What ever happened to anonymous?

While pursuing Facebook this morning, I couldn’t help but noticed that a group had been formed for Alcoholics Anonymous. Yes, that’s right, Alcoholics Anonymous can now be part of your Facebook experience. Even more interesting, Narcotics Anonymous also has their own group. While you are busy social networking, you can also announce your ties to the twelve steps.

I always thought the anonymous factor of AA and NA was part of the effectiveness. I’m under the impression that no last names are used in their meetings. I’ve never been to a meeting before so I don’t have a very good understanding of what happens during their time together beyond the twelve steps. In fact, if you look at their website, you will find that they do not keep case histories or attendance records. That sounds anonymous to me.

But anonymous is part of the organization’s name. Anonymous. Unnamed. Unidentified. Unknown. Nameless. The group isn’t called “Announcing Alcoholics”. We don’t ask people who are changing their lives and moving away from drug and alcohol abuse to wear some sort of scarlet letter. They’ve been through enough already. Their families have been through enough already.

What is the benefit to announcing this on the internet?

I have no problem with personal testimony from addicts. I think it is truly wonderful and important when they share their experiences with each other and with the people in their lives who have not faced addiction. But I’m just not sure what the benefit is to the Facebook Group. If I could understand the benefit, it might be different.

Maybe part of the problems is that I feel it makes light of a very serious problem.

THE TWELVE STEPSOF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. 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. 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.


By the way, if you or someone you know needs help, check out the AA website at www.alcoholics-anonymous.org/