13TH STEP - Gabrielle Glaser on the roots of Alcoholics Anonymous

Excerpt of Gabrielle Glaser's interview from the Documentary The 13th Step.

[jaysomewhereinflyoverterri]

I am a member of the group, “A. U.”. We have 12 steps in our program. These include attending quarters games, doing the one shot a minute of beer, beer bongs, and various other fun things with alcohol, activities. This group has helped me immensely and I would recommend that every city have an Alcoholics Unanimous chapter. My sponsor always makes sure that I have copious stores of alcoholic beverages on hand. If I relapse and don’t have enough, my sponsor punishes me by going to drink at the house of some other member.

[JohnDoe-turf]

Why on hell would I take any advice from a sponsor in a 12step fellowship that even they admit there life is unmanageable...

[tomgleason]

Great work, Gabrielle Glaser. The 12-step interventionist I was referred to was charged with five felonies for fraud and later pleaded guilty to a reduced charge. He created the nation wide network of 12-step interventionists called ARISE.

[Scott-hrbn]

Through A.A. and other 12 Step groups, millions of Christians have placed Christ in a modern day pantheon, a temple of many gods, and have become used to worshiping with non-Christians. (2 Corinthians 6:14-17)

Although frequently (and wrongly) portrayed as Christians,  Bill Wilson and A.A. co-founder Dr. Bob Smith delved deeply into the biblically forbidden practice of spiritualism.

“As for the person who turns to mediums and spiritists, to play the harlot after them, I will also set My Face against that person and will cut him off from his people.” (Leviticus 20:6)

Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder “Bill Wilson believed in spirits. There is a ‘spook’ room downstairs in Stepping Stones where he, [wife] Lois, and other like-minded recovering alcoholics tried to visit the spirit world and communicate with the dead. The archives have folders of the automatic writing he did when he and Lois would use their Ouija Board to invite the spirits to join them.” (Susan Cheever, My Name Is Bill, p. 157)

“There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who casts a spell, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. (Deuteronomy 18:10-11)

[victoriaryan]

AA does not protect members from sexual abuse and does not defend those who end up being abused.

[wvClifton]

I wonder if she's noticed yet that she's not changing anyone's mind about 12 step recovery.

[BrianD]

Thank you for the movie The 13th Step. Really enjoyed it and consider this subject needed.
Not trying to defend or excuse anything portrayed in the film yet it seemed very bias against men. I'm sensitive about that. The pendulum has swung way too far the other way where men are just considered violent perverts. Don't believe me watch the news. We need to shame and imprison women on a 50-50 basis with men. Then we can finally have equal rights.
You didn't talk about how many women in AA are looking for sugar Daddy's and taking their money. You didn't talk about all the cougars they're preying on young men. All kinds of horrible things happen to people everyday and that's part of being a competent adult, avoiding that kind of craziness. It happens in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Come to think of it I can go into 7-Eleven and there could be all kinds of rapist and sex offenders inside any establishment.
If you're walking around going to meetings you need to be a competent adult. That means having discernment about when somebody is giving you a line of BS or not or perhaps going to be abusive.
The world operates on a traction and sex appeal. Don't believe me watch any commercial or look at any advertisement. That's just part of being in the real world.
Now that being said there's absolutely a bunch of sick people in Alcoholics Anonymous that are extremely abusive. I think they actually enjoy watching somebody crack up and lose their mind yet not everybody in Alcoholics Anonymous is like that.
There's actually people in AA that do care about you and want you to be a well-adjusted adult.
Many alcoholics if not most are incredibly self deluded and need to break the bondage of self. I truly believe that. Sometimes that's painful in the process. Actually it's part of being a competent adult, knowing that not everything is about you and your happiness.
Yes having a higher power that you can ask for help, really does sustain a bazillion people around the globe. That being said, proselytizing is annoying and usually menacing.
My experience with Alcoholics Anonymous is that there's all kinds of clicks just like high School. If you're cute enough, smart enough, wealthy enough or whatever, you can fit in our click. That's true everywhere you go. Walk into any church and there's clicks there.
The movie is important. I really believe that. I don't think that we're ever going to get to the day that central office is going to send some moderator out to hold everybody's hand and tell them to behave. I know some groups have been disallowed to advertise their meetings as AA meetings because of dogmatic or abusive behavior, that is not part of the Big Book text about Alcoholics Anonymous.
If something happens that's criminal in Alcoholics Anonymous by all means call the police. I've known clubhouses to get restraining orders against people for their behavior and encourage members to call the police if they're being threatened or abused.
Newcomers can be so frail mentally that they can hardly step outside of a padded cell. Maybe they're not ready to go into an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. But then again maybe the only alternative is for them to be locked up in a jail cell.
I think most people would choose to get bruised up, take their chances as an adult who's trying to withdrawal from all kinds of drugs and alcohol and get their pride injured in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Yes a common theme is that your best thinking got you here. Maybe it's time to shut your mouth and listen to how other people stay sober.
Some meetings don't want to hear all the craziness from newcomers but other meetings actually encourage newcomers to spill out all their craziness. I tend to think the ladder does more of a disservice but who am I to judge. So, you're competent adult you have the right to speak to who you want to and refuse the ones you don't want to talk to.
Also if a meeting is really sick which many meetings can be, you have the right to go to a different meeting. Now with the Advent of Zoom it's easier than ever.
So welcome to being an adult.

[layner]

I find the title of this video hilarious considering what 13th stepping refers to in the fellowship lol, even newcomers know what that means.

[randywright]

This is "revisionist history" at its worst. The story of Marty Mann and AA doesn't begin until 1939, and the AA "Big Book" was written in 1935. One needs to read "Dr. Bob and The Good Old-timers" to learn the actual history of AA in Akron. I'm reminded of something a local AA member passed on after getting sober in AA. He noted someone once said, "Don't you ever try to make a saint out of Bill Wilson. Nobody had more trouble with the Steps than he did."

The worst part of this is she's offering yet another endorsement of the "controlled drinking Illusion, " and that is clearly dangerous and irresponsible.

[edofarrell]

For an alternative view of Ms. Glaser's work: