Overcoming Your Alcohol, Drug and Recovery Habits by James DeSena

Overcoming Your Alcohol, Drug & Recovery Habits: An Empowering Alternative to A.A. and 12-Step Treatment, James DeSena. Tuscon AZ: See Sharp Press, 2002. e-book, 200 pps.


     James DeSena does not like Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't mind that but some folks will. If the idea that twelve step programs may not be for everyone threatens you, you do not have to cause yourself distress by reading this blog post or by thumbing through the book being reviewed. By all means, quit reading this post now. It's alright. Really.


     One thing that James DeSena does particularly well in Overcoming Your Alcohol, Drug & Recovery Habits is identifying the pattern of treatment, relapse, self-mortification, more treatment... that some addicts get sucked into. This is a problem that the addictions treatment industry is ignoring-- at least in the United States. By and large, twelve step ideology has dominated treatment. And joining one of the twelve step programs may not be the best idea for every single addict that has ever graced the halls of rehab centers across America.

     If someone with a sincere desire to become abstinent is an atheist or a polytheist, the addictions treatment industry does that person a dis-service by insisting that he or she find a capital H Higher capital P Power "of their understanding." The A.A. literature makes it abundantly clear that the Higher Power is male, probably Christian, and part of the patriarchy. Bill Wilson engages in a bait-and-switch technique known to sales people in the Big Book. People are told they can use anything for their Higher Power-- from a dog to a tree to nature. DeSena illustrates how the steps sound when you make your beloved canine your Higher Power. You have to admit your defects of character to your dog and another human being in step five. You have to seek the will of your dog for your life through prayer and meditation in step eleven. Hmmm. Something about that doesn't work. Bill Wilson was a salesman as well as a Methodist. Both of these two factoids show in his writing-- any writing he did that is not plagiarized from the Oxford Group that is.

     James DeSena offers his thoughts on a Higher Power substitute. He calls it your Heightened Perception. From there, he covers the troubling concept of powerlessness, the Parasite, relapse triggers, co-dependency, and true freedom. An appendix provides contact info for alternatives to twelve step meetings.

sapphoq reviews says: James DeSena has written a valuable addition to recovery literature. Although repetitive in spots, the writing was competent and easy-to-understand without being insulting. The one chief fault is his coverage of self-esteem. Self-esteem, properly understood, is indeed valuable to someone seeking abstinence. I suggest that the atheist in particular will find the writings of Nathaniel Branden to be helpful. In spite of inadequate coverage of self-esteem, I liked Overcoming Your Alcohol, Drug & Recovery Habits . Highly recommended to any who have an interest in addictions and addictions treatment as well as to those who are not doing well in a twelve step program.

Alcoholics Anonymous: Cult or Cure? by Charles Bufe

Alcoholics Anonymous: Cult or Cure?, Charles Bufe. Tuscon AZ: See Sharp Press, 1997 (revised). 208 pps.


For those who are unfamiliar with See Sharp Press, the company self-describes as a "Publisher of anarchist, atheist, music, and science fiction books." Anyone expecting essays that are unabashedly 'pro-Alcoholics Anonymous' should look elsewhere for reading matter. Those in recovery who are willing to concede that twelve step programs may not be the only way to recover or the best way for all addicts to find recovery should consider reading this book.

A.A. does have some characteristics of a cult. And while A.A. has been successful some of the time, there are some alcoholics who do not recover in a 12 step program. Some atheists who come into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous [and other programs using the 12 steps] do find some sort of higher power. Others do not. A few believers who come into the rooms discover after a time that they no longer believe. 

While the rehab market has almost entirely bought into the "Higher Power" stuff, I suggest that a disservice is being done to two sets of their clients. There are some people who are atheist and/or agnostic in orientation. They have carefully evaluated a variety of religions and religious thought. They are sincere about their non-theism and ought not to be pressured by clinical staff into accepting a brand of spirituality that is not genuine to who they are as human beings. There are others who are marked by their beliefs and their religious practices as belonging to the label 'fundamentalist.' Fundamentalist Christians, the born-againers, and those who accept a literal interpretation of their holy literature-- whether Christian, Muslim, or Jewish or other-- will find that the 12-step version of a Higher Power pales in comparison to what they are used to. Additionally, the emphasis by professionals and by folks who bring meetings into the institution on 'keeping an open mind' is something that neither the non-theist nor the fundamentalist will relate to. Are these people to be lost to their addictions?

New Agey 'feel-good' affirmations are not appropriate to offer to an atheist or to a fundamentalist in early recovery. The pop psychology brand of 'treatment' replete with New Age trappings like affirmations, yoga, showing of the film The Secret, lectures on The Course in Miracles or attendance at a Unity service, a strong insistence that 'there are no true coincidences and all of the rest are foreign to both groups. The interesting thing about James Christopher's S.O.S. secular sobriety groups is that both atheists and fundamentalists have found some common ground there. One set of members don't have any sort of gods or higher powers. The other set recognize a very specific God and don't want their religious beliefs or practices to be altered. The S.O.S. meeting in my town is a place where both non-theists and fundamentalists peacefully co-exist.

