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dissertation entitled

AA, Spiritual Issues, and
the Treatment of Lesbian and Gay Alcoholics

presented by

Steven L. Berg

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AA, SPIRITUALaISSUES, AND
THE TREATMENT OF LESBIAN AND GAY ALCOHOLICS

BY
Steven L. Berg

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of English
1989

| x:

._ 5m {4 7‘

ABSTRACT

AA, SPIRITUAL ISSUES, AND
THE TREATMENT OF LESBIAN AND GAY ALCOHOLICS

BY

Steven L. Berg

Although Alcoholics Anonymous claims it is spiritual
and not-religious, this distinction is blurred because it is
a spiritual program based on religious tenets. Lesbians and
gay men who have been the victims of church sanctioned hate
and persecution are likely to reject the program because of
its religious elements.

This dissertation first points out the religious
elements which are found in AA. It then reviews letters,
essays, and articles which have appeared in the lesbian/gay
press that demonstrate the four objections which many
lesbians and gay men have against the Christian tradition:
patriarchy, misuse of scripture, anti-pleasure/anti—love
positions, and the conspiracy of silence.

The dissertation then traces the American trends toward
perfectionism and individualism from the eighteenth-century
to the publication of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1939. It
argues that because AA was able to incorporate individualism
into what was essentially a perfectionist movement in the
Christian tradition, the organization is able to work as a

program of recovery for Christians and individuals from non-

Christian religious traditions, as well as people from no
formal tradition.

Because it takes time for an individual to appreciate
,the fundamental truth behind AA’s claim that it is spiritual
and not religious, seven strategies are proposed which can
be used to help lesbians and gay men to successfully

integrate AA into their lives.

COPYRIGHT
Steven L. Berg
1989

Rachel Liberacki
and to the memory of

Lillian Spinning
Helen Glasner

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Research is a community activity. While one person
might be the principle investigator and author, good results
come about only as the result of the support he or she
receives from others.

I am especially grateful to my graduate committee.
Mary Schneider (Dissertation Director), Jim McClintock
(Committee Chair), Milt Powell, and Victor Howard gave
valuable advice which helped mold my disjointed thoughts
into this finished product. Cathy Davidson helped me
overcome the misguided notion that research on lesbians and
gay men was somehow inferior to "important" subjects.
Although Stephen Botein died just before I began writing
this dissertation, he molded my early work as an historian
and his contributions were missed.

The National Association of Lesbian and Gay Alcoholism
Professionals provided me with a community of scholars who
shared my interests. Jack Ryan, LeClair Bissell, and
Valerie Przywara took a special interest in me and opened
many doors. I also owe a debt to Dana Finnegan and Emily
McNally as well as to Tom Smith, whose writings inspired me,

and to Cade Ware, whose courage in 1974 began to clear the

vi

 

path along which I have walked. AIDS took Tom’s and Cade’s
physical lives, but their spirits live in this dissertation.

Anne Tracy, Jeanette Fiore, Beth Woodard, and Michael
Bennet used their skills as librarians and information
specialists to help me gain access to the resources I
needed. Steven McCausey helped me appreciate both the value
of theoretical research as well as its limitations.

George Landon has listened and advised. David Smith
has listened and proof read. And those who call themselves
"The Back Porch Group" have listened and loved.

Family has also been important. I am indebted to my
parents, Lorain and Judy Berg, my brothers, Mike and
Christopher, my sister-in-law, Janice, and my grandmother,
to whom this dissertation is dedicated. And to the rest of
my family, particularly Andrew Stuart, Tim Jed, Harvey
Ballard, Barbara Harte, and Mary Hartshorn.

Finally, there is Carl M. Carlson III who, on a daily
basis, helped me get through the final stages of completing
this manuscript. Marty shared his experience that a trip to
the cafe cures any ills, his strength as an editor, and his

hope as a trusted friend and confidant.

The interpretations of Alcoholics
Anonymous’ twelve steps and twelve
traditions are those of the author and
do not necessarily reflect the opinions
of AA.

viii

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter I: Introduction ..... . .......... .................1
Spirituality in Alcoholoics Anonymous...............3
The Issue of Sexual Orientation....................10
Previous Research in the Field ............... ......18

Chapter II: Religious Elements in Alcoholics
Anonymous ..... . ..... .......................... ..... 38

Chapter III: Roots of Lesbian/Gay Distrust of
ChristianitYOCOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOODODCCI76

The Issue of Patriarchy.......................78
The Use and Misuse of Scripture...............82
The Anti—Pleasure/Anti-Love Position..........87
The Conspiracy of Silence.....................91
Chapter IV: The Trend Toward Perfectionism............98
Chapter V: The Trend Toward Individualism... ...... ...l32

Chapter VI: Treatment Strategies for Working With
Lesbian/Gay Alcoholics........ ...... ..............155

Cultural Bias and AA Literature..............159

Religious Dogmatism is Not Conference
ApprovedOOOOOOOOIOO IIIIII 0.00.00.00.0000161

AA’s Third Tradition.........................164
Special Interest Meetings....................169
Living Sober............ ....... ..............172
Involvement with Religious Caucuses... ..... ..174

Lesbian/Gay Sensitive Literature.............177

ix

Summary ................................. .....179

Chapter VII: Epilogue ................................. 180
Appendices
The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous .......... 189
The Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous.....190
Bibliography ........ . .................................. 191

 

CHAPTER 1:

INTRODUCTION

For most recovered alcoholics, the process of
developing new patterns of behavior involves working the
twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.1 However, because an
ethnocentric bias exists within conference approved AA
literature and in the program‘s moral tradition, many
individuals quickly develop the mistaken belief that the 1
program will not work for them. This problem can be
especially acute for lesbians and gay men, individuals whose
discrimination has historically been supported by Christian
denominations.

In this dissertation I initially point out the
religious elements which are found in the AA program,
elements which can cause new people to believe that AA is a
religious program. I then review letters, essays, and

articles that appeared in the lesbian/gay press that

 

1Alcoholics get into AA in a variety of fashions.
While most enter the program on their own volition, others
are referred by the courts or through non-AA treatment
programs. As part of treatment, newly sober individuals are
frequently encouraged to, or, more often, required to attend
AA meetings as part of their service plan both during and
after treatment. In addition, many alcoholism counselors in
private practice make regular attendance at AA meetings a
condition of seeing a patient. A list of the steps is found
in Appendix A and is a list of AA's twelve traditions is
found in Appendix B. Throughout this dissertation, the
comments I make about the steps and traditions are my own
and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of AA.

1

2
demonstrate the objections which many lesbians and gay men
have against the Christian tradition.

To better understand the spiritual and religious nature
of AA, I use a hermeneutical approach to set the literature
into a cultural and historical context. In doing so, I
intend to set this work within the broad body of study
commonly referred to us American Studies. I do so because
the elements which are intertwined include traits often
singled out as expressive of a distinct American ethos:
individualism, perfectionism, the rather nebulous "God“
often imagined in American Civil religion particularly when
coupled together in one group or movement. I am not the
first to recognize AA’s distinctly American traits.

Specifically, I trace the American trends toward
perfectionism and individualism from the eighteenth-century
to the publication of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1939. Such an
approach is important because the exclusion from AA which
many people feel is not so much the result of bias inherent
in the AA program as it is a result of the bias found in the
culture from which developed AA. An added importance to
this approach to the literature is that it demonstrates that
AA’s success is due, in part, to the fact that it was able
to successfully integrate a respect for individualism into
what was initially a perfectionist movement.

Finally, because it takes time for an individual to

appreciate the fundamental truth behind AA’s claim that it

3

is spiritual and not religious, I propose seven guidelines
which can be used with lesbians and gay men whose background
makes it difficult for them to follow a program that they
believe to be religious.
Spirituality in Alcoholics Anonymous

Because AA is designed to help the alcoholic achieve
sobriety, it is not surprising that the first step of the AA
program is that "We admitted we were powerless over
alcohol--that our lives had become unmanageable" and that
the only requirement for AA membership, as defined in the
third tradition, is a desire to stop drinking. What does
surprise many people is that the second step of recovery is
that "[We] came to believe that a Power greater than
ourselves could restore us to sanity" and that AA’s second
tradition is that "For our group purpose there is but one
ultimate authority--a loving God as He may express Himself

in our group conscience."2

But given AA's history, the fact
that it is a spiritually based recovery program is not-
surprising.

Much debate has involved AA’s claim that it is a
spiritual program and not a religious one. For this

purposes of this study, I will use the definition of

spirituality developed by Joann Wolski Conn:

 

2Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (New York: AA
World Services, 1958) 21, 139, 25, 132.

4

Spirituality as life-experience as a

field of study is no longer identified

with asceticism and mysticism, or with

the practice of virtue and methods of

prayer. From the perspective of the

actualization of the human capacity to

be spiritual, to be self-transcending--

that is, relational and freely committed

spiritually encompasses all of life. In

general, religious spirituality is a

matter of the experience and/or study of

the actualization of human self-

transcendence by the Holy, by Ultimate

Concern--that is, by what is

acknowledged as "religious."3 ‘
I believe that this definition captures the spirit to what
Alcoholics Anonymous refers when it describes its twelve
step recovery program as spiritual.

AA was founded in 1935 by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob
Smith, two men who were members of the Oxford Group, a
Christian perfectionist movement in early twentieth century
America. The Oxford Group, which ought not be confused with
England's Oxford movement, was formed to convert people to
"primitive Christianity." Thus, it is only natural that the
spiritual flavor of AA’s twelve step recovery program is
predominately Christian and the values described in AA
literature reflect middle-class, white, male, heterosexual
norms. But, to them, and the first 100 members of

Alcoholics Anonymous, there was no spiritual part of the

 

3Joann Wolski Conn, "Women’s Spirituality: Restriction
and Reconstruction," Women's Spirituality: Resources for
Christian Development ed Joann WOlski Conn (New York:
Paulist Press, 1986) 9.

5
program. AA was first, and foremost, a spiritual program.

As they wrote:

The great fact is just this, and nothing
less: That we have had deep and
effective spiritual experiences which
have revolutionized our whole attitude
toward God's universe. The central fact
of our lives today is the absolute
certainty that our Creator has entered
into our hearts and lives in a way which
is indeed miraculous. He has commenced
to accomplish those things for us [such
as giving us the ability not to drink]
that we would never do ourselves.‘

The importance of spirituality for AA recovery
pre—dates the founding of the program.5 Even before Bill W.
had his conversion experience in the Townsend hospital, he
had been visited by Ebby T., an alcoholic who had stopped
drinking because of a spiritual re-birth. Although Ebby T.
would not maintain his sobriety, his conversation with Bill

W. made a lifetime impact on AA's co-founder.6

 

‘Alcoholics Anonymous: The Stomy of How Many Thousands
of Men and Women Have Recovered From Alcoholism (1939; New
York: AA World Services, 1976) 25.

5AAs use 10 June 1935 as the founding date because that
is the first day of Dr. Bob's sobriety.

6The story of Bill Wilson’s conversion and early
recovery, as well as his relationship with Ebby T. have been
recorded in many places. The most accessible record is
found in Alcoholics Anon ous, 1-15. Although Ebby's name
is not mentioned in this version, it can be found in Pass It
On: Bill Wilson and the AA Message (New York: AA World
Services, 1984). Another book length biography is Robert
Thompson, Bill W. (New York: Harper and Row, 1975).

6

The testimonials at the back of Alcoholics Anonymous
and other AA literature are replete with testimonials which
record spiritual awakenings, spirituality in AA’s twelve
steps and twelve traditions, and spiritual interpretations
of daily events in the lives of AA-alcoholics.7 The single
best source of such stories is "The Grapevine," AA’s
monthly journal whose official title is Box 1980. Published
since 1944, "The Grapevine" is a reader-written journal in
which AA members are able to share their experience,
strength, and hope with each other. The testimonials, or
stories, recorded in the journal give "slice of life"
accounts of events and personal reactions to various steps,
traditions, and philosophies within the AA program. Most of
the articles deal with some aspect of spiritual well-being.

Besides the testimonials found in Box 1980 spirituality
is the focus of Came to Believe, a series of brief
testimonials by AA-alcoholics which specifically focus on
spiritual aspects of the program. The implied purpose of
these stories seems to be the desire to give a model which
others can use to construct the spiritually-centered world
view required for successful AA recovery. Although Came to

Believe is the only book published by AA which focuses

 

7"AA-alcoholic" is the term coined by David R. Rudy,
Becoming Alcoholic: Alcoholics Anonymous and the Reality of
Alcoholism (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press,
1986) to distinguish those individuals who have recovered
from alcoholism using the AA program.

7
exclusively on the spiritual aspects of AA recovery, it is
not universally used by AA-alcoholics. For example, at
meetings in Wheeling, WV, the book is prominently displayed
on the chairperson’s table. In Lansing, MI, the prominence
of the book varies from meeting to meeting. And in certain
AA meetings in Florida, the Bible is the prominent
spiritual text.e Although Came to Believe is the only book
devoted exclusively to spirituality, the definitive

understanding of spirituality is found in Alcoholics

 

Anonymous .

In spite of the fact that care was taken not to
prescribe a specific type of spirituality for AA members,
the first printing of Alcoholics Anonymous gave the
impression that "in order to recover they [AA-alcoholics]
must acquire an immediate and overwhelming ’God—
consciousness' followed by a vast change in feeling and
outlook." As a result, the second edition of the book
included an appendix devoted to the spiritual experience of
AA-alcoholics; an appendix devoted to the varieties of
spiritual growth. Here, care is taken to explain that most
AA members experience a gradual spiritual awakening that
develops "slowly over a period of time" and that "often

friends of the newcomer are aware of the difference long

 

8Came to Believe (New York: AA World Services, 1973).
The visibility of the book at meetings is based on reports
from AA-alcoholics. Even though the Bible is used in such a
way as reported here, such use violates AA tradition.

8

9 Although the written and oral

before he is himself."
traditions of AA emphasize that it is a spiritual program
and not a religious one, religion and spirituality were
.blended in this Appendix when the personality changes}
experienced by AA-alcoholics were identified as "religious

"m And religion and spiritual elements remain

experiences.
blended in Alcoholics Anonymous.

Newly sober alcoholics first encounter religious
elements in the "God" steps and traditions and when they see
that the "Lord's Prayer" is used to close most AA meetings.
However, when one realizes that the immediate root of AA is
the Oxford group the strong religious element within the AA
program is understandable. But, within five years of AA's
founding, the newer members "were largely ignorant of the
similarity which their cherished program bore to primitive
Christianity."11

The second area in which religious elements are found
in AA is in the ritual which has been established around

meetings; ritual that can be interpreted with the context of

American Civil Religion. The cultural and religious

 

9All quotes from Alcoholics Anonymous 569.

1"Alcoholics Anonymous 569. The text reads, "Yet it is
true that our first printing gave many readers the
impression that these personality changes, or religious
experiences, must have been in the nature of sudden and
spectacular upheavals."

11Ernest Kurtz, Not God: A Histogy of Alcoholics
Anonymous (Center City, MN: Hazelden, 1979) 47.

9

elements which Michael Novak identifies in a baseball or
football game and which W. Lloyd Warner found in Memorial
Day celebrations are part of AA meetings, a concept which
will be further developed in chapter 2.12 And much of the
comfort which AA-alcoholics derive from attending meetings
is a manifestation of the religious elements within the
meetings themselves.13

Unquestionably, AA is the most successful program for
treating alcoholics which is currently available. However,
because the spiritual norms in AA reflect middle-class,
white, male, heterosexual norms, ethnic, racial, religious,
and class minorities are especially prone to feeling
excluded from AA.“ For example, although the steps of AA
assume a positive, helpful God, "God as we understood him"
for many lesbians and gay men is frequently a God who

condemns them to hell because of their orientation; an

 

12Michael Novak, The Joy of Sports: End Zones, Bases,
Baskets, Balls, and the Consecration of the American Spirit
(New York: Basic Books, 1976). W. Lloyd Warner, "An
American Sacred Ceremony," American Civil Religion eds.
Russell E. Richey and Donald G. Jones (New York: Harper and
Row) 89-111.

13Several articles have been written where the author
claims that to him/her the AA meeting takes the place of
attending church or that AA is their religion. One such
case is Philip Donnelly, "The Experience of Spiritual
Recovery," NCCA Blue Book 26 (1974) 180-192.

1"All minorities can be expected to experience
discomfort when first confronted with the AA program. It
is, however, outside the scope of this study to address
minority issues in general.

10
orientation which is "God—given." This petty tyrant, or God
as he is understood is somehow to restore them to sanity.
Lesbians and gay men who have this negative understanding of
God know that the likelihood for such help is less than
minimal. So, when confronted with the third step, "[We]
made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the
care of God as we understood Him," they are given an
unworkable task.15
The Issue of Sexual Orientation
In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association removed

"homosexual" from its Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders.
The resolution which was adopted by the Board of Trustees
and which was upheld by a vote of the APA membership reads:

Whereas homosexuality per se implies no

impairment of judgment, ability,

reliability or general vocational

capacities, therefore, be it resolved

that the APA deplores all public

discrimination against homosexuals in

such areas as employment, housing,

public accommodations, and licensing

and...that the APA supports and urges

the repeal of all legislation making
criminal offenses of sexual acts

 

15The cultural context which causes many lesbians and
gay men to develop such an attitude to God are explored in
chapter 3. The experience of those lesbians and gay men who
have no difficulty grasping that the idea of God is
developed by each individual according to his/her
understanding is, however, outside the scope of this study.

 

11
performed by consenting adults in
private.6

This resolution was especially significant because the
strongest argument against civil and social rights for
lesbians and gay men was that their sexual "preference" was
a sign of mental illness. Although the American Psychiatric
Association only passed this resolution in 1973, Sigmund
Freud, the father of modern psychiatry, had advocated that
homosexuality was not an illness as early as 1903, when he
wrote in Die Zeit: "Wouldn’t that [arguing that
homosexuality is an illness] oblige us to characterize as
sick many great thinkers and scholars of all times, whose
variant orientation we know for a fact and whom we admire
precisely because of their mental health?"17

Freud anticipated the coentemporary understanding that
individuals can only choose how they will act on their
orientation. Lesbians and gay men do not deviate from
"normal" sexual behavior although their sexual activity is
"non-normative." The distinction between normal and

normative activity is very important because "normal" is a

 

16Quoted in Donald Coleman and others, "Ethics and
Morality Workgroup Final Report," A Report on Sexual
Orientation and Affectional Preference compiled by the
House of Representatives Civil Rights Committee's Family and
Sexuality Task Force (Detroit: Michigan Organization for
Human Rights, 1982) 2.

17Sigmund Freud, Die Zeit (Vienna, 1903) 5. Quote
translated by Herman Schornstein.

12
value judgment whereas "normative" is descriptive.
Opposite-sex sexual activity is normative because most
people practice it. Same-sex sexual activity is
non-normative because a minority of people engage in it.
Yet, same-sex activity is normal behavior for those people.

Language is very powerful. So if AA sponsors or
therapists begin on the assumption that other-sex activity
is "normal," they send a message to lesbian and gay
alcoholics that same sex activity is abnormal, sick, or
sinful. Lesbian and gay alcoholics will, by extension,
receive the message that they, too, are abnormal, sick, or
sinful because they desire same-sex sexual partners.

But what is sexuality? Unfortunately, the issue of
sexual orientation is little understood in American society.
Too often people assume that sexuality is a dichotomy, that
a man or woman is either heterosexual or homosexual. Or, in
a more advanced understanding, it might be assumed that
bisexuals also exist.

In their classical study Sexual Behavior in the Human
Mglg, Alfred C. Kinsey, Wardell B. Pomeroy, and Clyde E.
Martin, established that sexuality is neither a dichotomy
nor a trichotomy. Rather, sexuality is a continuum which

could best be understood using a seven point scale (0—6) to

 

13
understand and define sexual orientation.18 When Kinsey,
Pomeroy, Martin, and Paul H. Gebhard published Sexual
Behavior in the Human Female they found that the same type
of scale existed. However, the incidence of homosexuality
in women was somewhat, but not significantly, lower than in
men.19 The following chart shows what percentage of the
adult population falls where on the Kinsey scale. Due to
rounding off, these figures total 101%.

50% have a Kinsey 0 rating: exclusively
other-sex oriented in behavior

and psychological response

12% have a Kinsey 1 rating: incidental
same-sex behavior

12% have a Kinsev 2 rating: more than
incidental same-sex behavior

9% have a Kinsey 3 rating: about equal
amounts of same and other-sex
behavior

6% have a Kinsey 4 rating: more than
incidental other—sex behavior

5% have a Kinsey 5 rating: incidental
other—sex behavior

 

18Alfred C. Kinsey, Wardel B. Pomeroy, and Clyde E.
Martin, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (Philadelphia:
W.B. Saunders, 1948) 638-642.

19Alfred C. Kinsey and others, Sexual Behavior int he
Human Female (1953; Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders, 1966) 446-
501.

 

l4

4% have a Kinsey 6 rating: exclusively
same—sex oriented in behavior

and psychological response2°

-Because the Kinsey scale measures both overt behavior as
well as fantasy, it is important to understand that
individuals can shift position on the scale. Regardless of
their current position on the scale, the individual's basic
orientation cannot change. Activity can change but
orientation cannot.

Based on these figures, it could be argued that 15% of
the population is homosexual. But to apply the term
"homosexual" to anyone is purely an arbitrary way to label
individuals who do not choose to identify themselves as

Kinsey Os. As Kinsey, et a1 wrote:

The persons who are identified as
"homosexuals" in much of the legal and
social practice have rated anything
between 1 and 6 on the above scale. On
the other hand, there are some persons
who would not rate an individual as
"really homosexual" if he were anything
less than a 5 or 6. Nevertheless, it
should be emphasized again that there
are persons who rate 2’s or 3's who, in
terms of the number of contacts they
have made, may have had more homosexual
experience than many persons who rate 6,
and the clinician, the social worker,
court officials, and society in general
are not infrequently concerned with
persons who rate no more than 2’s or
3’s. Many who rate only 1 or 2 are much
disturbed over their homosexual

 

2°Adapted fro " Dana Finnegan and Emily McNally, Dual

Identities: Counseling Chemically Dependent Gay Men and
Lesbians (Center City, MN: Hazelden, 1987) 23.

15
experience, and they are frequently
among those who go to clinicians for
help.21

For the purposes of this study, only those individuals
who rate as a Kinsey five or six, or 9% of the adult
population, will be included in the homosexual category.

The reason for this choice is based on the assumption that
it is those individuals who are most likely to overtly
identify with the lesbian and gay communities, attend'
lesbian and gay events, and publish in the lesbian and gay
press. (The term "gay," except when it appears in a direct
quote, will refer only to male homosexuals. A "lesbian" is
female homosexual.)

Treatment professionals and others working with
alcoholics must understand that the 9% figure only refers to
those people whom we define as having a_homosexual
orientation; the incidence of homosexual activity/fantasy is
encountered by 50% of all people and 37% of the male
population has an overt same—sex sexual experience resulting
in orgasm at some point(s) during their adult lives.

One of the criticisms which has been written about

Alcoholics Anonymous is that talk of sexual issues is

 

21Kinsey, Human Male 651, 655.

16
discouraged at AAmeetings.22 Because same-sex activity and
fantasy carries with it such a negative social stigma, it is
even less likely that these issues will be adequately dealt
with in meetings. And unless the recovering alcoholic is
comfortable with his/her sexuality, it is unlikely that a
contented sobriety will be realized.23 This is especially
true for the 50% of the population who have same-sex
activity as part of their background.

.Although lesbian and gay alcoholics will not have
issues dealing with sexual activity adequately dealt with
during meetings, such is also the case for non-lesbian and
non-gay alcoholics. However, a sensitive sponsor or
therapist can help recovering lesbian and gay alcoholics
deal with such issues while they write their fourth step, a
step which is the time when alcoholics make a searching and
fearless moral inventory of themselves. Both Alcoholics

Anonymous and the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, in

fact, place special emphasis on sexual issues.“

 

22William E. Biddle, "Alcoholics Anonymous and the Gay
.Alcoholic," Gav and Sobep eds. Thomas O. Ziebold and John
E. Mbngeon (1982; New York: Harrington Park Press, 1985)

1”Ivan Schroeder, "The Relationship Beween Coming Out
of the Closet and Recovery from.Alcoholism,“ Haters Thesis,
California Family Study Center, 1988.

2"See particularly Alcoholics Anonymous 68-70 and
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions 50-51.

17
Because of the negative social pressure which lesbians
and gay men face in society about their orientations, it
might be very useful for the sponsor or therapist to point
out that early AA-alcoholics wrote that:
We remember always that our sex powers
were God-given and therefore good,
neither to be used lightly or selfishly
nor to be despised and loathed....God
alone can judge our sex situation.
Counsel with persons is often desirable,
but we let God be the final judge.25
AS‘With other outside issues and controversies, AA takes no
position on arguments concerning the morality and/or cause
of sexual orientation. As a program, it does "not want to
be the arbiter of anyone's sex conduct."26 Selfishness,
dishonesty, and inconsideration are the issues to which AA
concerns itself. Whether or not the relationship in which
these issues emerged was with a same-sex or other-sex
partner is not what is important.
Previous Reggarch in the Field
It has been estimated that 24-40% of lesbians and gay

men are alcohol or other drug dependent. An additional 30%

have problems with drugs or alcohol that have not yet

 

25Alcoholics Anonymous 69-70.

2'SAlcoholics Anonymous 69.

18
reached the point of addiction.27 Given these statistics,
it is surprising that so few studies have been devoted to
chemical addiction in the lesbian and gay communities.
Currently, only five books have been given to this subject:
the Whitman Walker Clinic's Tpg Way Back, Jean Swallow’s Opp

From Under: Sober kaes and Our Friends, Tom Ziebold and

 

 

 

John Mongeon’s Gay and Sober, Dana Finnegan and Emily
McNally's Dual Identitieg: Counseling Chemically Dependent
Ga Men and Lesbians, and Steven L. Berg, Dana Finnegan, and
Emily McNally's NALGAP Annotated Bibliography: Alcoholism,
Sppgtance Abugp, and Lesbians/Gay Men. The Way Back and pp;
from Under include personal testimonials of lesbians and gay
men who have stopped drinking.28 TEE Wav Back was designed
as a supplement to the stories that appear in the back of
Alcoholics Anon ous, AA's principle text, and includes five
lesbian and five gay male first person stories which focus
on how bad life was for the practicing alcoholic. Each
story ends with some remarks about how the individual
eventually stopped drinking because she/he participated in
the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Although these stories

would be useful to show lesbian and gay alcoholics that

 

2"Linda Swartz, Alcoholism in the LesbianZGay
Community: Coming to Terms with an Epidemic (Phoenix: Do
It Now Foundation, 1980).

‘nThe Wav Back: The Stories of Gav and Lesbian
Alcoholics (1981; Washington, DC: Whitman Walker Clinic,
1982). Jean Swallow, Out FromiUnder: Sober kaes and Our
Friends (San Francisco: Spinsters, Ink, 1983).

19
homosexuals ppm recover through AA, they do not show ppm
recovery actually took place.

Like The Wa Back, Jean Swallow’s Out From Under
contains personal stories of recovery. The major difference
between the two books is that the women who share their
testimonials, stories, poems, and essays in Out From Under
have found sobriety through a variety of personal recovery

3 others

programs. Some of the women recovered through AA,
found support with other non-AA recovering women30 while
others stopped drinking though pure determination31 or for
political reasons.32 One woman found her recovery by
channeling her self-destructive drinking energies into
"pumping iron."33
One of the criticisms which can be leveled against Opp
From Under is that it has an anti-AA bias. But by
understanding that the authors of the book often feel dually

excluded from Alcoholics Anonymous because of their sex as

 

29Meg Christian, "Turning It Over," Out From Under ed.
Jean Swallow (San Francisco: Spinsters, Ink, 1983) 50-51.

30Alice Aldrich, "Sobering Thoughts," Out From Under
ed. Jean Swallow (San Francisco: Spinsters, Ink, 1983) 152-
160.

31Jean Swallow, "What Is Calistoga?" Out From Under
(San Francisco: Spinsters, Ink, 1983) 117-121.

32Catherine Risingflame Moirai, "Four Poems in Search
of a Sober Reader," Out From Under ed. Jean Swallow (San
Francisco: Spinsters, Ink, 1983) 117-121.

33Kitty Tsui, "In Training," Out From Under ed. Jean
Swallow (San Francisco: Spinsters Ink, 1983) 34-43.

