A.A. is extremely conservative, dogmatic and inflexible; it is also, for those that fit, profound and profoundly effective for maintaining sobriety and the spiritual evolution that is the remedy both for the character defects that caused the fall to addiction and their slow cure, that threaten an addict with relapse. I have had many fights with A.A., but fighting the organization is like fighting God. The one fight I can't let go of is its anti-intellectuality, yet many monastics follow the rule of simplicity, and from what I know simplicity has much more to do with the heart than the head, and for me all my A.A. work has been a slow journey from the head to the heart.
Joy or God is of the heart. I've been reading Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakosa-bhasya, and it defines the world, the senses and ideas as conditioning, and the mental state that ensues in the cessation of thought nirvana. This state, too, is much more of the heart than head. All this to say that A.A. is probably right about simplicity as well, but as I'm a sucker for elegant intellectuality, I refuse to give up its power for map-making.
Regarding the genetic predisposition vs moral character discussion, in the end it really doesn't matter. If you want sobriety you have to be willing to do whatever it takes, regardless of the reason behind the addiction. If I develop ALS, I may have somehow caused it, but if I become an addict, and if I get sober and relapse, I am the one drinking the alcohol. That's a big difference. A.A. describes the active alcoholic as being unable to exercise the power of choice, and I entirely agree. Physical craving and mental-obsession are very strong. But if I stop drinking, free will cannot really be gone; some get it back and get sober. Better to say that the active addict's free will is in stasis, and when he reaches a bottom or a crash and burn, he is jolted into using it.
The entire force of A.A. is in not using, which over a period of months or years removes the bodily addiction, and more slowly, the mental obsession. The whole force of A.A. could be summarized in its adage, the first drink kills you, if not now, then too slowly as you drink, drink again, and again and again; as you lose a little bit more of yourself with every drunk. Of course alcohol figures prominently in many ER visits, hospitalizations, prison sentences, car wrecks, illegalities and suicides.
Anyone who wishes to bring the facile charge against addicts of a lack of moral character has little knowledge of that about which he speaks. Most alcoholics have considerable grit in that background. There's no denying the evil of the world and the fact that it is passed on to children as part of their debut. Bad training brings out the bad in people, and many addicts founder in the wrong choices they make to the grit they were fed that they could neither process nor let go.
A.A. is supremely logical. Drinking brings you low, so stop. One can make a formidable barrier between himself and using by not using: Meetings, meetings, and more meeting, Stepwork, being sponsored and sponsoring. The Rooms afford a very clear teaching on alcohol, the inculcation of a basic spiritual methodology, support and fellowship.