Addiction is fundamentally a behavioral problem. As such, we do not know enough about competent treatment of people who have it and who are looking for their way out of the mess. Instead, what we have is pretty much the entire recovery industry and 12 step groups who have jumped on the disease concept bandwagon. The practice of the twelve steps has saved many lives from the bondage of addiction. But there are more lives to liberate. 

Ideally, a treatment program ought to grant their clients access to a variety of options: A.A. and all of the other A's [Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Cocaine Anonymous, Methadone Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymous, Dual Recovery Anonymous, Double Trouble [a separate organization which currently has meetings in NY, NJ and PA], Alanon, Alateen, Alapup, etc...], Women for Sobriety, Smart Recovery, Secular Organizations for Sobriety, Red Road groups [for indigenous Americans], Overcomers Anonymous [specifically for fundamentalist Christians] and others. Non-traditional clients who are returning to hometowns that do not have anything other than the traditional twelve step programs around ought to be taught how to network with others in order to form a group that will help them. They should also be given information on recovery options which are available on-line. 

This cookie-cutter approach to abstinence must stop. If rehabs and drug courts are to offer true intervention, then the individual addict [which includes those who are addicted to the drug alcohol] must be considered in the intervention and in the services being offered. "Individualized treatment plans" which do not take into account that the customer of rehab services is a viable human being with his or her own life and way of being are worthless. Those good members of traditional 12 step groups who scream and yell about the evil inherent in alternative notions of spirituality or even of recovery are partly responsible for a perception that A.A. may in fact be cult-ish or a form of group-think.

This book has research and stats to back up its' conclusions. It offers hope to people who have not found A.A. to be the welcoming fortress that others have found. We are talking about people here. We are talking about people who will continue to die because of our shortsightedness. 

sapphoq reviews says: Kudos to Charles Bufe for the willingness to go against the grain. We need and deserve alternates to 12 step recovery. Although Alcoholics Anonymous: Cult or Cure? is an older book now, it is worth reading. 

P.S.: Those who want examples of how to individualize the twelve steps can read Charlotte Kasl's most excellent Many Roads, One Journey. Those who are interested in on-line arguments pro- and con- twelve step programs can turn to http://www.green-papers.org/  and to http://www.orange-papers.org/  for starters.

A.A.? No Way! by Charles Delaney

A.A.? No Way!, Charles Delaney.  Self-published, Smashwords, 2012.  ebook, 59 pps.


Some people find help in traditional [12 step] groups and traditional [based upon the 12 steps] treatment programs and rehabs.  Others don't.  Charles Delaney had been to A.A. and he found the program to be significantly lacking.  The A.A. members themselves appeared to be clones of each other.  Worse, they were not ready to hear Delaney's criticism of the program itself nor what he found in looking for alternatives.

The problem as Charles Delaney sees it is that A.A. has a 95% failure rate.  He states that Rational Recovery has a higher success rate of its members achieving abstinence than A.A. does.  He also states that folks who attempt to quit their addictions by themselves have a better chance of doing so than folks in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and other Anonymous derivatives.  Delaney does quote from some studies but does not provide any footnotes for his stats.  On page 11, he says "The basic idea of those programs are the best of ideas...put to the worst of applications."  He maintains that Alcoholics Anonymous is in fact a Christian and a religious program.  He criticizes the idea that alcoholics are powerless when it comes to alcohol.  He advocates for the assuming of personal responsibility in addressing one's addiction.

A.A.? No Way! offers criticism of the twelve steps from a pagan perspective.  There is an outline of "A 9-Step Recovery for Asatru/Odinists" [which begins on page 40 in my ebook] that I personally thought were excellent.  After that, the book begins to fall apart.  Delaney endorses an old book  written by plastic surgeon Maxwell Maltz and published in 1960 called Psycho-Cybernetics.  [Psycho-Cybernetics espoused positive thinking, if you can dream it you can do it, and mind-body connection woo-woo].  He then detours into a very rudimentary understanding of brain function and creativity.  A.A.? No Way! finishes up with the idea that there is so much more out there in a life of abstinence than can be found in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous.

sapphoq reviews says:  Some of A.A.? No Way! rang true to me and some didn't.  To his credit, Charles Delaney was quick to point out that those who have found their help in A.A. ought to remain in A.A.  Although A.A.? No Way! lacks in footnotes and a bit of execution, it is especially valuable for those heathens who want to try some steps written specifically for them.  Quite frankly, except for the woo-woo noted within the book he recommended, I liked this little ebook.  Charles Delaney has the barebones for a longer book within the first 43 pages of A.A.? No Way! .  It is my sincere hope that he will undertake a longer book project related to alternatives to 12 step recovery, complete with footnotes but lacking the feel-good woo-woo and pop psychology that often passes for professional treatment these days.  Recommended for heathens who have failed in A.A. because of its' somewhat quasi-christian approach to recovery.