Why Alcoholics Anonymous Will Soon Be Dead
by Bobby Freaken Beach
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
If you’ve been around longer than a few weeks, you’ve probably heard that one a few times, or more than a few. Why do people say that? The simplest answer is they have heard other people say it. Basically, it’s just assumed to be true. Pretty much anytime AA is criticized or some change is suggested “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” gets trotted out. Is supporting evidence of the “not-brokenness” ever offered? Oh yeah. “Statistics” get trotted out such as: “Rarely have we seen a person fail….” and “Of those who really tried…”
Let me stop you right there, Bobby Beach! I studied statistics at a very fine university and those are not statistics!
Calm down, Grasshopper. I know that. Bobby Beach recognizes crappola when it’s flung at him!
The pinheads spewing fake stat Number One will also tell you that Willie Wilson favored only one change to the Bigga Booka. “Rarely” should be changed to “Nev-uh.” “Nev-uh have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path…”
We don’t want to oversell the AA program but it’s flawless!
AA does have some numbers – membership estimates – and according to those figures, AA is very broken. After years of impressive growth, membership peaked in 1992 at 2,489,541. The last number showing on aa.org is 2021’s 1,967,613. That 20% drop is more impactful still when one considers a population increase of about 30% during the same time frame. We can debate the cause(s), but AA is not doing well.
Let’s look back at some of our early history.
AA’s Bigga Booka went on sale on April 10, 1939. The working title had been One Hundred Men but the presence of Florence Rankin, sober for about a year, caused a review of that name. The group conscience then voted for A Way Out but there were (supposedly) several books bearing that name. Besides, Bill Wilson wanted the name Alcoholics Anonymous.
It’s commonly said that the fellowship took its name from the book but that isn’t true. There are 1938 letters using the name “Alcoholics Anonymous” to identify the group, many months before the book was named. Bill Wilson was “acting as if” that were the agreed-upon name. Pretty clever, actually. The One Hundred Men Corporation Prospectus, also crafted in 1938, used the name “Alcoholics Anonymous” as a header on every page – a sort of letterhead.
What was the One Hundred Men Corporation, Bobby?
That was the private publishing company that owned the Bigga Booka.
But AA self-published their book. AA owned it, right?
Not so, Pollyanna. St. Bill and Evil Hank sold about 200 shares to finance Hank and the office through the writing of the book and doled out 200 shares each to themselves. Some loans from Charles Towns carried Bill to the publication date. The book was going to bring huge rewards to the shareholders! They got it printed for 34 cents a copy, then retailed it for $3,50!
Wow!!! That’s a HUGE markup!!!
Indeed, Candide.
Why do you call Hank “Evil Hank,” Bobby?
Because Hank returned to drinking and it’s just smart business to blame all the bad stuff on the guy who’s not around to defend himself. Read “AA Comes of Age” where Bill W. makes himself look like a turnip farmer from Nebraska as Hank spearheaded the money-making schemes!
In William Schaberg’s remarkable 2019 offering Writing The Big Book: The Creation of AA, Bill Wilson is called a “mythmaker” in the early pages. Many of the classic AA stories – tales that have been repeated hundreds of thousands of times – have been shown to be factually inaccurate. Schaberg reviewed thousands of pieces of contemporary documentation before coming to his conclusions which were neither the result of speculation nor the spewing of resentment from an angry agnostic. Bill is agnostic but not at all anti-AA. He does agree that the literature needs to be rewritten.
In any case, AA isn’t falling apart because of Bill Wilson’s fudging of some stories three generations ago.
Let’s return to Florence Rankin.
AA was a men’s club created by men for men. Because of Florence the One Hundred Men title was jettisoned. Did that make AA co-ed? Not really. We have Bob Smith’s post-book remarks reported in Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers: “We have never had a woman. We will not work with a woman.” Every minority group has had to fight for its seats at the 12-step recovery banquet. Chapter 8 of AA’s Bigga Booka is addressed to spouses and is titled TO WIVES.
Although women alcoholics had a tiny presence, a case could be made that the chapter directed at the spouses of alcoholics and its title had some 1939 validity. Florence was divorced so there was no spouse who was a husband. If one forgives all involved for having ZERO foresight that AA would not maintain its boys’ club atmosphere, one can forgive the title TO WIVES in 1939. Yes, even that is a stretch, for sure.
Why is TO WIVES still the title in 2024? That’s a much tougher question.
Women form a significant percentage of the AA membership in the modern era – in the range of 36-38%. Their nonalcoholic husbands have a chapter directed to them. It’s called TO WIVES. There are hundreds of thousands of men being called wives.
But Bobby, that’s just stupid!
Yes, Grasshopper, it surely is, and that’s why AA is doomed to arrive at a point of complete irrelevancy in the very near future. We’ve moved a long way from the world of Ward, June, Wally and the Beav, and even further from the 1930s. And yet, AA repeatedly refuses to freaken change anything!!!
By the way, it has already been decided that the Fifth Edition Bigga Booka is coming with no real modification other than to the story section. TO WIVES in all its misogynistic glory will be with us for at least another 20 years. Not that that’s all that is wrong with the book, but TO WIVES provides an absolutely glaring example of the powerful voice against change in AA. Hundreds of thousands of partners of alcoholic women in AA have a chapter called TO WIVES.
Why won’t they at least change the title Bobby Beach??
Well, my Inquisitive One, that’s one of some very small changes that we’ll see in November in the Plain Language Big Book, primarily designed to make the AA book more understandable and relatable to readers with limited reading skills.
Some of the 1939 idiom will be modified. This isn’t even the sacred Bigga Booka being altered, but a percentage of members are losing their freaking minds. The ragers seem to be particularly miffed that TO WIVES is being changed to TO PARTNERS. The source of that distress is made clear by the fact that these same folks also vehemently oppose the recent Preamble change from “men and women” to “people.” For the more outspoken, this is said to mark the entry of “woke” politics into Alcoholics Anonymous. The GSO is viewed, by many, as having a “progressive” agenda that is at odds with the mainstream membership. Lordy! Lordy!
In any case, there is a widely held sentiment against changing anything. How does a 30 year-old prospect regard the Bigga Book, the prayer at meetings, the preachy sharers, the mindless chanting, the chitty coffee?
Will the reaction be better in 10 years? 15? 20?
Of course not.
The 2022 and 2023 member numbers have not been released. Surely we have those by now. They can’t be good. What will the 2026 membership count look like? 1.5 million? AA is a lot like community theater – you see so many elderly patrons, you have to worry about the future. As the AA geezers die off, will younger peeps queue up to take their seats? Not freaken likely!
I predict that secular AA will sever itself in the not-too-distant future. ZOOM changes the reality that we are still relatively small. The LGBTQ+ folks might do the same. Why keep going where you’re not welcomed? Those dissing the new Preamble send a message that is not ambiguous.
Are you saying we should abandon ship, Bobby?
It’s going down, My Friend. Every opportunity to get with the times has been rejected. AA’s death is essentially self-inflicted. The shrinking mutual aid society refuses to change a freaken thing!
Bobby Beach has contributed many essays to aaagnostica.org. Many have been feisty but we’ve never seen him so disenchanted. Lordy! Lordy! Indeed!
For a PDF of this article, click here: Why Alcoholics Anonymous Will Soon Be Dead.
I am both gay and an atheist. I attend the Thursday Night Freethinkers meeting in Fort Lauderdale and the Saturday Morning Meditation meeting at Lambda (gay organization) every week. Both groups are included in our local meeting guide. Both groups welcome everyone, gay, straight, religious or not, male or female (or other), alcoholic or addict. I think the main reason for the reduction in numbers was the pandemic, not that AA is dying. It’s not a perfect organization, far from it, but it’s keeping me sober and for that, I am grateful.
The pandemic didn’t start in 1992. That’s when AA’s numbers started falling. As was pointed out in the article, the last membership number is from 2021. I think the 2022 and 2023 numbers will reflect some serious ”pandemic effect.” There will be some further plummeting.
I’m curious as to why the 2022 and 2023 numbers haven’t been released and cynical me wonders if GSO is going to deal with shrinkage by ignoring it.