20

well as their sexuality, such a bias is not surprising.“
In addition, because Jean Swallow did not obtain her
_sobriety through AA, she is not as vested in advancing that
particular program as would be an.AA alcoholic.35 Because
Swallow has been able to demonstrate the variety of ways in
which individuals can work toward recovery, this "bias" is
actually one of the contributions which Swallow makes to the
field.

Another difference between Out From Under and The Way

Back is that the stories which Swallow includes in her book

 

3“Although the only requirement for AA membership is a
desire to stop drinking, rhetoric does not always match
reality. John Langone and Delores de Nabrege Langone, WOmen
Who Drink (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1980) make the
point that AA generally does not meet the needs of the
lesbian alcoholic because homosexuality is often difficult
for AA.members to face. Sharon Stonekey, "Reminders," pm;
From Under ed. Jean Swallow (San Francisco: Spinsters, Ink,
1983) 46-49 gives a good overview of the adverse effect of
homophobia on a lesbian who felt excluded from AA. In an
interview with this author, a lesbian alcoholic reported
that a common cliche used by men in some of the AA.meetings
which she attended was that "If it was between taking a
drink and raping a woman, I'd rape the woman.” As a result,
she initially "learned" that AA was not a safe place for
women, much less lesbians. Discrimination against lesbians
in particular and homosexuals in general is also recorded in
AA literature. See J.N., "I Want to Belong," Box 1980
(October, 1977) 9-11 and W.B. "The Support We All Need," ppm
1980 (January, 1980) 15-17. The case of a lesbian being
voted out of an AA meeting because she was a lesbian is
found in "Inclusive, Never Exclusive?" Box 1980 38.12 (1980)
41.

 

35Jean Swallow discussed her early sobriety in a
lecture given at a Lesbian Health and Addiction Conference,
.Ann Arbor, MI 4 April 1986. Also, see her essay, "What is
Calistoga?" Out From Under (San Francisco: Spinsters Ink,
1983) 52-64.

21

cover not only what it was like for the active alcoholics
and other substance abusers, but also how and why the women
became sober and how they maintain their sobriety. Although
there is no systematic program of recovery provided, the
text does present a variety of skills which a lesbian (or
gay man) can use to maintain sobriety.

Gay and Sober was originally published as a special
issue of The Journal of Homosexuality.36 Edited by Thomas
O. Ziebold and John E. Mongeon, the publication, which
covers theoretical, practical, and exhoratory issues, was
the first effort to bring together professional literature
about lesbian and gay alcoholics and lesbians and gay men in
treatment. The text is especially important because the
issue of co-addiction as it relates to the family structure
of homosexual relationships is addressed.37 Unfortunately,
as Ziebold explains in his introduction, because no papers
were submitted that deal solely with the concerns of lesbian
alcoholics, their specific needs are not addressed.

For the purposes of this study, William E. Biddle's

"Alcoholics Anonymous and the Gay Alcoholic" is especially

 

36Journal of Homosexuality 7.4 (1982). Thomas O.
Ziebold and John E. Mongeon, eds. Gay and Sober: Directions

for Counseling and Therapy (1982; New York: Harrington Park
Press, 1985).

37Scott Whitney, "The Ties That Bind: Strategies for
Counseling the Gay Male Co—Alcoholic" Gay and Sober eds.
Thomas O. Ziebold and John Mongeon (1982; New York:
Harrington Park Press, 1985) 37-41.

22
important because he proposes "that there are a number of
characteristics of AA, as it is represented in meetings,
which discourage participation by gay people."38 Of the
four issues which he addresses, one relates to spirituality
and another concerns the orthodoxy of AA. Citing Bell and
weinberg’s assessment that ”homosexual adults tend to be
more alienated from formal religion than are

"” Biddle claims that the "greater power"

heterosexuals,
references in such AA literature as Alcoholics Anonvmppp is
a "more or less orthodox religious concept.“o

Biddle is also critical of the fact that AA-alcoholics
do not provide newcomers with the two citations where Bill
W., AA’s co-founder, recognizes that spirituality can refer
to individual growth and change. Unfortunately, his
interpretations of the passages are not true to the text.‘1

Biddle is equally critical of AA's "often cult-like

orthodoxy," or dogmatism, which he claims manifests itself

 

”Biddle 81 .

:HA.P. Bell and M.S. Weinberg, Homosexualities: .A
Study of Diversity Among Men and Women (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1978) 153.

“Biddle 85

“Biddle does not cite the specific passages which he
claims fit his thesis. He only cites the following page
numbers: Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age (New York:
Harper and Brothers, 1957) and Alcoholics Anonymous 570. It
is not clear to me exactly to what he refers.

23
in the oral tradition of AA.‘2 However, his thesis is
greatly overstated because much of the orthodoxy to which he
objects comes from AA of Akron, a sub-group of AA whose
literature is not "conference approved."

The process by which a book or pamphlet obtains the
"conference approved" label which is similar to the
imprimatur on a Roman Catholic publication is long and
elaborate. The thesis that AA cannot be held accountable
for the writings of AA of Akron because it doesn't hold
those beliefs is developed in chapter 6. But what is
significant for lesbian and gay alcoholics is that AA
orthodoxy is very strong on the belief that the only
requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking and
that the program is individually tailored to the needs of
each individual recovering alcoholic.

Biddle is also critical of what he calls "the routine
disclaimers" that the twelve steps are but suggestions.‘3
But those disclaimers are not unimportant; they are the key
by which AA grows and flourishes. Alcoholics Anonymous
Comes of Age, the conference approved history of AA, details

 

“Biddle 86. For a more developed discussion of AA as
a cult, see Arthur H. Cain, "Alcoholics Anonymous: Cult or
Cure?" The Cured Alcoholic (New York: John Day Company,
1964) 61-74. William Madsen, “Alcoholics Anonymous as a
Crisis Cult," Alcohol Health and Research WOrld (Spring,
1974) 27-30 analyzes AA in terms of crisis cults. However,
his use of "cult" is analytical and not pejorative.

“Biddle 86 .

24
the significance of the fact that "AA's Twelve Steps were to
be suggestions only."“ In criticizing AA's oral
traditions, many of which do not reflect the AA program as
developed in the literature, Biddle rightly points out that
it is this oral tradition which newcomers generally first
encounter when they enter the program. However, Biddle
neither develops the examples needed to support his thesis
nor does he discuss the basis for the alienation. As a
result, "Alcoholics Anonymous and the Gay Alcoholic" does
not provide the reader with the understanding necessary to
help newly sober individuals work through the alienation
which they might experience.

The NALGAP Annotated Bibliography: Alcoholism,
Substance Abuse, and Lesbians/Gay Men is the first attempt
to compile everything that has been published and written
concerning chemical addiction in the lesbian and gay
communities.“5 If a book, article, brochure, pamphlet,
conference paper, dissertation, thesis, or manuscript
mentions lesbians or gay men and some type of chemical
addiction, it was included in the bibliography. Each entry
is annotated without bias or commentary. The book has been

described as "An excellent resource for lesbians and gay men

 

“Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age 167.

“Steven L. Berg, Dana Finnegan, and Emily McNally, Ipe
NALGAP Annotated Bibliography: Alcoholism, Substance Abuse,
and LesbiansZGay Men (Fort Wayne: National Association of
Lesbian and Gay Alcoholism Professionals, 1987).

25
in recovery as well as professionals working with gay
populations."“ The archives collected during the research
for this book are available atsRutgers University’s Center
of Alcohol Studies."
Two other books are also worth mentioning: John

Lauritsen and Hank Wilson's Death Rush: Poppers and AIDS

and Robert Bauman’s The Gentleman from Magyland: The
Conscience of a Gay Conservative.‘8 In Death Rush,

Lauritsen and Wilson argue against the use of poppers, a
nitrite inhalant, and provide an annotated bibliography of
research that documents its dangers. Because of the
popularity of p0ppers, and the presence of AIDS in the gay
community, the book provides important information for those
individuals working with gay men who are alcoholic or
chemically dependent. However, recovery from addiction is
not the focus of the text.

Robert Bauman is a former Congressman from Maryland who
stood at the forefront of the conservative right until he

was arrested for sexual activity with a male teenage

 

‘“Review of The NALGAP.Annotated Biblio ra h ,
Feminist Booketore News 10.4 (1987) 73.

"The NALGAP Collection: Literature on Alcoholism and
Homosexuality is housed at the Center of Alcohol Studies
Library, Smithers Hall, Busch Campus, Piscataway, NJ 08854.
Phone 201/932-4442.

‘“Hank Lauritsen and Hank Wilson, Death Rush: Poppers
and AIDS (New York: Pagan Press, 1986). Robert Bauman, The

Gentleman from Magyland: The Conscience of a Gay
gonservative (New YOrk: Arbor House, 1986).

26
hustler. After his arrest, Bauman not only confronted his
sexual orientation but also his alcoholism. In Tee
Gentleman from Magyland, Bauman gives more than enough
information for a reader to easily identify his recovery
program; a program that included "meetings of groups dealing
with alcoholism" in which Buck D. was his first sponsor.‘9

Bauman's story had the potential for helping gay, and
possibly lesbian, alcoholics come to accept not only their
addiction but also their sexuality. Unfortunately, due to
his discomfort with his homosexuality, Bauman explicitly
states he would change his sexual orientation if that were
within his power. Because Bauman has been unable to accept
either his past or his orientation, his experiences have
lead neither to a strength nor a hope which he can share
with others.“

Alcoholism in the lesbian and gay communities has also
been the subject of four novels. Lee Sargent’s Twilight
Passion published as a trash novel in 1969, is actually a
sensitive treatment of an alcoholic lesbian’s attempt at
recovery. More recently, Jean Swallow's Leave a Light on

for Me focused on the life of a recovered lesbian alcoholic.

 

“Bauman 221.

50An expanded critique of Bauman's book is found in
Steve B., "Review of The Gentleman from Ma land,"
Newsletters Anonymous 4 (1987) 7. Darrell Yates Rist,
"Bauman: The Man Behind the Sex Scandal" Advocate (4 March
1987) 37-39+ expresses some admiration for Bauman, but the
review cannot be considered favorable.

27

Unfortunately, stylistic problems with the book make it
difficult to read, and the addiction theme gets lost in the
confusion of too many other competing themes. Marion
Michener's Three Glasses of Wine, like Sargent's earlier
work, concerns a woman trying to recover from her addiction.
But unlike the earlier novel, Michener's protagonist is able
to maintain her sobriety. Vincent Virga's A Comfortable
Qorner is the only novel that addresses alcoholism in the
gay community. However, his focus is on co-addiction.51

Although there is a dearth of books on the subject of
alcoholism in the lesbian and gay communities many articles
have appeared on the subject. To make sense of the
literature it is best to first consider what has appeared in
professional literature and then those articles which have
appeared in the popular lesbian/gay press. Until around
1958, the overriding assumption in the professional
literature was that latent homosexuality was the cause of

alcoholism.52 This idea was based on the neo-Freudian

 

51Jean Swallow, Leaye a Light on For Me (Spinsters/Aunt
Lute, 1986). Lee Sargent, Twilight Passion (San Diego:
Phoenix, 1969). Mariane Michener, Three Glasses of Wine
Have Been Removed Frem Thie Storv (Seattle: Silver Lake
Press, 1988). Vincent Virga, A Comfortable Corner (New
York: Avon, 1982).

52One of the first authors to question this theory was
Edward M. Scott, "Psychosexuality of the Alcoholic”
Psychological Reports 4.4 (1958) 599-602. Scott writes that
"Clinical studies of 300 consecutive case records of
alcoholics suggest that the dominant psychosexual factor is
that of immaturity. This suggestion stems from the high
divorce rate, which is interpreted, on the quotations from
patient records, not as an indication of latent

28
assumption that homosexuality and alcoholism were both oral
fixations. Ernest Jones’ comment in his 1920 article on
”Recent.Advances in Psycho-Analysis" was typical: "I may
'remind you of the essential part that repressed
homosexuality has been found to play in the causation of
chronic alcoholism, of drug habits, and of paranoia..."53
This point of view was further advanced in Flint Holland's
1952 novel Secret in a Bottle.“

Even after Kinsey and others published Sexual Behavior
in the Human Male which showed the commonness of same—sex
sexual activity, homosexuality was typically assumed to be a
mental illness. Such assumptions are, unfortunately, not
all historical. Writers such as Gary G. Forrest continue to
write that homosexuality is a dysfunction which can be
cured.55 By citing the much earlier work of O. Fenichel and
Karl Menniger, in 1984, Forrest concluded that the "identity
and sexually determined paranoid trends of the alcoholic can

be related to bisexual and homosexual conflicts," and that

 

homosexuality, but rather as an inability to assume
responsibility for one's state in life."

53Ernest Jones, "Recent Advances in Psycho-Analysis,"
International Journal of Psychoanalysis 1 (1920) 169.

5"Flint Holland, Secret in a Bottle: The Qause and
Qure of Alcoholism (New York: Pageant, 1952).

55Gary B. Forrest, Alcoholism and Human Sexuality
(Springfield: Charles C. Thomas, 1983).

29
few alcoholics are "explicitly homosexual."56 But, in his
1982 Alcoholism, Narcissism, and Psychopathology
homosexuality as a factor in the development of alcoholism
is mentioned throughout the text.“

Stephen Israelstam and Sylvia Lambert, in a 1983
article which appeared in The International Journal of
Addictions provide a historical analysis of literature which
supports and refutes the theory that a causal relationship
exists between homosexuality and alcoholism. Their essay is
the definitive work for such a historical analysis.58

A new emphasis developed in the field of chemical
addiction after Lilene Fifield's On My Way Nowhere:
Alienated, Isolated, and Drunk--An Analysis of Gay Alcohol
Abuse and an Evaluation of Alcoholism Rehabilitation
Services for the Los Angeles Gay Community became available
in 1975. This statistical study serves as the basis for

claims that 30% of lesbians and gay men are alcohol or other

 

56O. Fenichel, The Psychoanalypic Theogy of Neurosis
(New York: W.W. Norton, 1945). Karl A. Menninger, Man

Against Himself (New YOrk: Harcourt, Brace, and World,
1938). Quotations from Gary G. Forrest, Intensive

Psychotherapy of Alcoholism (Springfield: Charles C.
Thomas, 1984) 17.

57Gary G. Forrest, Alcoholism, Narcissism, and
Psychopathology (Holmes Beach, FL: Learning Publications,
1982).

58Stephen Israelstam and Sylvia Lambert, "Homosexuality
as a Cause of Alcoholism: A Historical Review," The
International Journal of Addictions 18 (1983) 1085-1107.

30

drug dependent.59 Since Fifield’s study was published, the
field has shifted away from discussions of what causes
alcoholism in the lesbian and gay communities to discussions
of how to provide effective treatment for lesbian and gay
alcoholics. C. Vourakis's "Homosexuals in Substance Abuse
Treatment" which examines alcohol and drug abuse in lesbians
and gay men in the context of society’s attitudes toward
homosexuals as well as the treatment needs of lesbian and
gay clients is an ideal example of the literature which is
now being produced.60

Other recent trends in the field are found in Peter
Nardi’s work in defining the lesbian/gay family structure
and Edward S. Morales’ discussion of ethnic minorities

within the lesbian and gay communities.61 In the last few

 

59Lilene Fifield, On My Way Nowhere: Alienated,
Isolated, and Drunk--An Analysis of Gay Alcohol Abuse and an
Evaluation of Alcoholism Rehabilitation Services for the Los
Angeles Gay Community, (Los Angeles: Los Angeles Gay
Community Services Center, 1975). Similar figures are
reported in Marcel T. Saghir, Eli Robins, Bonnie Walbran,
and Kathye A. Gentry, "Homosexuality, IV: Psychiatric
Disorders and Disability in the Female Homosexual" American
Journal of Psychiatmy 127 (1970) 147-154 and Collins E.
Lewis, Marcel T. Saghir, and Eli Robins, "Drinking Patterns
in Homosexual and Heterosexual Women," Journal of Clinical
Psychiatgy 43 (1982) 277—279.

6°C. Vburakis, "Homosexuals in Substance Abuse
Treatment," Substance Abuse: Pharmacologic, Developmental,
and Clinical Perspectives eds. G. Bennett, C. Vourakis, and
D.S. Woolf (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1983).

61Peter M. Nardi, "Alcohol Treatment and the Non-
Traditional Family Structure of Gays and Lesbians," Journal
of Alcohol and Drug Education 27.2 (1982) 83-89. Edward S.
Morales, "Third World Gays and Lesbians: A Process of
Multiple Identities," American Psychological Association,

31

years, emphasis has also been placed on the role of drugs
and alcohol as a co-factor in AIDS. Thomas M. Smith's Alpg
and Alcoholism: Denial Strikes A ain, in which he
demonstrates that the alcohol/AIDS factor is greater than
the simple understanding that intoxication can lead to
unsafe sex, is typical of this literature as is the more
general "I.V. Drug Abuse and AIDS" by Ron Covey. Larry
Siegel's AIDS and Substance Abuse is the best collection of
essays currently available on this topic. The articles
which appear in Siegel's book not only cover a wide range of
issues, but each includes an excellent bibliography.
Currently, most of the AIDS education brochures list
alcoholism and drug addiction in the "unsafe" category along
with such acts as anal intercourse without a condom.62

Besides the professional literature, the majority of
articles which have been published appear in the lesbian/gay
press. Those tend to be either general discussions of
addiction or personal testimonials. With the publication of
the NALQAP Annotated Bibliographv, this body of literature

is extremely accessible.63

 

Anaheim, 27 August 1983.

62Thomas M; Smith, AIDS and Alcoholiem: Denial Strikee
.Again (San Francisco: San Francisco Department of Public
Health, 1985). Ron Covey, "IV Drug Abuse and AIDS: What
Counselors Need to Know," Professional Counselor 1.3 (1986)
37-39+. Larry Siegel, AIDS and Substance ABuse (New York:
Harrington Park Press, 1988).

63Berg, NALGAP Annotated Bibliography.

32

When Randy Shilts’ ”Alcoholism: .A Look in Depth at How
a National Menace is Affecting the Gay Community" appeared
in the Advocate in 1974, it was the first major treatment of
the subject to appear in the lesbian/gay press.“’ In his
article, Shilts discussed the social aspects of lesbian and
gay bars, life for the lesbian/gay alcoholic, co-alcoholism,
treatment, and recovery. Similar articles have also
appeared in Mandate, Chrietopher Street, and the Lesbian
Connection. A special issue of 332 was devoted to alcoholism
and other drug addiction.65

Testimonials generally caution others about the dangers
of alcohol or other drug abuse and frequently exhort people
to get help for their addictions. F.M.'s "A Dykes'
Drunkalogue" which appeared in Bay Windows is typical in
that she first tells the story of her addiction and then
explains how she recovered.66 Catherine's "An Address to

Alcoholic Lesbians by a Drunken Dyke" is a more overt plea

 

“Randy Shilts, "Alcoholism: A Look in Depth at How a
National Menace is Affecting the Gay Community," Advocate
(25 February 1974) 16-19+.

65"Alcoholism," Mandate: The International Magazine of
Entertainment and Eros 6.69 (1981) 30-32+. Thomas O.
Ziebold, "Alcoholism and Recovery: Gays Helping Gays,"
Christopher Street 3.6 (1979) 36-44. Kristi, "Lesbians and
.Alcoholism," Lesbian Connection 1.5 (1975) 5-6. BED 28
(1981). This issue of RED was titled "Reality Finally
Dawns."

“F.M., WA Dykes Drunkalogue," Bay Windows (25-30 May
1985) 12.

33

to her readers to stop drinking.67 Like many other writers,
Catherine addresses the political implications of
drunkenness which recognizes that--as the title of another
article explicitly states--”Drunks Make Poor
Revolutionaries."68

The largest volume of testimonials which appears
outside the lesbian/gay press are those stories which are
found in Box 1980, the monthly journal of Alcoholics
Anonymous which is better known as "The Grapevine." In
these stories, the AA—alcoholic tends to focus on some
aspect of the AA program. Sometimes the author's
homosexuality is incidental. At other times, such as when
L.B. writes about the lesbian/gay hospitality suite at the
1981 Illinois State AA Conference, it is central to the
story . ‘9

The final body of literature available on the subject
of lesbian and gay alcoholics is found in unpublished
papers. In 1979, when Dana Finnegan and Emily McNally

founded the National Association of Lesbian and Gay

.Alcoholism Professionals, they began to collect conference

 

67Catherine, ”An Address to Alcoholic Lesbians by a
Drunken Dyke," Lesbian Connection 1.5 (1975) 18-20.

'“Steven L. Berg, "Drunks Make Poor Revolutionaries:
.Alcoholism in the lesbian and Gay Community," The Agenda
(1986) 10. A version of this article was reprinted in
NALGAP News 7.1 (1986) 9-10.

69L.B., "In Diversity is Strength," Box 1980 (April
1982) 18-19.

34
papers and other unpublished materials. As a result of
their efforts, these papers were made available for
.distribution through the NALGAP office. In 1987, Rutgers
University added the NALGAP archives to their permanent
collection.

Because AA is both a spiritual program and the largest
organization of recovering alcoholics in the world, it would
seem that much of the small press literature would deal with
spiritual issues. However, such is not the case. Robert
Kus and I are the only two people consistently writing on
the topic. Kus’ research has focused on how gay men relate
to their higher power and how they experience their higher
powers’ relationships to them. Unfortunately, "Gay
American Men and Alcoholics Anonymous" is the only article
which Kus has published concerning this aspect of his

research.70

 

70Robert J. Kus, "Alcoholics Anonymous and American Gay
Men" Integrated Identity for Gay Men and Lesbians ed. Eli
Coleman (New York: Harrington Park Press, 1988) 253-276.
Kus' papers concerning gay men, sobriety, and spirituality
include: "Gay Alcoholism and Non-Acceptance of Gay Self:
The Critical Link," Nursing Research--Hawaii ’85, Honolulu,
1985. "Gays and Their Higher Power: An Ethnography of Gay
Sobriety," National Association of Lesbian and Gay
Alcoholism Professionals, Chicago, 1985. "The Alcoholics
Anonymous Sponsor and Gay American Men," 32nd International
Institute on the Prevention and Treatment of Alcoholism,"
Budapest, 1986. "The Higher Power and Gay American Men: A
Study in Sobriety," Special Program in Honor of Dr. Gordon
Browder, Missoula, April 1986. Spiritual issues are
mentioned in, but are not the focus of his "Gay
Consultations in Non-Gay Treatment Settings, Professional
Counselor (July/August 1987) 46-55.

35

"Homemaking in an Unwelcoming Environment," in which I
tell how lesbian and gay Christian organizations have been
welcoming lesbian and gay alcoholics, and "Responding to
Alcoholism,” which gives suggestions as to how groups such
as Dignity71 can be more helpful in addressing the needs of
alcoholics are typical of my small press publications which
are addressed to the non-professional reader." These
essays are more intended to give exposure to the problem of
alcoholism in the lesbian and gay communities than they are
to provide a systematic treatment program. However, such a
program is being developed in this dissertation, "AA,
Spiritual Issues, and the Treatment of Lesbian and Gay
Alcoholics."

Three other articles which address spirituality are
worth noting. K.L.'s ”Here I Am," which appeared in the
January 1980 issue of "The Grapevine" directly addresses the
issue of her higher power whom she chooses to call Herhim.73
But, the focus of this short article is not on lesbian.
spirituality in AA, but on how non-homosexuals in AA can

help lesbian and gay alcoholics. Ann Campbell's

 

71Dignity is an international organization of lesbian
and gay Catholics and their friends.

‘nAlex Liberacki [Steven L. Berg], ”Homosexuality in an
Unwelcoming Environment," More Light Update (March 1985) 6-
7. Steven L. Berg, "Responding to Alcoholism" Digpity, Inc.
Newsletter 18.8 (1986) 6.

73K.L. "Here I Am" Box 1980 (January 1980) 6.

36
testimonial, "God's Love is Priceless" tells the story of
her life as a nun, leaving the convent, accepting her
lesbianism, and eventually joining AA to get help for her
alcoholism."’ But like the testimonials which appear in gee
way Back, the focus is on what it was like as an alcoholic
and not how the steps of AA.were used to assist recovery.

"Dignity and Recovery: A Gay Catholic's Story"
published by Dignity/Region 5's Substance Abuse Task Force
is the story of a gay alcoholic and his recovery through
.AA{" The author, identified only as "a member of
Dignity/Region 5," mentions how his involvement with Dignity
helped his recovery. He concludes by offering suggestions
as to how Dignity and other organizations can address the
needs of alcoholics. However, these needs are not limited
to spiritual issues.

Although it has been an assumption in the alcoholism
field that little has been written on lesbian and gay
alcoholics, the bibliographic research supported by the
National Association of Lesbian and Gay Alcoholism
Professionals proves otherwise. It is not that issues such

as spirituality in recovery are not being discussed. It is

 

'"Anne campbell [pseud], "God's Love is Priceless,"
Lesbian Nuns eds. Rosemary Curb and Nancy Manahan (New York:
‘Warner Books, 1986) 213-219.

‘"Dignity and Recovegy: A Gay Catholic's Stogy (East
Lansing, MI: Dignity/Region 5 Substance Abuse Task Force,

1985).

37
that these issues are being addressed outside the
academic/professional mainstream. Fortunately, because the
NALGAP collection is now available at Rutgers Center of
Alcohol Studies, the fugitive literature of the field has
finally surfaced and the collection is being used to spur

other studies.

CHAPTER 2

RELIGIOUS ELEMENTS IN ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS

One of the truisms found in AA's literature as well as
its oral tradition is that AA is a spiritual program and not
a religious one. Although AA is essentially correct in its
claim, there is no clear, intellectual basis for it.

Alcoholics Anonymous is not religious in that it does
not explicitly promote a particular brand of organized, or
denominational, religion. God is defined by the
individual’s own, unique understanding. In fact, virtually
any understanding of God is acceptable so long as the
individual believes that she or he is not God and that God
is some type of higher power.1 Judith Sproxton is but one
of many who found that “AA members keep the notion of God

deliberately vague."2

Yet, the religious elements of AA can
not be separated from the spirituality of the program. Even
the "Big Book," in a discussion on the spiritual nature of

the program, confuses the issue when it equates the

 

1This argument is developed in Ernest Kurtz, Not God:

A Histogy of Alcoholics Anonymous (Center City, MN
Hazelden, 1979).

2Judith Sproxton, "Alcoholics Anonymous," The Tablet
(2 August 1980) 746.

38

 

39
personality changes which alcoholics undergo after entering
AA with religious experiences.3

The discussion of spirituality is problematic in that
there is no clear definition as to what constitutes a
spiritual program or even what is a spiritual experience.
The general belief seems to be that AA is spiritual because
it is not a religion. And debates about AA’s religious
nature do not generally address the specifics of
spirituality.

In order to help correct the difficulties which this
lack of clarity brings, a bibliographic project on Spiritual
Issues in Recovery has begun at Guest House, an in-patient
treatment center for alcoholic priests, deacons, brothers,
and seminarians. As part of this project a data base is
being constructed for publications that deal with
spirituality and recovery in the most general understandings
of the term. These materials are then being placed in sub-
categories. It is one of the aims of the project to
determine whether or not there is consensus as to what are

the key elements of spirituality as it relates to recovery.‘

 

3Alcoholics Anonymous (1939; New York: AA World
Services, 1976) 569. The text reads: "Yet it is true that
our first printing gave many readers the impression that
these personality changes, or religious experiences, must be
in the nature of sudden and spectacular upheavals."

‘For more information on this project, write to
Research and Education, Guest House, 1840 W. Scripps Road,
Lake Orion, MI 48035.

40

The fact that AA is able to maintain that it is
essentially a spiritual program and not a religious one
.because it is vague on the concept of God has not stopped
writers from identifying the religious nature of the program
nor has it halted criticism of AA's religious nature.
Robert Freed Bales in his 1945 analysis of the program
argued that, in and of itself, the belief in a higher power
"gives the group a basically religious character."5 This
basically religious character was also seen by 0. Herbert
Mbwrer. In 1964, Mowrer was so impressed with the
ecumenical character of AA that he argued that AA was the
third reformation. Christianity had been the first major
reformation and the Protestant reformation of the sixteenth
century had been the second. Even though he was willing to
repeat AA's claim that it is not a religion, he was not
willing to overlook the religious nature of the program.6

In her 1975 essay on "AA and Religion," Margaret Bean
is critical of AA's claim that it is not a religion. .After
isolating various aspects of what makes a religion and how
these elements are used in AA, Bean concludes that "it
appears a little puzzling when AA states specifically that

it is not a religion." She continues:

 

5Robert Freed Bales, "Social Therapy for a Social
Disorder: Compulsive Drinking," Journal of Drug Issues 1.3
(1945) 19. '

60. Herbert Mbwrer, "Alcoholics Anonymous and the Third
Reformation,” Religion in Life 34 (1964) 383-397.

41

Apparently what is meant here is that AA

does not undertake to determine a

member's relationship with God or the

structures whereby he achieves this

relationship. It is a secular cult that

borrows strength from religious

experience and may use existing

religious structures.7
Although Bean is only critical of AA's denial that it is.a
religion, she is not critical of AA’s use of religion. Her
goal is not to provide a critique of how AA works but to
help "enrich our understanding of how and why AA functions
as it does, what it offers, and how it solves some problems

° But others have been critical

and gives rise to others."
of what they see as an emerging cult or an essentially
religious program.

