Knowing what I do about Alcoholics Anonymous, I was certainly surprised to see a commercial on late-night Dallas television showing actual faces of people who are either actual AA members or else actors who are comporting themselves as AA members.
What outsiders don't know is that, in addition to its “12 steps” method of getting sober, AA also has “12 traditions,” which are designed as guidelines for AA local group and national organization, as well as the comportment of individual members when representing AA to the outside world, whether holding an official position in the organization or not.
Let me right out the last two principles.
11 – Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and films. (TV didn’t exist back in the late 1930s.)
12 – Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.
So, let’s count the number of ways AA’s World Services Office has broken these traditions.
A TV commercial based on promotion, even if of the soft-shoe variety.
Blowing personal anonymity, if those were real AA members; giving the impression that it’s OK to do so, if those were actors.
Eroding its foundations by doing Nos. 1 and 2.
Now, AA can’t do too much promotion. Its long-term success rate of 5 percent is no better than “secular” sobriety programs, psychological counseling, or other means of sobering up. (Probably why this commercial had no numerical claims.)
But, the commercial leaves me with a question, or multi-point speculation, to be more precise.
AA membership has been flat for a decade, perhaps in part because many old-time members still get hard-line about wanting to discuss alcoholism only, and not drug addiction, even though people under 40, and especially under 30, who have only had problems with alcohol are in the minority.
Is AA, especially at the HQ in New York City, running dry on funds?
12 comments:
I have 9 years of sobriety and have no problem telling people outside of AA what an exceptional program combined with amazing people who truly love you before you can love yourself, these folks helped me stand back on my two feet.
This last year I have gone to meetings sporadically. My son was watching the hockey game in Canada and an AA commercial came on. I too was alarmed!
I felt like my "church" sold-out.
I am saddened.
I am a grateful AA member who has 22 yrs Sobriety/Recovery, thank God, AA, the 12 steps and everyone of those wonderful AA members.
I would suggest that you read the "AA Service Manual with the 12 Concepts", that will help you to realize and understand that those AA commercials are not only staying within the AA 12 Traditions, those commercials have literally helped to save thousands of lives who would have otherwise died from untreated alcoholism.
Its truly sad that as an AA member, you have no idea that those commercials DO NOT break any of the AA 12 Traditions.
Check it out by attending AA Traditions meetings where you will learn what constitutes a break in any of the AA traditions.
"Tradition 11 - 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."
AA World Services didn't break the 11th Tradition, the individual AA members who showed their full face or gave their full name did.
Read the Tradition again, it says... PERSONAL ANONYMITY at the level of press, radio and films.
Please, do the footwork BEFORE putting your own opinion up on the internet, an opinion that has absolutely nothing to do with the AA Traditions.
I also agree that this "promotion" will adventually backfire on our groups - They leave a "bad-taste" in peoples' mouths.
"Please, do the footwork BEFORE putting your own opinion up on the internet, an opinion that has absolutely nothing to do with the AA Traditions."
The above statement is unneeded and seems to be from a person who represents AA, when really none of us do.
What contributed to my departure from AA (apart from my own self-delusions about my ability to stay sober w/o it) was the "promoters" in the rooms. When it was put to me by pushy folks, it helped drive me away. However, when AA people simply live as examples and offer compassion *without* promoting, but rather *attracting* other drunks, the response is much more positive. I think AA has been doing just fine without the use of the media. I also hope that my dollar in the basket goes to group upkeep and providing the Big Book to incarcerated and homebound folks.
By the grace of God, I have been sober in AA for 33 years. To keep it simple, commercial advertising not only directly violates our traditions, but is yet another indicator of exactly how "watered down" our program has become.
This "anything goes" mentality has, in my experience contributed greatly to leaving us with a "version" of AA which has become ineffectual and, in fact, hurts rather than helps drunks.
when i saw the commercial,
i felt something well up inside of me.
i had an instinct to get worked up,
but then what i have learned in aa kicked in
and reminded me that resentment is death for a person like me, so i nipped it in the bud.
i will say that if i was still out,
seeing a commercial like that,
would have made me not trust AA.
commercials make me think there is something to be gained financially by my participation in whatever is being "sold" to me by the commercial.
so.. thats not a great thing.
Do you have a link to this so-called commercial? Is it a commercial or a public service announcement. Public service announcements, while viewed on tv and heard on the radio, are not paid for, the radio and TV stations are not compensated for the air time.
If it wasn't For an add It most likely would have take longer for me to get sober that IS what sparked my investigation, and my subsequent Sobriety Dec 16th 1988 still it's just one day at a time.
Got sober cause God said it's time to get sober.....AA no longer resembles Bills AA. Alcoholism is not a death sentence.
Oh, I think AA still resembles Bill Wilson's era more than it doesn't.
No, alcoholism isn't a death sentence; and, you're not powerless, either.
This breaks the eleventh tradition. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
The commercial I just saw made me feel uneasy too, attraction not promotion implies to me not promoting it on national television. That’s just how I read it
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