What’s Up with Agent Orange?

The Angry Orange

A few months back, I was sponsoring someone special.  An educated man, this guy was down on his luck and was guided to AA.  We could relate to one another because neither of us was excited about the religiosity commonly found in AA.  We both had scientific backgrounds and both had similar views on the subject of the 2nd Step. 

After a while, my new friend started asking weird questions and forwarding me psychiatric journal articles that mentioned AA.  As his sponsor, it was a bit of a concern.  Sort of like someone going to the car dealer and buying a Chevy then 6 months later going to the library to research the decision. 

As things went, an attitude of hostility and defiance followed the research and eventually my friend disappeared. 

In reading the Orange Papers I’m reminded of my pal. 

The Orange Papers is an online book with the apparent aim of discrediting AA in any means possible.  In its pages, AA is referred to as a cult and that the “AA Treatment” is statistically worse than  having no treatment at all.    There are critical stories of one of the co-founders (probably both in there somewhere) and some works propagating discension on how our financial affairs have been handled.  All and all, its quite an enterprise.

The author of the entire site gives his credentials, saying “ I have at least attended lots of A.A. meetings, and have been through the 12-Step “treatment” mill.”   Obviously he has quite an ax grind with AA.

In thinking about my friend and the Orange Papers, I get grateful and sad.

I’m grateful because I was blessed, when I reached the same place inside AA where I was questioning things and really angry…I got involved in General Service.  I can TOTALLY see myself getting frustrated with the cliche’s, the strange suggestions and everything else that our collective seems to pick up.   At that point in my sobriety (3 year mark), I festered on the outskirts of AA for about a year, then slowly started to get active.  Eventually I did a complete 180 and got to be immersed in General Service.  Serving my group and the general public as an AA member put me in some interesting places.  It deepened my understanding of AA and of how fortunate I am to be sober today.  Just going to meetings turned out to not be enough for me, as I expect may have been the case for ”Agent Orange.”

I was sad because in reading what dissenter’s have to say about AA, I know that there are some truths to their arguements.   As a whole, we can not control the 2 million plus ‘knuckle-heads’ that call themselves members.  There will be some members that think its okay (for them) to do things that are completely opposite of AA principles.   As a loosely organized, totally voluntary, non-hierarchal group, we will always be an easy target for someone wanting to exploit some problem within our ranks.  It’s just sad that there are people so hyped up and eager to slander a fellowship that has so much goodness and self-sacrifice put into its mission of helping alcoholics stay sober.

One thing I can say about the Orange Papers, they certainly devote a tremendous amount of time to their work.  I don’t have that much time to devote to arguing each false claim they make.

What I can say is that getting involved in General Service, going to Regional Forums and meeting the trustees and workers at our General Service Office, that AA is open to everyone; even Agent Orange.  My first Regional Forum, there was a few people that had a beef with some decision made at GSO and they came with the express purpose of making it known to EVERYONE that they had a problem.  These people were given every opportunity to express their concerns and were treated with dignity.  The decision they disliked was explained  patiently and while they may have still not agreed, they were at the very least INFORMED.   Thanks to the 12 Concepts and 12 Traditions, our fellowship can make it through our times of trouble.  In studying AA history and my own experiences, the leaders in AA do make mistakes.  ”We are NOT saints!”  Orange Guy seems to like to criticize Bill W.   I think we’d be worse off if our leaders were perfect.  Who in AA would follow some goody goody?

In my journey in AA, I learned so much about our fellowship and its founders.  I learned about the dissention between members and the troubles we had in our early days. Many of these things Orange covers.  Given our beginnings its a wonder that we didn’t have more problems than we did!

The AA Principles allow us to recover and learn from our problems.  The real benefit lies in being able to help others and help our fellowship grow instead of resorting to vengance and hostility. 

Message to Orange:   Drop the AX!