In 1963, Arthur Cain identified what he saw as a
growing trend of intolerance which AA has toward psychiatry,
its hostility to criticism, and its growing authoritarianism
when he argued that the program was "becoming one of

9 He continued to

America's most fanatical religious cults."
believe that alcoholics should try AA first, but that they
should also realize that there are also recovered alcoholics

outside the program.

 

7Margaret Bean, "AA and Religion," Psychiatric Annals
5.3 (1975) 52.

eBean 52.

9Arthur H. Cain, ”Alcoholics Anonymous: Cult or Cure?"
Hampers Magazine 226.1353 (1963) 48.

42
A.more recent and more critical reaction to AA's

religiosity is found in the formation of Secular
Organizations for Sobriety. SOS was formed in November,
1986 and, as Jim Christopher wrote in the premiere issue of
the newsletter:

Secular Organizations for Sobriety are a

grassroots movement, offering an

alternative to "spiritual" recovery from

the physiological disease of alcoholism.

Dogma-free SOS meetings are forming

across the land to meet the needs of

those who may be uncomfortable with, and

perhaps alienated by, the religiosity of

the typical Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)

group.°
In the same issue, John Winner describes the basic religious
indoctrination he experienced in a treatment facility which
based its treatment on AA's twelve step program. Winner
explains that "I had entered a fully accredited medical
hospital for alcohol/drug detox and rehabilitation, but I
might as well have entered a church.”11 He emphasizes how
his lack of acceptance of a higher power was interpreted by
family and treatment counselors as a sign of his lack of
willingness to stop drinking.

Regardless of the extent of criticism against the

religious nature of AA, to say that Alcoholics Anonymous has

 

1°Jim Christopher, "Firewalking, Sobriety, and Magical
Thinking," 305 1.1 (1988) 1.

11John Winner, "Treatment or Indoctrination?" S08 1.1
(1988) 2.

43
religious elements is not to say that AA is a religion.
Understanding AA in terms of its religious elements neither
diminishes its effectiveness nor does it contradict the
claim.that AA is a spiritual program and not a religious
one. However, such an understanding does assist in
explaining the spiritual dimensions of the fellowship and
the religious influences found in its twelve step recovery
program.12 Furthermore, to deny the religious element which
the lesbian or gay client legitimately discovers, discredits
not only the sponsor's or therapist's credibility but, more
seriously, it discredits AA itself.
Civil Religion and Alcoholics Anonymous
In the Winter 1967 issue of Daedalus, Robert N. Bellah

addressed the issue of American Civil Religion.

While some have argued that Christianity

is the national faith and others that

church and synagogue celebrate only the

generalized religion of "the American

Way of Life," few have realized that

there actually exists alongside of and

rather clearly differentiated from the

churches an elaborate and

well-institutionalized civil religion in
America.13

 

12The roots of the religious elements will be developed
in chapters 4 and 5.

13The Daedalus article has been reprinted as Robert N.
Bellah, "Civil Religion in America," American Civil
Reli ion, eds. Russell E. Richey and Donald G. Jones )New
York: Harper and Row, 1974) 21.

44

Bellah goes on to argue that this religious dimension "has
its own seriousness and integrity and requires the same care
in understanding that any other religion does."“

.Although Bellah ”first" brought the notion of civil
religion to the forefront of scholarly thought, he credits
Rousseau for having developed this phrase in The Social
Qontract.15 For Rousseau, the dogma of civil religion
consisted of a belief in the existence of God, the life to
come, the reward of virtue and the punishment of vice, and
the exclusion of religious intolerance. .All other religious
concerns were outside the concerns of the state. Although
they did not go as far as Rousseau, it is likely that he
influenced the writers of the Constitution as they began the
process of separating the affairs of the Church from the
affairs of the state.

What Bellah and others have found is that this civil
religion itself took on a strong religious significance.
For example, as America grew, a set of sacred texts, sacred
symbols, sacred vestments, sacred rituals, and sacred
shrines developed as secular saints became canonized. To
support their position, these scholars cite the awe in which
the Constitution, the flag, judges' robes, graduation

ceremonies, and historic landmarks are held. Furthermore,

 

1‘Bellah, "Civil Religion in America" 21.

15Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and
Discourses (1762; London: J.M. Dent and Sons, 1973).

45
they argue that the "worship" of George Washington, Abraham
Lincoln, and John F. Kennedy has elevated them to the level
of sainthood.16
Since Bellah identified the civil religion found in
American culture, others have looked at the religious
elements of various secular Observances. One of the more
useful studies of this nature is Michael Novak's The Joy of
Sports: End Zones, Bases, Baskete. Balls, and the
Consecration of the American Spirit because in it he
develops a systematic list of those concepts that are found
in religion and how those concepts may be applied to
seemingly non-religious events.
In the The Joy of Sports, Novak argues that sports are

religious; not that they are a religion.

Sports are religious in the sense that

they are organized institutions,

disciplines, and liturgies; and also in

the sense that they teach religious

qualities of heart and soul. In

particular, they recreate symbols of

cosmic struggle, in which human survival

and moral courage are not assured....If

you give your heart to the ritual [of

either sports or religion], its effects

upon your inner life can be
far-reaching. Of course, many merely go

 

16Russell E. Richey and Donald G. Jones, American Civil
Religion (New York: Harper and Row) provides an excellent
collection of essays on this topic. Will Herberg's
"American Civil Religion: What It Is and Whence It Comes"
(76-88) and W. Lloyd Warner's "An American Civil Ceremony"
(89-111) are particularly interesting.

46

through the motions. Yet even they,
unaware, are surprised by grace.17

There is no Religion of Sports which has a Basketball
'Denomination, a Baseball Denomination, and a Football'
Denomination. ”Sports are not Christianity, or Judaism, or
Islam, or Buddhism, or any of the world religions...But

"“ When Novak’s principles

sports are a form of religion.
are applied to Alcoholics Anonymous, it is clear that like
sports, AA is religious. It is not a form of religion in
the same way that Christianity, or Judaism, or Islam, or
Buddhism, or any of the world religions are religious, but
.Alcoholics Anonymous is a form of religion.

To argue that AA, like sports, is religious, seems to
contradict the basic principal that AA is a spiritual
program and not a religious one. Yet no contradiction
remains because AA understands "religious" to be
denominational religion. To the AA way of thinking, the
Oxford Group is, unquestionably, a religious movement
because it promotes Protestant Christianity.19 Yet, again,

to AA's way of thinking, sports could not be religious

because, like Alcoholics Anonymous, sports in

 

17Michael Novak, The Jov of Sporte: End Zones, Bases,

Baskets, Balls, and the Cpnsecration of the American Spirit
(New York: Basic Books, 1976) 21.

 

18Novak , 2 1 .

:TAA’s development from the Oxford Group will be
developed in chapter 5.

47
non-denominational. Those individuals who participate in
the ritual of sports would have no difficulty identifying

‘with the following passage from Alcoholics Anonymous:

we represent no particular faith or
denomination. We are dealing only with
general principles common to most
denominations.°

Before looking at the specific beliefs of Alcoholics
Anonymous and how those beliefs are frequently associated
with Western Christianity, it is first necessary to
delineate the nine basic elements which Novak uses to

identify religion.

1. .A religion, first of all, is
organized and structured.

2. Religions are built upon ascesis, a
word that signifies the development of
character through patterns of
self-denial, repetition, and experiment.
3. Religions channel the feeling most
humans have of danger, contingency, and
chance.

4. Religions make explicit the almost
nameless dreads of daily human life:
aging, dying, failure under pressure,
cowardice, betrayal, guilt.

5. Religions, however universal in
imperative, do not treat rootedness,
particularity, and local belonging as
unworthy.

6. Religions consecrate certain days
and hours.

7. To have a religion you have to have
heroic forms to try to live up to.

8. To have a religion you need to have
a pattern of symbols and myths that a
person can grow old with, with a kind of
resignation, wisdom, and illumination.

 

20Alcoholics Anonmous 93-94.

48

9. To have a religion, you need to have

a way to exhilarate the human body, and

desire, and will, and the sense of

beauty, and the sense of oneness with

the universe and other humans.21
By investigating each of these elements, it is possible to
better understand how.Alcoholics Anonymous triggers such a
strong religious reaction for so many people.

Characteristics included in the first element, that
religion is organized and structured, involve ceremonies in
‘which a few surrogates perform for all, in which certain
vestments are employed and rituals are prescribed and in
'which actions are highly formalized. Moments of silence are
often observed. Concentration is indispensable and correct
forms of behavior are distinguished from illicit behaviors.
The ritual of AA centers around meetings of which there

are four basic types: speaker's meetings, topic meetings,
step meetings, and open discussion meetings. At a speaker's
meeting, which is sometimes called a lead meeting, a
recovered alcoholic tells his or her story of what it was
like, what happened, and what it is like today. .Although
usually only one person speaks at the meeting, his or her
talk is frequently followed by short comments from

alcoholics sitting in the audience. Those people who wish

to comment, after identifying themselves by first name,

 

21Novak 29-31.

49
compliment the speaker on the talk and then add a bit of
their own experience.

At a topic meeting, either the chair of the meeting or
someone else introduces a specific topic for individuals to
discuss. Common topics are gratitude, benefits of sobriety,
a specific character defect, or a problem about which a
member wants to obtain advice. Step meetings are like topic
meetings except that the topic is always one of the twelve
steps. In an open discussion meeting, the members talk
about whatever issues they want.

Even given the variety of different types of meetings,
a formal ritual has been developed as to how meetings are
conducted and how people act at the meetings. Each meeting
is chaired by one individual who makes sure that it starts
and ends of time. Except at a speaker's meeting, the chair
is generally the first person to talk about the step or
topic under discussion. At a speaker’s meeting, the chair
is responsible for introducing the speaker.

Meetings usually open with the chair introducing
him/herself with the words "My name is [first name] and I'm
an alcoholic." Each person who speaks at the meeting
prefaces his/her comments with a similar introduction.
Variations include: "My name is [first name] and I'm a
recovering alcoholic; recovered alcoholic; grateful
alcoholic; drug addict and alcoholic." Sometimes the

alcoholic tag will come first in a form such as "I'm an

50
alcoholic and my name is [first name]." Identifying oneself
as an alcoholic gives the person the right to talk at the
meeting. After the member identifies him/herself, the other
members generally all say "Hi, [first name]." While this is
a common practice, as with most everything else in AA, it is
not universal.

If the speaker does not identify him/herself, other
members frequently interrupt with such comments as "Hello,
[speaker’s first name]" or "Who are you?" Such questions
are not asked to gain the speaker's identity, which is
generally known from other meetings; rather, the question is
raised to re-enforce the ritual.

.After identifying him/herself, the chair then has

someone read the preamble of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship
of men and women who share their
experience, strength and hope with each
other that they may solve their common
problem and help others to recovery from
alcoholism.

The only requirement for membership
is a desire to stop drinking. there are
no dues or fees for AA membership; we
are self-supporting through our own
contributions. AA is not allied with
any sect, denomination, politics,
organization or institution; does not
wish to engage in any controversy;
neither endorses nor opposes any causes.
Our primary purpose is to stay sober and
help other alcoholics to achieve
sobriety.

51
This simple statement summarizes the traditions and
principle purpose of the AA program. .After the preamble is
read, the first two and one half pages of chapter five, ”How
It WOrks," from Alcoholics Anonymous is then read. This
section includes the twelve steps of the program.

At topic, speaker, and open discussion meetings,
members speak one at a time. Rarely does a member speak
more than once in a meeting; although in some meetings the
chair is permitted to comment after each person shares
his/her comments. Meetings then close with the members
standing, holding hands, and saying the "Lord's Prayer." In
some instances, the "Serenity Prayer" replaces the "Lord's
Prayer."

Because each AA group is autonomous, there are slight
variations in the above ritual. However, within a given
meeting, whatever ritual is established is followed each
week. To change the ritual requires a "group conscience"
where the people who attend the meeting decide as a group to
make a change. An example of such a change would be if a
group that has been saying the "Lord's Prayer" each week
decides to close the meeting with the "Serenity Prayer." If
such a proposal is made at a meeting, the members discuss it
and then reach a consensus as to whether the change should
be implemented or not. Rarely is a controversial change

implemented; AA.does not run by "majority rules." Instead,

52
consensus decision making is used as a model.22
Although Novak explains that "ordinary humans, in the
.ordinary ups and downs of daily experience, cannot be
expected to perform routinely at the highest levels of

"B one significant way in which AA differs from

awareness,
formal religions is that power is not vested in any such
individuals. In AA, it is the ordinary human who is lifted
up. Although some meetings require a specific period of
sobriety for someone to chair a meeting, there are no hard
and fast rules. Leadership positions are rotated on a
regular basis. Most frequently, the chair for a particular
meeting is rotated each week or month.

Ascesis, the key to the second element, derives from

the disciplines which Greek athletes performed in order to

 

22Any Attempt to describe AA meetings is problematic.
William Madsen, "AA: Birds of a Feather," The American
Alcoholic (Springfield: Charles C. Thomas, 1974) 154-197;
David Rudy, Becoming Alcoholic: Alcoholics Anonymous and
the Reality of Alcoholism (Carbondale: Southern Illinois
University Pres, 1986); and Oliver R. Whitley, "Life With
Alcoholics Anonymous: The Methodist Class Meeting as a
Paradigm," Journal of Studies on Alcohol 38.5 (1977) 831-
848 give scholarly studies of AA meetings. First person
accounts can be found in most issues of Box 1980 more
commonly known as The Grapevine. Nan Robertson, Getting
Better: Inside Alcoholics Anonymous (New York: William
Morrow, 1988) demonstrates the variety of meeting formats.
Other first person accounts of meetings can be found in such
publications as Lillian Roth, I’ll ng Tomorrow (New York:
Frederick Fell, 1954). Ernie K., Ninety Meetings, Ninety
Days (Minneapolis: Johnson Institute, 1984) is a daily
reflection on the subjects discussed at ninety AA meetings
he attended over a ninety day period.

23Novak 29.

53
reach peak performance. As with Greek athletes,
self-denial, repetition, and experiment are all key elements
in Alcoholics Anonymous. Self-denial is first and foremost
centered around alcohol. The closest which AA comes to an
absolute rule is the "requirement" not to drink. Because
the only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop
drinking, one can be a member while still drinking.
However, until the alcohol is removed from the body,
recovery is not possible. In addition to denying themselves
alcohol, members of AA now have the understanding that any
mood altering drug--unless taken under a doctor's
supervision—-must not be used.

At the end of their drinking careers, alcoholics are
typically undisciplined. As a result, sponsors and other AA
members work to help new members achieve some discipline in
their lives. Repetition is stressed in such areas as
arriving to work on time, attending committed AA meetings,
and taking care of other routine responsibilities. It can
also be seen in members who establish a prayer/meditation
ritual at night or in the morning. Such repetition, it is
found, leads to contentment and serenity because it gives
order to a disordered life. In the process of obtaining a
daily and weekly schedule, new people in the program
experiment with different schedules until they find one that

they are able to work. Maybe the types of prayers they say

54

or the specific meetings which they attend will be changed
periodically. But, eventually, a routine is established.“

The third element of religion revolves around fate
because "Religions place us in the presence of powers
greater than ourselves, and seek to reconcile us to them."25
Members of AA are taught to become God-centered because
they understand that sobriety only comes from a fit
spiritual condition. Therefore, AA-alcoholics are taught to
ask themselves on a daily basis one simple question: "How
can I best serve Thee--Thy will (not mine) be done."26
Coincidence seldom has a place in the AA-alcoholic's world
view; Chance and fate are generally explained as God
‘working in the life of the individual. The story recorded
in Came to Believe by the man who met a minister on the
beach is an example of this type of understanding.” The
man was in despair and, by coincidence, he met a minister

‘walking along the beach one rainy night. After a long

conversation with the minister, the man felt better and was

 

2"Paul H., Things My Sponsor Taught Me (Center City,
MN: Hazelden, 1987) is an especially good summary of the
types of issues which a sponsor discusses with his or her
sponsee.

25Novak 30.

2

§Alcoholics Anonymous 85.

27"ARainy Night," Came to Believe (New York: AA
World Services, 1973) 70-72.

55
able to maintain successful recovery. The meeting was
attributed to fate, not chance.

The fourth element, that religions make explicit the
almost nameless dread of daily human life, is a central
concern of AA. The section of Alcoholics Anonymous which
gives directions as to how to do a moral inventory places
special emphasis on fear because "This short word somehow

touches about every aspect of our lives."28

And unless the
fear of daily living is addressed and dealt with, recovery
from alcoholism is almost impossible.

The fourth step of AA teaches that "[We] made a
searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves." As
part of this inventory alcoholics consult their fears.

We reviewed our fears thoroughly. We

put them on paper, even though we had no

resentment in connection with them. We

asked ourselves why we had them. Wasn’t

it because self-reliance failed us?

Self-reliance was good as far as it

went, but it didn’t go far enough.29
After counseling newcomers that they must searchingly and
fearlessly confront their fears, the authors of Alcoholics
Anonymous suggest that there is a better way of life than

the one they have been living. That way is dependence on

God. By trusting in an infinite God, the AA alcoholic

 

28Alcoholics Anonymous 67.

29Alcoholics Anonymous 68.

56
learns that "Just to the extent that we do as we think He
would have us, and humbly rely on Him, does He enable us to
match calamity with serenity." Reliance on God is not a
sign of weakness but an example of courage; a courage which
gives strength. The AA-alcoholic must still confront such
fears as aging, dying, failure under pressure, cowardice,
betrayal, and guilt. But, by working the program outlined
in the twelve steps, they are able to ask God to remove
their fears and "At once, we commence to outgrow our
fear."3°

Blessing the local turf to give a sense of rootedness
is the fifth element of religion. Larger loyalties are
built from the idea that "Charity begins at home." Thus,
AA-alcoholics have developed an understanding that the third
part of the twelfth step, "[We] practice these principles in
all our affairs" begins at home.

Being a "shit volcano" is one of the more graphic
analogies which has been used to describe the drunken
lifestyle. The AA-alcoholic who uses this analogy to
describe his life explains that those closest to him
received the most shit. Therefore, when he began to make
amends for his wrongs, he had to begin with his family and

then move on to others.

 

3"Direct quotes taken from Alcoholics Anonymous 68.

57

The sixth element of religions is that they consecrate
certain days and hours. "Sacred time is a block of time
lifted out of everyday normal routines, a time that is
different, in which different laws apply, a time within
'which one forgets ordinary time."31 In Alcoholics
Anonymous, the sacred time is the meeting. Regardless of
whatever else might be going on in ordinary time,
AA-alcoholics know that at least while they are at a meeting
they can be assured of two things. First, they will be
surrounded by people who understand. Second, they will not
drink.

Part of the serenity which sacred time brings is a
celebration of recurrence. When entering sacred time, the
individuals may lose themselves into the ritual of the
moment which gives a degree of comfort. As Michael Barnes
writes in TpejPreeence of Mystepy: "Ritual serves to make
people feel they have techniques for taming wild powers of
the universe. There are many experiences that produce

"” Barnes cites the death of a child as

chaotic emotions.
one such calamity by which the ritual of the funeral service
helps the parents and others make sense. Because they are

able to trust the ritual of the AA meeting, alcoholics often

 

31Novak 30.

inMichael H. Barnes, In the Presence of Mysterv: An

Introduction to the Stomy of Human Religiousness (Mystic,
CT: Twenty-Third Publications, 1984) 202.

58
experience serenity simply by attending the meeting or, on
occasion, by knowing that they will be able to enter the
sacred space later in the day.
' Many of the twelve steps have sacred time built into
them. When AA-alcoholics take a formal third step, they set
aside time to say some version of what is known as the
"Third Step Prayer" with someone else. When the authors of
Alcoholics Anonymous wrote that "We thought it very
desirable to take this spiritual step with an understanding
person", it is unlikely that they consciously thought about

” Nonetheless, they understood

the benefits of sacred time.
that established "sacred time" would add to the impact of
this step. Sacred time is also "forced" onto AA—alcoholics
when they share their moral inventory in the fifth step, set
time aside to review their progress in the sixth step, and
pray the seventh step prayer. Many alcoholics working the
twelve steps also set up specific sacred time when they
write their fourth step inventory, take the periodic
inventories required by the tenth step, and follow the
eleventh step suggestion that they seek, through prayer and
meditation, to improve their contact with God.

The seventh element of religion is that it provides
heroic forms after which individuals can model their own

lives. For the person suffering from alcoholism, heroism

 

3

3Alcoholics Anonymous 63.

59

can be found in anyone who is able to recover from the
disease; any sober alcoholic is a hero. Alcoholics
Anonymous concludes with personal stories which tell "How
Forty-Three Alcoholics Recovered From Their Malady." Since
Alcoholics Anonymous was first published, the only section
of the book that has been changed is the story section.

All changes made over the years in the

Big Book (AA members’ fond name for this

volume) have had the same purpose: to

represent the current membership of

Alcoholics Anonymous more accurately,

and thereby to reach more alcoholics.

If you think you have a drinking

problem, we hope that you may pause in

reading one of the forty-four personal

stories and think, "Yes, I’ve felt like

that"; or, more important, "Yes, I

believe this program can work for me,

too."“

Although none of the stories recorded in Alcoholics
Anonymous is of a lesbian or gay man who is open about his
or her sexuality, the Whitman-Walker Clinic has filled this
void by collecting ten stories from lesbians and gay men who
recovered through the AA program. These stories, discussed
in chapter 1, were published as The Way Back. By providing
newly sober lesbians and gay men with a copy of The Way Back

and with a copy of Alcoholics Anon ous, they will obtain

 

34Alcoholics Anonymous 211.

60
openly lesbian and gay role models and learn that their
sexual orientation is not a bar to recovery.35
Novak’s eighth element is that to have a religion you
need to have a pattern of symbols and myths with which a
person can grow old. As with rituals, we can turn to
Barnes’ In the Presence of Mystegy to obtain a workable

understanding of these two terms.

In ordinary English, a symbol is
something that stands for something
else. Those who write about religion
like to make distinctions between signs
and symbols and other representations.
We can overlook all those subtleties
here. A symbol re-presents more than
itself. It is a word, picture, gesture,
action, object, drama, ritual that
brings to people's consciousness
something more than itself. Like
rituals, symbols are meaning-carriers;
they, too, make reality "real." They
are not "merely" symbols in the place of
the real thing; they are a kind of
presence of the real thing.36

The most noticeable symbols around AA focus on the
re-birth of the alcoholic. In some areas poker chips are
given to new members when they first decide that they have
the desire to stop drinking. These people then receive

chips when they have completed their first thirty days of

uninterrupted sobriety. Chips are also given as a symbol of

 

35The Way Back: The Stories of Gay and Lesbian
.Alcoholics (1981; Washington, DC: Whitman-Walker Clinic,

1982).

36Barnes 209.

61
ninety days sobriety, six months sobriety, and a year’s
sobriety. Chips are then awarded for each additional year
that the alcoholic stays sober. A.variation on the poker
chip is to give the alcoholic some type of coin or
medallion.

Besides using chips, AA-alcoholics generally hold
yearly ”parties" to acknowledge their "sobriety day;" the
day on which they had their last alcoholic drink or their
first day of sobriety. These parties range from an informal
dinner between the alcoholic and his/her sponsor or a few
close friends to larger birthday parties. It is not
uncommon for alcoholics to receive presents, cards, and
congratulatory phone calls on their sobriety date. The
significance of rebirth is underscored by the fact that if
an AA-alcoholic mentions that it is his/her birthday that
someone else will ask: "Natal or Sobriety?"

Chips are often used to symbolize the individual’s
sustained sobriety. The twice-a-year Young People in
.Alcoholics Anonymous Conference which is held each year in
Oxley, Canada includes a ritual where everyone at the
conference whose sobriety date was in the preceding six
months receives a medallion at the Saturday night dinner; a
dinner which is followed by a speaker’s meeting, and dance.
At the dance, everyone shares in the group birthday cake.
For many, this ritual is one of the highlights of the

conference because it gives a time to symbolize what AA is

62
all about, alcoholics staying sober a day at a time with the
help of other alcoholics.

In some areas, a tradition has developed where a
sponsor or some other AA friend will give his/her own chip
to a newer person in the program. For example, a woman who
has two years sobriety might give her one year coin to
another woman. In such a transaction, not only is there the
symbol of the younger woman’s sobriety, but also of the
tradition of one alcoholic passing her sobriety to another
so that both can stay sober.

Even though chips become an important symbol of
sobriety, it is clear that they possess no magical quality.
Although alcoholics might rub their chips in times of
stress, they understand that it is not the chips that keep
them sober. One of the stories which has become a strong
part of AA’s oral tradition is about a man with many years
sobriety who carried his chips on a string. As the story
goes, this man would frequently hold up his long string of
chips and say that "this is what keeps me sober." The man
eventually gets drunk again because his chips could not keep
him sober.

The story about the man and his chips is but one of
many AA stories which have reached mythic proportions.
Although the term "myth" conjures up stories of the gods and

goddesses who lived in ancient Rome and Greece, a more

63

technical understanding of myths and the role they play in
culture is given by Michael Barnes:

...myths arise from the human belief

that reality is intelligible. Myths are

invented or accepted by people because

they do not just settle for experiencing

things but want to discover the sense of

things....All of them are the result of

human intelligence beginning to make

sense of things in the face of mystery,

in however stumbling a way. 3
Myths help people make sense of the world in which they
live. As Barnes explains:

Merely to assert that every event has an

explanation, a story behind it, is to

express an implicit trust that life

makes sense, that the dimension of

mysterious powers is not a dimension of

raw chaos threatening life, but one3 8of

some coherence and intelligibility.
Alcoholics Anonymous was founded around the importance of
story; one alcoholic telling his/her story to another. As a
result, it is not surprising that stories have taken on
mythic proportion in AA.

The alcoholic comes from a troubled, chaotic existence.

Yet, removing alcohol from the alcoholic's world does not

automatically give the person insight on how to lead a sober

life. It is only by applying the twelve steps, attending

 

37Barnes 35.

38Barnes 35.

64
meetings, reading AA literature, and learning to talk with
sponsors and others in the program that AA-alcoholics learn
how to live sober lives. Stories have developed as a way to
teach newly sober individuals important concepts as to how
to order their lives. Because of the anonymity of the
program, the stories used in the Big Book, other AA
literature, and the AA oral tradition, it is not possible to
identify specific stories with specific individuals.
However, as the gods and goddesses ordered the world of the
ancient Greeks and Romans, the escapades of Fred who could
not believe himself an alcoholic, Jim who thought he could
drink whiskey in his milk, the man with the string of chips,
and others order the world ofAA-alcoholics.39
Besides the stories of AA-alcoholics which have taken
on mythic proportions, other stories abound in the program.
One such story can serve as a model.
Two monastics were walking along the
road. After some time, they came to a
place where a river crossed the road. A
woman was standing next to the river
unable to cross for fear of drowning.
Although the monastics had taken vows
never to come into physical contact with
women, one monk had the woman sit on his
shoulders so he could carry her across.
On the other side of the river, he
set her down and the monastics continued
on their way. .As they walked, the
second monastics became angrier and

angrier about the actions of the first.
Finally, after walking for ten miles,

 

39Fred’s story can be found in Alcoholics Anonymous,
39-43.

65

his resentment built to a point where he

could take it no longer so he asked the

first how he could have disregarded his

vows and carry the woman across the

river.

In answer, the first replied: "Who

between us has carried her the farthest?

