Bill White and Ernie Kurtz examine the factors contributing to AA’s resilience in the face of steady attacks
Attacking Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) and 12-step oriented addiction treatment has become a specialized industry with its own genre of literature, celebrity authors and speakers, single-focus websites, and promoted alternatives. Collectively, these critics suggest that A.A. is an anachronism whose effectiveness has been exaggerated and whose time in the sun has passed. A.A.’s institutional response to these criticisms has been a consistent pattern of private self-reflection (e.g., Bill Wilson’s “Our Critics can be Our Benefactors”) and public silence (e.g., no opinion on outside controversial issues, personal anonymity at level of press, and public relations based on attraction rather than promotion–as dictated by A.A.’s Traditions).
The concept of organizational resilience suggests not just an institution’s longevity, but the capacity to survive in the face of significant threats to its character and existence. Such threats faced by A.A., including the intensity and endurance of polemical assaults on A.A., raise the question of how A.A. survived these challenges to become such a dominant cultural force.
Bill and Ernie identify 7 factors. Among them is scientific validity. Read them here.
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