I hope it will not be too long before we do, as secularists, have a separate organisation that will flourish and grow as AA inevitably declines.
This is great… From the mustard seed in Chicago in 1984 to today, I have seen your words come to life.. thanks Bobby for your articles. If I weren’t such a dimwit, it would be great to write a few myself. One favor, is there a way to get your past scribes in one place… thanks again.. Mitch G
I try and keep it simple. AA works for me.
Yup! The DCM of my district in Montana which houses the only registered secular AA group (Beyond Belief) between Minnesota and Washington state is currently arguing that this small group should not be a part of AA because we refuse to pray or read the first of chapter 5. Or because we don’t “work” the steps as written.
How the heck can one work the steps when many postulate the existence of a power in which I don’t believe. The contortions necessary to believe that “Group of Drunks”, “Good orderly direction”, a door knob, or any of the other collections of words which begin with the letters d or o or g are actually a higher power are silly. The effort turns logic on it’s head.
So I guess it’s a disagreement over whether AA will kick us out or we abandon AA. I suggest AA needs us much more than we need AA. But we do need AA because it’s so established as the place to go for alcoholic recovery and so secular newcomers are directed there to be brainwashed into faith in god. Or to leave in irritation. In small town America there are no organized options with the exception of a few meetings like the one I and many others have initiated.
Thanks for being so outspoken on the truism that AA is dying, Bobby. Thanks for countering Beach’s white paper.
Have your DCM refer to tradition three.
Love this! Spot on.
You have found secular AA and a viable alternative. In most of America only traditional AA is available. And even in larger cities the times and locations of the few secular open AA meetings may restrict the attendance by new alcoholics.
I think one of the things that’s actually a barrier to lasting sobriety isn’t a belief or a non-belief in a deity, it’s anger and resentment. Depending on where one lives, AA can be either mired in Christianity or open to other beliefs. I do not practice an Abrahamaic religion and do not believe in a creator deity of any kind, yet i have been sober for a very long time while participating in AA and feel welcomed and accepted here in the Washigton DC area. I’m very open about is. However, I no more demand others conform to my beliefs than I allow others to demand I change my own. I find my understanding shifts on its own anyway, as all things change. Will AA disappear? All things do, in time. However, before that happens, it will change, and is changing. I can recommend people in more closeminded areas seek out online communities, not just of AA, but of recovery in all its forms. I’ve found that most meetings are subtly different. There are more than 2000 AA meetings in the Washington DC metro area and they are not all “traditional” by any means. Remember, the book Alcoholics Anonymous (“Bigga booka?”) was written nearly 90 years ago in a completely different America, and the supposedly sacred first 164 pages says “We know but a little” near the end. It was never meant to be perfect. We shouldn’t make the mistake oof thinking we’re perfect now when we criticize anything.
AA numbers were falling long before covid. I think most of the losses are a result of detoxes. I’m an older guy {79}, sober 43 years and still active. Three secular meeting, including a secular step meeting, are going well in our sections of NE Conn. and So. Central Mass. I am proud to say I have taken an active part in the formation of these meeting. One is actually a group. Many of us have found that these meetings make non-secular meeting somewhat tolerable as we know we have a default position with our secular meetings and can just not get into contests with the god types. And yes, as per one of the earlier posts, AA needs us more than we need them!
In comparing change in membership numbers by age from the 2014 to the 2022 surveys, the results show an approximate 1% decline in members 40 years and younger (In 2022, only .2% are under the age of 21, which would be 4,000 people of an assumed base of 2 million). There is a 4% decline in ages 41-60. There is a 5% increase in age 61 and older. There was an eight year time gap between surveys and yet the average membership age only increased 2% from 50% to 52%. That would lead me to suspect that older members are dying off and there is no evidence of growth under the age of 40. Looks like the ship is taking on water and starting to sink and yet the only significant changes coming out of GSO are marginal and token at best. Addiction peer support recovery groups are evolving and becoming more sensitive to the needs of individual members which is contrary to the theistic cookie cutter one size fits all Big Book approach.