I carried her across the river and you

have carried her for ten miles?"
Through the story of the two monastics, the AA-alcoholic is
able to gain a better concept on the principle that I
"Resentment is the ’number one’ offender. It destroys more
alcoholics than anything else."40

The final element needed for a religion is to have a
way in which to exhilarate the human body, desire, will,
sense of beauty, and sense of oneness. As Novak explains:
"You need chants and songs, the rhythm of bodies in unison,
the indescribable feeling of many who together ’will one
thing’ as if they were each members of a single body.”1 By
joining together on a weekly basis, the members of a
particular meeting are able to re-affirm their commitment to
the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Instead of focusing on
differences, AA-alcoholics stress that they are not unique.
Individual stories might be different, but the feelings,
emotions, and program of recovery are the same.
AA also promotes a feeling of togetherness by

sponsoring picnics, dances, and other social events for its

 

4

hAlcoholics Anonymous 64.

“Barnes 31.

66
members. Informal gatherings for coffee after meetings as
well as the parties associated with AA-birthdays also
provide time for togetherness.
The Religion of AA
"God as we understand Him" which appears in both the

third and the eleventh step of Alcoholics Anonymous was not
divinely inspired. It was the result of a compromise within
a new, and as yet unnamed, group of alcoholics meeting in
New York and Akron. In the first version of the twelve
steps, the role of God had been strongly influenced by the
Oxford movement, an influence which will be more fully
developed in a following chapter. Bill Wilson had
originally written in the second step that "[We] came to
believe that God could restore us to sanity." Furthermore,
the seventh step counseled that "[We] humbly on our knees
asked Him to remove these shortcomings--holding nothing
back." The form of praying on one's knees was equally
important as the function of praying.

But when he [Bill Wilson] showed the

manuscript to local members, there were

heated discussion and many other

suggestions. Jimmy B. opposed the

strong references to God, in both the

steps and the rest of the early

chapters; Hank wanted to soft-pedal

them; but Fritz insisted that the book

should express Christian doctrines and
use Biblical terms and

67

expressions....The result of this was2

the phrase "God as we understood Him.
In addition to adding "God as we understood Him" to the
third and eleventh steps, "God" in step two was changed to
"a power greater than ourselves" and the specific direction
of praying on one’s knees was removed from step seven. But
even with these changes, because the normative religious
experience in America is Christian, the normative religion
within Alcoholics Anonymous is Christian, and AA tradition
and literature promote a Christian understanding of the
steps even as they proclaim that any conception of God is
acceptable.

To argue that AA is a priori Christian would move
against the explicit and implicit desires and
self-understanding of Alcoholics Anonymous. The group
within AA represented by Fritz who wanted strong Christian
statements incorporated into the steps were not so much
concerned with advancing Christianity as they were in
advancing the type of spiritual program which helped them to
recover. Individuals unaware of AA history can not realize
that AA did not make its final break with the Oxford group
until 1939, four years after AA had been founded and the

same year that Alcoholics Anonymous was published. They do

 

“Pass It On: The Story of Bill Wilson and flew the AA
Message Reached the World (New York: AA World Services,
1984) 199.

68
not realize that when Fritz, Jimmy, Bill, Dr. Bob, and
others shared their experience, strength, and hope they were
sharing an experience, strength and hope which was rooted
in the primitive Christianity of the Oxford Group.

Yet, sobriety--and not religious conversion--is the
principle purpose of the program. As stated in the fifth
tradition: "Each group has but one primary purpose--to
carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers." In
the discussion of this step which appears in Twelve Steps
and Twelve Traditions, Bill Wilson records the story of a
member who went on a call to help another alcoholic, an
Irishman whom we can assume was a devote Catholic. After
explaining that he is getting nothing but a stronger
sobriety for himself out of being there, the AA member
mentions God and the Irishman responds: "I belong to a
great church that means everything to me. You’ve got a
nerve to come in here talking religion!" The AA member’s
memory of what followed is worth recording:

"Thank Heaven I came up with the right
answer for that one. It was based
foursquare on the single purpose of AA.
'You have faith,’ I said. 'Perhaps far
deeper faith than mine. No doubt you're
better taught in religious matters than
I. So I can't tell you anything about
religion. I don’t even want to try....
Finally, he saw that I wasn't attempting

to change his religious views, that I
wanted him to find the grace in his own

69

religion that would aid his

recovery...."‘3
Alcoholics Anonymous has taken great care so as not to
establish itself as a religious sect, yet many alcoholics,
when first confronted with the program, clearly see AA’s
Christian element as an impediment to their personal
recovery.

The use of the Lord’s Prayer to close AA meetings is
the strongest signal to the newcomer that AA is a Christian
program. It was, afterall, Jesus Christ, speaking as the
son of God, who gave it to his followers. The significance
of this fact was missed by Bill Wilson and many other
Christian AA—alcoholics. Non-Christians cannot miss the
significance of feeling pressured to pray in a tradition in
which they do not believe. Another Christian prayer, "The
Prayer of St. Francis," is central to the explanation found
in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of the eleventh step.
In fact, this prayer, which originated in the Catholic
tradition, is suggested as the model by which AA-alcoholics
can pray and meditate.“

AA apologists stress the universal nature of the
Christian references. They argue that it is not

Christianity, per se, that is being advanced, but the

 

“Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions 99.

“Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions 99.

70
universal themes found in such prayers. As one AA alcoholic
explains:
So I became interested in Christian
mysticism, which led me into the study
of techniques of deep meditation and of
comparative religions. I began to
realize that the so-called mystics of
whatever tradition--Christian, Jewish,
Buddhist, Hindu, Taoist, or
Muhahammadan--all ultimately talked the
same language. In one way or another,
they all describe the same blissful One

behind the Many, who could be directly
known in deep prayer and meditation.‘

Came to Believe...: The Spiritual Adventure of AA as
Experienced by Individual Members is an AA approved
collection of stories about the spiritual experiences of
AA-alcoholics. Of the 76 stories in the book, in 14 of
them, it is possible to identify a specific religious
tradition. Of those 14, 13 of the references are to
Christianity. The remaining one is to Islam. The AA
alcoholic who reads this book is reminded that God so loved
the world that he gave his son up to death, that it is
important to follow the Biblical commandments, and the
importance of the Sermon on the Mount. The story of the

lame man walking is cited as is the song "In the Garden.“6

 

“Came to Believe: The Spiritual Adventure of AA as

Experienced By Individual Members (New York: AA World
Services, 1973).

“Came to Believe 35, 60, 63, 108, 46.

71

The book also includes "Faith in People," written by an
AA alcoholic who does not have a personal God and two
stories where God is equated with good.‘7 For the lesbian
or gay alcoholic who has a distrust of religion--especially
Christianity--stories such as these need to be highlighted.
Unfortunately, the idea that the "God as we understand
him..." is somehow something other than a personal/religious
God is generally viewed as a temporary measure. Atheists
and other non-believers can be tolerated because they will
eventually see the light and convert.

"An Atheist’s Journey“ is the only story in Came to
Believe that is not told in the first person. As such, it
begins to move into the realm of myth, a way in which others
can be shown how the world should be ordered (as opposed to
the personal stories that show how "I" modeled "my" world
using the program). In this story, an AA-alcoholic from
Sioux City Iowa tells about an alcoholic who was a professed
atheist and was unwilling to change on that point. One of
the four AAs who visited the atheist while the new man was
still in the hospital stated that he and the other three
men "were sober and had managed to stay that way." This

fact, he suggested, "made them stronger than the patient."

 

""Faith in People," Came to Believe 83-85. The two
stories where God is equated with good are "Inner Voice" 83
and "A Practical Philosophy" 114—116.

72
Because the patient couldn’t argue that point, he made those
men his higher power.

When the atheist left the hospital, he "threw himself
hinto AA work with all the energy he could muster." He
attended meetings and did twelfth step work. Then, one day,
he made a twelve step call on a priest and eventually became
the priest’s sponsor. Later, he worked with a couple of
ministers. "Twice more, he was privileged to sponsor men of
God--by now his God, as well." When, after seven years of
sobriety, the atheist died, he was "a man at peace with
himself and his Higher Power." Like "good" atheists in the
program, the twelve steps lead to his conversion.“

Although the AA group is held up as an acceptable
higher power, new members are frequently encouraged to view
this as only a temporary arrangement. As Bill Wilson wrote
in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, "For the time bein ,
we who were atheist or agnostic discovered that our own
group, or AA as a whole, would suffice as a higher power.“9
And about half of the discussion of the third tradition,
"The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop
drinking,“ is devoted to the story of Ed, a vocal atheist
who boldly stated:

"I can't stand this God stuff! It's a
lot of malarkey for weak folks. This

 

“"An Atheist’s Journey" Came to Believe 79-80.

“Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions 107.

73
group doesn’t need it, and I won’t have
it! To hell with it!"
Even though he doesn’t believe in God, Ed is permitted to
stay in Alcoholics Anonymous because he said he was a
member. Atheists as well as "beggars, tramps, asylum
inmates, prisoners, queers, plain crackpots, and fallen
women" were not excluded from the program.50
But what is significant about Ed’s story is that he
does not remain an atheist. Confirming the view held by
AA-alcoholics, Ed’s lack of faith causes him to get drunk.
But, eventually, he converts to Christianity.51 Conversion
of atheists is also prominent in the chapter of Alcoholics
Anonymous titled "We Agnostics." This chapter, written on
the assumption that "deep down in every man, woman, and
child, is the fundamental idea of God,"52 the chapter closes
'with the story of an agnostic who converts. Even Jimmy, the

alcoholic who argued for inclusion of the phrase "God as We

 

50Twelve Ste 5 and Twelve Traditions 140.

51Ed’s story can be found in Twelve Steps and Twelve
Traditions 144-145.

52"We Agnostics," Alcoholice Anonymous 44-57. The
quote is found on page 55.

74
Understand Him," has a spiritual awakening which is recorded
in AA literature.53

The fact that AA literature seems to promote
Christianity as the spiritual norm is not surprising. Yet,
in working with lesbian and gay alcoholics, it is important
to help them understand that Christianity need not be the
basis of their AA spirituality. Strategies which an AA
sponsor or therapist may use are outlined in chapter 6.
But, before such strategies can be effectively implemented,
it is important to understand from where the strong bias
against Christianity comes.

Non-lesbians and non-gay men might question the
validity of Christianity as Bill Wilson did before his
conversion:

To Christ I conceded the certainty of a
great man, not too closely followed by
those who claimed Him. His moral
teaching--most excellent....[Yet] The
wars which had been fought, the burnings
and chicanery that religious dispute had
facilitated, made me sick. I honestly
doubted whether, on balance, the
religions of mankind had done any good.
Judging what I had seen in Europe [as a

soldier in World War I] and since, the
power of God in human affairs was ’

 

53"The Vicious Cycle," Alcoholics Anonmous 238-250.
This story was published anonymously, but textural evidence
allows Jim B. to be identified as the author. See Stewart
C., A Reference Guide to the Big Book of Alcoholics
Anonymous (Seattle: Recovery Press, 1986) 138.

75

negligible! the brotherhood of man a
grim jest.‘

Such theoretical reasons to question the validity of
Christianity as practiced by the followers of Christ are not
uncommon. But, many lesbians and gay men have learned the
truth in the message which serves as the motto for Fag Rag:
"Christianity is the Enemy." And this enemy is not simply a
'theoretical threat to them. It is the followers of Christ

wvho are seen as villains attempting to deny lesbians and gay

Inen their jobs, housing, children, families, and,

:Erequently, their lives. The extent of this distrust is

cieveloped in the next chapter.

54Alcoholics Anonymous 11.

CHAPTER 3

ROOTS OF LESBIAN/GAY DISTRUST OF CHRISTIANITY

Because of the strong spiritual nature of the first
edition of Alcoholics Anonymous, the forward to the second
edition took pains not only to explain that there were
varieties of spiritual development but that Catholics,
Protestants, and Jews as well as Hindus, Moslems, and
Buddhists have all been able to recover through the program.
One story that circulates around AA is how an Hindu monk
commented that if God were changed to good, there was
nothing inconsistent between the AA program and his
religion. Since 1955, when Appendix 2 was added to the
Alcoholics Anon ous, AA has taken the position that "We
find that no one need have difficulty with the spirituality
of the program."1

Unfortunately, while such a position is theoretically
accurate, it does not always address the emotional needs of
gay and lesbian alcoholics, many of whom have had a history
of negative experiences at the hands of church authorities.
Currently, Christianity is strongly perceived to be the

principle force against the civil rights of lesbians and gay

 

1The forward to the second edition was reprinted in
Alcoholics Anonymous (1939; New York: AA World Services,
1976) xv--xxi. The comments on religious affiliation are
found on page xx. The direct quote is from 570.

76

4‘

men. Therefore, many in the lesbian and gay communities
challenge the basic beliefs of Christianity.

John Kavanaugh is not alone when he reminds lesbians
and gay men that they "tend to forget that the propaganda
taught by the Church is still one of the strongest forces
forming the various cultures." Therefore, he concludes,
"Homosexuals who refuse to fight the church’s use of
morality based on hate which has been directed against the
Gay kind of love are just as guilty of the resulting
prejudice against Gays as the priests who preach such hate."
As a lesbian, Kathie Bailey cannot understand why lesbians
would celebrate "the birth of a man responsible for starting
the bloodiest religion in the world, which has persecuted
gay people more than any other, promoted racism, genocide,
and slavery, and has women hatred as its backbone having
murdered 9 million of us as witches?" Such a strong dislike
of Christianity frequently causes all organized religions to
become rejected and all spiritual programs to be suspect.2

Five issues that have caused gay and lesbian people to
feel unwelcome by Christian organizations are mis-use and
inconsistent use of scripture, anti-pleasure/anti-love
rhetoric, patriarchy, the conspiracy of silence, and

oppression and judgementalism. Because of the strong

 

2John Kavanaugh, "Jewish and Christian Morality: The
Cement of Prejudice," Detroit Gay Liberator (November, 1970)
7. Kathie Bailey, "I Hate Christmas," Lesbian Connection
4.7 (1979) 11.

78

association between spirituality and the Christian tradition
in Western society, it is important that those working in
alcohol/drug education-—especially those who use the twelve
steps developed by Alcoholics Anonymous--understand the
oppression which lesbians and gay men have historically
suffered as a result of church-sanctioned hatred and the use
of the Bible as a club to beat lesbians and gay men down,
rather than as a spiritual guidebook for helping them, the
downtrodden.
The Issue of Patriarchy

Because "God as we understand him" is so closely linked
to the Christian tradition from which America was born, it
is not surprising to find that God is a male patriarch.3
And reflecting the culture from which it was produced,
Alcoholics Anonymous is a sexist document that only gives
masculine models for a monotheistic deity. Pantheism is

nowhere acknowledged and issues of matriarchy are totally

 

3An excellent resource on the development of patriarchy
is Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1986). For a general discussion of
issues concerning the patriarchal tradition of religion and
how some women are responding to that tradition, see Hunter
College Women’s Studies Collective, Women’s Realities,
Women’s Choices (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983)
especially pages 356-373. A more detailed critique of
patriarchy and anti-feminism can be found in Mary Daly, The
Church and the Second Sex (New York: Harper and Row, 1968).
Some writers have overtly or inadvertently blamed Jews for
the birth of patriarchy. For an excellent discussion of
this issue, see Judith Plaskow, "Blaming Jews for the Birth
of Patriarchy," Nice Jewish Girls: A Lesbian Anthology ed.
Evelyn Torton Beck (Trumansburg, NY Crossing Press, 1982)
250-254.

 

79
ignored. Although individuals are encouraged to develop
their own understanding of God, the language which is used
to describe God--as far as AA literature is concerned--is
always masculine. Again, closing meetings with the Lord’s
Prayer, a prayer to "Our Father who art in Heaven,"
emphasizes the cultural bias inherent in the normative
understanding of God.

The issue of patriarchy is particularly sensitive to
lesbians who have traditionally been excluded from full
religious participation not so much because of their
sexuality but because of their sex. The patriarchal nature
of Western religious expression has caused some lesbians to
adopt witchcraft, paganism, or goddess worship as their mode
of spiritual expression. Unfortunately, the language used
to describe the higher power in twelve step programs places
the programs in opposition to such a spiritual
understanding. The tolerance which AA is able to adopt
toward those who have no religious beliefs is built on the
assumption that the agnostic will eventually come to a
belief in a higher power known as God. The assumption that
all who stay sober will eventually understand that God is
the higher power undercuts a theology based on

nonpatriarchal religions.4

 

‘Several good books exist on feminist spirituality.
These include Ursula King, Women and Spirituality: Voices
of Protest and Promise (Houndmills, England: MacMillan
Education Ltd., 1989) and Joann Wolsaki Conn, ed., Women’s

Spirituality: Resources for Christian Development (New

80

Terry Troia comments that "The challenge of
[developing] an all-inclusive language comes from realizing
that certain descriptions of God, excluding other images and
peoples’ experience of God" is especially harmful.5 Because
the language of a heterosexist patriarchy cannot adequately
express the experiences of lesbians and gay men--especially
those homosexuals who choose to live their spiritual lives
outside the Western Christian tradition--, lesbians and gay
men have been particularly sensitive to the issue of
developing an all-inclusive language. For lesbians and gay
alcoholics, such debate is not academic. It is crucial for
a development of their own sense of self-worth and dignity.
The need to translate text from heterosexual experience to a
workable reality for lesbians and gay men can hinder
spiritual growth and retard the process of working the steps
of the program. Often, not only does the sexist language

include a heterosexist bias, there might not be ways in

 

York: Paulist Press, 1986). A good book on general
spirituality in the lesbian community is Sarah Lucia
Hoagland, Lesbian Ethics: Toward New Value (Palo Alto, CA:
Institute of Lesbian Studies, 1988). Books have also been
written about the lesbian experience in the context of a
specific religious tradition. For information on Jewish
lesbians see Beck, Nice Jewish Girls. For Catholic
lesbians, consult Barbara Zanotti, ed., A Faith of One’s

Own: Explorations by Catholic Lesbians (Trumansburg, NY:
Crossing Press, 1986.)

5Terry Troia, "What Does It Mean to be Inclusive?"

Dignitlealtimore News 9.3 (1982) 5.

81
which to translate concepts into the experiences of lesbians
and gay men.

The difficulty with language can be seen in discussions
of marital relations. David Goodstein writes in
"Transforming Relationships:" "The word lover is hopelessly
inadequate to express the depth of our feelings for those
whom we make sexually and emotionally significant in our
lives: furthermore, it has a quality of surreptitiousness
about it." The anonymous female author of "Toward a New
Vocabulary" recommends "Sigother," short for "significant
other," because "it is not part of the heterosexual
vocabulary, it promotes dialogue, and I think it describes
better than any of the other terms just who we are." Margy,
in “Choose Four: Lesbian/Feminist, Women, Dyke, Chick,
Homosexual, Lesbian, Amazon, Girl" cautions that "I feel
that rather than simply using these words out of habit, we
should give consideration to the implications of each of
these words and choose ones that actually reflect what we
feel about ourselves and our lives as lesbians."6

As lesbians and gay men discuss the implications of
language and struggle with language to define themselves,

their relationships, and their spiritual lives, there is a

 

6David Goodstein, "Transforming Relationships,"
Advocate 256 (1978) 5. "Toward a New VOcabulary," Lesbian
Connection 4.7 (1979) 3. Margy, "Choose Four:
Lesbian/Feminist, Woman, Dyke, Chick, Homosexual, Lesbian,
Amazon, Girl," Lesbian Connection 1.2 (1975) 11.

82
need to change the idea of "God as we understand Him" to
"the God of our understanding" or even "the higher power of
our understanding." Such moves away from the normative
understanding of God help recovering lesbian and gay
alcoholics.

By actively acknowledging that there is a difference
between the rhetoric and reality of twelve step programs and
by paying attention to use of language, it will be easier
for all individuals to work the steps. For example, Paul R.
Johnson confronts the issue of language in his Quotations
from Chairman Falwell when he states: "Both Dr. Falwell and
I are against unnatural and unhealthy sex. We disagree as

to what constitutes unhealthy sex."7

By encouraging
discussions of language within twelve step programs, both
homosexuals and heterosexuals could come to a fuller
understanding of how language restricts and proscribes
behavior.
The Use and Misuse of Scripture

The issue of God as male patriarch is not the only
problem resulting from AA’s foundation on Christian
principles. The use of scriptural references in AA
literature to explain the moral way of life reminds lesbians
and gay men of the proof-text approach to Biblical

"scholarship" which prominent religious leaders have

 

7Paul R. Johnson, Quotations from Chairman Falwell (Los
Angeles: Marco and Johnson, 1982).

4‘.

83
consistently used to justify their attacks on the lesbian
and gay communities. The issue of what the Bible says
about homosexuality is important to lesbians and gay men
because religious writers often misrepresent Biblical
passages. As a result of such biased interpretation of
scripture, the members of the lesbian and gay communities
promote sound biblical scholarship. Rolf Tor Jarlsson’s
comment in "Sodomites and Gay People," helps explain why gay
men and lesbians-—even those who consider themselves to be
outside the Christian community--place value on scripture
study. As he writes: "legal and social condemnation of
homosexuality in the United States is rooted in the
prohibitions against sodomy in the Old Testament,
[therefore] knowledge of the origin and the interpretation
of these scriptural passages is a matter of importance to
gay people." Although many attempts at understanding are
simplistic, most exhibit more honesty than is found in
studies that cite Jesus” personal condemnation of
homosexuality and those that ignore contemporary Biblical

scholarship.a

 

8Rolf Tor Jarlsson, "Sodomites and Gay People,"
Advocate 224 (1977) 37. Some standard books in this area
include Tom Horner, Jonathan Loved David (Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1978); John J. McNeill, The Church and the
Homosexual (1976; New York: Pocket Books, 1977); Richard

Woods, Another Kind of Love: Homosexuality and Spirituality
(1977; New York: Doubleday, 1978); and Ralph Blair, An

Evangelical Look at Homosexuality (New York: privately
printed, 1972).

84

Having lived as a persecuted people, lesbians and gay
men have become very sensitive to the differences between
rhetoric and reality. Such distrust arises from the
IChristian tradition of employing a proof—text approach to
scripture where various verses are taken out of context to
justify an individual’s or group’s own prejudices. A
classic example is in the use of Leviticus to condemn same
sex sexual activity under the rationalization that, because
the Bible is the revealed word of God, such activity cannot
be tolerated. However, condemnations of various activities
such as eating pork, wearing clothes spun with different
types of cloth, or shaving a man’s beard are read in a
cultural context and are ignored by the same people who take
a literal translation to texts which condemn sexual
minorities. In "Christian Debate," Gerald A. Larve
investigates Biblical condemnation of other-sex as well as
same—sex sexual activity before asking why consistency has
been ignored in their enforcement. The lesbian and gay
communities are still waiting for a response.9

It is not the role of Alcoholics Anonymous to become
involved in such religious dialogues. However, the
inferiority complexes which are found among heterosexual
alcoholics are also found among lesbians and gay men. But

for individuals who have grown up with a centuries old

 

9Gerald A. Larve, "Christian Debate," Advocate 170
(1975) 18.

85

tradition of discrimination based on social intolerance
often condemn themselves for who they are as well as what
they have done. In a sermon delivered on the feast of the
Holy Innocents, the Reverend Dr. Anne C. Garrison explained
how society encourages aspects of homosexual self
oppression.

It [societal prejudice] maims its

victims and then derides them for their

dysfunction. It destroys self-respect

and then looks with distaste on the

resulting frivolous behavior. It

identifies and isolates a set of people,

goads them into reactive action and then

says "LOOK AT THAT BUNCH OF SHAMELESS

QUEERS OVER THERE FLAUNTING THEIR

DIFFERENCES." In its own way, society

slaughters the innocent every day,

driving to suicide, alcoholic

self-destruction or psychic catatonia

those whom it no longer, in these

enlightened times, burns at the

stake."10

The relationship between the Christian God historically

promoted by the followers of Jesus Christ and lesbians_and
gay men has traditionally been one of hatred and cruelty.
Such cruelty is clearly seen in Arthur Robb’s editorial "Gas
Gays" in which he calls for the execution of all homosexuals
and Chick Publications' The Gay Blade which makes its case
by advancing unhealthy stereotypes. Shadow of Sodom, which

almost avoids polemical language is an example of the slick

 

10Anne C. Garrison, "Homily for Integrity/Chicago on
the Feast of the Holy Innocents," Integrity Forum 8.2 (1982)
21.

86

books published by some Christian presses. Its author, Paul
D. Morris, did his research as he drove a taxicab at night.
The result is a book that is typical of most "Christian"
treatments of gay men: discrimination instead of
understanding is advanced.11

A case study of hostility can be identified in John
McNeill’s treatment by the Catholic church after he
published The Church and the Homosexual. The anonymous
article "Real Sin of Sodom was Inhospitality, Says Priest"
and Keith Gordon's review, "An Issue Finds Its Voice" both
focus on the positive nature of McNeill’s work. However,
after McNeill was publicly silenced, articles began to focus
on the church’s inhospitality. Dean Gengle’s "Ban on
Theologian Lifted--Almost" is typical. This controversy
helped confirm the belief that the God worshiped by members
of the Christian community is not interested in the welfare
of lesbians and gay men.12

Such controversies have also caused a healthy distrust
of anything that appears to have religious backing.

Humberto Cardinal Medeiros’ attempt at non—judgmental

 

11Arthur Robb, "Gas Gays," The Torch: The
Revolutionagy Magazine of WHITE America 9.3 (1977) 4. The
Gay Blade (Chino, CA: Chick Publications, nd). Paul D.

Morris, Shadow of Sodom: Facing the Facts of Homosexuality
(Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1978).

12"Real Sin of Sodom was Inhospitality, Says Priest,"
Advocate 121 (1973): 19+. Keith Gordon, "An Issue Finds Its
Voice," Advocate 201 (1976) 7-8. Dean Gengle, "Ban on
Theologian Lifted—-Almost,“ Advocate 180 (1975) 8.

87
dialogue in the Boston Archdiocese was ill-received because
of this. Anti-homosexual positions taken by New York’s
Cardinal O’Connor, Washington, D.C.’s Cardinal Hickey, and
Boston’s Cardinal Law continue to close off dialogue while
fanning the flames of ill will.13
The Anti-Pleasure/Anti-Love Position

For lesbians and gay men, the thought of turning "their
will and their lives over to the care of God as they
understand Him" is a frightening experience. Many have
spent years trying to flee from the God that they
understand; a God that created them in such a way that they
are condemned to hell; an intolerant God whose message is
carried to them by intolerant people; an intolerance that
gives the appearance of springing from an anti-pleasure/
anti-love position.

Lyn Pederson has identified the unfortunate problem
that "modern churches have all but subordinated the Love
ideal to procreation (a concern foreign to the early
Church), but surely Love is something more than rutting."14
Lesbians and gay men realize that not all non-procreative
sexual activity is banned by Christianity and although much
gay male literature describes promiscuous activity, the

difference between love and rutting is taken seriously by

 

13Humberto Cardinal Medeiros, Pastoral Care for the
Homosexual (Boston: Daughters of St. Paul, 1979).

1“Lyn Pederson, "Editorial," ONE 14.11 (1966) 4-5.

88
the lesbian and gay communities. However, even though
homosexuals realize the distinction between love and
recreational sex, there remains the problem that society has
chosen to define the experience of a lesbian or gay man
'simply in terms of sexual activity; an activity which is
considered inappropriate because it is nonprocreative.

Most alcoholics--both heterosexual and
homosexual--suffer from various types of unhealthy sexual
activity which include physical abuse, promiscuity,
adultery, and so forth. And twelve step programs rightly
encourage people to identify what causes them to act in ways
which damage themselves, their families, and their
reputations. The directions for completing a fourth
step--"Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of
ourselves"--places a special emphasis on inappropriate uses
of sexuality.

As long as same-sex sexual activity is not a priori
defined as inappropriate, such self analysis is consistent
with the type of analysis which has taken place, and
continues to take place, in the lesbian and gay press.
Articles such as Kathe and Liz’s "Loving Friends" discuss
loving, committed, and non-sexuality active friendships.
Although the gay male press has not historically been as
concerned with such issues, the emergence of AIDS has
resulted in more articles within the gay press on "safer

sex" and friendship. But "safer sex" and healthy sexual

89

activity do not necessarily follow the heterosexual model.
Hostility to pleasure and to sexual activity finds few
adherents in the lesbian and gay communities. Instead, the
lesbians and gay communities realize that sex is not "a
necessary evil" for procreation, but a way in which to
establish healthy bonds between individuals.”

