Commentary on the Triennial Survey of Alcoholics Anonymous members:
When I got sober AA was always growing. AA was under one million members. The average member was sober about two years. Less than 1/3 of AA members got sober in a treatment center; most did it by way of checking out meetings for a while and latching on to a sponsor or some running mates who were in the same boat as we were in. AA would balloon out to 2.2 million in the early 1990s. That high-water-mark has never been eclipsed. 1995 was be the year that the maximum number of members would attend the world conference (every five years, next one is in Atlanta in 2015).
While AA might be slowing down, according to the World Health Organization, alcoholism is the number one cause of premature death in the USA. Surely death from drinking is prevalent in other developed countries, too. So we aren’t running out of alcoholics. Maybe alcoholics have an ever increasing number of options.
The National Institute for Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse counts the number of Americans in recovery from addiction at 20 million people. One million of those are AA members (USA numbers). Of course many of recovery nation are sex, food or gambling addicts who wouldn’t be AA members. But it is likely that Moderation Management, SMART recovery, SOS and some of the other secular treatments are more appealing to more alcoholics than an old blue book and a seventy-five year old doctor’s opinion.
What about young people? In the North East urban center I live in, a Public Information rep for AA talked to a school board about having AA youth come in and talk to the students about alcoholism and sobriety. The PI rep was told, “We have a drug and alcohol response program here, but sorry, it doesn’t include Twelve Step programs.” A school board said, “No,” to free alcoholism education and free big books. What is it about AA that is so unattractive?
One anecdotal story of a single school policy does not a scientific finding make. But it is cause for concern. If youth are our future, under 21s and under 30 years-olds are slipping over the last three years and young people in AA have dropped over the last 30 years. Maybe that’s an issue of demographics. Maybe baby-boomer drunks ballooned youth population in the 1970s and 1980s and AA reflects the world outside. The annual International Young People’s in AA conference (ICYPAA) was exceeding 3,000 attendees and growing each year. 2,000 is what St. Louis is hoping for at th 54th ICYPAA.
These are strategic planning initiatives that AA will surely be contemplating in the years to come. Are there systemic discrimination factors that impact AA population? Cultural, gender and age related issues are possibly at play in AAs aging population? Change and Diversification were the themes of the 2011 General Service Conference. A new big book was considered in the 4th edition printing of Alcoholics Anonymous. We see the same 164 pages surrounded by a few new stories and a bright new cover, but it begs the question—when AA votes for change and diversification, why do we keep things the same?
Reification is a threat to any organization. We aren’t religious but we sacralize ritual and prose which may make us look very religious. It is a point worth asking—what makes us religious, is it how we describe ourselves or is it how we act? Why not take the gender bias out of the text? Why not find a less Judeo/Christian way to describe the God-Steps?
The rest of the world is adapting. Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD) is well known to addicts. More people with ADD become addicts and alcoholics than the general population. Advocates of ADD say that the way teachers and doctors treated this disorder when it was discovered would be considered malpractice now. In fact, it won’t even be called a disorder for long. It is one end of a spectrum but it is neither a deficit nor a disorder.
By comparison, people who are over 6’ 3” are very tall—they are at one end of the height spectrum that only 12% of people are in. Taller people don’t need to learn to be average in height. They have to live with the difference and society has to be accommodating. Everyone has some height; it’s just a matter of how much. Everyone is prone to distraction, how often and how frequently depends on if you have ADD or AD/HD or not. It would be absurd to think that better ways of dealing with ADD would be abandoned because we feared change. What if the new way doesn’t work? What will happen to the rest of us?
But isn’t this how AA feels about change? We talk about better ways to appeal to the newcomer and vote against it. Keeping things the same is ego-driven, “Nothing is ever going to work for drunks like what got me sober.” Adapting so that AA makes the newcomers more comfortable and the old-times more squirmy would hold us to our word when we say, “The newcomer is the most important person here; we’re glad you are here.”
Changing cup sizes or offering different beverages is just window dressing. A great deal of time has been spent on AA's website thinking we would increase membership and attract a younger crowd. It had no impact on youth or total population. We might want to consider getting to the heart of the matter which is then the average person in AA has been doing things a certain way for ten years, the routine has become familiar. Nothing new has been discovered in Grade 8 math in the last 80 years, but they change the text book every decade to keep the language current and keep the kids engaged.
No magic spell would be lost by changing “God as we understand Him” to “God of our understanding” or “power greater than ourselves.” The first removes the patriarchal slant; the second could open the Twelve Steps to religions that don’t recognize a deity by the name of God or title of “creator.” AA isn’t just New York City and Akron Ohio anymore. AA went to great pains to be inclusive in the first printing of Alcoholics Anonymous. Have we grown complacent since then? If you are thinking, “Yeah but it’s any God you want it to be. It can be Group of Drunks if you want the program to be your higher power,” I say lets look around us and see who is here. What we find is mostly the people who grew up in Protestant or Catholic or Jewish homes. What is it we say to newcomers? “You are crazy to do the same thing over and over again and expect to get different result.” Reification is a progressive disease too, which also may be fatal.
