In response to Stanton Peele

Stanton Peele, like Ken Ragge and Monica Richardson, is a long-term habitual AA hater and anti-stepper. He has a long-established bias and dare I say resentment against the 12-step programs.

So, it comes as no surprise to me that he has written another anti-AA hit piece, this time discussing one departed Karla Brandy Mendez, who I have already discussed in a previous blog entry (Karla's story, which is old hat at this point, is getting a lot of renewed attention because of a recently aired 48 Hours TV episode on her tragic death).

I will address some points made by Dr. Peele.  His claims are undelined like this:

• AA never taught Karla to abstain. Actually, it did.  Or, should I say, AA gave Karla clear cut directions on how she could abstain. Directions which are very, very effective for anyone willing to follow them. If Karla had, instead of starting a relationship with another newcomer, followed the program as written in the first 164 pages of the Big Book, she would certainly be alive today.
• Karla didn’t learn to protect herself through attending rehab, AA, and NA. AA has but one primary purpose, Dr. Peele, which is to carry its message (being, the message as written in the first 164 pages of the Big Book) to the alcoholic who still suffers. AA's strength and success comes from not deviating from that message.
• AA disrespects women Actually, as I refer to in another one of my blogs, AA is a safe place for women. Most people with time suggest that newcomers do not date, and that men stay with the men and women stick with the women. A number of AA meetings (about 8% of the meetings in the area Karla was from) are women's meetings which men are not allowed to set foot in.
• AA takes no responsibility This is an outside issue, Dr. Peele. Karla was beaten and killed outside of the rooms of AA. She went down that path because she refused to work the suggested AA program.
• AA doesn’t work. Well formed studies, such as PMC2220012, show that AA actually does work. The extensive Cochrane study shows there is nothing out there with a track record better than AA's record.

In conclusion, Dr. Peele brings up the same old long-refuted attacks on AA again. It is sad that suffering alcoholics may use these articles to justify unhealthy and self-destructive behavior instead of going to a meeting, working the 12-step program, and getting better.

In terms of the lawsuit brought on by Karla's family, it has been withdrawn (sounds like the family realized there was no legal basis for making AA responsible for their daughter's death) and now they are trying to sue their sponsors, never mind the minor technical detail that the people they are suing were never actually their sponsors.