shaking hands and navigated to an odd little building. I was late. Sneaking into the circle of folding chairs, I’d never felt more conspicuous in my life—as if I’d been branded with a scarlet A for “alcoholism.”

The meeting’s structure was reminiscent of a church service. There were readings and an invitation to recite The Serenity Prayer. The 12 steps (which we read aloud) included things like confession and amends-making. There was lots of talk about it being a “spiritual program,” along with directives that it was not associated with any particular religion or faith.

In fact, AA, the first 12-step program, grew out of The Oxford Group, an early 20th century attempt at moral revival closely linked to the Methodist Holiness Movement. Its founder, Frank Buchman, believed that people could change their lives by surrendering their wills to God. What started as a movement for moral revival was later applied to alcoholics, where it found modest success. (Though, I should note here that statistics on AA’s efficacy are notoriously shifty.) Given my background, it’s perhaps ironic that learning this history made me feel more, not less, suspicious of the program. “Surrendering to God” often feels like Christian code for trying to stop being a human with needs and instead become an empty vessel for God’s will (or whatever your pastor/Christian radio/the latest hit devotional book is telling you is God’s will.) As I wrote about last week, the level of self-abnegation so often preached feels deeply unhealthy to me.

That first night I could see why 12-step groups have a reputation for being cult-like. We read a passage from the “big book” about the program not working not due to the program’s flaws, or due to differences in people’s needs, but because of its members failing to “do the work.” At this point, I half-expected a Netflix documentary crew to rush in and present us alongside the Rajneeshees. I’ve been around the block enough times to be deeply suspicious of any ideological cure-all.

Then came the sharing time. Addiction is a disease of shame, and too often loving an addict means keeping someone’s secrets. This becomes incredibly isolating. After years of shameful silence, admitting these experiences aloud and seeing recognition dawn on the faces around you is life-changing. The big book describes it aptly as realizing we don’t suffer from “terminal uniqueness.” When I talked about my canceled Thanksgiving, nobody was scandalized, nobody looked down on me. Their empathy came from a place of shared experience.

And while the literature occasionally makes me cringe, there is (at least in the groups I’ve participated in) full permission to disagree. The program emphasizes each person exploring their own path, and therefore it’s not only allowed but recommended that each person take what works for them and leaves the rest. Admitting to this sort of “cherry picking” is likely to get you run out of many churches (although I’d argue that all Christians do it.)

This ethos of self-guidance extends to sharing. When someone shares their experiences in a meeting, members are instructed to listen, not interrupt, comment on, or refer to what another person shares. If I disagree with what someone says, I remind myself, “this is true for them at the moment. It’s not my job to convince them otherwise.” We don’t have to like what they say, but we do have to focus on ourselves and our own spiritual journey rather than trying to police what someone else thinks.

I think the church could benefit greatly from these more hands-off practices, which encourage each person to engage honestly with their own journey rather than trying to conform to the beliefs of others.

While I love these practices, there’s still this “higher power” business. That’s what 12-Step groups are all about, right? In the first three steps alone, I’m supposed to admit powerlessness and surrender to a higher power. Hackles thus raised, I asked other members what they made of this. For some, a higher power means their best self, for others, the group became a higher power of sorts as they aimed to follow the principals learned there. Still others thought of a higher power like the universe, admitting that much of life comes down to random chance. Some people imagine a higher power of their own creation, like a cosmic cookie-baking grandma. And others followed more traditional faiths—Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism. The beauty of the “live and let live” mentality shines here: nobody is trying to convince each other their higher power is the correct one; instead, trusting that others will figure things out for themselves.

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been in this program for five years now. This work (combined with therapy and several shelves worth of reading) has empowered me to no longer be a doormat. I still grieve my family, but I also accept that I am powerless over their addiction—I didn’t cause it and I can’t cure it. It is up to me to protect and care for myself, first and foremost. Learning to do that has rippled out to change all of my relationships for the better. These changes in themselves feel, dare I say, miraculous?

As to the higher power stuff, I’m still experimenting: sometimes thinking of God, sometimes addressing my Serenity Prayer to my best self. These meetings haven’t replaced church for me entirely, there are still things I crave from the Christian rituals, but as models for community and acceptance, there’s a lot to recommend them.

Journal/discussion Prompts:

• How does the concept of “surrender” sit with you? Are there forces/things/God(s) you surrender to?

• Do you believe in a “Higher Power”? If so, what?

• Which cults are your personal favorites? (Bonus points if there’s an associated documentary or podcast)