Demographic | 2007 | 2011 |
Non-white % | 14.9 | 13 |
Females % | 33 | 35 |
Average Age | 47 | 49 |
Average Sobriety | 8 yrs | 9.9 |
Meetings/week | 2.4 | 2.6 |
members (Millions) | 1.99 | 2.13 |
under 21 % | 2.3 | 2 |
21 -30 % | 11.3 | 11 |
31 - 40 % | 16.5 | 15 |
41 -50 % | 28.5 | 24 |
51 - 60 % | 23.8 | 27 |
61 70 % | 12.3 | 15 |
70 + % | 5.3 | 6 |
While AA might be slowing down, according to the World Health Organization, alcoholism is the number one cause of premature death in the USA. Surely death from drinking is prevalent in other developed countries, too. So we aren’t running out of alcoholics. Maybe alcoholics have an ever increasing number of options.
The National Institute for Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse counts the number of Americans in recovery from addiction at 20 million people. One million of those are AA members (USA numbers). Of course many of recovery nation are sex, food or gambling addicts who wouldn’t be AA members. But it is likely that Moderation Management, SMART recovery, SOS and some of the other secular treatments are more appealing to more alcoholics than an old blue book and a seventy-five year old doctor’s opinion.
What about young people? In the North East urban center I live in, a Public Information rep for AA talked to a school board about having AA youth come in and talk to the students about alcoholism and sobriety. The PI rep was told, “We have a drug and alcohol response program here, but sorry, it doesn’t include Twelve Step programs.” A school board said, “No,” to free alcoholism education and free big books. What is it about AA that is so unattractive?
One anecdotal story of a single school policy does not a scientific finding make. But it is cause for concern. If youth are our future, under 21s and under 30 years-olds are slipping over the last three years and young people in AA have dropped over the last 30 years. Maybe that’s an issue of demographics. Maybe baby-boomer drunks ballooned youth population in the 1970s and 1980s and AA reflects the world outside. The annual International Young People’s in AA conference (ICYPAA) was exceeding 3,000 attendees and growing each year. 2,000 is what St. Louis is hoping for at th 54th ICYPAA.
These are strategic planning initiatives that AA will surely be contemplating in the years to come. Are there systemic discrimination factors that impact AA population? Cultural, gender and age related issues are possibly at play in AAs aging population? Change and Diversification were the themes of the 2011 General Service Conference. A new big book was considered in the 4th edition printing of Alcoholics Anonymous. We see the same 164 pages surrounded by a few new stories and a bright new cover, but it begs the question—when AA votes for change and diversification, why do we keep things the same?
Reification is a threat to any organization. We aren’t religious but we sacralize ritual and prose which may make us look very religious. It is a point worth asking—what makes us religious, is it how we describe ourselves or is it how we act? Why not take the gender bias out of the text? Why not find a less Judeo/Christian way to describe the God-Steps?
The rest of the world is adapting. Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD) is well known to addicts. More people with ADD become addicts and alcoholics than the general population. Advocates of ADD say that the way teachers and doctors treated this disorder when it was discovered would be considered malpractice now. In fact, it won’t even be called a disorder for long. It is one end of a spectrum but it is neither a deficit nor a disorder.
By comparison, people who are over 6’ 3” are very tall—they are at one end of the height spectrum that only 12% of people are in. Taller people don’t need to learn to be average in height. They have to live with the difference and society has to be accommodating. Everyone has some height; it’s just a matter of how much. Everyone is prone to distraction, how often and how frequently depends on if you have ADD or AD/HD or not. It would be absurd to think that better ways of dealing with ADD would be abandoned because we feared change. What if the new way doesn’t work? What will happen to the rest of us?
But isn’t this how AA feels about change? We talk about better ways to appeal to the newcomer and vote against it. Keeping things the same is ego-driven, “Nothing is ever going to work for drunks like what got me sober.” Adapting so that AA makes the newcomers more comfortable and the old-times more squirmy would hold us to our word when we say, “The newcomer is the most important person here; we’re glad you are here.”
Changing cup sizes or offering different beverages is just window dressing. A great deal of time has been spent on AA's website thinking we would increase membership and attract a younger crowd. It had no impact on youth or total population. We might want to consider getting to the heart of the matter which is then the average person in AA has been doing things a certain way for ten years, the routine has become familiar. Nothing new has been discovered in Grade 8 math in the last 80 years, but they change the text book every decade to keep the language current and keep the kids engaged.
No magic spell would be lost by changing “God as we understand Him” to “God of our understanding” or “power greater than ourselves.” The first removes the patriarchal slant; the second could open the Twelve Steps to religions that don’t recognize a deity by the name of God or title of “creator.” AA isn’t just New York City and Akron Ohio anymore. AA went to great pains to be inclusive in the first printing of Alcoholics Anonymous. Have we grown complacent since then? If you are thinking, “Yeah but it’s any God you want it to be. It can be Group of Drunks if you want the program to be your higher power,” I say lets look around us and see who is here. What we find is mostly the people who grew up in Protestant or Catholic or Jewish homes. What is it we say to newcomers? “You are crazy to do the same thing over and over again and expect to get different result.” Reification is a progressive disease too, which also may be fatal.