The rhetoric of transformation in the healing of alcoholism: The twelve steps of alcoholics anonymous

Abstract

Close attention to spirituality and change are necessary for a fuller understanding of how Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) works. This paper draws upon the conceptual tools of the anthropology of religious healing to interpret AA's program for recovery, the Twelve Steps. The Twelve Steps are described as a fundamental component of AA discourse, and as a rhetoric of transformation. The Twelve Steps outline a rhetorical process which moves the alcoholic from drinking to sobriety by means of a rhetoric of predisposition, of empowerment, and of transformation. AA discourse is spiritual, in that members are persuaded to interpret the world, their lives, and their affliction in sacred terms. Healing is not cure, but a new way of attending to the world and engaging with others, including God, or a ‘Power greater than ourselves’.

There is a God, and it's not me.

Let go and Let God.

I had to change. The same person would drink again.

  – Three Alcoholics Anonymous slogans

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank my mentors Stephen Kunitz, Grace Harris, Ernest Kurtz, and Mary Dombeck for reading the many versions this paper has taken over the last five years. I am very grateful to the members of AA who let me join them and listen. Thanks for the coffee!

Notes

For the history of AA and its co-founders see Alcoholics Anonymous (1957, 1980, 1984) and Kurtz (1979).

AA estimates that there are 100,766 groups worldwide, with 51,735 groups in the USA. Total membership is estimated at 2,160,013, of which 1,162,112 are in the USA. (Alcoholics Anonymous, 2001).

• The Twelve Steps are:

  	1.	One: We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, and that our lives had become unmanageable.
  	2.	Two: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
  	3.	Three: Made a decision to turn our wills and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
  	4.	Four: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
  	5.	Five: Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
  	6.	Six: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
  	7.	Seven: Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
  	8.	Eight: Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and become willing to make amends to them all.
  	9.	Nine: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
  	10.	Ten: Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
  	11.	Eleven: Sought through prayer and meditation 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.	Twelve: 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.

  In keeping with the practice of many AA members, I capitalize the Steps throughout the text.

A sponsor is a more experienced AA member who provides guidance to another member. Some of these relationships can last for years and become emotionally very close.

In the USA, 911 is the universal emergency telephone number.