Unfortunately, the emphasis on procreation and
heterosexual models for defining healthy modes of sexual
activity actually gives support to Charley Shively’s
position, advanced before the AIDS crisis, that it is only
through indiscriminate promiscuity that the gay community
can find self—advancement. Shively, one of the founders of
Boston's Fag Rag Collective and an editor and frequent
author for the Fag Rag, eloquently argues that the only way
to defeat the system which places an emphasis on beauty,
youth, and socio-economic status is indiscriminate
promiscuity. He believes that the discriminatory social
structure of America will only change when individuals are
willing to place no constraints on the types of people with
who they are willing to have sex. This socio-political
ideology has been romanticized by such authors as Arnie

Kantrowitz whose "I Kink Therefore I Am" and "Where's the

 

15Kathe and Liz, "Loving Friends," Lesbian Connection
4.3 (1978) 2. Since AIDS has surfaced, gay male writing has
shown more concern with relationship issues. A discussion
of these changes can be found in Richard Hall, ”Gay Fiction
Comes Home," New York Times Book Review 19 June 1988: 1, 25-

90

Action" promote the stereotype that gay men are (or at least
ought to be) indiscriminately sexually active. Similarly,
gay male pornography makes the same claim.16

The anti-pleasure aspects of the Christian attitude
toward sexual activity coupled with the mythology which has
evolved around the homosexual community has helped promote
the promiscuity which is condemned. Because of the serious
lack of role models for lesbians and gay men, many
individuals have learned how to be lesbians and gay men by
listening to descriptions advanced by "religious" thinkers
such as the Reverend Jerry Falwell. Because individuals
frequently live up to the expectation that others have of
them, lesbians and gay men learn--often before joining the
lesbian and gay communities--that they are supposed to adopt

sexual activity which is inherently unhealthy. And they

 

16Charley Shively, "Indiscriminate Promiscuity as an
Act of Revolution," Gay Sunshine 22 (1974) 3-5. This
general theme is found in most of Shively’s essays which
appeared in Fag Rag. His "Cocksucking as an Act of
Revolution," Fag Rag 3 (1972) 9-8+. Arnie Kantrowitz, "I
Kink Therefore I Am," Advocate 205 (1976) 27. Arnie
Kantrowitz, "Where’s the Action?" Advocate 180 (1975) 42.
Concerning gay fiction, William Rogers’ "Sincere,
Discrete..." In Touch 33 (1978) 30-31, 75 about meeting men
through personal advertisements also included Thom
Willenbacher’s "Drugs," In Touch 33 (1978) 32-33, 82, 84-85
which takes a casual view toward drug use. Also in this
issue is Donald Warman, "Film: A Gay Odyssey" In Touch 33
(1978) 24-27, 68-70 in which the author describes the first
day of shooting for El Paso Wrecking Corp., a porno video
about two men's sexual experiences. The relationship
between alcohol and other drug abuse and casual sex in gay
fiction has been developed in Mark Dombrowski, "Between the
Icecubes and the Bedsheets: Alcohol Use and Abuse in Gay
Literature," NALGAP News 9.1 (1978) 1+.

91
begin to live up to the expectation which society has of
them. The social condemnation which Anne C. Garrison has
identified, and which was quoted above, helps explain this
phenomenon. As lesbians and gay men continue to move toward
self-validation, promiscuity begins to lose its role in the
community. In the process, other types of relationships
become acceptable. As the image and expectation of
promiscuity fades, friendships become easier to maintain.
And that is what the fourth step promises.
The Conspiracy of Silence

The seemingly traditional misuse and inconsistent use
of scripture as means of social control and justification
for the oppression of minority groups has promoted the
conception of God as an anti-pleasure patriarch who condemns
lesbians and gay men despite having created them with this
orientation. Unfortunately, a conspiracy of silence prevents
the issue of homosexuality from being discussed in religious
circles. And in spite of the fact that the fourth step of
AA places emphasis on sexual activity, specific discussions
of sexuality and sexual activity are avoided around the AA
tables.

Unfortunately, there is basis for the claim, expressed
anonymously in "Conspiracy of Silence," that a conspiracy
surrounds lesbian and gay issues in the Christian tradition.
One result of the conspiracy has been identified by Brother

William Roberts in "Anti-Gay Homosexuals in the Church" in

92
which he defines homosexual cannibalism as gay men at
various levels of Church authority who either actively or
passively assent to and participate in the dehumanization of
their lesbian sisters and gay brothers. Homosexual
cannibalism supports the discriminatory system which
oppresses lesbians and gay men while it produces walls
between people rather than bridges of understanding.“
As early as 1966, G.P.T. Pagent King called

"on all clergy who are sufficiently

sympathetic to read the pages of ONE [an

early homophile magazine], to get

together to work out a positive pastoral

approach to this whole problem. In the

homosexual world are thousands who are

hungering for spiritual comfort: we

clergy desperately need clear guidance
if we are not to send them away empty.

" m
Twenty-two years later, Marty Hansen, writing in The Other
Side explained eleven suggestions on how to relate--as a
Christian--to a gay neighbor. They are to understand
yourself, discard stereotypes, develop relational skills,

listen, recognize emotional pain, avoid glib answers, build

 

17"Conspiracy of Silence," Integrity Gay Episcopal
Forum 1.6 (1975) 8-9. William Roberts, "Anti-Gay
Homosexuals in the Church," Gay Dreams (New York:
Privately Printed, 1982) np.

18G.P.T. Paget King, "The Church and the Homosexual,"
ONE 14.11 (1966) 10.

93

long-term commitments, practice hospitality, be available,
and take personal risks.19

The conspiracy of silence,which lesbians and gay men
frequently find in the Western Christian tradition, is also
found in AA. Besides a reference to "queers" in Twelve
Steps and Twelve Traditions, Do You Think You’re Different?
includes the only two stories of a gay man and a lesbian who
have recovered through the AA program. Pamphlets are
available which discuss the needs of blacks, women, young
people, and prisoners, but no such publication specifically
concerns lesbians and gay men.” The fact that there is a
virtual conspiracy of silence toward homosexuality in AA
literature cannot be attributed to homophobia or an

anti—homosexual position by the organization. Rather, there

 

19Marty Hansen, "Love a Gay," The Other Side (June
1978) 48- 52. An excellent book length treatment of the
subject is Letha Scanzoni and Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, Is

the Homosexual My Neighbor?: Another Christian Option (San

Francisco: Harper and Row, 1978).

2°Twelve Ste 5 and Twelve Traditions, 140. Do You
Think You're Different? (New York: AA World Services,
l976)--especially the stories "My Name is Padric" on pages
9-11 and "My Name is Mary" on pages 17-18. In a
conversation with one of the delegates to AA’s national
conference, I was told that the draft for a pamphlet on
lesbian and gay issues was defeated because of the poor
quality of its text. However, this explanation does not
appear in print. AA approved literature for special
populations includes: It Sure Beats Sitting in a Cell (New
York: AA World Services, 1979); Too Young? (1977; New
York: AA World Services, 1987), Young People and AA (New
York: AA World Services, 1969), and AA for the Woman (1968;
New York: AA World Services, 1986). Pamphlets are
currently in press which concern blacks and Native Americans
in AA.

4‘

94

seems to be the belief that sexuality is best addressed
between individual and sponsor. If there is a fear on AA’s
part, it is in addressing the entire issue of sexuality and
sexual activity. But because AAs tend to be silent about
sexual issues, gay men and lesbians who attend
AA--especially in an area where there is not a gay/lesbian
meeting--might not appreciate that the AA program will work
for them. Others who have heard fag jokes at AA meetings or
know of people who have been excluded from meetings because
of their sexuality have increased difficulty believing that
AA's third tradition, that "the only requirement for
membership is a desire to stop drinking," is an accurate
reflection of AA policy.21

AA is a human program with its own shortcomings being
lived by humans who can not always demonstrate the
principles to which they subscribe. However, it is
important to realize that the negative reaction many
lesbians and gay men have to spiritual aspects of the twelve
_ step program of recovery are not the problem of AA. Even
though the rhetoric does not always match the reality, AA’s

contention that "We find that no one need have difficulty

 

21Approximately ten original manuscripts survive for
stories that originally appeared in the first edition of
Alcoholics Anonymous. Typical of the Oxford Group practices
which the writers had learned, material was included on
sexual issues. However, these references were eliminated
before the book was published. My source for this
information is Bill Pittman, author of AA: The Way It Began
(Seattle: Glen Abbey Books, 1988).

95
with the spirituality of the program" is essentially
correct.

To many lesbians and gay men, the fact that they are
children of God is not open to debate. The "Statement of
Position and Purpose" for Dignity, Inc. includes the
statement that "We believe that gay and lesbian Catholics
are members of Christ’s mystical body, numbered among the
people of God."22 Lesbian and gay caucuses are also found
in a variety of religions including Episcopalians,
Lutherans, Mormons, Jews, Seventh Day Adventists, and so
forth. Non-Christian religions have also been widely
supported by members of the lesbian and gay communities.

Witchcraft and goddess worship are not uncommon among
lesbians and belief in the Wicca forms the basis of strong
spiritual programs. In "A Witches Curse," an anonymous
woman expresses the positive value of witchcraft when she
writes: "If there is magic among us, let us use it for our
own good, not for our destruction and pain." And much good
and much spiritual healing has been the product of
witchcraft.23

Satanism to some gay men is important because it is
"the one religion which unhypocritically condones any sexual

lifestyle which comes naturally to the individual, so long

 

22Statement of Position and Purpose (Washington, DC:
Dignity, Inc., 1981)

23"A Witches Curse," Lesbian Connection 3.4 (1977) 11.

96

as the participants are willing adults." Other gay men have
found salvation through non-western religious expression.
Allen Jaye’s "Cock Art," James Kepner’s "World Religions and
‘the Homophile," and various works of Christopher Isherwood,
in particular M Guru and His Disci 1e, give valuable
insight into Eastern religious practices as perceived and
practiced in the gay community. Eastern Orthodox religion
and indigenous American religion also have their adherents.
One author has even attempted to combine Buddhism and
Marxism into a treatment program for lesbians and gay men.“

Lesbians and gay men who develop their spirituality
"populate a strange land--a shadowy, mysterious world in
which both the Anglo-Saxon majority and the rest of the gay
world perhaps find difficult to understand."25

Never-the-less, this strange world involves acceptance,

 

2"David Stone, "Satan's Dummy," Advocate 175 (1975) 50.
Allen Jaye, "Cock Art: Where East Meets West," Blueboy
(November 1981) 82-87. James Kepner, "World Religions and
the Homophile," Homophile Studies 2.4 (1959) 124+.
Christopher Isherwood, My Guru and His Disciple (New York:
Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1980) is taken from his journals and
describes his studies in Vendanta with Swami Prabhavananda.
Isherwood also helped Westerners better understand Eastern
philosophy by editing Vendanta for Modern Man (1945; New
York: New American, 1972); How to Know God: The Yoda
Aphorism of Patanijali (1953; Hollywood, CA: Vendanta
Press, 1981); and a biography on Ramakrishnba and His
Disciples (1959; New York: Simon and Schuster, 1965) as
well as a series of pamphlets. Ed Schreiber, "Cutting
Through Denial: Or, Alcohol, Marx, and Buddha," SEQ 13.4
(1987) 56-57.

25Ray Van de Moortel, “Gay and Catholic," Bridges 9.6
(1981) 3.

 

97

love, and togetherness. Commitment and sharing are likewise
stressed. As a result, lesbians and gay men are learning to
overcome the reactive action, suicide, alcoholism, and
psychic catatonia which have existed in their communities.

Lesbian and gay alcoholics frequently have a negative
view of spirituality which is confused with the religious
oppression of homosexuals in the Western Christian
tradition. "God as we Understand Him".is typically a petty
dictator who created them in such a way that they understand
themselves to be condemned to hell not because of what they
did but because of who they are. As such, the spiritual

basis for recovery is suspect.

CHAPTER 4:
THE TREND TOWARD PERFECTIONISM
Russell B. Nye, in Society and Culture in America
argues that the reform movements which grew in America
during the nineteenth-century had their roots in
eighteenth-century social thought. To Nye,
nineteenth-century reformers inherited the Enlightenment’s
(1) "conviction that the world could be made better if only
men would try," (2) "faith in the individual’s ability to
control himself and his society and to direct both to higher
ends," (3) belief in social benevolence and social
responsibility, and (4) understanding that America's
national mission was "to serve the world as an example of
what it could and ought to be.1 Although members of AA are
very clear that they "claim spiritual progress rather than
spiritual perfection"2 it is none-the-less true that AA
developed from the Oxford Group, a group influenced by the
nineteenth-century trend toward perfection.
It is to the Oxford Group that Alcoholics Anonymous
owes its greatest debt. Not only were many of the Oxford
Group’s beliefs adapted into AA’s twelve steps, but for a

period of time, those who were to become AA-alcoholics met

 

1Russell Blain Nye, Society and Culture in America (New
York: Harper and Row, 1974) 34-35.

2Alcoholics Anonymous (1939; New York: AA World
Services, 1976) 60.

99

for a period of time as Oxford Group members. The Oxford
Group was begun by Frank Buchman, a Lutheran minister who
was active in both college and world—wide evangelism.
Although its roots were Protestant-Christian evangelicalism,
the group strove to be non-denominational when it came to
religious beliefs. What was important was that individuals
who joined the group had a conversion experience which
allowed them to live a changed life. According to Buchman,
there were five stages which would lead the individual to a
changed life: confidence, confession, conviction, ‘.
conversion, and continuance.3

"Confidence" referred to the process by which a member
of the Oxford Group would establish a friendship with the
prospective convert. And practically any person outside the
group was a prospect for change. In "Confession" an
individual would state his or her sins in public. Later, in
its history, "confession" became "sharing for witness”

whereby an individual would hope to influence converts by

 

3Walter Houstan Clark, The Oxford Group: Its Histomy
and Significance (New York: Bookman Associates, 1951) is an
excellent discussion of the group. The information
concerning the Oxford Group which follows was taken from
this source. For more information on the Oxford Group and
its founder, see Peter Howard, Frank Buchman's Secret
(Garden City, NY Doubleday, 1961) and V.C. Kitchen, I Was a
Pagan (New York: Harper and Row, 1934). Although Howard's
book does not mention alcoholism, it does explain Buckman's
spiritual life. Kitchen, in his autobiography, tells how he
recovered from alcoholism using the spiritual program found
in the Oxford Group.

100
stating those evils, long since past, which were no longer
part of life.

Public confession was used much more frequently in the
early years of the movement than in the later ones for two
reasons. First, as the meetings grew larger, such
confessions became more difficult to manage. Second, due to
the nature of some of the confessions, particularly when
they dealt with sexual issues, the Oxford Group received
severe criticism.

As new prospects became aware of their sins, they
experienced "Conviction." After realizing the need for
change, "conversion" was experienced when the change
occurred. At conversion, the individual began to follow
God's guidance. As individuals experienced more of God's
guidance and began to change others, they were said to be
participating in "Continuance."

Underlying these five stages of development are six
central assumptions:

1. Men and women are sinners.

2. Individuals can be changed.

3. Confession is prerequisite to
change.

4. The changed soul has direct access
to God.

5. The Age of Miracles has returned.
6. Those who have been changed must
change others.

In addition to these six general assumptions, four

absolutes were explicitly stated by Buchman and other

101
members of the Oxford Group: absolute honesty, absolute
unselfishness, absolute purity, and absolute love. In 1948,
Dr. Bob, one of AA’s co-founders, "recalled the absolutes as
’the only yardsticks' Alcoholics Anonymous had in the early
days, before the Twelve Steps. He said he still felt they
held good and could be extremely helpful when he wanted to
do the right thing and the answer was not obvious."‘ For
Dr. Bob, perfection was the goal by which to measure actions
and the closer he, as well as other Oxford Group members,
came to perfection, the more confident he could be in his
decision.

Alcoholics Anonymous was heavily influenced by the
Oxford Group because Bill, Bob, and the other original
members of the organization were initially members of the
group. In fact, it was through his Oxford Group connections
that Bill, while on a business trip, was able to meet Bob.
And until 1939, the year in which Alcoholics Anonymous was
published, the individuals who were to form AA continued to
attend Oxford Group meetings. Although it is outside the

scope of this study to give a history of AA’s debt to the

 

‘Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers: A Biography, With
Recollections of Early AA in the Midwest (New York: AA
World Services, 1980) 54.

102

Oxford Group, such a study is found in Ernest Kurtz’s Np;
Egg-5

Because the AA program grew out of the Oxford Group, it
is not surprising that it has a similar set of beliefs.
Although the program stays away from the idea of sin, the
fact that alcoholics have a tendency to act on their
character defects is prominent. AA believes that drinking
alcoholics have difficulties because they work against their
own deepest instinct for self-preservation.6 The sixth
step, "[We] were entirely ready to have God remove all these
defects of character," cautions that "What we must recognize
now is that we exult in some of our defects. We really

7

love." While the word "sin" is avoided, the culpability of

the individual is stressed. As is written in a discussion

 

5Ernest Kurtz, Not God: A History of Alcoholics
Anonymous (Center City, MN: Hazelden, 1979) is the standard
source cited for this argument. However, the book has been
expanded and republished as AA: The Stomy (New York: Harper
and Row, 1988). AA’s separation from the Oxford Group is
recorded in Dr. Bob, 156—170 and Pass It On: The Story of
Bill Wilson and How the AA Message Reached the World (New
York: AA World Services, 1984) 160-178. The early AA-
alcoholics in New York owe a particular debt to the Reverend
Samuel Shoemaker. A chapter on Shoemaker’s relationship
with Bill Wilson and AA can be found in Irving Harris, The
Breeze of the Spirit: Sam Shoemaker and the Story of Faith-
at—Work (New York: Seabury, 1978). For a more detailed
description of this relationship, see John F.G. Woolverton,
"Evangelical Protestantism and Alcoholism, 1933-1962:
Episcopalian Samuel Shoemaker, the Oxford Group, and
Alcoholics Anonymous" Historical Magazine 52 (1983) 53-65.

6Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (New York: AA
World Services, 1952) 64.

7Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions 66.

103
of Step Ten, "[We] continued to take a moral inventory and

when we were wrong promptly admitted it,"

It is a spiritual axiom that every time
we are disturbed, no matter what the
cause, there is something wrong with us.
If somebody hurts us and we are sore, we
are in the wrong also.a

Even though AA-alcoholics are, in the terms adopted by
the Oxford Group, brought to a point of conviction,
redemption is also held out. Once alcoholics accept the
belief that "We are powerless over alcohol and our lives '
have become unmanageable," a program of change is offered.
By turning their wills and their lives over to the care of
the God they understand, AA-alcoholics are then able to use
God's guidance while taking a moral inventory. After
"confessing" this inventory to God and to another
individual, change occurs. Alcoholics Anonymous makes the

following promises about this change.

If we are painstaking about this phase
of our development, we will be amazed
before we are half way through. We are
going to know a new freedom and a new
happiness. We will not regret the past
nor wish to shut the door on it. We
will comprehend the word serenity and we
will know peace. No matter how far down
the scale we have gone, we will see how
our experience can benefit others. That
feeling of uselessness and self-pity
will disappear. We will lose interest
in selfish things and gain interest in
our fellows. Self-seeking will slip

 

8Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions 90.

104

away. Our whole attitude and outlook

upon life will change. Fear of people

and of economic insecurity will leave

us. We will intuitively know how to

handle situations which used to baffle

us. We will suddenly realize that God

is doing for us what we could not do for

ourselves.9
AA-alcoholics firmly believe that, when this change occurs,
they become living miracles because their lives were changed
with the help of a power greater than hemselves.

The idea of "Guidance" has also been transferred from
the Oxford Group to the AA program. Guidance is found in
the belief that "God will give guidance to those who listen
for it with the sincere intent to put it into practice."10
Typically, the Oxford Group member would receive guidance
during a period of "Quiet Time" which was usually done each
morning. However, because individuals could mistake their
own intentions for God’s will, they shared their hunches
with other members of the group in a way not dissimilar to
that which is used by a recovering AA-alcoholics who share
their thoughts at AA meetings or during talks with their
sponsors.

"Quiet time" did not originate with the Oxford Group.

Instead, it is a product of the influence that Henry Wright,

a leading college evangelist, had on Buchman. In addition

 

9Alcoholics Anonymous 83-84.
10Clark 29.

 

105
to this concept, Wright was also a firm believer that
hunches came from God. D.C. Macintosh, in his Personal
Religion provides the following story to illuminate this

point.

Upon one...occasion he [Wright]
accompanied a colleague to the railroad
station, and obeyed an impulse to go
with him to Hartford. On his return
trip, after a short doze, he wa

awakened by an old pupil of his Sbending
over him. The two rode to New Haven
together, the student telling his story
to the former teacher. Drink had driven
him nearly mad and he needed help
desperately. He had been shuttling
backward and forward between Hartford
and New Haven on the train in order to
keep away from the place where he could
buy liquor. After their arrival in New
Haven Professor Wright wired to a friend
in Hartford to meet the boy on his
return. Through the steady pull of
friendship the young man regained
control of himself and developed into a
life of sobriety and usefulness. He
Wright never doubted that he had been
led by God to board the train that
morning.

Such coincidences attributed to God have become a
cornerstone of Alcoholics Anonymous. Not only are these
stories part of the AA oral tradition, they are also found
in Box 1980 and in other AA literature. The following
story, taken from Game to Believe is typical.

I was living in a room in a seaside

resort, out of season, while I tried to
straighten out my thinking....It was a

 

11Quoted in Clark 127.

106

cold and rainy night in March, yet I
started up the boardwalk for my nightly
walk. I believed that the seeming
directive had told me to walk into the
ocean. There was a deserted pier about
a mile down the boardwalk and I planned
to walk out on this and step off....Only
a block from the pier, I saw a man
approaching from the opposite
direction...When he came to me, he
stopped and smiled, and I recognized him
as a priest I knew from home....[After
talking with the priest], The feeling
that I had to destroy myself
vanished....Quite some time passed.

Once again, I was an active member in
AA. One night, I attended a
meeting--there was the same priest as
guest speaker.... [After the meeting],
He explained [to me] that he had gone to
the seaside resort to address a
convention of educators. He was sick of
sitting in the hotel room; so, rain or
not, he went out for air. I believe now
that the One taking care of me must have
given him a little push.12

Besides "quiet time," "guidance," and "hunches,"
Macintosh identifies six additional areas in which Wright
influenced Buchman; five of which can been seen in the AA
program. First, Wright believed that God had a plan for
everyone and that therefore the individual must surrender to
God’s will. This concept is explicitly stated in the third
step, "[We] turned our will and our lives over to the care

of God as we understand him," and needs no further

 

12Came to Believe: The Spiritual Adventure of AA as

Experienced by Individual Members (New York: AA World
Services, 1957) 74-75.

107
elaboration. The second point, that confession is
essential, has been discussed above.

Wright’s third area of influence is that, whenever
possible, restitution for past wrongs is necessary. AA’s
ninth step, that "[We] Made direct amends to such people
[whom we listed in the eighth step] whenever possible,
except when to do so would injure them or others," is a
descendent of this concept. As part of this step,
AA-alcoholics make sure they go to the people they had
harmed, tell them about AA and about how they are using the
program to change their lives. Then, they admit the damage
they have done and make their apologies. But, the step does
not stop with confession for "We can pay, or promise to pay,
whatever obligations, financial or otherwise, we owe."13

When AA-alcoholics make amends, they not only apologize
for their past errors and make any financial remuneration
necessary, they also amend, or change, their way of living.
Moving toward a changed life is the fourth characteristic of
the Oxford Group which Macintosh identifies as having been
influenced by Wright. And it is an important component of
the AA-alcoholic's contented sobriety. As one parable which
circulates in AA's oral tradition states: "If you take
alcohol away from a drunken horse thief, you still have a

horse thief." To the AA way of thinking, becoming a

 

13Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions 84.

108
non-drinking horse thief, or a non-drinking, non-recovered
alcoholic, is not the goal of sobriety. A changed life
comes from changed behavior.

Wright defined personal evangelism as "the act of
influencing a single human will or the corporate will of a
group to make that decision which leads to greater fullness
of life through the process of friendship."“ Such
fellowship, through friendship, is Wright’s fifth area of
influence. Buchman became a master of this technique. And
contemporary AA-alcoholics learn to befriend new people by
having greeters at meetings, assuring the new people that
those who have been around AA understand what these new
people are experiencing because they too have experienced
the drunken life and the early stages of sobriety, and by
getting sponsors for the new people. AA members also build
friendships with new people and within the AA community by
having informal gatherings such as going to coffee after a
meeting or more formal gatherings such as AA picnics,
dances, and retreats.

The final area in which Wright influenced Buchman was
in the idea of the "Four Absolutes"—-absolute honesty,
absolute purity, absolute unselfishness, and absolute
love--which men and women were to use as guideposts in their

lives. It was the "Four Absolutes" by which guidance was

 

1‘Quoted in Clark 129.

109
judged and by which the members of the Oxford Group judged
themselves.
AA specifically rejects the notion of being guided by

absolutes. The problem is clearly stated in AA Comes of

Age:

When first contacted, most alcoholics
just wanted to find sobriety, nothing
else. They clung on to their other
defects, letting go only little by
little. They simply did not want to get
"too good too soon." The Oxford Groups’
absolute concepts...were frequently too
much for the drunks. These ideas had to
be fed with teaspoons rather than
buckets.15

Realizing that perfection is unattainable, the AA-Alcoholic
instead works toward "spiritual progress rather than
spiritual perfection."16
It was the philosophy of Buchman that the Oxford Groups
should work to convert "key men." These men, because of
their position and influence would then serve as models for
converting those who looked up to them. As a result of this
process, conversions were public affairs. The alcoholic
Oxford Group members, at the time of their conversions, were
hardly part of the social elite--although they might once

have been--in which Buchman was interested. Additionally,

 

15Alcoholics Comes of Age:A Brief Histoyy of AA (New
York: AA World Services, 1957) 74—75.

16Alcoholics Anonymous 60.

110

due to the stigma attached to alcoholism, they had little
interest in being anything but anonymous. Furthermore, the
alcoholics were chiefly interested in working specifically
with other alcoholics and not with potential non-alcoholic
recruits. Because of these differences in philosophy, it
is not surprising that eventually the alcoholics separated
themselves from the Oxford Group and began a community of
their own.17

In his study of the Oxford Group, Clark expresses
surprise that the Oxford Group’s literature contains little
mention of Henry Wright. He finds this to be particularly
interesting because Buchman frequently attended Wright’s
Yale lectures on Personal Evangelism and adopted Wright's
The Will of God and a Man’s Life Work for his own classes at
Hartford Seminary. But, the influence is stated by Buchman
in a 1918 letter which he wrote to Wright: "I have just
written a friend again today that much of the best in my
message is yours."18

Given that the Oxford Group does not generally mention
its debt to Wright, it is not surprising that AA only traces
its roots to the Oxford Group. But the ideas and concepts
which would be molded into the twelve steps came from a

strong tradition of nineteenth-century Christian evangelism.

 

17See Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age 74-75 for a
brief discussion of some of these issues.

18Clark 129.

111

Barbara Leslie Epstein, in her study, The Politics of
Domesticity, argues that "the outlook of temperance women
was shaped by class as well asésexual antagonism."19 The
sexual antagonism was a result of women beginning to
understand that they were often repressed by irresponsible
men who did not just wish to prevent intemperance. The
temperance women were the heirs of their grandmothers who
supported the religious revivals which Ann Douglas would
argue caused a feminization of American culture. The
women’s culture, according to Douglas, embodied the virtues
of Christian religion; virtues such as compassion, kindness,
and emotion.”

The class distinction of temperance is identified by
Epstein as springing from the growing fear of immigrant,
lower classes. Poor immigrants were, in the nineteenth
century arriving in such great numbers that they posed a
threat to the middle classes. Arguing that the problems of
intemperance such as the husband spending his time away from
home in a tavern and then coming home to beat his wife were
mostly found among the lower classes, by fighting for
temperance, middle class women were attempting to impose

their values on others. It might also be noted, in support

 

19Barbara Lee Epstein, Politics of Domesticity: Women,
Evangelism, and Temperance in Nineteenth-Centupy America
(Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1981) 90.

20Ann Douglas, The Feminization of American Culture
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977).

112
of this argument, that many of the immigrants were not only
poor, but, more importantly, Catholic. And Catholics were
discriminated against in a country that valued its
Protestant heritage.

