No SnitgrrRl, this is wrong, These programs don't require you to identify yourself as as addict. If someone is constantly quizzing Rudy as to whether or not they are addict, then they aren't following the program. The twelve step program tells someone to mind their own business.
Co-dependency is not everyone, it is about compulsive behavior. If you aren't compulsive then you aren't co-dependent. Secondly, it is not about symptomatic treament. If someone has compulsive tendencies how would you deal with it? You seem to have the desire to label someone morally bad? What about an addict? Are they morally bad? rerards, Doyle Saylor
>Alec, while it won't answer all your questions, you might want to check out
>a critique of AA, Rudy's _Becoming Alcoholic_ Rudy uses in-depth
>ethnographic interviews and participant observations in order to ask how
>people learn to become or create an identity as an alcoholic. AA and the
>twelve step model figure prominently in the process, as you probably know.
>There is a tendency in these groups to insist that everyone is an
>alcoholic, so even Rudy who clearly identified himself as a researcher was
>constantly quizzed about his drinking habits and was told that the only way
>he could participate was if he read a stack of literature on AA and
>alcoholism. Despite his objections that he didn't consider himself an
>alcoholic, people nevertheless insisted that he was, but he was just in
>denial. The research was done nearly 20 years ago and I haven't read it in
>a long time, but I think Wendy Kaminers stuff on women and self help
>culture, especially co-dependency groups, makes a similar point: when you
>read the def. of who a co-dependent is, it would seem that *everyone* is.
>I suspect that there is some clue here that points toward some answers.
>I'm not entirely sure exactly what that answer is right now, though.
>Still, from what I've seen of the way 12 step models work, they are clearly
>symptomatic treatments--that is they treat the symptoms, rather than the
>underlying problem (errr sliding toward essentialism there, ey?) in the
>same way that cold medicine modifies the discomfort of the cold without
>ever getting at the root cause of the cold.
>