Great article and sadly very prescient. You didn’t even touch on some of the most egregious aspects of the “To Wives” chapter where Bill is representing himself as the wife of an alcoholic and essentially says, “STFU you ungrateful, gold digging bitch – if he gets drunk, it is all your fault, you and your shitty kids will starve in the cold”.
Let all just stop drinking. It isn’t hard if you just set your mind to it. Dump that boozie higher power and enjoy life. Oh yea, the fellowship of a good meeting is nice too.
Amen
One of neutrality could proclaim that AA threw itself into the lions’ den, don’t go changing things – it worked in the beginning and shall so be it 100 years later! It is not The Constitution, however it seems to be a constitution for living sober that is due for a rewrite or at least an amended version. Honestly – a chapter, TO THE WIVES – is another example that answers WHY?
Have your DCM refer to tradition three.
I’m 31 years sober, 77 years old, attend secular meetings for the most part, and share the concern about younger members not buying into the confusing AA message–on one hand this is only a suggestion; on the other, god is or isn’t. Or don’t worry, agnostics, you’ll eventually get the god thing. But I’m still in the middle of things trying to make change, and I’m chairing a committee in Oregon where we actually talk about this stuff in groups that are diverse in myriad ways, including thinking. I’m excited and hopeful about one of the new videos for young people. GSO is not deaf to the voices pleading for change. Is it fast enough? Certainly not. But is it happening? Yes. Watch this one, friends!
https://www.aa.org/i-thought-drinking-made-me-an-artist
Hooray for the change “To Partners” — that chapter does have a great description of ‘four categories’ of alcoholics.
And the lines: “Patience, tolerance, understanding and love are the watchwords”;”Live and let live is the rule”. It would be great if those were practiced! Some people are so afraid of change. Their restrictive beliefs create a psychological structure they can cling to — any challenge means their world crashes to the ground.
As a member of the under 40 crowd who joined AA in my late 20s, none of my fellow under 40s with substance use problems are willing to go to meetings with me. I’ve gone to NA meetings with friends who are struggling with alcohol, and other groups that have literature that wasn’t written in 1938. But none of them will even consider AA.
As it stands right now, I rarely go to any meetings at all, because I don’t drive and can’t get to any with like-minded people without dropping $30 round trip on transit and spending 3+ hours in transit to go to a 45 minute meeting.
I do believe that AA as a whole is dying, because so few are willing to change. See the controversy over changing men and women to people, which by the way some groups refuse to change that wording in their meetings, even now years later. Such a small thing! A thing that means more people are included, but you’d have thought someone had taken an effigy of Bill and Bob out back and burnt it. If AA is so worried about the “woke mob”, it should be, because there are still some members who are queer, and trans, and believe that the literature AND membership mindsets needs a drastic change to avert disaster. My peers call my meetings ‘visiting the old straight white dude brigade’, and they are not wrong! And very few of the old straight white dude brigade are willing to change their attitudes to become more welcoming to anyone who isn’t like them. Allowing discriminatory language in meetings, refusing to learn about queer and trans people in order to make us feel welcome — instead we have to educate y’all repeatedly to no effect (exhausting!), treating women like meat not people, treating anyone who uses a secular approach as a fool or a relapse waiting to happen… It’s almost like when a lot of y’all got sober, ya figured “that’s good enough and I never have to be a better person than that”. It isn’t good enough, and changing to be more open-minded and welcoming might actually save AA. And it’d help in day to day life.
If conservative small minded people want to preserve AA like a museum piece, this organization will suffocate. It might be too late to change as it is, to help more people.
^^^THIS^^^ Brilliantly expressed
Pre-pandemic, I would not have considered favoring the idea of ”secular AA” forming a separate organization. We’re too small — less than 1% of the great whole. Many areas have a single weekly meeting while others have none at all. ZOOM meetings have changed everything. A twitchy newcomer can easily attend 5 meetings a day. Those embracing ZOOM need never suffer through another ”Lawd’s Pray-uh!!”
There’s a second difficulty that remains. What is our philosophy? What is our program of recovery? There’s tremendous diversity of opinion of what that should look like. Secularized steps are, for some, too close to the original and traditional. The other end of the spectrum offers: ”Don’t drink NO MATTER WHAT.” Many advocate something in between. It’s a real problem.