Epstein goes on to argue that "In the late eighteenth
and early nineteenth centuries, physicians, and especially
ministers, began to speak out against alcohol, partly
because their views reflected the moralism of those who were
taking it upon themselves to guide behavior of the emerging

middle class."21

This notion of religious benevolence as .
social control was advanced by John R. Bobdo in his 1954 The

Protestant Clergy and Public Issues, 1812-1848 and in the

 

 

same year by Charles C. Cole, Jr. in his The Social Ideas of

the Northern Evangelists, 1820-1860.22 To these men and

 

their followers, voluntary societies organized for social
improvement actually had as their basis a quest for social
control. The ministers who led these organizations
remembered the "good old days" when a theocracy ruled the
colonies. Their goal was to regain the power and influence

which they had lost.

 

21Epstein 91.

22John R. Bobdo, The Protestant Clergy and Public
Issues, 1812-1848 (Princeton: Princeton University Press,

1954) and Charles C. Cole, Jr. The Social Ideas of the
Nprthern Evangelists, 1820-1860 (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1954).

113

Lois W. Banner, in her 1973 article titled "Religious
Benevolence as Social Control: A Critique of an
Interpretation," effectively argues against such a
position.23 Banner’s main point is that Bobdo, Cole, and
others ignore the strong religious beliefs of the reformers.
She also demonstrates that the reformers were not primarily
Congregationalist ministers who had experienced a decline in
their secular power. Instead it was the Presbyterians and
the Methodists, who at the time had not reached their
zenith, who advanced these movements. However, even though
the Presbyterians and Methodists had not experienced the
social prominence of the Congregationalists, this, in and of
itself, does not mean that these groups did not wish to seek
social control.

Regardless of the religious beliefs of the reformers,
Joseph R. Gusfield in his analysis of the temperance
'movement focuses on the issue of class distinction and
social control. As he writes in "Temperance, Status
Control, and Mobility, 1826-1860:"

There are two phases to the development
of the American Temperance movement in
the period 1826—60. Although these
phases overlap, each is connected with
the status aspirations of a different

social class. In the first phase,...
described in this section, Temperance

 

23Lois W. Banner, "Religious Benevolence as Social
Control," Religion in American Histogy: Inteppretive
Essays, eds. John M. Mulder and John F. Wilson (Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1978) 218-235.

114

represents the reaction of the old

Federalist aristocracy to loss of

political, social, and religious

dominance in American society. It is an

effort to re-establish control over the

increasingly powerful middle classes

making up the American "common man." In

the second phase Temperance represents

the efforts of urban, native Americans

to consolidate their middle-class

respectability through a sharpened

distinction between native, middle- class

life styles and those of the immigrant

and the marginal laborer or farmer

Although class issues were important in the nineteenth-

century temperance movement, Nye is essentially correct when
he argues that reformers owed much to the Enlightenment
tradition. But, if America was to live up to its mission to
"serve the world as an example of what it could and ought to
be," reform based on a perfectionist trend naturally lead to
social control--even during the period of eighteen-century
Enlightenment.

In spite of the fact that popular social mythology
teaches otherwise, during the colonial period, drinking
itself was not considered a problem nor did society
experience the anti-social behavior typically attributed to

alcoholism. Although some Puritan ministers did sermonize

against alcohol abuse, their general tone was that abuse was

 

2‘Joseph R. Gusfield, "Temperance, Status Control, and
Mobility, 1826-1860," Ante-Bellum Reform, ed. David Brian
Davis (New York: Harper and Row, 1967) 121. See also
Joseph R. Gusfield, Sympolic Crusade: Status Politics and

the American Temperance Movement (Urbana: University of
Illinois Press, 1963) for a more detailed discussion.

115
a mis-use of one of God’s gifts. "To them, drinking in
excess was a personal indiscretion, and alcohol itself was
no more to blame for drunkenness than food was to blame for

"25

gluttony. Few now know that one of the first problems
faced by the Puritans who settled in what is now Boston was
the shortage of beer that forced them to rely on water for
drinking. But, drinking in colonial America was part of the
social fabric. It was something that was done at home with
meals and at community functions such as barn raisings,
marriages, births, and ordinations.

Whereas moderate drinking was part of the social
fabric, excessive drinking needed to be severely punished
because it could destroy that fabric. Alcoholic behaviors
such as public drunkenness were tolerated so long as the
individual did not become dependent on society for personal
support or support for the family. When alcoholism advanced
to the stage where the individual became a social ward, the
person was placed in the same class of criminal as were the
poor and the insane. Those who were identified as drunks
were considered to be "addicted" to the drunkenness and not
to the drink. "In other words, whereas contemporary thought

considers alcoholics to be devoid of willpower or hopelessly

 

25P. Aaron and D. Musto, "Temperance and Prohibition in
America: A Historical Overview," Alcohol and Public Policy:
Be ond the Shadow of Prohibition, eds, M. Moore and D.
Gerstein (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1981)
132.

116

addicted to drink, the traditional colonial view was that
drinkers loved to drink and to get drunk because it was a
self-indulgent pleasant experience."26

Those who demonstrated alcoholic behaviors--both in
public and at home--were subject to severe punishments. "In
order to emphasize community control, magistrates could (and
did) set examples with jailings, fines, the stocks, and the
lash. Recidivism brought heavier fines and longer
imprisonments--or brutal corporal punishment."“

The harsh laws and public sermons from the
seventeenth—century do not indicate that alcoholism was a
problem, instead, they were designed to reinforce the social
prohibition against drunkenness. It was not until the
nineteenth-century, during a time when America was moving
from its agrarian roots to a more metropolitan society, that
alcohol itself was identified as a problem. Although it is
not possible to reconstruct the specific events which lead
to this changing attitude, part of the change was
undoubtedly a result of a change in drinking patterns away
from beer and cider to hard liquor. As American distillers

began to experiment with locally grown crops, rye, corn

 

26Genevieve M. Ames, "American Beliefs About
Alcoholism: Historical Perspectives on the Medical-Moral
Controversy," The American Experience With Alcohol:

Contrasting Cultural Perspectives, eds. Linda A. Bennett and
Genevieve M. Ames (New York: Plenum, 1985) 28.

27Mark Edward Lender and James Kirby Martin, Drinking
in America: A Histogy (New York: Free Press, 1982) 17.

117
liquor and other spirits became the drink of choice for
America’s citizens. Attempts were made to change this
trend, but they were unsuccessful.

During this same period, the small agrarian village of
the colonial period grew into larger towns and cities. With
this growth came a lessening of social control over
individual behavior. No longer would everyone be in a
position to know everyone else’s business. Furthermore, the
ideals of the American revolution added to the decline in
community influence over individual behavior. In their
Drinkin in America, Mark Lender and James Martin summarize

this process:

Society as the colonials had known it
was hardly falling apart, but the old
deferential patterns--and voluntary
compliance with them--were clearly
giving way to a more individualist,
pluralistic set of values, The doctrine
of liberty espoused during the
Revolution went a long way toward
weakening communal responsibility for
individual behavior in many areas. But
while republicans cherished the ideals
of the Revolution, no one (who was
willing to admit it) wanted these ideals
to proceed to anarchy or to a decline in
general morality or civil order. And in
this concern for social stability and
virtue, few things seemed to have more
disruptive potential than the
intemperance that apparently was
accompanying the startling rise in the
use of distilled spirits.

 

28Lender and Martin 36.

118
Intemperance, as in the early period, was considered a
social evil. But, unlike in the colonial period, Americans
in the Revolutionary period began to identify the drink as
well as the drinker as an evil. Intemperance egg hard
liquor needed to be avoided.

Liquor destroyed the individual; a destruction that
adversely affected the family. And if the family was
destroyed, the larger social structure was threatened. The
threat was even more clearly identified as drinking patterns
changed from a home/community setting to a tavern setting.

A man would no longer have a drink with his wife and
children during mealtime. Instead, he would travel to a
local drinking establishment--sans wife and children. And
though he might toast the good health of his drinking
companions, the alcohol in his glass was no longer taken for
medicinal purposes.

The push against hard liquor was assisted by religious
and medical interest in the subject. Although William Penn
had been one of the first to manufacture spirits in America,
the Quakers took the lead in advocating a ban on liquor.

The Mi ht Destro er Dis la ed, published in 1774 by Anthony
Benezet, a Philadelphia Quaker with numerous philanthropic
interests, was an important assault against liquor. Benezet
argued that the use of liquor was not only unhealthy, but
that its use caused both the individual and society to

decline. Within ten years after the publication of The

119

Mighty Destroyer Displayed”, both the Quakers and the
Methodists were urging their members to avoid hard liquor.

Benjamin Rush’s An Ingpigy into the Effects of Ardent
S irits on the Human Mind and Bod , published in 1784, was
the classic medical study on the effects of alcohol.30 Rush
maintained the belief that beer and wine, when taken in
moderate quantities, did have a medicinal benefit. However,
according to Rush, alcohol was no longer to be identified as
a "positive good" because the rise in liquor consumption
negated any possible benefit from the alcohol. He believed
that alcohol, over time, not only led to intoxication but to
physical illness and eventually death.

Not only was Rush the first to identify the disease
process of alcoholism, Rush’s "A Moral and Physical
Thermometer," published as part of the Ingpigy into the
Effects of Ardent Spirits... anticipated the Jellenik chart,
which is now widely used to demonstrate the effects of
alcoholism. As the individual drinker moved down Rush’s

intemperance thermometer, he or she, if not first killed by

 

29Anthony Benezet, The Mighty Destroyer Displayed
(Trenton, 1774).

3"Benjamin Rush, An Ingpigy into the Effects of Ardent
Spirits on the Human Mind and Body: To Which is added. a
Moral and Physical Thermometer (Boston: Thomas Andrews,
1790).

120
one of the illnesses Rush identified as being associated
with intemperance, would end up on the gallows.31

The disease process of alcoholism introduced by
'Benjamin Rush was expanded upon by the nineteenth-century
temperance movement. It was correctly reasoned that if the
alcohol in hard liquor was addictive, the alcohol in small
beer and wine must also be addictive. Therefore, it was
logically concluded that the use of any alcohol was
intemperant. Thus, prohibition, instead of the temperant
use of alcohol was advocated. It was incorrectly assumed
that alcohol would lead directly to intemperance/alcoholism
so that any use was too much use. Although modern medical
science is still unsure as to what pre-disposes an
individual to alcoholism, it is now known that not all
people who drink will become alcoholics.

In addition, the idea that alcohol destroyed the family
continued to gain strength. Barbara Lee Epstein summarizes
the main arguments concerning the negative effect alcohol
had on the family:

men who drank spent money on liquor that
should have been spent at home; time
that men spent in the saloons was that
much time away from home. Crusaders and
other temperance advocates believed that
alcohol was addictive and debilitating

and that it impoverished families by
destroying men’s ability to work.

 

31The Jellinek Chart is found in Elvin Morton Jellinek,
The Disease Concept of Alcoholism (New Haven: Hillhouse
Press, 1960).

121
Finally, they argued that drunken men
were violent, likely to beat their wives
and perhaps children or other members of
their families as well. Alcohol, they
claimed, turned gentle fathers and
husbands into brutes.32
The theme that men who turn to drink neglect their
responsibilities at home and at work and, as a result, the
family unit is destroyed is central to most temperance
novels.
T.S. Arthur’s Ten Nights in a Bar-Room and What I Saw

There, a best selling temperance novel published in 1854,

 

tells the classic story of the young man who through drink
and loose living looses everything that he has.33 This
popular nineteenth century novel focuses on an honest miller
who sells his profitable business in order to run a boarding
house and tavern. This upright family man, as a result of
his close association with alcohol, brings himself and his
family to ruin. His cheerful wife becomes a tearful woman
who eventually goes insane. The miller himself loses his
jovial nature and health as he begins to drink what he
serves. His young son first serves beer, but eventually
drinks it, plays cards, cavorts with women, and, in the

final scenes, kills his father.

 

32Epstein 102.

33T.S. Arthur, Ten Nights in a Bar-Room and What I Saw
There, ed. C. Hugh Holman (1854; New York: Odyssey Press,

1966).

122

The only person who finds spiritual fulfillment and the
good life which results from it is Joe Morgan, the town
drunk. After Mary, his daughter, is hit in the head with a
beer mug when she comes to the tavern to lead him home, Joe
sits at her deathbed trying to nurse her back to health.
Shortly before she dies, little Mary gets her father to
promise that he will not drink until she is well. After
obtaining this commitment, she confides to her mother that
father will never drink again because she will never regain
her health. Mary dies and her father reforms.

Joe Morgan’s conversion was in the spirit of Christian
perfectionism; a concept that caused sectarian schisms in
American churches from the days of Anne Hutchinson to the
present. However, John Wesley and the Methodist church he
founded is most associated with this concept. During the
first half of the nineteenth century, Methodism had its
heyday. No longer a sect of the Anglican church, Methodism
would become a mainline protestant church in America. John
Wesley taught that moral ability was a gift of God's grace
that could be attained by anyone, not only by those elected
by God to receive it. Through Christ, everyone had the
ability to respond to the gospel and to be saved for it was
"[not] natural ability but faith in the atonement [which]

unleased the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit and

123
raised penitents from the death of sinning to the new life
of obedience to God’s will."“

To Wesley and his followers, original sin was not the
guilt of Adam’s sin but was the bent toward sinning.
However, sin was not so important as God’s willingness to
heal it. Furthermore, he believed "that the gratitude for
God’s grace in conversion would impel earnest believers
toward complete dedication to Christ and at the same time
induce discontent with their remaining inner bent to sin."35
As itinerant Methodist preachers traveled the American
countryside, their message was adopted by other ministers.
Perfectionism, "the doctrine that ’perfect sanctification’
or complete holiness and the ’second blessing’ were
attainable or even necessary to the salvation of the
converted Christian," became a major religious impulse in
nineteenth century thought.36

When Joe Morgan was able to identify the evil of his

drunken lifestyle through the Christian witness of his

 

3‘Timothy L. Smith, Revivalism and Social Reform:
American Protestantism on the Eve of the Civil War (New
York: Harper and Row, 1957.

35Smith 115 .

36This theme is developed in A. Leland Jamison,
"Religions on the Christian Perimeter," The Shaping of
American Reli ion, eds. James Ward Smith and A. Leland
Jamison (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961) 162-
231. The quote in this sentence is taken from Sydney E.
Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People vol 1
(1972; Garden City: Image Books, 1975) 576.

124
daughter, he received a second blessing from God. It was
not that he was somehow predestined to be chosen, rather,
his willingness to accept Jesus' atonement provided the
impetus for his ability to give up drink and to lead a
Christian life.

While it would be inaccurate to argue that Alcoholics
Anonymous was directly influenced by Methodism, AA does
emerge from the tradition of nineteenth-century evangelism
and some of these same elements can be seen in AA
philosophy.37 For example, even though individuals become
responsible for their own sobriety, sobriety can only be
attained by "turning one's will and life over to the care of
God."38 The willingness not only to stop drinking, but also
to change the manner in which they live opens the channel
for newly sober alcoholics to receive God’s blessing. As a
result of God’s influence, the desire to drink is removed.
Due to the gratitude which they now feel, newly sober
individuals are allowed to lead a life of sobriety.
Although these individuals are encouraged to find a God of
their own understanding, the conceptions which are most
helpful are those where, as with Methodism, God is more

interested in extending a healing hand than in punishing

 

37Of Special Interest is Oliver R. Whitley, "Life with
Alcoholics Anonymous: The Methodist Class Meeting as a
Paradigm," Journal of Studies on Alcohol 38.5 (1977) 831-
8

38See Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions 34-41.

125

past wrongs. Or, in the words of AA's second tradition,
"For our group purpose there is but one ultimate
authority--a loving God as he may express himself in our
group conscience..."39

Joe Morgan’s drunken life style was tempered by a belief
in a higher power that led to fulfillment. But the miller
bent on self improvement without concern for God’s will in
his life found himself in a position where he could easily
strike his son.

In addition to destroying the family, sexual vice was
associated with alcohol use. Early colonial court cases
often linked drunkenness and sexual promiscuity.
Prostitution, often known as "white slavery," became
associated with taverns and crusades to eradicate it, would
concentrate some of their efforts on eliminating the taverns
which unofficially included women as part of their
offerings. "To the reform mind, inclined to see sexual
intemperance as the root of all vice, the excesses of drink
and of the brothel became joined.“o

In the middle to late 1800s, sexual reform was
advanced, in part, through prostitution reform. While some

argued for the regulation and licensing of prostitutes, the

 

39Emphasis added.

“David J. Pivar, Purity Crusade: Sexual Morality and
Social Control, 1868-1900 (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1973)

.AI

 

126
early feminist movement saw prostitutes as white slaves who
were seduced or tricked into a professional which they could
not escape. Elimination of prostitution was therefore taken
to be the desired goal.

Others opposed prostitution on moral grounds arguing
that the business itself was immoral. These individuals
following in the tradition of abolitionism could accept no
compromise with evil and licensing would be viewed as a
compromise. For, as William Lloyd Garrison wrote in his Sp
State Regplations of Vice: "...if one sin can be licensed,
why not another?“1 I

While non-marital sex was considered to be wrong,
same-sex sexual activity was an even worse sin because of
the non-procreative nature of same-sex unions. Same sex
sexual relations where seen as attacks against both family
and society. Therefore, severe punishment was deemed not
only acceptable, but necessary. In the American colonies,
sodomy was punishable by death and some men were executed
after being convicted of this crime. But, they were not
considered, nor did they consider themselves to be
"sodomites," a group of individuals whose sexual
orientations defined their characters. In the
seventeenth-century, same sex sexual activity was placed in

the same category of other sins of lust. Sodomites,

 

“Quoted in Pivar 71.

127

adulterers, rapists, and so forth did not exist in the
seventeenth—century mind. Instead, there were individuals
who committed the crime of sodomy, the crime of adultery,
and the crime of rape. The severity of the punishment for
sodomy came not only from the Biblical injunction against
same sex sexual activity but from the fact that such
activity was, as Jonathan Ned Katz argues in The GayZLesbian
Almanac, a crime against both the family and the state.
Households, procreation, family life, inheritance, and the
economy were all affected by same-sex bonding.‘2

In colonial America, non-married individuals disrupted
the pattern by which households were formed and, as a
result, disrupted social harmony. Single people were
generally forbidden to set up a "household" either alone or
with other single people unless given specific permission to
do so. Families often took in single men or women to live
with them and to become part of the household until these
single individuals married and established traditional
families of their own.

The household was important, in part, because it served
as a place to control and monitor behavior. In the small

communities of the seventeenth and early eighteenth-century,

 

“Jonathan Ned Katz, Ga Lesbian Almanac: A New
Documentagy (New York: Harper and Row, 1983). The argument
that same-sex unions are crimes against family and state is
summarized from Katz’s "General Introduction: Lesbian and
Gay History--Theory and Practice" found on pages 1-19.

128
the father could monitor the behavior of his children and
see that they were raised to be good citizens. It was not
until the end of the eighteenth and early nineteenth-century
that a cult of domesticity would form giving women the
primary responsibility for raising children. Under the
watchful eye of the patriarch, such illicit behaviors as
intemperance and non-marital sexual activity could be
checked. Without an established household, social control
which began in the family and extended from there to the
community could not be maintained.

Furthermore, households served as the basis for the
economy. In an agrarian society with some cottage
industries, each member of the household was needed to make
the economy run. All members of the household--mothers,
fathers, and children--participated in the daily activities
which brought food to the table and kept a roof over the
family's heads. Children were a necessary component of a
healthy economy and because same-sex sexual activity was
non-procreative, it served as a threat to the survival of
the community. In the twentieth century, because the
population explosion is a major concern on the planet, it is
difficult to imagine the peep for children. But in the
colonial period, there was no assurance that the struggling
villages or their inhabitants would survive in the new

world.

129

Part of the problem.was the scarcity of labor in the
colonies. .As a result, to survive, families needed to
produce children as well as crqps. Infertility in the
marriage bed was as damaging as infertility in the field.
Under these circumstances, sexual activity which was
non-procreative was naturally viewed as a direct attack
against the survival of the colony.

Finally, same-sex sexual activity, by not producing
children, threatened the system by which property was
transferred because the two most convenient times to
transfer property was at the time of a child’s marriage or
at the parent’s death. When a son married, the father would
give him land which the son would be allowed to work until
it was formally transferred to him at the time of the
father’s death. For his daughters, a father would usually
give some other type of dowry-~such as silver, linens, or a
house--at the time of their marriage.

While discussing same-sex sexual activity before the
twentieth century, it is important to realize that the
concept of homosexuality and of homosexuals is of relatively
recent origin. It was not until the 18803 that the A
distinction between heterosexual (which originally referred
to someone who was sexuality active with both men and women)
and homosexual began to develop. In the nineteenth-century,
society still labored under the belief that same-sex sexual

activity was pathological as well as sinful. Even Walt

130

Whitman, now celebrated by many because of his
homosexuality, at the end of his life would deny the
homo-erotic aspect of the Calamus poems, an aspect that was
not missed by John Addington Symonds and Edward Carpenter,
nineteenth-century British, homosexual rights advocates.

The Society for Human Rights, founded in 1924, was the
first American lesbian/gay rights organization. But the
organization, though granted a charter by the state of
Illinois, was short-lived; driven out of existence by
unlawful persecution by the police. In 1950, Henry Hay
would formed the "International Bachelors Fraternal Orders
for Peace and Social Dignity" sometimes referred to as
"Bachelors Anonymous" which in 1951 became known as the
Mattachine Society. And in 1955 Del Martin and Phylis Lyon,

authors of the now classic Lesbian/Woman, formed the

 

Daughters of Bilitis, a lesbian support group.‘3

Even during this period of changing ideas about
homosexuality, same-sex sexual activity was still viewed as
a threat to home and family. During the McCarthy Hearings
of the 19503, it was communists egg homosexuals who were
perceived to be a national threat. Thus, when Alcoholics
Anonymous was being formed, the disease concept of both

latent and overt homosexuality was in full force. It is for

 

“Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay American History: lesbian and
Gay Men in the U.S.A. (New York: Harper and Row, 1976) 385-
397, 406-433.

131

this reason that Bill W., as late as 1950, would refer to
the gay man whose request to join AA was the beginning of
the third tradition, as a "sexual deviate“ whose other
problems were worse than alcoholism.“ But what is even
more significant is that AA, in its second year, would
permit a gay man to join its membership. The ramifications
of this decision will be more fully explored in chapter six.

Although AA was deeply influenced by the movement toward
perfection, it was equally influenced by the American trend
toward individualism. And as a result of respecting the
humanity and basic rights of the individual, the

perfectionism and social control were kept in check.

 

“A tape of Bill Wilson's remarks was played by Barry
L. in ”Historical Perspective: Homosexual Men and Women in
AA" at the 1985 AA International Convention in Montreal.

CHAPTER 5:

THE TREND TOWARD INDIVIDUALISM

Although Americans viewed themselves as a light set
'upon a hill, movements toward perfectionism were countered
with a need to respect individual rights. Although the
rights of alcoholics and lesbians and gay men were often
ignored, celebration of individuality laid the groundwork
for lesbian/gay involvement in Alcoholics Anonymous.

Benjamin Franklin, the archetype of the self-made man,

believed that social improvement came from individuals

FL»—

working in their own self-interest. For many, Franklin’s
emphasis on individual self-reliance gave rise to
utilitarian individualism.

Robert Bellah and others in The Habits of the Heart:
Individualism and Commitment in American Social Life

summarize this idea when they write:

In short, Franklin gave classic
expression to what many felt in the
eighteenth century--and many have felt
ever since-~to be the most important
thing about America: the chance for the
individual to get ahead on his own
initiative. Franklin expressed it very
clearly in his advice to Europeans
considering emigration to America: "If
they are poor, they begin first as
Servants or Journeyman; and if they are
sober, industrious, and frugal, they
soon become Masters, establish
themselves in Business, marry, raise

132

133

Families, and become respected

Citizens."1
By the end of the eighteenth—century, those influenced by
Franklin's individualism would argue that good would
automatically emerge from a society where everyone pursued
his or her own interests. But these "neo-Franklins" forgot
that given "all the utilitarian aspects of Franklin’s
conception of individual self-improvement, it was

nonetheless linked to the themes of public spirit and social

—\<: 1..

responsibility."2

Frank Buchman, founder of the twentieth century Oxford
Group, the group from which AA emerged, was one such
neo-Franklin. However, he assumed that working toward one’s
self-interest automatically caused conversion to
Christianity. Buchman also believed in the mimetic nature
of the Christian life, so he adopted the "big man" theory
whereby Oxford Group members attempted to convert the civic
and social leaders. He believed that the men and women
under the "the big men" would be influenced to convert as a

result of the "big man’s" example.3 Unfortunately, the

 

1Quoted in Robert Bellah, et a1, Habits of the Heart:
Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1985) 33.

2Bellah 311.

3Walter Houston Clark, The Oxford Group: Its Histopy
and Significance (New York: Bookman Associates, 1951) 233.

134

Oxford Group was never able to balance utilitarian
individualism with social and political responsibility. And
like other neo-Franklins, they were harshly criticized.‘

Part of the problem was that Buckman was too concerned
with being involved with the social and political elite, a
concern that at times was quite self-serving. Especially
after the Oxford Group became Moral-Rearmament and launched
a world-wide movement, Buckman’s credibility dropped.5

Alcoholics Anonymous, while being influenced by the
trend of utilitarian individualism has been able to avoid
the criticism heaped upon the neo-Franklins and the
participants in Moral Re-Armament because the organization
removes itself from issues of public controversy. By

"neither endorsing no opposing causes,"6 AA, as an

 

‘A good, brief analysis of the controversy which
surrounded Buckman is found in Garth Lean, Frank Buckman: A
Life (London: Constable, 1985) 1—2.

5Frank Buckman launched Moral Re-Armament in a speech
he gave in London on May 29, 1938. By this time, the New
York branch of what was to become AA had already broken with
the Oxford Group and the Akron branch would break the
following year. Although some of the AA-alcoholics might
have been influenced by Moral Re-Armament, by the time the
movement was gaining popularity, the basic philosophy of AA
had already been written. A reader who might want to learn
more about Moral Re-Armament can find a copy of Buckman’s
speech in Frank N.D. Buckman, Remaking the World: The
Speeches of Frank N.D. Buckman (1947; London: Blandford
Press, 1958) 45-50. A description of the organization's
purpose is the subject of Basil Entwistle and John McCook
Roots, Moral Re-Armament—-What Is It? (Los Angeles: Pace,
1967).

6AA Preamble.

 

135
organization, keeps within its tradition of one alcoholic
helping another. Once recovered, how these alcoholics work
the AA principles in public and social affairs is left to
the individual.

The American trend toward individualism was given
theoretical and intellectual credibility as the Age of
Reason--which had dominated American thought during the
eighteenth-century—-was replaced by Romanticism, a movement
which placed importance on the emotions and, again, on the
individual. The emphasis on emotions enhanced the
importance of individuals because "if the test of truth lies
within, in the flash of inward intuition, then the
individual becomes paramount; the most dynamic ideal of
Romanticism was its vision of greater freedom for the
individual."7

The seeds of Romanticism are found in the
eighteenth-century works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emmanuel
Kant, Goethe, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas Carlyle, and
others. But the move to individualism which took place in
American society prior to and during the Revolutionary War
period was not, however, greatly influenced by these works.
When Samuel Miller published his Brief Retrospect of the

Eighteenth Centupy in 1803, the works of the Romantics were

 

7Russell E. Nye, Society and Culture in America (New
York: Harper and Row, 1974) 21.

“a...

136

all but passed over because, he felt, they tended to
undermine virtue.a

The trend toward individualism was further advanced by
transcendentalists who gave a new currency to Romantic
thought. This movement allowed Thoreau to glorify
individualism in his Walden and "Civil Disobedience." The
theme of self—reliance which is found throughout Thoreau’s
writings, became, for Emerson, the cardinal virtue. As

Emerson wrote in "Self Reliance": "To believe your own

p...

thought, to believe that what is true for you in your
private heart is true for all men--that is genius."9

Truth to one’s own heart was taken a step further by
Walt Whitman. Like Franklin, Whitman was born of poor
parents and earned his living as a printer. But Franklin's
utilitarian individualism contrasted sharply with Whitman's
expressive individualism. Whereas Whitman and Franklin
wanted to create personae which their descendants could
emulate, their basic attitudes toward individualism was

quite different. Unlike Franklin, Whitman’s celebration of

 

8This argument is developed in Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A

Religious Histomy of the American People vol 2 (1972; Garden
City: Image Books, 1975) 32+.

9Washington Irving, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon,
Gent. (1819; New York: Dodd, Mead, and Company, 1954).
Henry David Thoreau, Walden and Civil Disobedience (Boston:
Tucker and Fields, 1854). "Self Reliance" was first
published in 1841 and has been often reprinted in books such
as Sculley Bradley, et al. The American Tradition in
Literature (1956; New York: Random House, 1981) 1329-1349.

