The Real AA
Behind the Myth of 12-step Recovery
Description:... After reading two sentences I was powerless to put (The Real AA) down. A day of binge reading later I did put it down with the satisfaction that I had been among the first to read a landmark in America's return to sanity in addiction care. Steady yourself as you read this powerful expose which reveals how America is surrendering to a counterfeit religion. -- Jack Trimpey, founder and president of Rational Recovery(The Real AA) will be a shock to many people because it reveals facts they would rather not know. But the shock, I have no doubt, will be a healthy one. -- Alice Miller, author of The Drama of the Gifted ChildBy far the best description ever written of the AA indoctrination process. -- Charles Bufe, author of Alcoholics Anonymous: Cult or Cure?The Real AA is the result of Ken Ragge's Alice-in-Wonderland journey through AA and its for-profit institutional variants, a world in which the patient is admitted as diseased, discharged as diseased, permanently recovering, and never recovered. Ken wrote The Real AA as a cautionary tale and travel guide for others entering this strange universe of treatment centers and church-basement meetings.Ragge's book covers virtually all aspects of AA and the traditional treatment system: the disease theory of alcohol abuse; AA's origins and development; AA's ideology and indoctrination process; and AA's institutional forms. It then goes beyond AA to cover the question of moderation or abstinence, and the modern (non-12-step) self-help alternatives to AA. In so doing, this book provides an invaluable resource to alcohol abusers, their friends, and their families.
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