UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE The Twelve Step Recovery Model as an Ethic of Liberation A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Religious Studies by Patrick Flaherty Emmett December 2015 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Jennifer Hughes, Co-Chairperson Dr. Michael Alexander, Co-Chairperson Dr. Muhamad Ali Copyright by Patrick Flaherty Emmett 2015 The Dissertation of Patrick Flaherty Emmett is approved: Committee Co-Chairperson Committee Co-Chairperson University of California, Riverside ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION The Twelve Step Recovery Model as an Ethic of Liberation by Patrick Flaherty Emmett Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in Religious Studies University of California, Riverside, December 2015 Dr. Jennifer Hughes, Co-Chairperson Dr. Michael Alexander, Co-Chairperson The Twelve Steps can be viewed as an alternative medium for the transference of cultural knowledge, one that offers a different approach to constructing and maintaining cultural artifacts. Through this unique process of ethical self- examination and the resultant cessation of old modes of operating within a society that this recovery model encourages, oppressed and marginalized persons of all faiths have been given the tools to rid themselves of constructs that cause them to remain imprisoned in an existence they have participated in creating. Twelve step recovery is itself a path of negation, but not of what the sacred is not; it is rather, a path that deconstructs intellectual, spiritual, ethnic, and societal outlooks and configurations that take part in and enable wide-reaching iv exploitation of alcoholics, addicts, and other marginalized persons. This dissertation examines the impact of the Twelve Step recovery model on American capitalist culture. It takes as an entry point the contention that the particular form of triumphalism engaged in by this culture is both contributory to and a manifestation of the substance and process addictions which the Twelve Steps were designed to address. By examining the historical development of twelve step recovery programs as a response to the ethical tensions of participation in a culture of dominance, this dissertation seeks to illuminate the course of action by which the movement is involved in both transforming and reifying these structures of dominance. I seek to challenge the notion that twelve step movements are primarily effective only in bringing people back in line with the dominant ideological representation of American culture. This challenge will manifest in an interrogation of whether the twelve step movement, through its process of ethical self-assessment and restitution is converting this ideology of dominance of others (which is the dominant ideology) into a belief system based on mutuality and interconnectedness. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT iv Introduction 1 Chapter 1 – Recovery as a Solution to Selfishness 55 Chapter 2 – An Elaboration on the Theory Behind Twelve Step Recovery and a Power Greater Than Oneself 69 Chapter 3 – Recovering from “Americanism”: An Explication of The Twelve Step Recovery Model as an Ethic of Liberation, Utilizing H. Richard Niebuhr’s Ethic of Response 111 Chapter 4 – Achieving Access to a Power Greater Than Oneself Through the Use of the Twelve-steps as a Dialectic Response to Traditional Religion 139 Chapter 5 – One Alcoholic Talking to Another: The Beginning of the Solution 154 Chapter 6 – Why the Twelve Step Model Works 199 Chapter 7: Conclusion 237 Bibliography 267 Appendices Appendix A: The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous 275 Appendix B: The Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous 276 vi Introduction “Society, in referring to the alcoholic, employs the expression 'the enslavement of alcohol.' For the A.A. member, this statement is in a very special sense paradoxical too, if indeed it is true at all. In sober fact, the member was never enslaved by alcohol. Alcohol simply served as an escape from personal enslavement to the false ideals of a materialistic society. Yet if we accept society's definition of the alcoholic's earlier state as enslavement by alcohol, the AA member can no longer resent it, for it has served to set him free from all the materialistic traps with which the paths through the jungle of our society are set. For the alcoholic first had to face materialism as a disease of society before he could free himself of the illness of alcoholism and be free of the social ills that made him an alcoholic. Men and women who use alcohol as an escape are not the only ones who are afraid of life, hostile to the world, fleeing from it into loneliness. Millions who are not alcoholics are living today in illusory worlds, nurturing the basic anxieties and insecurities of human existence rather than face themselves with courage and humility. To these people, AA can offer as a cure no magic potion, no chemical formula, no powerful drug. But it can demonstrate to them how to use the tools of humility, honesty, devotion, and love, which indeed are the heart of the Twelve Steps of our recovery.” –Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age: A Brief History of A.A., Alcoholics Anonymous World Services (author), New York:Alcoholics Anonymous World Services (publisher) 1957. Do you find yourself unable to avoid consuming a substance or engaging in an activity that you are absolutely certain is harmful for you? Do you need help overcoming a particular nasty habit or negative way of thinking or living? Are you powerless over these things? Have you lost the power to choose whether or not to engage in these activities? If your answer is no, consider yourself to be very fortunate (or possibly, in deep denial). Alas, for 1 many people, the answer to these questions is yes. For these people, life has become hellish to an ever-increasing extent. Not everyone is at the hellish point, but if the following demographic statistics are any indication, many more are well on their way to such a condition. The use of alcohol has been a part of American culture from its colonial beginnings, and there are few signs that this phenomenon is dissipating. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, from a study completed in 2013, nearly 90% of people ages 18 or older reported that they drank alcohol at some point in their lifetime; within the last year reported, 70% drank at least once, and almost 60%reported drinking within the last month. Many people engage in what is called binge drinking, or drinking so much in such a concentrated time period (about 2 hours) that one’s blood-alcohol level reaches .08, which is the legal limit in most states. (National Institute of Health-National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism March 2015) These figures are for one substance, alcohol, arguably the most abused substance in American society, but hardly 2 the only one. A human being can become addicted to almost any substance or activity, from alcohol and drugs, to gambling, sex, shopping, food; the list is extensive. People lose the power to choose whether or not to use the substance or engage in the activity. So again, if your answer to the questions above regarding your own powerlessness is that you are not, consider yourself blessed. But, if your answer to the same question is ‘yes, I am unable to choose whether or not to do these things safely,’ you may benefit, as millions of people have, from participating in a Twelve Step Recovery program. In this dissertation you will learn about the Twelve Steps, how they were developed and initially implemented within the context of the fellowship known as Alcoholics Anonymous (the original Twelve Step Recovery fellowship). For those who are not at all familiar with these Steps I am presenting them here in this introduction: 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. 3 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 to such people 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 practice these principles in all our affairs. (Anonymous 59-60) This dissertation will also explore the notion that putting these Steps to practice in one’s life, whether one is an alcoholic or suffers from any other possible addiction(s)(as many people suffer from more than one) serves to transform the life of that practitioner, and that this transformation, in turn, by its very nature as a shared practice with fellow sufferers, has the potential to 4 implement further transformation at the societal level. In effect, the Twelve Steps as they are embodied in their various manifestations (over 200 groups now use the Twelve Steps), can be said to serve as a collective social movement. The thesis of this dissertation is that the Twelve Step Recovery Model is an ethic of liberation from addiction, but even more so from the underlying selfishness and materialism that lies at the root of addiction.