Everyone loves a good secret club, with all the cool handshakes and members-only lingo that go with it. Since clubs like the Skull & Bones or the Free Masons are all fussy about new members and most of us either have tainted bloodlines or substandard intelligence, we are left to join less prestigious secret societies-like AA.
AA (Alcoholics Anonymous, for those of you who were born and raised on another planet) is NOT fussy about membership. In fact, according to the Third Tradition of AA, the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. With the first word of the club being Alcoholics, one assumes that you'd need to have a desire to stop drinking alcohol. Not necessarily so. Former drunks have a "be nice to everyone policy" (at least within the framework of the AA program) so if you've developed at taste for, say...motor oil or toilet water, you can probably join, anyway. Also, if you have ever so much as sipped a glass of wine and stumbled off the curb, someone has probably made a mental or verbal note that you may qualify as a member.
The meetings for this classy club are held in church basements, public meeting rooms and any other low rent facility available across the land. If you ever need to find an AA meeting, simply look for buildings with overflowing ashtrays outside their doors.
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| AA MEETING HERE |
Once inside a meeting, most members stop having last names, hold hands and chant for a minute, then commence to "sharing". Sharing can include anything from a brief and encouraging message directed at new members to a foamy-mouthed rant about the c*cksucker that wired the kitchen light wrong(!!!).
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I am truly grateful to be sober, Goddamnit!
KEEP COMIN' BACK!! |
Once the meeting is over, members chant a little more then go back to their non-drinking lives, generally without mentioning their secret membership in a secret club to anyone outside their immediate circle.
So
why does this super-popular club have so many members that no one knows about? According to the internet...
AA was created back in the thirties by a couple of liver-busting drinkers who were either going to die, go insane or sober up. Somehow, by asking God for help (FYI, His other name is Higher Power, not Jehovah) admitting that they were selfish, resentful whiny-babies, and helping other drunks do the same thing, they managed to sober up and play nice with others. The only catch(es)? First, they had to concede to their innermost selves that they could never again safely use alcohol in any form, (that's right, not even vodka-soaked tampons, you sickos). Then, once sober, they had to admit all the shit they screwed up, make it right, then go help others sober up, too. The kicker? They had to stay anonymous about their membership (at the level of press, radio and films).
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| Remove face before wearing |
Why? Well, first of all, back in the day, there was virtually no consistent cure for chronic alcoholism so these guys were afraid that they'd be bombarded by desperate wives, fathers, or even the drunks themselves looking for help. Plus, not only did anonymity keep the requests manageable, it kept people from giving AA a bad name by sobering up, bragging about being a member, then relapsing. Also, remember that drunk guy at the bar who helped someone change a tire once, then talked about it for seven years? Well it may not have just been the alcohol talking. It seems that for some, the super-inflated egos and drunkenness have a bit of a Peas & Carrots relationship, although they aren't quite as healthy. Drink and brag, brag and drink.
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Dude, those lug-nuts were killer!!
Did I mention it was raining?
Kittens. It was raining kittens. |
In sobriety, a person tries to knock off the bragging so it doesn't lead back to drinking. Seriously. Unless an alcoholic tries to keep
all of his shit shored up, (ego, resentments, etc.) he can quickly find himself back on the sauce, and we don't mean the Chipotle.
So after seventy-plus years of trial and error, we now have a world wide organization that almost everyone, at some point, has wondered about, made fun of, or joined. To date, the club that no one really wants to join (under)estimates a worldwide membership of over 2 million ex-inebriates, which also makes it the club that no one dares to insult, except maybe dumbass Charlie Sheen. A little AA ribbing is all well and fine but if you actually bad-mouth the program, you could illicit anything from uncomfortable coughs to an all out "shut the f*ck up! My sister/brother/mother/cousin/monkey is in AA and it saved her
life!"
So why the heck would anyone badmouth AA, anyway? It's a pretty decent organization, right? Pretty much, yeah. In fact, as far as secret societies go, AA is kind of the new black. Social standards now demand that you have either a neutral or positive attitude about it or you will be deemed a bitter drunk who can't stay sober or a child-eating psychopath. Or worse, a Charlie Sheen fan.
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| I love you, Higher Power! |
Still, the program isn't without a few valid complaints, especially if your an Atheist. AAs insistence on a reliance on a Higher Power kind of annoys some of them. The pat answer is to this grumble is "I don't care if your Higher Power is a tree. Just believe in something more powerful than yourself and you are on the way to sobriety." The pat response to that canned answer is often "Oh go f*ck yourself." Still, even atheists have recovered by conceding that a group of people encouraging them to stay sober is more powerful than their own brain, which often convinces them to get drunk, only to encourage them to commit suicide for being such a worthless drunk.
Sponsor-bullying, which is when the person who is supposed to help you work the steps makes you mow their lawn and worship them, is another complaint about the program. (Did I mention that there are steps? No? Well there are. Twelve of them actually and some of them are an all-out pain in the ass!)
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| Finish that up then we'll talk about your 4th step! |
Power struggles and bad sponsors are as likely as rebellious teens and asshole parents so of course there are a few troubles. The good news is you can always find a new sponsor. All in all, for a secret society who has the little phrase "You can't be too dumb for the program but you can be too
smart", it seems like a neat little club. And they are currently accepting new members.
©Traditionalism Gone Awry
