Twelve step meetings have often been criticized online as cults or as enforcing a belief in God (so have the Masons, but that's another kettle of fish.) Since twelve step groups do not keep membership statistics or track their attendees so it's impossible to say how many other religion scholars have been to a twelve step meeting; I have and (for what it's worth) I'd like to offer a few observations.

(The lack of membership statistics leads me to suspect anyone with global opinions about how effective (or un-effective) a particular twelve step group is - unless they have longitudinal, statistically sound, third-party studies at their elbow.)

Note: Twelve step meetings helped someone dear to me and I went in an effort to understand what was going on. My experience was limited and local: things may no longer be done the way I saw them being done or I may have stumbled on a part of the country where things were wildly different from everywhere else. Also bear in mind that I have no background in psychology; I can only speak as a religion scholar whose real expertise stops at 400 CE.

Twelve step groups do talk about God or "a Higher Power": remember that the first of them was founded in the 1930's and that their language tends to stem from that time. Changes of terminology are discouraged so members may mean something very different from (or have a very different lived experience from) the standard terminology in their literature. They language may sound very Christian and conventional but any particular individual member may not be Christian at all or may be speaking about a deeply individual and idiosyncratic journey with the Ultimate - there are also atheist and agnostic twelve step members (they seem to understand the phrase "God of you own understanding" to include unbelief and profound uncertainty or ambivalence about the Divine.) I have never seen a particular theology enforced in a twelve step meeting; I have never seen individual members threatened with perdition or any group of members being isolated or separated from the general group as being "bad" or needing "remediation". (The warning about leaving the group seems to be based on the matter-of-fact observation that those who stop grappling with the reality that they have a compulsion will eventually face the resurfacing of that compulsion, I have never seen it used the way the threat of hellfire is in some branches of Christianity.) I have never heard of ex-members being gossiped about; I have never seen ex-members being in any way condemned, excommunicated, or persecuted; I have never seen any kind of gauntlet set up for any returning members (they are simply welcomed back); I have never seen anyone pressed to give money or coerced into volunteering their time. Anyone who set themselves up as a bigwig was immediately (fondly) mocked, anyone who had abused their term as treasurer was deprived of their position (and the ledger books) and asked to refund the money that went missing.

Of course this all takes place in a peer support group: I imagine it is certainly possible for a duplicitous or manipulative person to abuse or control a group of spons-ees, a meeting, or a group of meetings. Since selecting a sponsor or attending a particular meeting seems to be a purely individual decision, members can vote with their feet and leave that person with no sponsees, can kill the meeting(s) by not attending it, can vote in a more responsible treasurer or secretary, can hold a meeting of open self-examination for that particular gathering, can start a series of meetings focused on the application and meaning of the twelve traditions, can warn other members in that region to avoid the person or those meetings, and can appeal to the higher levels of the organization (who have little power but to de-list from the phone book a meeting that isn't following the organization's literature and organizational guidelines.)

Without taking a position on whether God exists or not, I can offer the following observation on how the idea of God seems to work in twelve step groups. God seems to act as a placeholder, as a place to put one's anxieties (in the case of a "God Box" this is literally so) and unresolved issues. In the meantime, members are encouraged to have an attitude of positive expectation, to be flexible and diligent in tackling their problems, to not pull the wool over their eyes about the difficulties they face, to meet regularly with their peer supporters (who are also full of positive expectation, encouragement, and suggestions for flexible, diligent, and honest approaches.) Members are encouraged to seek out doctors and psychiatrists if none of this avails them (and are helped by their peers through whatever shame they may feel, any paperwork they must do, or in sorting out how to navigate financial or insurance-coverage difficulties that keep them from such help.) This combination of things, carefully applied (and time) do resolve most problems - or at least bring members to a degree of resolution and peace re: living with that particular difficulty.

More importantly people do seem to learn different ways to approach their troubles (backed by the enthusiastic support of their peers), which leads to a greater degree of success, which leads to greater self-esteem - the religiously inclined will attribute this overcoming, this success, this happiness to the Divine (and who can say completely what God is or how God works?)

So I think the offer to believe in the Divine in twelve step groups is the offer to use a practical, behavioral tool - to set aside one's worries and dysfunctions and to no longer grapple with them. This frees up the member's energy and gives the helps offered by the group (time, patience, flexibility, honesty, a positive outlook, peer support, and any necessary professional help) time to work. I cannot say whether grace or miracles are objective phenomena, but I have seen members of twelve step groups change (I've also seen them relapse after dropping one or several of the helps offered by the group: the more the helps are applied, sincerely and in concert, the better they seem to work.)

In my mind, addicts also seem prone to paranoia and the sense they're being persecuted (either because of the substances they are using or because of the defense mechanisms that spring up around addiction), and perhaps think they are being picked on more than is so — some online voices of criticism directed against twelve step groups may be that of a remora being deprived of its blood. Experienced twelve step members seem to speak in limited, particular, individual terms; those who speak of twelve step groups in global or totalizing terms have either attended every meeting convened on the planet since the late 1930's or could be talking out their ear.

I can also offer the observation that the twelve traditions seem to function as an institutional safeguard against twelve step groups becoming a cult. Decisions are made by the collective membership; leaders are temporary volunteers who are forbidden from making personal, unilateral decisions. Membership is open: there are no criteria for throwing people out or for benighting or persecuting ex-members. There is no central accumulation of power, individual meetings are run in a 'congregational' structure. Financial reports are transparent and may be requested by anyone; no level of governance may accumulate money beyond basic operating expenses and a minimal quantity of savings. Treasurers are ordinary members who must keep open books and who cannot hold on to their positions in the long term. Twelve step groups cannot form businesses or ally themselves with any business, or with any medical or psychiatric practice, or with any kind of half-way house or recovery service. Meetings held in such facilities must be independent entities free to pull up stakes as they please; they cannot be governed or funded by where they meet. (And most twelve steps meetings who meet in churches do so because the church has been kind enough to rent out their fellowship halls or Sunday school rooms during the week, not because the church endorses or have anything to do with the twelve step meeting - twelve step meetings also rent rooms at community centers, fraternal organizations, and hospitals, and at club houses that they rent or buy expressly as independent meeting places.) Twelve step groups are not run by the clergy of a particular church nor by the specialists in any field: they are peer support groups and are expressly forbidden by their own internal rules from becoming more than that. Twelve step groups do not take positions on political issues and usually answer criticism with silence. Twelve step groups do not make anything of who is a member; they do not look for celebrity endorsements or embark on advertising campaigns. (A celebrity can't help if everyone says they are in a twelve step group, as a rumor or a fact; but in their own interviews they often seem to refrain from naming or endorsing any particular twelve step organization.)

If you see a twelve step group doing any of these things then they are either not following their own internal guidelines .... or they are a completely separate entity trying to piggyback on the reputation and brand-recognition of twelve step groups (for example, Scientologists hope you'll confuse the advertisements for their NarcOnon with the public service announcements of the twelve step group, Narcotics Anonymous. Narcotics Anonymous always abbreviates its name as NA, and if it did shorten its name that way it would be "NarcAnon", with an A for "Anonymous".)

Those are some of my informal, casual, unscientific thoughts as a religion scholar passing through part of our contemporary religious landscape. People who actually attend twelve step groups will have something very different to say; and if you have a problem or a compulsion about a substance or a thing or an issue then please stop surfing the internet - pick up the phone and dial a helpline or a therapist or a member of the clergy for actual, concrete assistance. 'Thinking about' or 'researching' a problem is just butt-in-chair time; go get whatever help seems best to you whether it has anything to do with the twelve steps or not.

-Kushana

(Who may have grossly misunderstood her informant whom she mercilessly peppered with questions: "Ah, I see you have coffee ... Can I drink it? Does that mean anything? How do I pay for it? Where does the money go? Why coffee? Do they have decaf?" At the very least the twelve step group gave my dear one the patience usually found among the Zuni, who are quite accustomed to anthropologists (and their questions.))

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