Resisting 12-Step Coercion: How to Fight Forced Participation in Aa, Na or 12-Step Treatment

by Stanton Peele, Ken Ragge, Charles Bufe

This book is a guide for the one million-plus Americans per year who face coerced religious indoctrination in the guise of alcohol or drug treatment. It outlines legal strategies and existing court decisions and shows how useless and sometimes harmful 12-step treatment can be. It also contains a considerable amount of material on the routine violation of standard medical ethics by addiction treatment providers, and examples of such violations.

160 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[Anthony Faber · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first half of the book is an argument that 12 step programs don't work very well, followed by in depth discussions of various legal rulings that say that AA is religious and government entities can't require it unless they also offer a secular alternative. With private employers, the picture is murkier. I'm not sure how much I trust these guys (they're big on managed drinking but, in talking about the research, they say that, in one of the studies, a fair number of the guys who started out going for managed drinking changed their goal (program?) to abstinence. I worry that someone who really has to be abstinent will read this book as giving them permission to keep drinking. Their view is a minority view, although excrusciatingly documented.

[Michael T. McComb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Important read for anyone forced into 12-step treatment programs.