 

137

the body was part of his public image. This image was
erotic; hetero-erotic, homo-erotic, and auto-erotic.10

Whitman’s work is contradictory and provocative. He is
the author of Leaves of Grass, a celebration of self replete
with overt sexual images which stood in stark contrast to
prevailing social norms. And he was the reportedly heavy
drinker who wrote the less well-known Franklin Evans; pm,
the Inebriate, a temperance tale that promoted a moral code
in the tradition of T.S. Arthur’s Ten Nights in a
Bar-Room.11

Charley Shively’s Calamus Lovers is the most noteworthy
attempt to understand Whitman’s expressive individual in
terms of his sexuality and the mores of nineteenth-century
American society. Shively is one of the most brilliant
essayists and social critics in the contemporary lesbian and
gay rights movement. But, unfortunately, he analyzed

Whitman’s work not in terms of Whitman’s world, but in terms

 

1"The idea of expressive individualism is developed in
Bellah 33—34.

11Emory Holloway, ed. Leaves of Grass: The Collected
Poems of Walt Whitman (New York: Book League of America,
1942. Leaves of Grass was originally published in 1855.
Thomas L. Brasher, ed., "Franklin Evans; or, The Inebriate,"
The Early Poems and the Fiction (New York: New York
University Press, 1963) 124-239. "Arthur Evans" originally
appeared in the New World in November 1842. A revised
version of the text was reprinted in serial form in the
Brooklyp Eagle from November 16-30, 1846 under the title
"Fortunes of a Country Boy; Incidents in Town--and his
Adventures at the South." T.S. Arthur, Ten Nights in a Bar
Room and What I Saw There (1854; New York: A.L. Burt, nd).

59-

138

2 As a result, Shively fails to understand that

of his own.1
Whitman's homosexuality, per se, is not the cornerstone of
Whitman’s glorification of the self. Rather, the fact that
.he permitted the self to be sexual was what shocked and
excited those who read him.

The expressive individualism found in Song of Myself
can also be seen in the Davy Crockett myths which became
popular in the early 18005. Crockett’s world is one of

chaos. His father was a bankrupt farmer who ran a tavern

near the Cumberland Gap where he earned a living selling

5”

liquor to passing wagoners. When his son was twelve, the
senior Crockett sent Davy to school, but after but a few
days the boy had disrupted the school, beat up a fellow
classmate, and earned himself a whipping that would never be
given. In order to avoid the whipping, young Crockett
played hooky, but was caught by his father who threatened to
whip him worse than the schoolmaster ever would. But Davy
outruns the old man, hides in the woods, and the next day

leaves for the frontier.13

 

12Charley Shively, Calamus Lovers: Walt Whitman’s
Working Class Comrades (San Francisco: Gay Sunshine Press,
1987).

13The details of this myth are more fully developed in
Carroll Smith—Rosenberg, "Davey Crocket as Trickster:
Pornography, Liminality, and Symbolic Inversion in Victorian
America," Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in
Victorian America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985) 90-108.

139
The Crockett myth parodies the social world of
Franklin, Emerson, Thoreau, and other Eastern reformers.
Crockett, his family (which is seldom mentioned), and his
friends are illiterate, drunk, and uncouth. Even the women
in Crockett’s world refused to fit into gender role
stereotypes required by the nineteenth century notion of
femes covert. I
[These women] drank, toted guns, wielded
knives, killed or tamed animals, and
defended their beaux and husbands when j
the men were attacked by wild animals or ‘
other wild men. The women were ugly,
they were not sexually repressed.
Indeed, they freely agreed to bundle
with men... and assumed in their own

right mythic sexual qualities that far

exceeded those of the loose young men.“

Crockett myths took self-reliance to an extreme that
would have been inconceivable to Emerson. The Crockett
persona--although heterosexually active--like the Whitman
persona, rejected the heterosexual norm of home and family.

Because individualism was to be tempered with Christian
perfectionism, overt sexuality was not an acceptable subject
for conversation or activity. Journals and letters might
include carefully veiled homoerotic references, but the

public utterances of Whitman could not be tolerated even if

 

1‘Smith-Rosenberg, "Davy Crockett" 104. A detailed
discussion of femes covert is found in Nancy F. Cott, The

Bonds of Womanhood: "Women’s Sphere" in New England, 1780-
1835 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977).

 

140

he were speaking the experiences of many. In a personal
letter to H.G.O. Blake, Thoreau remarks on this ambiguity.
After first commenting on both his fascination and
discomfort with the sensual portions contained in Leaves of
Sgeee, he writes:

Of course, Walt Whitman can communicate

to us no experience, and if we are

shocked, whose experience is it that we
are reminded of?1

The writings of Thoreau and Whitman, as well and Ralph

.-

Waldo Emerson, Alexander Hamilton, and Herman Melville, and
engravings such as "A Miner’s Ball," demonstrate the
importance of same-sex male bonding.16 But, sexual activity
based on such bonding was still oppressed. Although
enlightened thought no longer held that the Biblical penalty
of death was appropriate for sodomy, castration was deemed
acceptable.17 And even in contemporary America, same-sex
sexual activity is still criminalized in twenty-five states.

Female bonding was also found in the nineteenth

 

15Henry David Thoreau in a December 7, 1856 letter to
H.G.O. Blacke. Quoted in Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay American

Histogy: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. (New York:
Harper and Row, 1976) 493.

1"“Katz, Gay American Histogy 452-461, 481-494, 499-500,
and 510.

17Thomas Jefferson authored bill 64 in 1779 which read:
"Whoesoever shall be guilty of Rape, Polygamy, or Sodomy
with any man or woman shall be punished, if a man, by
castration, if a woman, by cutting thro' cartilage of her
nose a hole of one half inch diameter at the least."

141
century. The opening paragraph of Carol Smith-Rosenberg’s
"The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations Between
Women in Nineteenth-Century America" serves as a good

summary of the situation.

The female friendship of the nineteenth
century, the long—lived, intimate loving
friendship between two women..is one
aspect of the female experience which,
consciously or unconsciously, we have
chosen to ignore. Yet an abundance of
manuscript evidence suggests that
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century women
routinely formed emotional ties with
other women. Such deeply felt same-sex
friendships were casually accepted in
American society. Indeed, from at least
the late eighteenth through mid-
nineteenth century, a female world of
varied and yet highly structured
relationships appears to have been an
essential aspect of American society.
These relationships ranged from the
supportive love of sisters, through the
enthusiasm of adolescent girls, to
sensual avowls of love by mature
women....18

:51».

Smith-Rosenberg's purpose in writing her essay is to
encourage scholars to move away from the psychosexual
interpretation of such friendships; an interpretation which
looks for deviance in childhood or adolescent trauma as
signs of "latent homosexuality" or as the seeds for "overt

homosexuality." She effectively argues that same-sex

 

18Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, "The Female World of Love
and Ritual: Relations Between Women in Nineteenth-Century
America," Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in
Victorian America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985) 53-76.

142

friendships need to be viewed in a cultural context to have
any meaning. In her attempt to diminish the psychosexual
interpretation of same-sex bonding, Smith-Rosenberg at times
sounds homophobic; as is evidenced in her description of
"committed” heterosexual and "uncompromising" homosexuals
found in her concluding paragraph. But in spite of the
underlying homophobia, her general arguments are worth

noting.

Based on my research into this
nineteenth-century world of female .
intimacy, I would further suggest that,
rather than seeing a gulf between the
normal and the abnormal, we view sexual
and emotional impulses as part of a
continuum of spectrum of affect
gradations strongly affected by cultural
norms and arrangements, a continuum
influences in part by observed and thus
learned behavior. At one end of the
continuum lies committed
heterosexuality, at the other
uncompromising homosexuality; between, a
wide latitude of emotions and sexual
feelings. Certain cultures and
environments permit individuals a great
deal of freedom in moving across this
spectrum. I would like to suggest that
the supposedly repressive and
destructive Victorian sexual ethos may
have been more flexible and responsive
to the needs of particular individuals
than those of the mid- twentieth
century.19

Smith-Rosenberg might be correct in her conclusion if

one assumes that the flexibility would only be found in the

 

19Smith-Rosenberg, "Female World" 76.

143

norm of uncompromising heterosexuality. In a society based
on Christian perfectionism, an expressive
individualism--especially in matters sexual--was forbidden.

The basis of Christian thought and society was the
family. Alcoholism destroyed the family and homosexuality
prevented families from being formed. Although all
homosexuals are born into families and many have children of
their own, this generalization still is assumed to have
merit. And to the nineteenth-century mind, there was no
conception of the Kinsey scale or of a lesbian/gay family
structure . 2°

In spite of the trend to perfectionism, Alcoholics
Anonymous, in its second year of existence laid the
groundwork for the fellowship to celebrate individuality
when a man came to the Akron Group and asked if he could
join even though he was "the victim of another addiction
even worse stigmatized than alcoholism."21 Although
conference approved AA literature does not give us the

details of this man’s life, in 1968, Bill Wilson explained

 

“The amount of mis-information about lesbians and gay
men is still great. Ed Hurst, Overcoming Homosexuality
(Elgin, IL: David C. Cook, 1987) is but one of many recent
books which ignore scientific information. Eileen P. Flynn,
AIDS: A Catholic Call for Com assion, Kansas City: Sheed
and Ward, 1985) is an example of the type of logic which
permits an individual to find that human compassion is to be
given to gay men only after they contract a deadly illness.

21Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (New York: AA
World Services, 1954) 142.

‘3‘:

144

n 22

that this man was "a sexual deviant. This acceptance

eventually developed into AA’s open membership policy.
Found in the Third Tradition, AA’s membership requirement
simply states that "The only requirement for AA membership
is a desire to stop drinking." As is explained in Twelve
Steps and Twelve Traditions, this tradition is especially
meaningful to the individual for AA is really saying that:

You are an AA member if you say so. You

can declare yourself in; nobody can keep

you out. No matter who you are, no

matter how low you’ve gone, no matter

how great your emotional complications

--even your crimes-—we still can’t deny

you AA. We don’t want to keep you

23

out....
As alcoholics who had been stigmatized because of their
disease, instead of being helped to overcome their illness,
the founders of AA realized the importance of not allowing
the group to override the individual. In another section of
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, concern for
individuality is explicitly stated:

We believe there isn't a fellowship on

earth which lavishes more devoted care

upon its individual members; surely

there is none which more jealously

guards the individual's right to think,

talk, and act as he wishes. No AA can

compel another to do anything; nobody
can be punished or expelled. Our Twelve

 

22Bill Wilson, "Open Meeting," AA General Services
Conference, 1968.

23Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions 139.

145
Steps to recovery are suggestions; the
Twelve Traditions which guarantee AA’s
unity contain not a single "Don’t."
They repeatedly say "We ought..." but
never "You must!"

Ironically, this passage is included in a discussion of
the first tradition: "Our common welfare should come first;
personal recovery depends upon AA unity." But AA has found
that the seeming paradox of celebrating individuality while
calling for common welfare and AA unity is the result of
AA’s singleness of purpose. Because alcoholics can only
recover with the help of others, they must come together
into community. But because the community has a singleness
of purpose--helping each other recover from alcoholism--
individuality does not lead to acrimony and anarchy.

Individuals coming together to work toward a common
goal has as a precedent the forming of the United States.
Because each of the colonies was settled by a different
group of individuals for different religious or economic
reasons, competing interests developed between them.
Although each of the colonies was united by a common bond to
England, on the surface, there seemed to be little unity
between them in matters of economics, politics, and
religion. Therefore, as the country began to unite and

loyalists such as Benjamin Franklin became rebel leaders,

 

24Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions 129.

146
there was a need to bring the competing interests of the
thirteen colonies into a unified nation.

In developing a unified nation, Jonathan Boucher’s
concerns that he could not see how Virginians could "form a
cordial union with the saints of England" needed to be
overcome.25 Thus, a search for commonalty and a spirit of
compromise became guiding forces in the new nation. As
Russell B. Nye points out in Society and Culture in America:

Living for over a century in a new

environment across the sea was bound to j
produce Englishmen whose habits diverged ‘
more and more from those who remained at

home. By the eighteenth century, the

majority of colonists had been born on

American soil, had never seen England,

and never would....The colonists were

tied together by trade; newspapers

circulated freely among all of them;

travelers moved through them with

increased ease; interchanges6 of ideas

were as common as of goods.26

Even before the Declaration of Independence was signed
Americans looked at themselves, both as individuals and as a
country, as being unique. For example, Eliza Pinckney, a
loyal subject of the King, insisted on being introduced as
an "American" when she was presented at court in 1750. And,

of course, there were other individualists such as John

Winthrop whose flight from England was based on a belief

 

25Quoted in Nye 2.
26Nye 2.

 

147
that his individualism could only be lived in the new world.

For the colonies to come together and form a successful
nation, defending individualism became a political
necessity. Protestant Christianity, instead of a particular
sectarian or denominational interest, became the norm by
which the behavior of individuals were judged. Protestants,
respecting the individual views of other Protestants, were
able to unite in a way in which the Virginian Anglicans and
the New England saints could not.

Protection of individual rights was as much a political
necessity to the growth and development of Alcoholics
Anonymous as it was for the forming of a new nation.
Although rooted in eighteenth century practices, AA’s
insistence on having only a singleness of purpose was
especially influenced by the nineteenth-century
Washingtonian movement.27

The Washingtonian Society anticipated the development
of AA and serves as an example and a reminder to current AA
members of what could happen to their group if certain
principles are not followed; particularly the principle of

singleness of purpose.28 Like other voluntary associations

 

27Milton Maxwell, "The Washingtonian Movement

Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol 11 (1950) 410- 451.

28"Between 1945 and 1976, the AA G[rape] V[ine] carried
twelve different articles (and several reprints of these) on
the Washingtonians." Ernest Kurtz, Not God: A History of
Alcoholics Anonymous (Center City, MN: Hazelden, 1979) 291.

148
of the period, the Washingtonians did spring from the
Protestant tradition, but it initially was able to obtain a
unique place within the overall temperance crusade because
its focus was on individual alcoholics.

Because it sprang from the trend toward perfectionism,
the Washingtonians, like other reform movements, took
primitive Christianity as their model. As C. Howard Hopkins
explains in The Rise of the Social Gospel in American
Protestantism 1865-1915:

The social element in the Christian

religion is at least as old as the

gospel. Jesus inherited the high moral

aspirations of the Hebrew prophets, who

were, in a sense themselves social

reformers. The followers of Christ have

endeavored to apply his teachings in

every age.29
Explicitly Christian in their basic value system, reformers
were also evangelists interested in spreading the good news
of the gospel.

Initially, the temperance movement worked against
intemperance, as opposed to their later work for total
abstinence. But the focus was always on keeping the

temperant drinker temperant. "As for the alcoholic, it was

the prevailing opinion, up to 1840, that nothing could be

 

29C. Howard Hopkins, The Rise of the Social Gospel in
American Protestantism, 1865-1915 (l940;l New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1967) 3.

149

"m Some alcoholics such as the fictional

done to help him.
Joe Morgan did obtain a conversion experience and reform,
but these cases were unusual. An often quoted comment made
by Justin Edwards, an early temperance leader, typifies the
attitude held by many: "Keep the temperate people
temperate; the drunkards will soon die, and the land will be
free."

The significance of the Washingtonian Movement was that
an emphasis was placed on reforming the drunkard. Rather
than allow drunks to die, the founders of this movement were
reformed drunks who wanted to help other drunks return to
the temperate life. The movement originated on April 2,
1840 when William K. Mitchell, John F. Hoss, David Anderson,
George Steers, James McCurley, and Archibald Campbell were
drinking together in Baltimore’s Chase’s Tavern. These six
men were discussing a temperance lecture that was to be held
that evening when it was decided that, for fun, some of them
should attend and then report back to the others.

After the lecture, the six joined together and
discussed the material that the Reverend Matthew Hale Smith
had presented that evening. Three days later, on April 5,
the six were strolling, drinking, and discussing temperance
when it was suggested that they form a mutual aid society to

help each other to stop drinking. Mitchell was elected

 

”Maxwell 411.

150

president of the society and designed the following pledge
for each member to sign:

"We, whose names are annexed, desirous

of forming a society for our mutual

benefit, and to guard against a

pernicious practice which is injurious

to our health, standing, and families,

do pledge ourselves as gentlemen that we

will not drink any spirituous or malt

liquors, wine or cider."
On April 6, still suffering the effects of the previous
day’s drinking, Anderson became the first man to sign the
Washingtonian pledge. The other six original members
followed suit and at the second meeting of the society, two
other men signed the pledge.

Ironically, the new society continued to meet at
Chase's Tavern, but because they did not drink, they were
eventually asked to hold their meetings elsewhere. The
group’s weekly meeting first moved to Mitchell's home, then
to a carpenter’s shop, and finally, to a rented hall.

On November 19, 1840, the first public meeting of the
Washingtonian Society was held at the Masonic Hall. The
meeting was successful not only in that it brought in new
members, but the people of Baltimore were made aware of the
group’s existence. Due to the success of this first
meeting, it was decided that a monthly public meeting would
be held in addition to the regular weekly meetings. The

society grew at such a rate that 1,000 reformed alcoholics

151
and 5,000 other supporters marched in the parade held to
mark the society’s first anniversary.

Washingtonian Societies, as was stated in the 1842
Washingponian Pocket Companion, could be formed anywhere
there were enough drinkers to "form a spree." All that was
needed was for one or two individuals to go to those persons
who make, use, or sell intoxicants, explain the great reform
to them, and get them to take the pledge at a meeting, the
time for which would be mutually agreeable. Gentleness and
kindness were to be used as the method for persuasion. And
it was believed that if the person who was soliciting
pledges was a reformed drinker himself, that was so much the
better. 5

At the meetings, those gathered would first sing one of
the hymns found in the Washin tonian Pocket Com anion, hymns
which were "adapted Christian hymns and temperance songs,
appealing basically to religious and patriotic sentiments."
Because sectarianism, party political denunciation, and
harshness were avoided, the songs contained no "phrases and
sentiments which all Christians could not conscientiously
sing."31

After the song, the Chairman, or some other person,
would open the meeting by first stating its objectives and

then "relating his experience in drinking, his past

 

”Maxwell 436.

152
feelings, sufferings, the woes of his family and friends,
the motives and reasons that induced him to take the present
step, and appeal warmly and kindly to his companions,
friends, and neighbors to aid him in it by doing
likewise."32 This opening talk is not unlike those talks
given at open AA meetings where a man or woman who has
recovered through AA "describes in a general way what we
used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now."33
As was suggested in the instructions for the Washingtonian
speaker, the contemporary AA speaker frequently makes
reference to how he or she could not have achieved sobriety
alone.
On May 12, 1841, a group of women meeting in New York

City formed the first Martha Washington Society. Their
constitution explained their purpose:

Whereas, the use of all intoxicating

drinks has caused, and is causing,

incalculable evils to individuals and

families, and has a tendency to

prostrate all means adapted to the

moral, social, and eternal happiness of

the whole family; we, the undersigned,

ladies of New York, feeling ourselves

especially called upon, not only to

refrain from the use of all intoxicating

drinks, but, by our influence and

example, to induce others to do the

same, do therefore form ourselves into
an association.

 

32Quoted in Maxwell 436.

33Alcoholics Anonymous (1939; New York: AA World
Services, 1976) 58.

153

The Martha Washington Societies were at times ladies
auxiliaries to the Washingtonian Societies in their area.
But, they also fed the poor, clothed the naked, and helped
reform female alcoholics.

Although it might be tempting to draw a parallel
between the Martha Washington Societies and Al-Anon groups,
to do so would mis-represent both. Unlike Al-Anon
members--which include men as well as women--the Martha
Washingtonians did not attempt to change themselves as they
learned how to live with the alcoholic in their lives.
Instead, they were actively involved in reforming alcoholics
and advancing the general temperance cauée, a reforming
stance they learned from the Washingtonians.

In many ways, it was active political involvement which
helped lead to the downfall of the Washingtonian Movement.
Instead of concentrating their efforts on reforming
individual alcoholics, they became involved in the overall
temperance debate. Because they permitted non-alcoholics as
well as alcoholics into their ranks, it was inevitable that
they would be subsumed into the Temperance Movement.
Furthermore, the Washingtonians, unlike AA-alcoholics, did
not provide a clear recovery program for their members to
follow. Signing the pledge to stop drinking was not unlike
the process of taking the first step of AA, a step that

requires the individuals to accept that they are powerless

154

over alcohol. But, after signing the pledge,
Washingtonians, unlike AA-alcoholics, had no further steps
to guide their recovery. The basic life-style changes that
AA recognizes as requirements for contented sobriety result
from living the AA program. They do not arise simply from
the act of removing alcohol from the body. It seems natural
to assume that many of the Washingtonians did not achieve
the contented sobriety of Joe Morgan. Rather, they would
likely have become non-drinking, non-recovered, dry drunks.

In its development, Alcoholics Anonymous has been very
conscious of the Washingtonian Society; particularly in its
efforts not to make the same mistakes as its
nineteenth-century predecessor. And it is because of AA’s
sense of history and strong tradition of supporting
individuals that lesbians and gay men, who have a desire to

stop drinking, are welcomed into the fellowship.

CHAPTER 6
TREATMENT STRATEGIES FOR WORKING WITH

LESBIAN/GAY ALCOHOLICS

Alcoholics Anonymous is a spiritual program that fills
the religious needs of those men and women who use it as
their program of recovery from alcoholism. Although it is
not the only treatment program available, it is the largest.
Yet many lesbians and gay men are unable to find a way to
work the program because of the spiritual/religious issues
involved in it.

In working with lesbian and gay alcoholics, sponsors1
and treatment providers must remember three points: 1) The
individual has a unique set of experiences. 2) The
individual is an alcoholic. 3) Sexual issues are
frequently problems which need to be addressed in treatment.

No responsible sponsor or therapist would assume that all
heterosexuals had the same life experiences. And, no
responsible sponsor or therapist should assume that all
lesbians and gay men are the same. In the same vein, it

must also be understood that, as there is no heterosexual

 

1The role of the sponsor is described in Questions and
Answers on Sponsorship (1976; New York: AA World Services,
1983).

155

156

community, there is no lesbian community or gay community.
There are many lesbian/gay communities. The young gay
hustler and the older gay professional man living with his
lover in the suburbs are both gay, yet their experiences as
gay men are unique. The separatist lesbian and the lesbian
whose best buddy is a man might live next door to each
other, but, in actuality, they would live and function in
separate communities. These differences must be taken into
consideration if treatment is to be effective.2

While understanding that lesbians and gay men live in a
variety of communities, their uniqueness does not alter the
fact that they are alcoholic and that they have experiences
and personality characteristics similar to other alcoholics.
Names and places might be different but the experience of
alcoholism is the same.

Finally, for lesbians and gay men, as for
non-homosexuals, sexual issues need to be addressed in

treatment. And the emphasis needs to be on sexuality and

 

not homosexuality. Where the person falls on the Kinsey
scale is not, in and of itself, important. How people deal

with their sexuality is. Too many times, therapists want

 

2For an excellent discussion of the cultural diversity
among lesbians and gay men, see Dave Walter, "A Case for Gay
Communities," Advocate 504 (1988) 33.

157

to treat the homosexuality of their lesbian and gay clients
as if it were the root of all problems.3

Although they do not specifically identify these
points, in Dual Identities, Dana Finnegan and Emily McNally
discuss the special concerns of lesbians and gay men in
treatment. In their book, Finnegan and McNally explain how
lesbians and gay men have much in common due to the
pressures of homophobia and shared social experience.
However, because they understand that even with this
commonalty, each lesbian and each gay man has unique life
experiences, they do not give a list of questions that can
be asked of all clients. Instead, they demonstrate how to
choose appropriate questions to ask the newly sober lesbian
or gay man. Dual Identities is written primarily for
counselors, but it would also be appropriate for an AA
sponsor interested in becoming more sensitive to the needs
of lesbian and gay alcoholics.‘

In addition to remembering the uniqueness of lesbian
and gay experiences and the commonalty of the alcoholic

experiences, there are seven other strategies that I would

 

3This article is developed in Stephen Beaton and Naome
Guild, "Treatment for Gay Problem Drinkers," Social Casework
57 (1976) 302-308 and in Deborah L. Diamond and Sharon W.
Wilsnack, "Alcohol Abuse Among Lesbians: A Descriptive

Study" Journal of Homosexuality 4.2 (1978) 123-142.

‘Dana Finnegan and Emily McNally, Dual Identities:

Counseling Chemically Dependent Gay Men and Lesbians (Center
City, MN Hazelden, 1987).

158
recommend be used by sponsors and therapists to help the new
person learn to work the spiritual program of Alcoholics

Anonymous.

1. Acknowledge that Alcoholics

Anon ous, Twelve Steps and Twelve
Traditions, and other AA literature are
culturally biased and be willing to
explain the historical development of
these basic AA texts. Stress that
although Christianity is the normative
experience of American AAs, that AA does
not consider non- Christian experience
to be abnormal or invalid for recovery.

2. Emphasize that dogmatism in
religious matters is not conference
approved.

3. Explain the special importance of
the third tradition--"The only‘
requirement for AA membership is a
desire to stop drinking"--to lesbian and
gay alcoholics. In doing so, stress
that AA, as with other controversial
issues, takes no opinion on how
individuals practice their sexuality.

4. Whenever appropriate and available,
encourage the lesbian or gay alcoholic
to attend special interest meetings of
Alcoholics Anonymous. However, caution
the individual against "ghettoization."

5. Introduce the new person to the book
Living Sober.

6. Whenever appropriate and available,
encourage the newly sober lesbian or gay
man to join the lesbian/gay religious
caucus of the church of their childhood,
the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan
Community Churches, or another spiritual
group designed around the needs of
lesbians and/or gay men.

159

7. Provide the newly sober lesbian or

gay man with lesbian/gay positive

literature.
Cultural Bias and AA Literature

Alcoholics Anonymous, like all writing, is culturally
biased. As a result, it reflects the traditions and values
of the culture in which it was produced. To produce a
sexist book today for use in a recovery program is
inexcusable and to produce a book that tends to overlook
the experiences of various ethnic, religious, or sexual
minorities is problematic. But, it is illegitimate to
impose contemporary values on people who wrote Alcoholics
Anonymous over fifty years ago. i
During the time Alcoholics Anonymous was being written,

the small group of recovering alcoholics in New York were
just breaking their ties with the Oxford Group and those
living in Akron would remain part of the Oxford group until
1939, the year the book was published. The first 100 AA
members who were involved with the production of Alcoholics
Anonymous were Christians attempting to live the principles
of the Oxford Movement. They recovered from their addiction
using that program and, as a result, when they shared their
experience, they shared Oxford Group principles. Even
though their own stories were filled with the experiences

of Christianity, they attempted to make the AA program as

"Christian free" as possible.

160
In 1935, an agnostic alcoholic who affiliated with AA

would not find the Bhagavad-Gita in his/her hotel room.

 

Like Ed, whose story is recorded in the third tradition, the
alcoholic would find a Bible.5 Nor would have non-
Christians been drawn to the principles of the Oxford Group.
As a result, when Alcoholics Anonymous was being written,
experience with non-Christian spirituality would have been
virtually non-existent. Yet, such experience was not
condemned by the AA program.

But Christian spirituality remains the normative mode
for Americans who join Alcoholics Anonymous. This ought not
be surprising because Christianity is the dominant religion
in this country. And there ought not be‘a problem for non-
Christians who enter AA because the phrase "God as we
understand Him" allows individuals to turn their will over
to a Goddess or gods or the AA program as a whole. Nowhere
in conference approved AA literature does is state that
Christianity is superior to other forms of spiritual
expression.

Alcoholics Anonymous should not take an opinion on
outside issues. Whether one lives as a Christian is an
outside issue. Belief in a higher power is crucial. The

type of higher power is irrelevant to recovery. All that is

 

5Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (New York: AA World
Services, 1952) 143-145.

161
important is that the individual realize that she or he is
not God.6
Religious Dogmatism is Not Conference Approved
The new person within AA will sit at the tables with
dogmatic alcoholics who will insist that there are very
specific ways in which the spiritual aspects of the program
should be run. The person might even come across such
pamphlets as A Manual for Alcoholics Anonymous, A Guide to
the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, Spiritual
Milestones in Alcoholics Anonymous, and Second Reader for
Alcoholics Anonymous which are published by AA of Akron.
Each of these pamphlets uses the name Alcoholics Anonymous,
but they are not conference approved literature.7
The difference between AA and the philosophy of AA of

Akron can be seen in the following observation by Ernest
Kurtz in Not God:

At the 1975 Fortieth Anniversary

Convention of Alcoholics Anonymous held

in Denver, Colorado, some members

attending received a private invitation

to participate in one or more meetings

of "AA of Akron." Those without such an

invitation and unaccompanied by someone
having one were not admitted to these

 

6The importance of individuals realizing that they are
"not God" is the theme of Ernest Kurtz, Not God: A History
of Alcoholics Anonymous (Center City, MN: Hazelden, 1979).

7A Manual for Alcoholics Anonymous (Akron: AA of
Akron, nd). A Guide to the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics
Anonymous (Akron, AA of Akron, nd). Spiritual Milestones in
Alcoholics Anonymous (Akron: AA of Akron, nd). Second

Reader for Alcoholics Anonymous (Akron: AA of Akron, nd).

162

meetings--if they could find them.
Within the meetings, although in many
ways the story-telling format reminded
readily of "ordinary" AA meetings, a
special kind of lamentation was
expressed in virtually every
presentation. Almost univocally,
speakers bemoaned not the ravages of
alcoholism but the declension of
"so-called Alcoholics Anonymous" from
the pristine purity of its original
principles.a

As Kurtz rightly claims, the current members of AA of Akron
are "the heirs, often literal but at times only spiritual,
of early Akron AA" and that Akron was much more tied to the
Oxford Group than was New York. And even outside of Akron,
the spiritual heritage of the early Akron members still is
found in the AA program.9 ‘
The reality of AA of Akron is best understood in terms

of religious sects.

The sociologists define a sect as a

religious movement that derives many of

its ideas from the same dominant

religious traditions as the churches do.

The difference is that a sect adds some

significant variation that separates

itself from society and ordinary church
style.10

 

“Kurtz 234.
9Kurtz 234-237. The quote is from page 234.

1"Michael H. Barnes, In the Presence of Mystegy: An
Introduction to the History of Human Religiousness (Mystic,
CT: Twenty-Third Publications, 1984) 126.

163
.Although.Alcoholics Anonymous is not a religion, the
sectarian nature of AA of Akron is unmistakeable. Following
the pattern of Christian sects, the members of AA of Akron
have become dissatisfied with the practices of "so-called
.Alcoholics Anonymous.” On a not-uncommon pattern, they have
found that regular AA-alcoholics take on too lighthearted
views about such basic issues of rules, roles, and purposes.
Therefore, to paraphrase Michael Barnes’ discussion of

sects, because AA of Akron preaches strict and clear
principles that tells a person exactly who to be, how to
live, and what to live for, it provides a stable security
that society and regular Alcoholics Anonymous does not.11

The "lack of a stable security" in.Alcoholics Anonymous
is more a perception of those who would find more comfort in
a group which had stricter rules than does AA. Millions of
alcoholics have recovered from their addiction and found
security using the AA program. But an essential portion of
their recovery process was that they had to find a workable
program for themselves. Even the Twelve Steps, the
cornerstone of AA philosophy are only "suggested as a
program of recovery."u

In working with newly sober alcoholics, the sponsor or

therapist needs to emphasize that the dogmatism which is

 

11Barnes 125-126.

12Alcoholics Anonymous (1939; New York: AA.WOrld
Services, 1976) 59.

164
sometimes found in groups or individuals is not the AA
program; it is a sectarian response.
Finally, emphasis can be placed on the tolerance which
AA has of all who wish to join. The third tradition of AA
which allows AA of Akron members and those who follow their
belief in the supremacy of Christianity to attend meetings
is the same tradition which prohibits the program from
excluding lesbians and gay men.
AA’s Third Tradition
In Twelve Ste 3 and Twelve Traditions, there are two
stories concerning the fact that "The only requirement for
AA membership is a desire to stop drinking." The first
story involves an unnamed man and begins?
On the AA calendar it was Year Two.
In that time nothing could be seen but
two struggling, nameless groups of
alcoholics trying to hold their faces up
to the light.
A newcomer appeared at one of these
groups, knocked on the door and asked to
be let in. He talked frankly with the
group’s oldest member. He soon proved
that his was a desperate case, and that
above all he wanted to get well. "But,"
he asked, "will you let me join your
group? Since I am the victim of another
addiction even worse stigmatized than
alcoholism, you may not want me among
you. Or will you?3

The group consciousness began to work. Some members were

troubled and thought that this one should be sacrificed for

 

13Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, 141-142.

165
the many. Others argued that it was only the group’s
reputation which was the real concern. Eventually, someone
asked "What would the Master do?" And the issue was
settled. This man was allowed into the fellowship.
Overjoyed, the newcomer plunged into
Twelfth Step work. Tirelessly he laid
AA’s message before scores of people.
Since‘this was a very early group, those
scores have since multiplied themselves
into thousands. Never did he trouble
anyone with his other difficulty. AA
had taken its first step in the
formation of Tradition Three.“

For lesbian and gay alcoholics, this tradition has a
special significance because it assures that lesbians and
gay men cannot be excluded from AA if they have a desire to
stop drinking. Furthermore, this story records the
experience of the first gay member of AA, a member who
tirelessly "laid AA’s message before scores of people."15

Although the exact nature of this man's "other
addiction" was not recorded in Twelve Steps and Twelve
Traditions, in 1968, Bill Wilson identified the man's sexual
orientation when he spoke at the open meeting of AA’s 1968
General Service Conference. Later, in an article which

appeared in Box 1980, B.L. gives a version of the story.

In this version, the man who showed up at an AA meeting

 

1‘Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, 142.
15Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, 142.

166
describes himself as "a jailbird, mental case, narcotics
addict, homosexual, and alcoholic." The year, according to
B.L. was 1945. As in the original version, someone asked
"What would the Master do?" and the man was admitted.16

In 1937, year two of the AA calendar, there was no
Kinsey scale to explain sexual orientation. Heterosexual
activity was not only normative, it was considered to be
normal. The "abnormality" of same-sex sexual expression was
well known in scientific and religious circles. To admit, a
gay man into AA was truly an act of courage.

Although the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions does
not identify this man as being gay, prejudice should not be
attributed as the cause. When Bill Wilsbn was drafting
early AA literature, the intent was to make the program as
universal as possible by dropping specifics within the
stories. In later years, it became understood that people
who were somehow different from the norm within AA--people
who were not low bottom, white drunks--needed special
stories of their own. As a result, special interest groups
began to form and pamphlets such as Do You Think You’re

Different? appeared.

 

16A tape of Bill Wilson’s remarks where played by Barry
L. at his talk at the 1985 AA International Convention. In
Barry's talk, titled "Historical Perspective: Homosexual
Men and Women in AA," Barry also cites examples of other
early gay involvement in the AA program. See also, B.L.
S’You Mean, Just Let Anybody In?" Box 1980 (September 1976)
6-29.

167
Published in 1976, Do You Think You’re Different? was
written for those people who thought that Alcoholics
Anonymous would not work for them. The purpose of the
pamphlet was to show that when "different“ people came to
AA, they "found that Alcoholics Anonymous worked just as
well for them as it had for hundreds of thousands of others
of us who thought that we were ’different.’" Because the
pamphlet includes the story of a lesbian alcoholic and a gay
alcoholic, it can be argued that it shows that AA has the
same commitment to lesbians and gay men as it has to blacks,
the elderly, Indians, young people, famous people, Jews, low
and high bottom drunks, atheists and agnostics, as well as
those who fit the characteristics of the‘first 100 who wrote
and edited the original version of Alcoholics Anonymous.17
In its attempt to minimize differences between

alcoholics, AA takes a positive view of sexuality. Here,
too, the strong Christian beliefs of the founders were not
imposed onto the program of recovery. In Alcoholics
Anon ous, the founders wrote:

We do not want to be the arbiter of

anyone’s sex conduct....We remembered

always that our sex powers were

God-given and therefore good, neither to

be used lightly or selfishly nor to be

despised and loathed....God alone can
judge our sex situation. Counsel with

 

17Do You Think You’re Different? (New York, AA World
Services, 1976).

168

persons is often desirable, but we let

God be the final judge.18
This advice, first published in 1939, is in line with
contemporary psychiatric and medical views concerning
sexuality. Although written prior to Kinsey’s research
about sexual response in men and women, the founders of AA
choose not to make judgments on sexual activity.

Alcoholics Anonymous does not, however, take the

position that any sexual conduct is healthy. Instead of
focusing on types of activity, frequency of activity, sex of
partner or partners, or the marital status of partners,
focus is placed on the quality of the activity. Questions
suggested as part of the fourth step inventory include:

We reviewed our own [sexual] conduct

over the years past. Where had we been

selfish, dishonest, or inconsiderate?

Whom had we hurt? Did we unjustifiably

arouse jealousy, suspicion or

bitterness? Where were we at fault,

what should be done instead?19

While investigating sexual conduct, it is likely that

lesbian and gay alcoholics as well as non-homosexual
alcoholics have had sexual problems. And, Alcoholics
Anonymous rightly counsels that for someone to work out

their problems, they need to take advice from others. In

 

18Alcoholics Anonymous 69-70.
19Alcoholics Anonymous 69.

169

obtaining advice, lesbians and gay men will likely find
those within AA who find that same—sex sexual activity is, a
priori, immoral. It is also likely that they might face
discrimination at the hands of all-too-human AA-alcoholics
whose attempts to work the program are not perfect.
Anticipating such cases, Alcoholics Anonymous warns that "We
realize that some people are as fanatical about sex as
others are loose. We avoid hysterical thinking or
advice.""
Special Interest Meetings

Since 1974, the international AA directory began to
list lesbian and gay meetings. The fact that special
interest meetings exist is still being debated within AA,
but such meetings often have a very beneficial effect on a
new person’s recovery. Often, in such a meeting, the new
person finds it easier to identify with the other alcoholics
present and this makes it easier for them to develop a
positive recovery program of their own. They also learn to
see that their "uniqueness" does not need to prohibit them
from obtaining a successful recovery through AA. As R.S.
writes in Box 1980, "I myself, even though I am a gay man,
don’t go to a gay or men’s meeting very often. But when I

first got sober I needed them because I could identify with

 

2

°Alcoholics Anonymous 70.

170
what they were saying in terms of the problems I was
having."21
At lesbian and gay AA meetings, newly sober alcoholics

will not only meet lesbians and gay men with quality
sobriety, they will learn that their sexual orientation is
not the problem. Quoting from The Homosexual Alcoholic, Ted
W., writing in a 1981 Advocate article sums up this benefit:

"[Within lesbian/gay AA meetings] many of us learn for the
first time that it was our drunkenness and not our I

"” To a woman or man

homosexuality that turned people off.
with internalized homophobia, such a revelation helps them
take the first steps to a positive self concept which will
aid recovery. ‘
Unfortunately, because of past instances of

discrimination, lesbians and gay men frequently learn that
they cannot trust non-homosexual people. But by attending
only special interest meetings, lesbians and gay alcoholics
do not have the opportunity to see others living outside the
lesbian/gay ghetto. And because ghettos are not good places
to live, newly sober individuals should be encouraged to

attend meetings besides specialty ones. Do You Think You’re

Different? explains the problem well:

 

“11.5., Letter, Box 1980 44.2 (1987) 33.

”Ted W., "Alcoholism: A Gay Drunk’s Sobering Story"
Advocate (6 March 1981) 18-19.

 

171

We have found it unwise to limit our AA

circle to folks exactly like ourselves.

Segregation gives our "uniqueness" an

unhealthy emphasis. We find it more

enjoyable, and more healing, to get into

the mainstream of AA life and mingle

with everybody else, not just

"different" [e.g. lesbian and gay]

people.23
Or in the words of H.D.: "Special interest groups do serve a
function for the newcomer and are a spot to take special
problems. They do not and should not become the only AA

"” Enjoyment in sobriety is, afterall,

contacts one enjoys.
the result of a balanced life and balance is not found in a
ghetto.

Although part of balance is having the lesbian or gay
alcoholic find other lesbian or gay contacts, the reality of
homophobia--both internal and external--cannot be ignored.
Being open about one’s sexuality in American society is
risky. In the move to self-acceptance, it should be left to
the newly sober individual to decide how open she/he wants
to be. It is the new person who must live with the
consequences of the decision to "come out," and it is not
wise to force someone into self-disclosure until they are
comfortable doing so.

Lesbians and gay men who are open about their sexual

orientation at AA meetings signal to newcomers that they,

 

23Do You Think You’re Different?, 29.

“H.D., Letter, Box 1980 44.2 (1987) 35.

172
too, can safely discuss issues which would involve self-
disclosure. For example, talking about one’s partner
without feeling the need to "change" the person’s actual
pronoun reference is an important stage in recovery for
lesbian and gay alcoholics.
Living Sober
Living Sober: Some Methods AA Members Have Used for Not

Drinking is a pragmatic application of strategies which
individuals use for not drinking. As is explained in the
first section:

This booklet does not offer a plan for

recovery from alcoholism. The

Alcoholics Anonymous Steps that

summarize its program of recovery are

set forth in detail in the books

"Alcoholics Anonymous" and "Twelve Steps

and Twelve Traditions." Those Steps are

not interpreted here, nor are the

processes they cover discussed in this

booklet.”
Instead, Living Sober, offers tips on how to maintain
sobriety. Discussed in the text are ways of availing one’s
self of a sponsor, use of "telephone therapy," being
grateful, being wary of drinking occasions, getting active,
and twenty five-additional categories.

What is missing from the booklet is the spiritual

program of recovery which, as quoted above, is found in

 

”Living Sober: Some Methods AA Members Have Used for
Not Drinking (New York: AA World Services, 1975).

173
Alcoholics Anonymous and Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditiepe.
Yet, AA’s twelfth step which states that "Having had a
spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to
carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these
principles in all our affairs" lies at the heart of these
suggestions. However, newly sober lesbians and gay men who
react negatively to the God talk in AA might be able to more
easily read the less "religious/spiritual" book, Living
Sppep. Lesbians and gay men unable to understand what seem
to be very theoretical steps might first begin to work
those steps by implementing the suggestions offered in
Living Sober.

However, the suggestions in Living Sober are not a
substitute for the twelve step recovery program. By
following the suggestions offered, new people might not
drink again, but it would be virtually impossible for them
to develop a contented sobriety.

Besides being a non-spiritual complement to the
spiritual twelve step program, Living Sober is also an
example of the positive contribution and acceptance which
lesbians and gay men have within Alcoholics Anonymous. As
with Alcoholics Anon ous, Living Sober is written in the
plural because neither of these books is the sole product of
an individual’s labor or insight. Yet, both had an
individual serve as a primary editor/author. Bill Wilson,

as AA history records, was the principle author of

174
Alcoholics Anonymous and Barry L. was the chief editor of
Living Sober.

In a talk he gave at the fiftieth anniversary
convention held in Montreal, Barry L., a gay man, discusses
the history of lesbians and gay men in Alcoholics Anonymous.

As part of his talk, he discusses his involvement in the
development of Living Sober. The value of Living Sober is
not enhanced by knowing that a gay man was instrumental in
its development. But, for a newly sober lesbian or gay
man, the knowledge of Barry's involvement might be an added
incentive to learn to work the program.”

Involvement with Religious Caucuses

As with most Americans, lesbians and gay men often were
exposed to a particular religious denomination in their
childhood. Many remain involved with that denomination
through their lives while others slip away. For the lesbian
and gay alcoholics attempting to live a spiritual program of
recovery, these childhood religions often serve as the basis
from which they begin their search for "God as we understand
Him."

Most major religious denominations now have lesbian and
gay caucuses such as Dignity (Catholic), Integrity
(Episcopal), or Affirmation (Mormon). These caucuses serve

as a bridge between lesbians and gay men and the religious

 

26Barry L., "Historical Perspective."

175

denomination to which they affiliate. People who are
involved with these groups have found a way in which to
understand that their sexuality does not prohibit them from
being active members in their congregations. .A sponsor or
therapist working with a lesbian or gay man who has a great
deal of hostility toward his/her childhood religion might
recommend that the individual obtain information from the
local chapter of one of these groups, or the group’s
national office.

Alcoholics Anonymous does not take a position on
religious affiliation although many members do associate

themselves with a denomination. The first 100 AAs wrote:

3
we think it no concern of ours what
religious bodies our members identify
themselves with as individuals. This
should be an entirely personal affair
which each one decides for himself in
the light of past associations, or his
present choice. Not all of us join
religious bodies, but most of us favor
such memberships.”

As was pointed out in Chapter 3, many lesbians and gay men
have a hostility to Christianity. This hostility does not,
.however, preclude the fact that many of these people wish to
feel welcomed within their denominations and that many

.remain active in their denominations even if they see the

affiliation as imperfect.

27

Alcoholics Anonymous 28.

 

176

Lesbians and gay men wishing to affiliate with a
religious body might be well served by working with a
religious caucus. Because it is not the intention of the
caucuses to replace their religious denominations, joining a
group such as Dignity ought not be presented as a substitute
for attending Catholic services. Affiliation with a
denomination or caucus is a highly personal affair and the
final decision on what to do should be left to the
individual. Before recommending a caucus to a newly sober
lesbian or gay man, the sponsor or therapist might first
write to the national office to obtain information for
him/herself.

Besides the religious caucuses, the‘Universal
Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches has developed
a direct ministry to lesbians and gay men. Before
recommending that a lesbian or gay man attend an UFMCC
service, the sponsor or therapist should understand the
theological basis for the Fellowship and make sure that the
God which UFMCC understands is compatible with the "God as
we understand Him," which is being developed by the newly
sober alcoholic. UFMCC is a religion as Catholicism or
Methodism or Judaism is a religion.” As such, an

individual affiliating with UFMCC might be introduced to a

 

2"The founding of the Universal Fellowship of
Metropolitan Community Churches is described in Troy Perry,

The Lord is My Shepherd and He Knows I’m Gay (Los Angeles:
Nash Publishing, 1972).

177

Christian God very different from the God of their
childhood.
LesbianZGay Sensitive Literature

Simply because a woman identifies herself as a lesbian
or a man considers himself to be gay does not mean that they
know anything about homosexuality beside the fact that
homosexuals have a same-sex identification for their
partners. Ignorance of homosexuality is not limited to
heterosexuals. Most-—if not all--lesbians and gay men have
internalized at least some homophobia. Few lesbians and gay
men have had the opportunity to learn much about the nature
of their orientation or the history of lesbians and gay men.

i

In working with lesbian and gay alcoholics, it is first
necessary to confront the alcoholism, for, unless the person
is sober, there is little or no chance that they will be
able to develop a positive self-identity. In early
recovery, books such as The Way Out and Out From Under as
well as the pamphlet Do You Think You're Different? will
help individuals learn that sobriety is a viable option for
lesbians and gay men. But, as part of recovery, it might be
necessary to introduce individuals to lesbian/gay positive
books and periodicals so that they can develop healthy
attitudes about themselves and their orientation.

In the NALGAP Annotated Biblio ra h , there is a list

of some of the better books in the fields of sexuality,

178
lesbian/gay recovery, religion, sociology, and fiction.
Periodicals reflecting the range of lesbian/gay interests
are also included.”

Before recommending any book or periodical to a newly
sober individual, the sponsor or therapist should first
review the publication to make sure that the material is
appropriate for the individual to whom it will be
recommended. As always it is necessary to remember that
there are a variety of lesbian and gay communities and that
what is appropriate for one person might not be appropriate
for another. For example, a gay man interested in leather
sex might learn much from reading John Preston’s
Entertainment for a Master. But the typés of sexual
activity portrayed, even though all of it is safe, would be
very offensive to many--if not most—-gay men. A politically
active lesbian might find great strength in reading Cris
South's Clenched Fists, Burning Crosses. But a lesbian
dealing with rape issues might find the extremely graphic
and violent rape of the main character of the book too

unsettling.3°

 

2”Steven L. berg, Dana Finnegan, and Emily McNally, The

NALGAP Annotated Bibliography: Alcoholism, Substance Abuse,

and LesbiansZGay Men (Fort Wayne: IN: National Association
of Lesbian and Gay Alcoholism Professionals, 1987).

30John Preston, Entertainment for a Master (Boston:
Alyson Publications, 1986). Cris South, Clenched Fists,
Burning Crosses (Trumansburg, NY: Crossing Press, 1984).

179

Summagy

By remembering that Alcoholics Anonymous is developed
from a specific historic and cultural experience, the
lesbian or gay man being introduced to its twelve step
recovery program has a much better chance of learning to
adopt the program to his/her needs than is someone who does
not take an hermeneutical approach to the text. A sponsor
or therapist who understands the uniqueness of lesbian/gay
experiences can better help them learn that they are not too
unique to get sober through AA than a therapist who has no
such understanding. Spirituality is not foreign to the

lesbian/gay experience.

CHAPTER 7

EPILOGUE

Alcoholics Anonymous is a paradox. On one hand, AA
demands unity which is described as "the most cherished

1 The organization’s twelfth

quality our Society has."
tradition—-that "Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of
all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles
before personalities"--is a constant reminder that
individuals can only succeed if they keep the good of the
group first and foremost in their minds. Yet, because unity
is not equated with uniformity, the organization can rightly
claim that

We believe there isn't a fellowship on

earth which lavishes more devoted care

upon its individual members; surely

there is none which more jealously

guards the individual’ s right to think,

talk, and act as he wishes.2

AA has been able to grow and to flourish because it has

successfully integrated the competing needs of nineteenth-
century perfectionism with the sense of individualism which
Americans cherish. It has been able to balance these often

conflicting needs because early members adopted a structure

which forced them to live the primitive Christianity which

 

1Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (New York:
Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, 1952) 129.

2Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions 129.

180

181
the Oxford Group advocated. As a result, they concentrated
on spiritual growth rather than religious development.

Too often, authors writing on AA spirituality have been
content to repeat the AA cliche that AA is a spiritual
program and not a religious one. Others have focused on
attempts to prove or disprove that AA is a religion.
However, the best explanation of the spiritual vs. religious
distinction comes not from AA approved literature or
literature about AA. The explanation is found in the daily
meditation guide which has been approved by Al-Anon, where
the reading for September 14 explains, in part, that

We hear it over and over again, in both
AA and Al-Anon: this program is
spiritual and not religious. Each of us
must find our own way into Heaven and
the Al—Anon teachings reinforce our
faith in the way we choose to
worship....the tenets of any faith can
be applied with the Al-Anon program.3

So too, it is with AA, the program on which Al-Anon is
based. Alcoholics Anonymous does not provide a generic
spirituality for people to follow. Rather, it provides
spiritual tenets which can be and must pe adopted into the
individual’s personal belief system. AA does not deny the

Christian roots of its recovery program, and it is a mistake

for people to pretend that those roots do not exist. But it

 

3One Day at a Time in Al-Anon (New York: Al-Anon
Family Group Headquarters, 1984) 258.

182
is equally in error to claim that Christianity is the
preferred form of spiritual expression.

Controversy followed Bill Wilson’s proposal that the
second step of recovery should read "[We] came to believe
that God could restore us to sanity." While some argued
that the steps should be made more explicitly Christian,
others claimed that "God" should not be mentioned at all.
The first AA-alcoholics moved to a consensus, and "God” in
the second step was changed to "a power greater than
ourselves" and the qualifier "as we understood him" was
added to steps three and eleven. It was a result of such
compromises that AA permitted individualism to flourish
without destroying its development in the spirit of
perfectionism. "The final version of the Steps reflects the
force and value of these heated early discussions, and
attempts to strike a balance, making AA open to all,
regardless of personal beliefs, or no beliefs at all."‘

Perfectionist societies of the nineteenth-century would
not have permitted such latitude in spiritual beliefs.
Christianity was the foundation for action not only because
it was the religious tradition from which these movements
sprang. To the participants of those societies,

Christianity was clearly the only proper form of spiritual

 

‘Jan P. "Gateway to Sanity," Box 1980 45.9 (1989) 5.
This article provides a good, brief discussion of these
early debates and their significance to the development of
the spiritual nature of AA.

183
expression. AA remains in the tradition of perfectionist
movements because its ecumenism was broad enough to include
not only members of various Christian denominations,but also
individuals whose spirituality came from non-Christian
traditions as well as individuals who identified with no
religious tradition. AA meetings and literature came from a
Christian religious tradition but they are presented in a
way which permits individuals to adapt them to their own
unique belief systems, whether or not those systems are
recognizably formal religions or not.

Too often, contemporary recovery literature promotes AA
as if it were some type of generic spirituality that can be
all things to all people. Such is the case with Stairway to
Serenity: The Eleventh Step.5 The problem with Stairway
to Serenity and similar materials is that they attempt to be
relevant to everyone's spiritual/religious tradition. And
in doing so, they deny AA its spiritual heritage of
Christian perfectionism. AA does not need such advocates.

When the first AA—alcoholics compromised on the
religious language, they provided "an infinitely wide
acceptable pathway"6 by which alcoholics could enter the
program of recovery which they had developed. Acceptance of

others was considered to be so important to the continued

 

5Stairway to Serenity: The Eleventh Step (Center City,
MN: Hazelden, 1988).

6Jan P. 5.

184

survival of AA that the original members gave up their right
to decide who would be permitted to join their organization.
Instead, they gave those who were not already members the
right to declare themselves as members of the program. Or,
in the words of the program:

You are an AA member if you say so. You

can declare yourself in; nobody can keep

you out....We don’t want to keep you

out....We just want to be sure that you

get the same great chance for sobriety

that we’ve had. So you’re an AA member

the minute you declare yourself.7
The problem for many alcoholics investigating AA is that
they reject the program before they discover that all they
need to have for membership is a desire to stop drinking.8

Lesbians or gay men who have been the victims of

church-sanctioned persecution will not likely be able to
easily overcome their distrust of a program they initially
define as Christian. It takes time for the new person to
discover the acceptance which AA promises in the third
tradition. Often, lesbians and gay alcoholics who have only
recently stopped drinking do not have the mental capacity to

appreciate the fine distinction between AA’s understanding

of spirituality and religion.

 

7Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditiqpe (New York: AA
World Services, 1952) 139.

8The third tradition reads, "The only requirement for
membership is a desire to stop drinking."

185

The fact that there can be recognizably religious
elements in AA even though AA is not a religion and does not
promote a specific religious program is the type of concept
that newly sober persons find hard to grasp. To paraphrase
an old cliche, they find that if it looks like a religion
and sounds like a religion it must be a religion. And to
deny that AA often looks like a religion and sounds like a
religion is dishonest.

Too often, the new person leaves the program before
hearing the promise of acceptance. But if newly sober
lesbians and gay men are given literature that does not
emphasize the spiritual nature of AA, that focuses on AA's
third tradition, and that demonstrates that lesbians and gay
men have contributed to the development of AA, have
recovered through AA, and are welcomed into AA, they might
stay around the program long enough to open themselves up to
benefit from the spiritual rebirth available to those people
who work the twelve steps in their lives.

It is not the responsibility of the newly sober person
to know AA history and tradition; it is the duty of
therapists to make sure that their lesbian and gay clients
are adequately educated. It is even more important for
sponsors and other AA members to carry the message of
acceptance to new members because the twelfth step teaches
that if AA members do not carry the message, they,

themselves, cannot remain sober.

PLEASE NOTE:

Page(s) missing in number only; text follows.
Filmed as received.

U-M-I

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A
THE TWELVE STEPS OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS

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.

4. Made a searching a 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._
t
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 mediation 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.

The twelve steps are taken from Alcoholics Anonymous and are
reprinted with permission.

189

10.

11.

12.

APPENDIX B
THE TWELVE TRADITIONS OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS

Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery
depends upon AA unity.

For our group purpose there is but one ultimate
authority--a loving God as He may express Himself in
our group conscience. Our leaders a but trusted
servants, they do not govern.

The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to
stop drinking.

Each group should be autonomous except in matters
affecting other groups or AA as a whole.

Each group has but one primary purpose--to carry its
message to the alcoholic who still suffers.

An AA group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the
AA name to any related facility or outside enterprise,
lest problems of money, property, and prestige divert
us from our primary purpose.

Every AA group ought to be fully self-supporting,
declining outside contributions.

Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever non-
professional, but our service centers may employ
special workers.

AA, as such, ought never be organized; but we may
create service boards or committees directly
responsible to those they serve.

Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues;
hence the AA name ought never be drawn into public
controversy.

Our public relations policy is based on attraction
rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal
anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films.

Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our
traditions, ever reminding us to place principles
before personalities.

The twelve traditions are taken from Twelve Steps and Twelve
Traditions and are reprinted with permission.

190

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