A Gendered Account of Alcoholics Anonymous’ “Singleness of Purpose”

ABSTRACT

This study adopts a gendered perspective when looking at the tension within Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) over its singleness of purpose. Due to its very success, those with problems “other than alcohol” are attending AA meetings across the country and are challenging the “deep identification” that takes place within this subculture. Women, as it will be described, have historically had dual addictions and other problems in addition to their primary concern of alcohol dependency. Through the analysis of approximately 300 women’s stories, documenting their experiences with alcohol use disorder and recovery in AA over the past 60 years, it is illustrated that not only do women have a history of dual addiction to alcohol and other drugs but that due to gender-role ideology, women have kept their own prescription drug abuse hidden thus not to threaten AA’s singleness of purpose.

KEYWORDS:

• Alcoholics anonymous
• dual addiction
• women

Notes

1. The AA General Services Board published in its Newsletter for Professionals, “Singleness of Purpose,” authored by George E. Vaillant, MD, a Class A (nonalcoholic) trustee A.A. General Service Board retrieved from https://www.aa.org/newsletters/en_US/f-13_fall-winter02.pdf. AA also published the pamphlet “Problems Other than Alcohol” in Feb. 1958 and continues to be reprinted today by the A.A. Grapevine, Inc. It can be retrieved from https://www.aa.org/assets/en_US/P-35_ProOtherThanAlcohol.pdf.

2. AA members refer to terms such as “alcoholism, alcoholic, drug addict,” etc. and this terminology may be used in this article to capture how women are describing themselves and does not reflect the more current and medically correct language of alcohol use disorder or opioid use disorder, for example.

3. Marty Mann helped facilitate the publication of the Grapevine and was an influential member in AA often claimed to be the first woman who had achieved long-term sobriety in AA. Other women proceeded her in attempting sobriety in AA, but records show Marty as a continuous and very active member of AA. Marty Mann was also a prominent advocate outside of AA who worked on behalf of promoting awareness about alcoholism and the disease model of addiction. She founded the National Committee for Education on Alcoholism (NCEA) in 1944 that later became the National Council on Alcoholism (NCA) in 1950 and more recently in 1990 was renamed again to capture the widening scope of addiction to the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD).