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A ship in a bottle: How communication builds the lifeboats of the world's largest A.A. group

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Content A SHIP IN A BOTTLE: HOW
COMMUNICATION BUILDS THE LIFEBOATS
OF THE WORLD'S LARGEST A.A. GROUP
©1994
by
D iane W. Penkoff
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE
THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillm ent of the
Requirem ents for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(C om m unication A rts and Sciences)
A ugust 1994
Diane W. Penkoff
UMI Number: DP22498
All rights reserved
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P V i - P .
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9 AW
This dissertation, written by
Diane W. Penkoff
under the direction of h.sx. Dissertation
Committee, and approved by all its members,
has been presented to and accepted by The
Graduate School, in partial fulfillment of re
quirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Dean of Graduate Studies
Date x b .} ? ? ±
DISSERTATION COMMITTEE
Chairperson
Dedication
This dissertation is dedicated to the w om en and m en
who unstintingly share their experience, strength, and hope
to help each other stay sober
one day at a time.
iv
Acknowledgments
During the last 18 m onths, this project dem onstrated to me
the m eaning of w riting as a collaborative endeavor. Certainly, I owe
thanks to more people than I possibly can list here. First, I'm deeply
indebted to m y com m ittee m em bers for their incisive insights and
extraordinary patience. Tom Cum m ings provided m any invaluable
com m ents, and W alt Fisher w orked to evoke clarity of thought and
precision in w riting. I owe comm ittee chair Patti Riley heartfelt thanks
for her m entorship, intellectual guidance, and unflagging confidence
in the study and my ability to complete it, even w hen I faltered.
Friends and family also enabled the process. My m other,
M ary W itm er, cleaned bathroom s, ran laundry, and shopped for
groceries while I sat chained to a com puter. My son, David, good-
naturedly tolerated vacuous and incom plete conversations. Bob Joyce
first set me on a scholarly path, then helped pave it in countless
significant ways. Stephen M orrison, prodded me from afar, and
devised sorely-needed respites. Susie Farrell and Carol Speaker
extended reassuring strength through traum as and trium phs w ith
1
| equal equanim ity.
i
j M any other friends, faculty, and colleagues encouraged,
! cajoled, inform ed, and inspired me, am ong them Susan A vanzino,
V
Chunsheng Bai, Greg Dickinson, Mike Cody, D eborah Dunn-Yeager,
Tom H ollihan, Randy K luver, Caroline LaM onda, Verlaine McDonald,
Peggy McLaughlin, Lyn Miller, Kerry O sborne, and N ora Perren.
Juanie W alker, especially, offered useful suggestions, validation, and
friendship as we m oved through parallel scholarly processes, and
Christine Smith "met" me during late night sieges on the computer,
providing both scholarly insights and buoyant hum or.
Finally, of course, I acknowledge the m any m en and w om en
of Alcoholics A nonym ous and the "Friendship G roup,” who
enthusiastically shared their thoughts, feelings, and recovery w ith me.
M ary Ann K. and M argaret H., in particular, becam e cherished friends.
O thers to whom I am eternally grateful are Annette F., Bob B., Clancy I.,
Jack B., Jan B., Jim McE., Nancy N., Nancy W., Pam N., and "Uncle
Earl." Their lives affirm Bill W.'s declaration that "a new life of endless
possibilities can be lived if we continue our [spiritual] awakening."
v i
Table of Contents
Dedication........................................................................... iii
A cknow ledgm ents.................................................................... iv
List of Figures................................................................................................. ix
Abstract............................................................................................................. x
I. Boarding the Gangplank: Getting Sober in Southern
California............................................................................................. 1
The Friendship Group: A.A.'s Flagship..................................... 3
Purpose of the S tu d y ......................................................................... 7
Alcoholics Anonym ous: Review of Relevant L iterature 8
Introduction to the Following C hapters...................................... 22
II. Lifelines Intertwined: Format and Founding of A.A.
and the Friendship Group............................................................. 24
Alcoholics Anonym ous: Form at and Form ula for
R ecovery............................................................................................... 24
The Friendship Group: Form ula Success and Form at
Singularity............................................................................................. 27
Sailing U ncharted Waters: How A.A. B egan............................. 28
A Telephone and a Coffee P o t : The Founding of
Alcoholics A nonym ous..................................................................... 29
Of Philosophers, Psychologists, and Spiritual
A w akenings: Twelve Steps and Twelve T raditions...............
III. Theoretical Framework and Method of Inquiry..................
O rganizational Culture: An A pproach H um an Interaction
in O rganizations...............................................................................
Structuration: An Ontological A pproach to Studying
O rganizational S p iritu ality ..........................................................
The Recovering Alcoholic: Creating a New Self....................
Spirituality and Scholarship, Transcendence and Healing...
M ethod of In q u iry ..........................................................................
IV. Through the Neck of the Bottle: Visiting the Friendship
G roup.................................................................................................
Research Q uestion One: The Founder's Influence on
O rganizational C u ltu re .................................................................
Research Q uestion Two: Com m unicative Practices
C reating O rganizational C u ltu re ................................................
Research Q uestion Three: Individual and Organizational
S p iritu a lity ........................................................................................
The Friendship G roup and the Reconstruction of S elf ....
The Friendship G roup as a D isem bedding M echanism ......
V. Returning to Port: Summary and Conclusions...................
Sum m ary of the Study....................................................................
Caveats and C onstraints................................................................
D iscussion and Im plications........................................................
V ll
33
44
44
50
52
55
60
76
78
85
120
122
124
128
130
141
144
V l l l
Suggestions for Future R esearch.................................................... 154
R eferences................................................ 159
A ppendix A: The Tw elve T raditions of Alcoholics
A nonym ous....................................................................................................... 180
A ppendix B: The T w elve Steps of Alcoholics A n onym ous 182
A ppendix C: G uiding Q uestions for In-D epth In terv iew s........... 184
A ppendix D: Sam ple T ranscript................................................................ 187
ix
List of Figures
Figure 1. Example Node C luster........................................... ..................... 73
Figure 2. Structures of Signification: D ifferences betw een
A.A. and Friendship G roup......................................................................... 93
Figure 3. Structures of Legitim ation: D ifferences betw een
A.A. and Friendship G roup ........................................................................... 114
Figure 4. Structures of D om ination: D ifferences betw een A.A.
and F rien d sh ip G ro u p ................................................................................... 119
Figure 5. D ifferences betw een A.A. and Friendship G ro u p 136
Figure 6. R eligion C om pared to S pirituality......................................... 150
Abstract
Em erging scholarly interest in spirituality, particularly as
related to health, suggests that the cultures of organizations professing
spiritual underpinnings as a basis for healing w arrant serious study.
W hen the organization is founded on a pot of coffee and conversation,
it is a natural arena for com m unication research. Two overarching
interests im pel this study. The first is curiosity about organizational
cultures in non-corporate entities; the second is the em ergence of
spirituality as a field for scholarly investigation. This inquiry focuses
on the w orld's largest and m ost successful G roup of Alcoholics
A nonym ous. It explores the ways in which individual and
organizational com m unication practices create a group culture that
facilitates personal and collective transcendence and recovery through
organizational spirituality.
The study adopts G iddens' structuration as a fram ew ork for
j studying the deeply layered social interactions w ithin the organization.
! Ethnographic study of the A.A. G roup over the course of seven
m onths, and w ith other groups for an additional five m onths facilitated
j collection of corroborating and disconfirm ing data to assess the study's
validity. Data in the forms of field observation, interviews, audio
I
j tapes, and printed m aterials were used for analysis guided by a
xi
structurationist fram ework, w ith interpretive interactionist
m ethodology outlined by D enzin (1989).
The data indicate that the organizational culture manifests a
rules-based pow er, and that its dialectic w ith constitutive spirit
facilitates the enactm ent of collective spirituality. Transcendence and
recovery are enabled by a pow er-based structure, w hich em ancipates
the individual. The organization is a "disem bedding mechanism"
(Giddens, 1991), and structures from the global organization are
disem bedded by the G roup founder, transform ed, and recreated in the
local organization. The alcoholic self is both agent and outcom e as it
evolves through recursive group practices and individual actions. A
structurationist perspective of organizational culture may provide a
fuller understanding of the w ays in w hich organizations are created
and sustained through social interactions, and the significance of their
historicity and cultural contexts, in order to help guide future research
for organizational survival and hum an successes in organizations.
1
I. Boarding the Gangplank: Getting Sober in
Southern California
LARRY:
GRIFFIN:
LARRY:
GRIFFIN:
LARRY:
We should m ake a deal now; tomorrow
may be too late. Can we get a hold of
Levinson?
Yeah, I can get Levinson. U h— W hen can
you get back?
Right after my A.A. meeting.
Oh, Larry. I d id n 't realize you— uh— had a
drinking problem .
Well, I don't really, but that's w here all the
deals are being m ade these days. See ya.
M ichael Tolkin
The Player
To m ost people, the allusion to a "power" A.A. m eeting in the
movie, "The Player," may appear to be m ere am using dialogue. For
m any Southern California A.A. m em bers, though, the conversation
resonates as reference to a real meeting, w here deals, careers,
relationships, and recovery from alcoholism all take on larger-than-life
proportions. It is the Friendship Group.
A round 6:45 on any W ednesday evening, autom obiles begin
to line up on the streets around a large synagogue on the w est side of
Los Angeles. The drivers park and w ait patiently in curbside lines
several blocks long, while tolerant residents, returning hom e from
2
work, m aneuver their vehicles through congested roads. At 7:15, the
drivers start their engines and carefully, politely, inch tow ard the
synagogue parking lot. Flashlight-wielding volunteers flag the cars
into the lot, in precisely m easured strings. The passengers, coifed and
dressed stylishly enough for any bar m itzvah, greet one another as they
hurry to the line at the front of the synagogue. The doors open
prom ptly at 7:30, allowing 45 m inutes for attendees to pass through a
form al receiving line, find and save their seats (often w ith specially-
printed calling cards), and engage in social am enities before the
prim ary business of the evening begins. This is a tim e for renewing
acquaintances, exchanging congenial hugs, catching u p on the week's
new s— and m aking deals. It is the m ost highly-attended weekly meeting
of the Friendship G roup of Alcoholics A nonym ous.1 The G roup holds
at least one m eeting every night at a variety of locations in the Los
Angeles area, and W ednesday evening is the highlight of the week.
There are more than 2,000 meetings2 each week in Los
Angeles, alone (Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1992), and although the A.A.
concept of anonym ity precludes the m aintenance of accurate records,
!The nam e of the G roup has been changed, to preserve the
privacy of its members.
2In addition, com puter-savvy A.A. m em bers take advantage
of technological advances, and com m unicate both asynchronously and
realtim e via electronic m eans, including such system s as CompuServe,
private electronic bulletin board system s, and the Internet.
3
the organization estim ates a total m em bership of more than 1,800,000
(Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1984b). Success and grow th have brought
w ith them a certain level of celebrity. Both A.A. and its m em bers have
been publicized and rom anticized in theaters and electronic media,
dating back to Ray M illand's tragic "Lost W eekend" and "The Days of
Wine and'Roses," m ourned by Lee Remick and Jack Lemon. More
recently, M ichael Keaton got "Clean and Sober" in cinem atic A.A.
m eetings; Sharon Gless found recovery through A.A. in television's
"Cagney and Lacey," and Meg Ryan's cinematic behavior dem onstrated
to A ndy Garcia that even "When a M an Loves a Woman," it m ay not be
enough to protect the family from her alcoholic havoc.
In Southern California, A.A. m em bership bears little or no
stigm a. The M urphy Brown and John Larroquette television shows
currently depict recovery as key concepts for the title characters, and
some celebrities, contrary to the Eleventh T radition of Alcoholics
A nonym ous (see Appendix A), choose to make their A.A. affiliation
public. Those who are m em bers of the Friendship G roup may
publicly adm it to their addictions, b u t consider their A.A. connection
to be privately held w ithin the G roup m em bership.
The F rien d sh ip G roup: A.A.'s Flagship
Tonight, after this m eeting, we'll elect a
secretary. I hope we w ill— I'm sure we will— the
group conscience will elect a secretary who will
continue the high standards of this [Group] that has
4
m ade this the largest and m ost successful A.A.
Group in the w orld. That's w hat it is.
Big Al3
Friendship G roup Founder
Spring, 1983
The W ednesday night assemblage is more than just another
A.A. m eeting; it is the largest m eeting of Alcoholics A nonym ous in the
w orld, attracting betw een 1,000 and 1,200 people every week, som e
people braving as m any as 50 or 60 miles of Los Angeles freeways to
attend after a full day's work. The m eeting creates a startling
juxtaposition of conservatism in recovery and the Southern California
nonconform ist value system in w hich it resides. A cultural paradox
exists betw een the anonym ity that undergirds all of Alcoholics
A nonym ous and the celebrity of the G roup and m any of its well-
know n members.
The G roup is unique in a variety of w ays from the thousands
of A.A. groups throughout the country. It has a local reputation as a
3"Big Al" is a pseudonym . To protect individual privacy, all
nam es of organizational m em bers are changed and are purely
fictitious. Big Al's pseudonym originally w as coined by a radio
interview er while Al was on the air. This w as congruent w ith A.A.'s
i Eleventh T radition because although Al shared his background of
i drunkenness and recovery, his personal anonym ity w as preserved
through the use of the pseudonym .
5
singles m eeting place, as well as for helping "low bottom drunks,"4
particularly those unable to sober up elsew here in A.A.. The
Friendship Group is listed in A.A. new sletters as donating m ore to the
Los Angeles A.A. Central Office than any other group in the area
(reported by m eeting secretaries, 1993), and is w idely know n for
conscripting superb speakers. The core of the G roup is estim ated at
approxim ately 400 to 500 m em bers who call the G roup their A.A.
"home," and engage in its extra-m eeting activities. The W ednesday
night m eeting attracts nearly three tim es that m any people. Lawyers,
new scasters, television and movie industry executives, Ph.D.'s, blue
collar w orkers, and street people share the evening, sipping coffee,
telling stories, and, after the m eeting, cleaning up the trash shoulder-to-
shoulder.
A lthough there are no form al statistics to support the claim,
m any m em bers of the 31-year-old G roup are convinced that the rate of
relapse is lower for its m em bers than for those in other A.A. groups.
W hether m easured by length of sobriety (one w om an boasts of 51 years,
purportedly the longest continuous abstinence know n am ong sober
4In A.A., "hitting bottom" is reaching a low point in one's life
that brings the alcoholic to a state of willingness to follow A.A.
j suggestions that w ill lead to abstinence and recovery. A "high-bottom"
: alcoholic is one w ho finds sobriety w ithout having experienced serious
' repercussions as a result of drinking. A "low-bottom" drunk m ay lose
personal freedom , health, hom e, loved ones, or even limbs as a result of
alcoholic behavior.
6
alcoholics, "takes her [birthday] cake" at the W ednesday Friendship
G roup m eeting and calls the G roup's founder her A.A. sponsor5),
dollars donated to the General Services Office (more than $5,000 in
1992) (reported by m eeting secretaries, 1993), or sheer num bers of
m em bers, the Friendship G roup is probably the m ost successful group
of Alcoholics A nonym ous in the w orld. Anyone visiting it senses
im m ediately a strong organizational culture that is em bedded within
the dual cultural contexts of Alcoholics A nonym ous and the Southern
California mystique. The first evokes tradition; the latter celebrates
trend-setting.
The Friendship Group is a prim e arena for research in the
cultural m anifestations of organizational com m unication. Four key
features of the G roup serve as guideposts for the investigation: 1) the
strong personality of the founder and the w ays in w hich he influences
the Group, 2) the ways in which the m em bers recreate them selves
through their comm unicative interactions, 3) the com m unication
practices that define the G roup, and 4) the nested cultures within
w hich the Friendship G roup resides.
5In A.A., a "sponsor" is loosely defined as anyone in the
organization who can help the newcom er "work the Steps" and "stay
sober." There are no particular requirem ents for serving as a sponsor,
although conventional wisdom dictates that one m ust have w orked
more of the steps than the sponsee, and be reasonably active in the A.A.
program .
7
P urpose of the Study
This ethnographic study of the Friendship G roup is guided
by the overarching question of how individuals in recovery create and
are recreated by the organizational culture. The purpose is to arrive at
an understanding of the Friendship G roup culture that m ay explain
and extend the concept of organizational culture to include spirituality
as a feature of hum an collectivity.
The Group is more than a weekly gathering of people; it is an
organization. Karl Weick defines organizations as a shared sense of
appropriate procedures and appropriate interpretations, an
assemblage of behaviors distributed am ong two or m ore people, and a
puzzle in w hich people engage. The conjunction of these procedures,
interpretations, behaviors, and puzzles describes w hat organizing does
and w hat organizing is (Weick, 1979, p. 4). More th an 400 individuals
help solve the puzzle of how to m ake the W ednesday evening
Friendship G roup m eeting happen each w eek by setting up and
cleaning up, m aking coffee, w orking in the kitchen, setting out and
putting away chairs, sw eeping cigarette butts from the patio, directing
traffic, and posting weekly announcem ents. Furtherm ore, the Group
m anifests m any of the norm s and values of Alcoholics Anonym ous,
presenting a clear organizational culture that is grounded in within
that of the parent organization.
A lthough the basic tenets of the A.A. organization are
outlined in the Twelve Traditions (see A ppendix A), w hich state that
8
"each group should be autonom ous," and that "A.A., as such, ought
never be organized" (Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1976, p. 564), they also
specify that A.A. "may create service boards or com m ittees directly
responsible to those they serve" (Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1976, p. 564).
As a result, Alcoholics A nonym ous has a relatively high degree of
structure and organization, com plete w ith institutionalized practices
and m eeting procedures, a centralized W orld Services office in New
York, Central Services offices in major cities, and general service
representatives from local m eetings who serve as delegates for
adm inistrative decision-making purposes. Thus, A.A. and the groups
that "officially" operate under its auspices (which m eans they are listed
in A.A. m eeting directories) share certain values, norm s, practices.
As a whole, A.A. has been the topic of considerable interest
for social scientists, psychologists, the medical com m unity, and som e
com m unication scholars. A lthough none of the literature addresses the
cultural features of A. A., the research as a w hole supports the
underlying prem ise of this study, that the Alcoholics A nonym ous
facilitates recovery from alcoholism in ways that are specific to the
organization, but are poorly understood. The rem ainder of this
chapter review s current literature on Alcoholics A nonym ous and
preview s the following chapters.
A lcoholics A nonym ous: Review of R elevant Literature
In 1941, six years after the founding of Alcoholics
A nonym ous, Jack Alexander w rote an article for the Saturday Evening
9
Post, describing the m en and wom en who were reprieved from
alcoholism in A.A. (Alexander, 1941). The article launched enorm ous
scholarly and popular attention on A.A., and fulfilled Bill W .'s w ish to
position the Fellow ship6 w ith m edicine and psychiatry (Alcoholics
Anonym ous, 1986a, p. 52):
To reach m ore alcoholics, understanding
of A.A. and public good w ill tow ards A.A. m ust go
on grow ing everywhere. We need to be on still
better term s w ith m edicine, religion, em ployers,
governm ents, courts, prisons, m ental hospitals, and
all enterprises in the alcoholism field.
As Bill had hoped, m ost of the works that focus on
alcoholism treatm ent m odality and outcom e acknow ledge A.A. as a
key to successful recovery (e.g., Preston & Smith, 1985; Petiet, 1986;
M achell, 1989; Brown & Peterson, 1990; Cross, M organ, M ooney, M artin
& Rafter, 1990; Galanter, Talbott, Gallegos, Rubenstone, 1990; Alford,
Koehler & Leonard, 1991; M atano & Yalom, 1991; McNichol, Sowell,
Logsdon, D elgado, & M cNichol, 1991; Smith, 1991; Chappel, 1992; Ellis
& M cClure, 1992; H anna, 1992; Hoffm an & Miller, 1992; Machell, 1992;
Carroll, 1993; Johnson & H erringer, 1993; Kennedy & M inami, 1993;
Pisani, Fawcett, Clark & McGuire, 1993). There are a few exceptions.
Levy (1990), for exam ple, m aintains that individualized program s
>
\ ---------------------------------------------
I
I
I 6Because A.A. and Friendship G roup m em bers refer to and
j characterize the Alcoholics A nonym ous organization as a "fellowship,"
j that convention is adopted in this work.
10
should be utilized in alcohol counseling, and that neither abstinence
from alcohol nor A.A. are necessary for recovery in all people. H eather
(1992) eschews the argum ent that alcoholism is a "disease," a concept
largely associated w ith Alcoholics Anonym ous, and argues that a
social learning perspective is m ore appropriate to facilitating an
"effective and com passionate societal response" to alcohol abuse (p.
214). Ellis and Schoenfeld (1990) posit that although A.A. and similar
program s have helped m illions of individuals, m any m ore m ight be
helped if the notion of accepting a H igher Power were abandoned. In
that vein, several spin-off groups have form ed th at rely on "rationality,"
rath er than the concept of a H igher Power (Gelman, Leonard, & Fisher,
1991; McCarthy, 1991).
Despite criticisms and m isunderstandings, it's clear that as an
organization, Alcoholics A nonym ous is unparalleled in successfully
disengaging its mem bers from alcohol abuse. Uva (1991) reports that
"the 12-step program s have been one of the few effective treatm ents for
alcoholism" (p. 3065). An estim ated 29 percent of A.A. m em bers have
abstained from alcohol for five years, "a record considered enviable in
the field [of alcohol counseling]" (Gelman, et al., 1991, p. 63).
M ost of the literature approaches A.A. from a therapeutic
psychological or m edical, rather than an organizational or cultural
perspective. A dditional literature considers the organization as having
religious, cult-like, or identity transform ing aspects. In general, the
psychosocial literature dem onstrates the utility of A.A. concepts, m ost
11
notably the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (see A ppendices A
and B for the Traditions and Steps, respectively), in recovery from
alcoholism, and indicates that they m ight be used for other forms of
psychological and social ills. Sim ilarly, m edical literature
acknow ledges the efficacy of the A.A. program , b u t is equivocal, in
term s of how it facilitates recovery. Recent interest, however, in
transform ation and spirituality reveals that A.A.'s spiritual
underpinnings offer rich resources for enabling recovery and, perhaps,
understanding its processes. The following overview addresses each
approach in turn.
A lcoholics A nonym ous: psychosocial perspectives. The
disciplines of psychiatry and psychology long have displayed a keen
interest in Alcoholics Anonym ous, m otivated largely by its successes.
M uch of the literature in recent years looks at A.A.'s psychotherapeutic
aspects, virtually all advocating the A.A. approach to the treatm ent of
alcoholism , w hich includes an organizational acknow ledgm ent of
hum an spirituality. (Chapter II describes the historically constituted
spiritual tenets of the organization.) This section sum m arizes those
studies.
G alanter, Talbott, Gallegos, and Rubenstone (1990) affirm the
efficacy of the program in their report that of 100 physicians w ith an
average of 33.4 m onths abstinence, all rate A.A. as m ore im portant for
their recovery than professionally-directed treatm ents. M atano and
Yalom (1991) also acknowledge the utility of the A.A. program , and
12
outline several guidelines for a therapeutic approach to chemical
dependency, including incorporation of A.A. concepts into the
treatm ent. They specifically indicate that m isperceptions of A.A. m ay
be used to resist therapy, and advise psychotherapists to arm
them selves w ith know ledge of the A.A. principles, Traditions, and
Steps as p art of their treatm ent m odality. Smith (1991) echoes this
recom m endation, and advises counselors to fam iliarize themselves
w ith the tenets of A.A. as a routine p art of m anaging their alcoholism
caseloads. Kaufman (1990-91) goes even further, proposing a m odel of
psychotherapy that integrates the concepts of A. A., psychodynam ic
theory, issues of dual-diagnoses, and family therapy.
M uch of the A.A. program occurs in dyadic and group
interactions, prom pting the psychiatric and psychological
com m unities to explore the social support provided by groups and
individual members. Machell, in a review of the literature from the
fields of personality theory, alcoholism psychopathology, group
psychotherapy, and the psychology of alcoholism treatm ent, posits that
a com m on ground exists betw een these disciplines and the A.A.
concept of fellowship, w hich provides social support for its m em bers.
Social support is an organizational feature of A.A. that
clearly encourages recovery. Looking at com pletion of a halfway
house program for chem ically dependent w om en, H uselid, Self, and
G utierres (1991) report that A.A. sponsors provide social support,
w hich correlates significantly w ith success in com pleting the program .
13
Intensity of social support, too, apparently affects treatm ent
outcom e. Keso and Salaspuro (1990) report a random ized clinical trial
on "H azelden-type"7 treatm ent and traditional outpatient treatm ent.
Results indicate a significantly higher rate of abstinence after a period
of one year and a lower attrition rate for the Hazelden-type treatm ent
than for the outpatient approach, although both are A.A. oriented. The
authors cite social support, involvem ent, and orientation to personal
problem s as key elem ents in the H azelden-type m ethod. A similar
study, by Johnson and H erringer (1993), exam ines the social support
activities of A.A. and its offshoot, Narcotics Anonym ous (N.A.), and
fam ily participation in recovery. The research findings indicate that
fam ily participation does not significantly predict abstinence b u t
participation in A.A. or N.A. does. In addition, they report that linear
increases in rates of abstinence occur as m ore supports are used.
In addition to the characteristics and effectiveness of A.A.,
psychiatrists and psychologists are interested the program 's utility for
applications other than strict recovery from alcoholism. Preston and
Smith (1985) explore the A.A. paradigm in the context of Gamblers’
Anonym ous. Gaskin (1992) assum es the program 's efficacy in a
7Located north of St. Paul, M innesota, H azelden is a
residential clinic for substance abuse. The "M innesota model" or
H azelden type of treatm ent uses a m ultidisciplinary approach that is
grounded in A.A. principles, m ost notably the Twelve Steps
(Laundergan, Flynn, & Gaboury, 1986).
14
descriptive study, indicating that pictorial representation in art
psychotherapy enables hospitalized patients to express their levels of
accom plishm ent in the A.A. Twelve Steps as they related to their
concepts of self. Bobo and Davis (1993), in a study on smoking
cessation among problem drinkers (a population that often includes
smokers), find that the skills of abstinence learned in A.A. can help
smokers extinguish their cigarettes. Satel, Becker, and D an (1993) posit
that since Vietnam veterans who suffer from post traum atic stress
disorder (PTSD) often use alcohol to excess, the precepts of A.A. m ight
be appropriately adapted to the treatm ent of PTSD.
O ther studies focus on how the A.A. program works, in
psychological term s. Gilbert (1991) reports the developm ent of a scale
to m easure recovering alcoholics' agreem ent w ith the first three A.A.
Steps, and correlates agreem ent w ith length of sobriety. The results of
the study support the A.A. idea that adm itting to pow erlessness over
alcohol (Step One in Alcoholics A nonym ous) enables m em bers to
achieve abstinence.
As a whole, the psychosocial literature points to the efficacy
of A. A., and identifies some of the organizational tools that help
m em bers abstain from alcohol. The m edical com m unity, too, is
interested in Alcoholics Anonym ous as a resource for the treatm ent of
alcoholism .
A lcoholics A nonym ous: m edical p erspectives. A lthough
largely positive, there is less m edical literature than psychological
15
research on the nature and purpose of Alcoholics Anonym ous. W hat
does exist, sum m arized below , largely view s A.A. as a prescriptive
m echanism that physicians m ight add to their m edical bags. Cooley
and Lasser (1992) propound that A.A. can serve as a useful resource to
family physicians in helping to d isrupt alcoholic behaviors. Uva (1991)
acknowledges that the "religious" aspects of A.A. (p. 3065) support a
m edical recovery, b u t draw s no distinction betw een religion and
spirituality. Walsh, Hingson, M errigan, Levenson, Cupples, Heeren,
Coffman, Becker, Barker, H am ilton, M cGuire, and Kelly (1991)
continue an ongoing medical discussion that centers on the
M inneapolis Plan, w hich w as founded in 1949 and usually incudes 28
days of inpatient care (Goodwin, 1991). This study indicates that
although A.A. is less expensive than inpatient treatm ent, m ost of the
cost savings tend to be lost in the need for future treatm ents. Goodwin
(1991) qualifies their findings, how ever, by noting that the sam ple
population m ay have been more m otivated than other alcoholic
populations, since all participants w ere em ployed, and all were
required by their em ployer to participate in the study. The study also
gives little indication of the long-term efficacy of either program , since
the research was conducted only during a one-year period.
Few other studies in the m edical sciences focus on A. A.,
although like the psychosocial literature, the im portance of social
sup p o rt emerges. Kramer and H oisington (1992) propose that the
social support offered by Alcoholics A nonym ous and its offshoot,
16
N arcotics A nonym ous, is underutilized for treating chem ical
dependency in traum atic brain injury survivors. M ore scholarly
interest comes from the study of social and religious groups.
A lcoholics A nonym ous: transform ational perspectives.
Beyond the psychosocial and m edical studies of A.A., there is some
scholarly interest in the religious or spiritual aspects of Alcoholics
A nonym ous. A num ber of researchers, apparently draw ing little
distinction betw een religion and spirituality, have explored analogs
betw een A.A. and religious groups (e.g., Cain, 1963; Fichter, 1976;
Gelman, et al., 1991; Greil & Rudy, 1983; Jones, 1970; Petrunik, 1972;
Rudy & Greil, 1988; W hitley, 1977; W ilson, 1977). Some (e.g., Ellis &
Schoenfeld, 1990; Ellis, 1992; G alanter, Egelko, & Edw ards, 1993) posit
that A.A.'s organizationally-advocated belief in God is unnecessary for
recovery, and propose rational-therapeutic alternatives like Rational
Recovery as effective alternatives for achieving abstinence from
alcoholism . Taking an opposing view of rationality and recovery,
C arroll (1993) explores the relationship betw een spirituality (defined as
the extent to w hich A.A.'s Steps Eleven and Twelve are practiced) and
| recovery from alcoholism , finding that A.A.'s spiritual practices, along
w ith continuing sobriety, increase the m em ber's sense of purpose in
p
| life.
O ther scholars, focusing on the transform ational results and
I
j spiritual precepts of A.A., pose the possibility that the organization is
religious or cult-like. C ertainly, cults are not confined to religious
17
zealotry. Iannaccone (1992) reports that cult-like behaviors occur in
nonreligious groups such as fraternities, political parties, w ork groups,
and families. In general, though, cults are earm arked by religious or
spiritual overtones (e.g., M anuto, 1991; Kennedy, 1992; Young &
Griffith, 1992), personal vulnerability of its m em bers (e.g., M arcus,
1988; Zerin, 1990; Cooper, 1991; W hitsett, 1992), and charismatic
leadership (most notoriously Jim Jones and D avid Koresh). While
Alcoholics Anonym ous m anifests m any of these characteristics
(C hapters II and IV address spirituality in the organization and leaders'
influence; C hapter IV illustrates the vulnerability of A.A. m em bers
w hen they enter the organization), and occasionally has been com pared
to a cult or religious group (e.g., Cain, 1963; Rudy & Greil, 1988; Ellis &
Schoenfeld, 1990), it is not "specifically religious," which G alanter
(1990, p. 643) proposes as a defining concept of a cult.
W hile the psychosocial and m edical approaches view A.A. as
a set of concepts or tools that aid personal recovery from alcoholism,
only the transform ational perspective approaches A.A. as an
organization. The review of all three bodies of literature, however,
i indicate that hum an interaction is central to the constitution and
j
j effectiveness of Alcoholics Anonym ous.
i
I C om m unication studies in A.A.. D espite the obvious role
com m unication plays in A.A. recovery, the discourse and
com m unicative practices of the organization have attracted relatively
1 little scholarly attention. The little research that exists focuses on the
18
m ethods and resources used by A.A. m em bers to achieve and m aintain
sobriety. Daniell (1992), in a study of A1 A non w om en, posits that the
A1 Anon program (which is patterned after A.A.) is biased toward
literacy, w hich enables individuals to discover, through w riting, a
spiritual pow er in their own w ords (sim ilar, she subm its, to Bell Hooks'
concept of "coming to voice"). Like m any of the other w orks cited in
this dissertation, Daniell's study acknow ledges personal spirituality of
organizational members, but does not address how or if it is m anifested
in the organizational culture. Ford's 1989 fantasy them e analysis of the
"Big Book,"8 Alcoholics A nonym ous (1976), indicates that the rhetorical
vision p u t forth by A.A. is that of "Fetching Good O ut of Evil," which
arises w hen the recovered alcoholic uses past experience as a m eans of
helping others tow ard recovery, thus defining self and community.
W hile the study focuses on the central w ritten docum ent of Alcoholics
Anonym ous, it fails to consider the organizational m em bers as
rhetorical entities, nor the ways in w hich their interactions construct the
organization.
8Now in its third edition, A lcoholics A nonym ous is the "basic
text" for the organization (Alcoholics A nonym ous, 1976, p. xi) and
m em bers affectionately refer to it as the "Big Book." For clarity and
brevity, that convention is used in this paper, since both the book and
| the fellowship share the name, Alcoholics Anonym ous. In fact, the
| organizational name evolved from that of the book, rather than vice-
j versa (Alcoholics A nonym ous, 1984, p. 203; Alcoholics Anonym ous,
1985, p. 166).
19
Rasmussen and Capaldi (1990) fill the gap to some extent,
providing the m ost illum inating w ork for the p resent study. They
consider the narratives of speakers in A.A. m eetings w ithin a context of
rhetorical ritual, and propose th at in term s of K enneth Burke's
dram atism , "the argum entative force of the narratives grow s from their
dialectically prom oting self acceptance by situating individual
experience w ithin the context of shared experiences and principles" (p.
256). Following Denzin's definition, they define ritual as "symbolic
enactm ents of processes of change" (p. 244) w hich include emotionality,
cerem ony, and a sense of the sacred (Denzin, 1987b, p. 214). They argue
that the narrative texts offer an "archetype of rebirth," first in the
I "drinking story," then in the "sobriety" story (p. 256). Rasm ussen and
Capaldi analyze and illustrate the ways in w hich the rhetors w ithin the
organization infuse fellow m em bers w ith an acceptance of self and
affiliation w ith the A.A. com m unity. The current study draw s on these
conceptualizations to explore the cultural nature of that com m unity as
socially constructed through the com m unication practices of its
m em bers, enabling transcendence and, ultim ately, recovery.
Across disciplines, the literature indicates that Alcoholics
A nonym ous offers a unique arena in w hich recovery from addiction is
facilitated, and that som ething occurs w ithin the organization that
I
j scholars find slippery in their grasp. It is a cultural phenom enon,
created through com m unicative practices, that A.A. calls spirituality.
20
This study proposes that the concept of culture in
organizations m ight be expanded to include organizational
spirituality, a theoretical abstraction that is being spearheaded by
scholars such as Goodall (1993) and practitioners like Hawley (1993).
This study further posits that as a feature of organizational culture,
spirituality is a product of hum an collectivity, created by spiritual
hum an actors and that it is evocative of hum an transcendence. The
guiding research questions of this study, then, are:
RQ 1: In w hat ways does the Friendship Group
culture m anifest the founder's influence?
RQ2: W hat is the nature of the Friendship
G roup culture as constituted by
com m unicative practices?
RQ 3: By w hat com m unicative practices does
the Friendship G roup create and m anifest
individual and organizational
spirituality?
To answ er these questions, it is necessary to understand 1) the
organization as constitutive of its founding heritage, 2) the hum an
agents that create and perpetuate it as spiritual beings, and 3) the ways
in w hich the hum an agents engage in social interactions w ithin the
organization. This study is an ethnography of the Friendship G roup
that focuses on the com m unication practices of G roup m em bers, as
well as the influence of its founders (Schein, 1983; 1985). It reports lived
experience and narratives w ithin the Friendship G roup organization,
21
draw ing on data from field observation, interview s, audio tapes, video
tapes, and printed m aterials. It uses an interpretive interactionist
m ethodology as outlined by D enzin (1989), guided by a
structurationist fram ework, and reported both through "thick
descriptions" (Geertz, 1973; Denzin, 1989) and through giving voice to
the organizational constituency in them atic groupings.
A lthough this study includes consideration of the culture of
A lcoholics A nonym ous as it is em bedded w ithin the Friendship
G roup, it does not focus on the parent organization. The reasons for
this are twofold. First, Denzin (1989) proposes qualitative studies as
m ost appropriate for questions arising in the field of alcoholism or
spousal abuse. The sheer size of A.A. as a whole m akes in-depth
qualitative research a near im possibility. Second, although the
Friendship Group cannot be generalized to all of A. A., it appears to
m anifest m any of the cultural oddities of its parent organization, often
in exaggerated form. Its very intensity m akes the G roup an ideal forum
in w hich to explore organizational spirituality, and to accomplish a
; prim ary contribution of this research to the study of organizational
I
! culture: a conceptualization of culture incorporates individual and
i
I collective spirituality, and that encom passes both disparities of
organizational complexities and the sharedness of deep structure
values.
22
In tro d u ctio n to the Follow ing Chapters
C hapter II presents background inform ation on the
Friendship G roup. It gives a historical view of Alcoholics
Anonym ous, specifically focusing on the tw o founders of the
organization, the psychological and spiritual influences in their lives,
and how they bequeathed an ontological legacy to the m em bers of
today. The Twelve Steps that guide individual recovery and the
Twelve Traditions that guide group behaviors also are discussed, w ith
particular consideration of the w ays in w hich the two adjoin in shared
(and unshared) m eaning among mem bers.
C hapter III contextualizes the study w ithin organizational
culture research, and provides a theoretical and m ethodological
fram ew ork for the study. Specifically, it considers A nthony Giddens'
concept of structuration (Giddens, 1976) and how the individual actors
in A.A. create a culture that then serves to recreate the individual, after
disastrous life events. It also describes the m ethod of inquiry,
providing a rationale for using qualitative m ethods in the context of
recovery (Denzin, 1987a; 1987b; 1988; 1989) and narrative knowing
(Fisher, 1987) am ong A.A. mem bers and in the hum an sciences
(Polkinghorne, 1988). It describes the ethnographic m ethods used,
including the researcher's role as participant observer, field
observations, interview s, and unobtrusive m ethods of data collection.
! This chapter also describes the processes of gaining access for the
23
study, and the ethical considerations of collecting and reporting the
data.
C hapter IV answ ers the research questions by developing an
analysis of the data, including the com m unicative practices of the
Friendship G roup and its founder, specifically looking at the w ays in
w hich G roup rules, pow er, structure, and spirituality are constructed
through symbolic interaction. It focuses on the narratives (Fisher, 1987)
of Alcoholics A nonym ous, and other essential com m unication
practices w ithin the culture, including the rituals of the meetings,
symbols, and the w ays in which m em bers serve the G roup and A.A.
com m unities. This chapter considers the Friendship G roup as a
culture em bedded w ithin the overarching culture of A.A., and the key
ways in w hich it conform s to and departs from its parent organization.
Finally, it proposes that the Friendship G roup acts as a disem bedding
m echanism (Giddens, 1991) that enables the transm utational alcoholic
self to move from drunkenness to recovery.
C hapter V sum m arizes the purpose of the study, its
theoretical fram ew ork, m ethodology, results, and limitations. It then
discusses im plications for com m unication research in organizational
culture.
24
II. Lifelines Intertwined: Format and Founding
of A.A. and the Friendship Group
We A.A.'s are like the passengers of a
great liner the m om ent after rescue from shipwreck,
w hen cam araderie, joyousness, and dem ocracy
pervade the vessel from steerage to captain's table.
Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 17
To understand the Friendship G roup and its cultural
relationship w ith that of the Alcoholics A nonym ous, som e background
inform ation on both is in order. This chapter describes the general
m eeting form ats of A.A. and the Friendship G roup, then contextualizes
the G roup w ithin the history of Alcoholics A nonym ous. It provides an
understanding of the deep structure values in Alcoholics Anonym ous
that also are em bedded w ithin the Friendship G roup, and the ways in
w hich the founders influence the culture of both the parent
organization and its offshoot.
A lcoholics A nonym ous: Form at and Form ula for Recovery
The A.A. program is sim ple and the m eetings are form ulaic.
M em bership is based solely on a "desire to stop drinking" (Alcoholics
A nonym ous, 1953, p. 139), and m em bers follow twelve "steps,...which
are suggested as a program of recovery" (Alcoholics A nonym ous, 1976,
25
p. 59). (See A ppendix B.) M ost Southern California A.A. meetings last
one-and-one-half hours, and often include a brief coffee and smoke
break. It also isn't unusual for a m eeting to convene for only sixty
m inutes. M em bers often squeeze short m eetings into their workday
lunch hours, discussing drunkenness and sobriety over sack lunches
and fast food. M eeting form ats vary, but nearly all begin w ith a
standard pream ble that outlines the m ission of the A.A. organization
(A.A. Grapevine, Inc., 1993, p. 1):
Alcoholics A nonym ous is a fellow ship of
m en and w om en who share their experience,
strength and hope w ith each other that they may
solve their com m on problem and help others to
recover from alcoholism . The only requirem ent for
m em bership is a desire to stop drinking. There are
no dues or fees for A.A. m em bership; we are self-
supporting through our ow n contributions. A.A. is
not allied w ith any sect, denom ination, politics,
organization or institution; does not w ish to engage
in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes
any causes. O ur prim ary purpose is to stay sober
and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.
In some A.A. m eetings, group m em bers share their everyday
experiences w ith one another, often centered on a topic that concerns
sobriety. O ther m eetings are "speaker meetings," w here one or several
individuals "tell their stories" to the rest of the group. Both types of
f
I m eetings share certain commonalities. In general, a person is selected
i from the group to lead a single m eeting as outlined in that group's
i
! form at. In Southern California, the leader usually reads the pream ble,
26
then asks group m em bers to read aloud short portions of the Big Book.
A typical speaker m eeting often includes one or two short talks from
group m em bers, a break, and a 40- or 45-minute talk from a speaker
recruited from w ithin or outside the m eeting. M ost m eetings end w ith
a brief reading and a closing prayer, often the Lord's Prayer. In
addition, m any m eetings also celebrate various lengths of continuous
abstinence from alcohol. These celebrations are called "birthdays" in
California, and "anniversaries" in other parts of the country. In som e
m eetings, m em bers are aw arded "chips," poker-chip-sized key ring
attachm ents of plastic or m etal, for m ilestones of abstinence during the
first year of m em bership.
T hroughout A.A., m em bers spend tim e together, both in and
out of the m eetings. The activities of the Fellowship, thus, becom e an
"occupation," as defined by occupational sciences scholars (e.g., Yerxa,
Clark, Frank, Jackson, Parham , Pierce, et al, 1990; Clark, Parham ,
Carlson, Frank, Jackson, Pierce, et al., 1991). A.A. offers a way in which
the m em bers occupy their tim e and their lives in lieu of drinking.
M em bers of the Friendship G roup, in particular, spend m uch of their
tim e engaged in Group activities. The W ednesday evening meeting
alone consum es more of its m em bers' time than the average A.A.
m eeting. It is a speaker m eeting that both conforms to and departs
from other regular m eetings of Alcoholics A nonym ous in form and
content.
27
T he F riendship G roup: Form ula Success and Form at S in g u larity
The W ednesday evening Friendship G roup m eeting follow s a
standard form at for speaker m eetings. A bout an hour before the
m eeting begins, the secretary selects two ten-m inute speakers from the
G roup m em bership. The m eeting opens w ith two "pream bles." Prior
to the usual A.A. pream ble, the leader reads a self-defining paragraph
that w elcom es attendees to the Friendship G roup, but makes it clear
that the G roup addresses only alcoholism:
The Friendship G roup is an open
m eeting of Alcoholics A nonym ous and all
m em bers of the com m unity are welcom e to attend.
The single m ost im portant aspect of A.A. recovery,
how ever, is the principle of one alcoholic relating
to another alcoholic. Therefore, only alcoholics
actually participate in our m eeting. If your
prim ary problem is other than alcoholism, we think
it w ould also be helpful for you to contact an
anonym ous organization w hich m ore specifically
deals w ith your addiction. In any case, we hope
that w hat you learn here may be helpful to your
recovery a n d /o r understanding.
The usual readings follow, then the tw o ten-m inute speakers
"tell their stories." After a fifteen-m inute coffee break, a 45-minute
m ain speaker is followed by the collection of donations (called "the
Seventh Tradition"), A.A.- or G roup-related announcem ents, then,
finally, birthday celebrations.
A lthough superficially ordinary, the m eeting form at of the
Friendship G roup also is strikingly different from other speaker
28
m eetings. M any differences, of course, are a function of sheer size; a
thousand people and a fifteen-m inute break creates challenges of
logistics and tim ing. Thus, flashing overhead lights, the amplified
sounds of a pounding gavel, and G roup leaders calling out, "Meeting
time!" impose regim entation that is both unseen and unnecessary in
sm aller meetings. Other differences, how ever, are rooted m ore deeply,
and are addressed in later chapters of this dissertation. The rem ainder
of this chapter offers a brief history of Alcoholics A nonym ous and its
founders, providing context for understanding the organizational
values of the G roup
Sailing U ncharted W aters: H ow A.A. Began
A deeply-felt founder's influence (Schein, 1983; 1985) is a
crucial elem ent of the Friendship G roup and a m ajor source of its
organizational structure. The Friendship G roup culture is influenced
by leaders on two levels. First, the influence of the parent organization
founders, Bill W ilson and Dr. Bob Sm ith,1 is pervasive and deeply felt
throughout Alcoholics Anonym ous. Rudy and Greil (1988) point out
that over a fifty-year period, m any organizations evolve aw ay from a
founding ideology, b u t that A.A.'s rem ains congruent w ith those tenets
1 Because they are w idely know n as the founders of
I Alcoholics Anonym ous, Bill W ilson and Dr. Bob Sm ith are referred to
! in this w ork as "Bill W." and "Dr. Bob," as is the custom of A.A.
m em bers.
29
first set forth by the founders. The m em bers of Alcoholics Anonym ous
m anifest a tensile cultural consensus that, despite w ide diversity of
personal norm s, values, and belief systems, is characteristic of the
organization. This is the result, at least in part, of the founders' vision,
as well as the shared experience of alcoholic despair. Second, the
founder of the Friendship G roup is a highly visible leader w hose
influence extends far beyond his ow n G roup. He speaks throughout
the w orld to huge A.A. audiences, and he dem ands that the people he
helps in A.A. follow certain directions. His preferences approach the
realm of dictum in the Friendship G roup. One w om an, for example,
w hen asked for an interview as p art of this study, im m ediately asked if
I had "talked to anybody." Once reassured that Big Al knew and
approved of the project, she agreed to the interview . "God forbid," she
said, "that I'd do anything to piss off Big Al." The rest of this chapter
provides context for understanding the Friendship Group w ithin the
historical heritage of Alcoholics A nonym ous.
A T elephone and a Coffee Pot : The Founding of Alcoholics
A no n y m o u s
Founding vision undoubtedly played little or no p a rt in the
early days of A.A., as Dr. Bob noted during his last major talk in
D etroit, Decem ber 1948:
You see, back in those days we were
groping in the dark. We knew practically nothing
of alcoholism. I, a physician, knew nothing about it
30
to speak of. Oh, I read about it, but there wasn't
anything w orth reading in any of the textbooks.
Usually the inform ation consisted of some queer
treatm ent for D.T.'s, if a patient had gone that far. If
he hadn't, you prescribed a few brom ides and gave
the fellow a good lecture.
By July of 1955, though, groping w as replaced by confidence,
and Bill W ilson clearly had developed some sense of a future for the
organization. He considered A.A. to be "coming of age" (Alcoholics
Anonym ous, 1985a); it now was a viable organization, capable of
perpetuating itself. In recounting the St. Louis A.A. Convention of that
year, he clearly wrote in visionary terms: "A.A. had established
beachheads in seventy foreign lands" (p. 2); "Again our vision was
extended and our spirits were kindled" (p. 6); "...and finally the
trem endous fact that A.A., w hen the w ord really got around, could
now soundly grow to great size" (p. 22). The grow th, of course, began
w ith the m oistening of a tiny seed from a liquor bottle.
Bill W. and Dr. Bob first m et in 1935 (Alcoholics Anonym ous,
1976; Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1985a). By 1989, the organization boasted
m em bers in 134 countries (Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1984b), and groups
now have form ed in the form er Soviet states (Holden, 1989). Bill W.
was a New York stockbroker who had been battling the bottle for years.
■ In N ovem ber 1934, a friend introduced him to the Oxford Group
(Alcoholics A nonym ous, 1984a; Alcoholics A nonym ous, 1985a), which
i
I had a reputation for helping seem ingly hopeless alcoholics and
l
I influenced the foundation of Alcoholics A nonym ous. The following
31
year, after a disastrous business trip to Akron, Ohio and new ly sober,
Bill found himself alone, frightened, and eyeing the bar in his hotel.
Fearful of relapsing into his earlier depths of drunkenness, he used the
telephone in the hotel lobby to find another alcoholic w ith w hom he
could share his new found sobriety. He later said, "I thought, 'You need
another alcoholic to talk to. You need another alcoholic just as m uch as
he needs you!'" (Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1984a, p. 136). As a result of
his phone call, he m et Dr. Bob, a fellow Oxford G rouper w ho was
seem ingly beyond hope of recovery. It still took weeks before Dr. Bob
m anaged to stay sober, b u t stay sober he did, and the m eeting with Bill
W. w as the beginning of the Fellowship they ultim ately w ould call
Alcoholics A nonym ous,
The two m en continued w orking w ith one another and w ith
other alcoholics. They rem ained closely tied to the O xford Group
during the next four years, but they also incorporated other view s of
alcoholism into their efforts, m ost notably the m edical opinions of Dr.
W illiam Duncan Silkworth, who proposed to Bill that alcoholism w as a
m ental obsession coupled w ith a physical allergy (Alcoholics
A nonym ous, 1967; Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1976; Alcoholics
A nonym ous, 1984a; Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1985a). A.A. literature
describes their em phasis on the gravity of the disease (Alcoholics
Anonym ous, 1984a, p. 154):
32
To them , alcoholism w as not just another hum an
failing or sin; it w as a soul-destroying m alady. The
alternative to sobriety was grim: death or insanity.
Thus, Alcoholics A nonym ous em braced at its inception, as it does now ,
a m edical m odel of alcoholism , a structure of social support, and a
philosophy of individual and organizational spirituality. Today,
despite variances betw een individual groups, the organization
generally rem ains m uch as the founders conceived it, focusing on the
im portance of abstinence from alcohol and em phasizing the value of
one alcoholic talking to another.2
W ithin A.A., Bill was "the featured speaker w herever he
went" (Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1984a, p. 267). A prolific w riter, over
the course of 25 years, he drafted the first two editions of the Big Book
(Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1939,1955); the Twelve and Twelve, an
explication of the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of A.A.
(Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1953); Alcoholics A nonym ous Com es of Age,
a detailed diary of the 1955 St. Louis Convention (Alcoholics
A nonym ous, 1985a); Twelve Concepts for W orld Service (Alcoholics
Anonym ous, 1986a), now p art of The A.A. Service M anual; and As Bill
Sees It (Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1967), first published under the title,
2A testam ent to A.A.'s roots in technologically-assisted
com m unication, the telephone continues to play a m ajor role in
Alcoholics A nonym ous, and m em bers are adm onished to call one
another on a regular basis.
33
The A.A. W ay of Life. The w ords from his books, letters, speeches, and
journals, syntheses of an eclectic range of influences, are widely read
and oft-quoted by A.A. members. His and Dr. Bob's bequest to the
organization is one of recovery through discourse and spirituality.
Of Philosophers, Psychologists, and Spiritual Awakenings: Twelve
Steps and Twelve Traditions
The diverse influences of Dr. Silkworth, the Oxford Group,
Emmet Fox, W illiam James, and Carl Jung are evident throughout the
A.A. organization, including the texts of the Big Book and Twelve
Steps and Twelve T raditions. They provide a pow erful com bination of
spiritual advice and identification-evoking stories. Bill W.
acknowledges the influence of those from w hom he drew (Alcoholics
Anonym ous, 1967, p. 67):
A.A. was not invented! Its basics were
brought to us through the experience and w isdom
of m any great friends. We sim ply borrow ed and
adapted their ideas.
Dr. Bob read and was influenced by Emmet Fox's The
Serm on on the M ount, and expressions derived from Fox's w ritings are
abundant in A.A. discourse, e.g., "Let go and let God" (Fox, 1937, p. 68).
Bill W .'s correspondence w ith Carl Jung is well docum ented (e.g.,
Alcoholics A nonym ous, 1984a; Alcoholics A nonym ous, 1985a;
Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1985b, pp. 163-168). It moves the A.A.
34
approach beyond rationalism and into the realm of hum an spirituality
(Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1985b, p. 168).
That Christian orthodoxy is an overarching them e in the texts
of Alcoholics is no accident. Dr. Bob's description of the m ost popular
readings for m orning guidance sessions, before A.A. h ad a name,
indicated that spiritual readings were crucial activities in the founders'
early recovery: "To some of us older ones, the parts that we found
absolutely essential were the Sermon on the M ount, the 13th chapter of
First C orinthians, and the Book of James" (Alcoholics Anonym ous,
1984a, p. 147). Each of these is evident in the texts of Alcoholics
Anonym ous. In addition, Bill W. and Dr. Bob both b rought huge slices
of O xford G roup dogm a into their neonatal organization.
The O xford G roup influence: from Five C oncepts to
Tw elve S teps. Founded by Frank Buchman and later renam ed "Moral
Rearm am ent," the Oxford G roup was "a spiritual m ovem ent that
sought to recapture the pow er of first-century Christianity in the
m odern w orld" (Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1980, pp. 53-54). A lthough its
purpose w as to prom ote C hristianity, the Oxford G roup became
know n as a successful venue for recovery from alcoholism , and both
! Dr. Bob and Bill ventured into its doors before they m et each other
I
(Alcoholics A nonym ous, 1980; Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1984a).
The heart of the Oxford G roup was its "four absolutes,"
I which, in 1948, thirteen years after Alcoholics A nonym ous began, Dr.
I
35
Bob still acknow ledged as useful in his own life (Alcoholics
Anonym ous, 1980, p. 54):
Alm ost always, if I m easure my decision
carefully by the yardsticks of absolute honesty,
absolute unselfishness, absolute purity, and
absolute love, and it checks up pretty well w ith
those four, then my answ er can't be very far out of
the way.
O ther O xford G roup concepts also influenced Alcoholics A nonym ous
(Alcoholics A nonym ous, 1980, p. 54-55):
In addition to the four absolutes, the
Oxford G roupers had the "five C's" and the "five
procedures." The C's w ere confidence, confession,
conviction, conversion, and continuance, while the
procedures were: Give in to God; listen to G od's
direction; check guidance; restitution; and sharing--
for witness and for confession.
The Twelve Steps reflect and perpetuate both the five C's and
the five procedures, as well as the w ritings of W illiam James (James,
1936; Walle, 1992) and the Reverend Sam Shoem aker (Alcoholics
A nonym ous, 1984a). W hen Bill first drafted the Steps, Oxford Group
ideas were conspicuous:
i
1. We adm itted that we were licked, that we
w ere pow erless over alcohol.
2. We m ade a m oral inventory of our defects or
j sins.
! 3. We confessed or shared our shortcomings
w ith another person in confidence.
36
4. We m ade restitution to all those we had
harm ed by our drinking.
5. We tried to help other alcoholics, w ith no
thought of rew ard in m oney or prestige.
6. We prayed to w hatever God we thought
there w as for pow er to practice these
precepts.
This draft w as only prelim inary. Eventually, Bill decided that the "six
chunks of tru th should be broken up into sm aller pieces" (Alcoholics
Anonym ous, 1984a, p. 197), and he redrafted them as today's Twelve
Steps (see A ppendix B). These Steps are "suggested" (Alcoholics
j Anonym ous, 1976, p. 59), rather than m andated, as the popular term,
I
"Twelve-Step Program," w ould im ply, b u t they constitute a
fundam ental ingredient of personal recovery throughout A.A.
S piritual aw akenings: personal epiphanies. A nother
cornerstone of A.A. recovery that is traceable to a founding influence is
the "spiritual awakening." In Novem ber 1934, Bill W ilson had been
unable to stay sober, although he had heard the Oxford Group m essage
through friends. The following m onth, brandishing his w hiskey bottle,
he checked into Towns Hospital in New York. It was there, sober again
and in despair, that he experienced an episode of the sort Denzin
I
! describes as a major epiphany (Denzin, 1989, p. 17):
I Suddenly, my room blazed w ith an
indescribably white light. I was seized w ith an
ecstasy beyond description. Every joy I had know n
w as pale by com parison. The light, the ecstasy— I
w as conscious of nothing else for a time.
37
For the first time, I felt that I really
belonged. I knew that I w as loved and could love
in return. I thanked my God, who had given me a
glim pse of His absolute self. Even though a pilgrim
upon an uncertain highway, I need be concerned no
m ore, for I had glim psed the great beyond
(Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1984a, p. 121).
Bill W. never had another drink, and considered his
experience a spiritual aw akening that rem oved all doubt of God's
existence from him (Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1984a). This notion of a
spiritual awakening as necessary to recovery is integral to the program
of Alcoholics Anonym ous, and is considered by the general
m em bership to be a nondogm atic, universal, hum an experience, rather
than one of a religious nature. N ot all A.A. spiritual awakenings,
how ever, are the apocryphal version that Bill experienced. Appendix
II of the Big Book, draw ing on the work of psychologist W illiam James
(1936), describes experiences of the "educational variety" (Alcoholics
Anonym ous, 1976, p. 569). These are gradual transform ations, which
D enzin w ould classify m inor or illum inative (Denzin, 1989, p. 17).
M ajor or m inor, apocryphal or gradual, the m eaningfulness of these
spiritual experiences is a dom inant them e in A.A. discourse. Their
significance as they relate to transcendence, recovery and the
spirituality of the group is addressed in C hapter III. The following
section of this chapter describes how organizational experiences
1
I
evolved into tw elve guiding precepts.
38
Tw elve T raditions: b rin g in g cohesion and accessibility to
the organization. In addition to the Twelve Steps, the Big Book
outlines twelve "Traditions" (Alcoholics A nonym ous, 1976, p. 564).
First drafted in 1946, the Traditions are suggested as "the best answers"
to the questions, '"How can A.A. best function?' and 'How can A.A. best
stay whole and so survive?’" (Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1976, p. 563). A
sharp focus on organizational order and disorder w as brought about in
1943, w hen Bill review ed a collection of m em bership rules and
requirem ents from A.A. groups throughout the country (Alcoholics
Anonym ous, 1984a, p. 305):
A little reflection on these m any rules
brought us to an astonishing conclusion. If all these
edicts had been in force everywhere at once, it
w ould have been practically im possible for any
alcoholic to have ever joined A.A.. A bout nine-
tenths of our oldest and best m em bers could never
have gotten by!
Clearly, A.A.'s diversity was threatening its existence, as
groups became rule bound in an effort to bring order to chaos. By
1945, Bill and the nascent A.A. headquarters office w ere deluged with
letters for advice and guidance in establishing and operating A.A.
groups. As a result, they set about codifying correspondence from
groups that w ould guide the organization in its internal operations and
in its contextualization w ith the w orld outside it. O riginally called
39
"Twelve Points to A ssure our Future," the Twelve Traditions3 were first
published in the April 1946 issue of the G rapevine (see A ppendix A).
These Traditions, read as law by m any groups, are the prim ary
cohesive canons of the organization, serving to guide diverse and
m ultitudinous group and m em bership philosophical orientations.
The disorganized organization. M ost A.A. m em bers attend
m eetings several times a week, and often consider them selves regular
m em bers of "groups" such as the Friendship G roup,4 w hich m ay hold
one or m any m eetings each week. Alcoholics A nonym ous groups
spring up w henever individuals find reason to create them . According
to the original, "long form"5 of Tradition Three, "any two or three
alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call them selves an A.A.
group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation"
(Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1953, p. 189). Although the organization has a
G eneral Service Conference Charter, it is
3Bill W.'s biography (Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1984a, p. 306)
points out that "Bill knew his fellow alcoholics well; he knew th at no
self-respecting drunk, sober or otherwise, w ould willingly subm it to a
body of "law"— m uch too authoritarian!"
4O ther groups often are known by A.A. catch phrases,
geographic locations, or nam es reflective of the group's central focus,
i e.g., "Back to Basics," "Sex and Sobriety," or the "W ednesday Night
j M ission Viejo M issionary's Meeting."
I 5The long form of the Twelve Traditions appears in the Big
Book as p art of A ppendix I.
40
not incorporated, and its Charter is not a legal
instrum ent. ...The service arm s of the Conference,
such as the General Services Board, A.A. W orld
Services, Inc., and the A.A. Grapevine, Inc., are of
course separately incorporated and legally related
to each other. But these arrangem ents have been
m ade only for the purpose of holding funds,
m aking necessary contracts, and insuring good
routine m anagem ent (Alcoholics A nonym ous,
1985a, p. 295).
Thus, this loosely hinged organization is, in fact, a mosaic of
organizations, some stable, some evanescent, and some shunning
certain of the A.A. principles (e.g., agnostic groups that omit all
reference to God). Bill W. called this unfettered structure a "benign
anarchy," (Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1985a, pp. 224-225), and insisted that
it afforded the organization the ability to learn and grow. W hat he was
describing, and what, in m any ways, A.A. seems to m anifest, is
Bateson's concept of "deutero-learning" (Bateson, 1972; Bateson, 1991),
explicated by A rgyris and Schon (Argyris & Schdn, 1978). Deutero-
learning is, in essence, the capability of the organization to learn how to
learn. O rganizational m em bers "reflect on and inquire into previous
contexts for learning" (Argyris & Schon, 1978, p. 27). The capability of
m em bers to engage one another in groups that form, dissolve, and
reform gives the parent organization a capability to learn w hat works
and w hat doesn't, and to contextualize it. Clearly, A.A. having grown
from two m em bers in A m erica's M idw est to hundreds of thousands
throughout the w orld indicates that organizational learning has taken
41
place during its 54 years of operation, and the Traditions form the
organizational exoskeleton that facilitates learning. The capstone
Tradition, of course is that of anonymity.
A nonym ity: an organizational right, a personal
responsibility. In Alcoholics A nonym ous, anonym ity is more than
p a rt of the nam e; it is the "spiritual foundation" (Alcoholics
Anonym ous, 1976, p. 59) upon w hich the program is built. A good
deal of the A.A. literature addresses the concept of anonym ity, its role
in m em bers' lives, its im portance to the group, and the rationale behind
it (e.g., Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1953; Alcoholics A nonym ous, 1967;
Alcoholics A nonym ous, 1976; Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1984a;
Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1985a; Alcoholics A nonym ous, 1985b;
Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1986b). W hen Bill W. wrote his 1955 essay on
the Twelfth Tradition (Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1985b, pp. 269-281),
A.A. w as facing m ajor stressors resulting from individual breaks in
anonym ity (Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1984a, p. 308). One well-known
radio com m entator broke his anonym ity on the air and in the press (to
an estim ated audience of 12,000,000), prom pting Bill to write to
reporter Jack Alexander (Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1984a, p. 309):
Of course, this looks like wonderful
publicity to folks outside A.A.. But to 99 A.A.'s out
of 100, it is a danger signal. M ost of us deeply
realize that enough repetition of such blasts could
alter the whole character of our Society. We w ould
becom e one m ore exam ple of personal ballyhoo; we
invite every A.A. prom oter— and there are m any — to
42
use the A.A. nam e on his ow n behalf. And, more
seriously, we would enable all those w ho choose to
break anonym ity at the general public level to hire
out in other fields of w ork and draw the A.A.
im plied endorsem ent along w ith them .
U ndergirding the organizational rationale for anonym ity is
its im pact on individual well-being. The long form of the Twelfth
T radition reinforces for m em bers the "spiritual significance" of
anonym ity, and exhorts personal hum ility, rem inding them to "place
principles before personalities" (Alcoholics A nonym ous, 1953, p. 192).
This recapitulates the them atic A.A. assertions that finding a balance
betw een the "bog of guilt" and the "fool's-gold coins of pride"
(Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1967, p. 12) is necessary for successful
abstinence because either extreme is an open door to drunkenness and
despair.
So critical a concept is anonym ity to the A.A. m em ber that
the literature includes a pam phlet devoted to describing its
im portance, and the roles that individuals, groups, and m edia play in
m em bers' behaviors (Alcoholics A nonym ous, 1981). Bill W. struggled
w ith his own anonymity, attracted to the lim elight even as he declined
m agazine covers and honorary degrees (Alcoholics Anonym ous,
1984a). Today, in a posthum ous paradox of broken anonym ity, Dr. Bob
and Bill W. are venerated as the organizational fathers, both in and out
of the organization. Pictures of both founders hang in m eeting rooms,
m em bers tell stories of the founders' experiences, as well as their own,
43
and Jam es W oods portrayed Bill W ilson in a biographical television
movie. In fact, the Big Book begins w ith Bill's story of alcoholism and
recovery, and includes another 43 other personal stories, the first of
w hich is that of Dr. Bob.
This chapter described the basic tenets and history of
Alcoholics A nonym ous, providing background and context for study
of the Friendship G roup, including the philosophical and founding
organizational influences. The next chapter addresses the theoretical
approach of the study and m ethod of inquiry.
44
III. Theoretical Framework and Method of Inquiry
We did not alw ays come closer to wisdom
by reason of our virtues; our better understanding
is often rooted in the pains of our form er follies.
Because this has been the essence of our individual
experience, it is also the essence of our experience
as a fellowship.
Bill W.
Grapevine, Novem ber 1961
The interactive nature of individual and organizational
experience is a characteristic of central im portance in Alcoholics
A nonym ous, and is a major focus of this study, in both theory and
m ethodology. This chapter addresses the study of hum an experience
w ithin the Friendship Group in three ways. First, it describes
organizational culture in a structurationist fram ework. Second, it
defines the key term s of "spirituality" and "self" in the context of
scholarship and organizational studies, the latter focused on the self in
alcoholism. Third, it explicates the m ethods of inquiry and analysis
used for the study.
Organizational Culture: An Approach Human Interaction in
Organizations
From the m om ent one walks in the door W ednesday evening,
it is clear that G roup m em bers m anifest a profound cohesion, in spite
45
of w ide social, ethnic, educational, and religious diversity. Even if one
considers the severity of the purpose behind the congregation, the
intensity of the G roup culture obvious and nearly overw helm ing.
O rganizational culture, a concept borrow ed from cultural
anthropologists, is used w idely in b oth academ ic w ork (e.g., M artin &
Siehl, 1983; Schein, 1983; Schein, 1985; Amsa, 1986; Barney, 1986; Cooke
& Rousseau, 1988; M cDonald, 1988; Saffold III, 1988; Gorman, 1989;
Hofstede, Neuijen, Ohayv, & Sanders, 1990; Rousseau, 1990; Frost,
M oore, Louis, Lundberg, & M artin, 1991; Gordon, 1991; Sackmann,
1991; Shamir, 1991; Barley & Kunda, 1992; Brown, 1992; Golden, 1992;
H arrison & McIntosh, 1992; Laabs & M cDougall, 1992; M oran &
Volkwein, 1992; Pratt & Beaulieu, 1992) and popular literature (e.g.,
Ouchi, 1981; Deal & Kennedy, 1982; Peters & W aterm an, 1982) as a root
m etaphor for how m eaning is constructed in organizations. Although
nearly all of the literature focuses on the corporate sector, m any of our
m ost m eaningful organizational experiences occur outside the dom ain
of work. We join bow ling leagues, churches, self-help groups,
sororities and fraternities, com m unity service groups, and a m ultitude
of other organizations, ranging from antique guilds to yacht clubs, each
of w hich m ust "learn" and adapt to environm ental and internal stresses
to survive. To a great extent, these organizations function like their
corporate counterparts. They are em bedded in and w ith societal
patterns, they struggle w ith the realities of scarce resources, and they
create cultural norm s and values w ithin their constituencies.
46
D espite the popularity and accessibility of the culture
m etaphor, relatively little scholarly literature addresses non-corporate
entities. There are a few exceptions: Sherm an and Smith (1984), and
Sherm an, Smith, and M ansfield (1986) look at the influence of
organizational structure in churches. M cDonald (1988) w rites a vivid
piece on the consensual culture of enthusiasm and patriotism in Los
Angeles O lym pic O rganizing Com m ittee. Bullis & Tom pkins (1989)
report on the extent to which the U nited States Forest Service controls
m em bers through its culture. Kelly and Bredeson (1991) examine how
public and parochial high school principals exercise symbolic
leadership to influence teachers' behaviors and attitudes, and give
m eaning to organizational culture. C onrad (1991) explores conflict
styles in universities. More recently, Trujillo (1992) reports a long-term
ethnographic study of the inhabitants of a major league baseball
stadium , and Laird Brenton (1993) uses a critical textual analysis to
study how church leaders use language as a form of dom inance. It is
obvious, though, that this handful of scholars barely skims the surface
of non-corporate organizations, and that not-for-profit entities offer
com m unication researchers a vast, still largely untapped focus for
research.
This study adds to the culture literature by looking at the
social constructions of a non-corporate, "alternative" organization that
! is adm ittedly idiosyncratic, but not easily dism issed. Besides dealing
!
| w ith a serious social problem , Alcoholics A nonym ous is w ell known
47
and w idely attended. Room and Greenfield (1993) report that of the
U.S. adult population, nine percent adm it to having attended A.A. at
some time. Clearly, the largest and m ost successful group w ithin the
organization m erits serious scholarly inquiry.
M uch of the literature on organizational culture is accessible
to corporate m anagers (e.g., Deal & Kennedy, 1982; Ouchi, 1981; Peters
& W aterm an, 1982), but there is little scholarly consensus on
m ethodological or conceptual approaches. In spite of the disparate
conceptual fram ew orks that characterize culture studies, a prim ary
focus for m any is ritual. Knuf (1992), in an extensive review of the
literature, argues that the term has been used as an "informal trope"
rather than as a "formal concept," and calls for "a m ore parsim onious
and rigorous conceptualization of 'ritual' that is based on an
anthropological theory of communication." Riley (1992) advocates a
more flexible perspective, allowing instead for a range of events that
are interesting because they are events, as well as regulators of social
action. They operate as structure in the organizational process and
become em bedded w ithin it. It is the latter approach that informs this
study.
M artin (1992) attem pts to bring order to the chaotic
organizational culture literature, describing three dom inant
perspectives (earlier described by M eyerson & M artin, 1987; M artin &
Meyerson, 1988; Frost, et al., 1991), each of which acknowledges and
disavow s some aspects of w hat culture is and how it is conceptualized
48
in organizational research. In general, the perspective m ost widely
used is that of integration, w hich is oriented to consensual
understanding in organizations (M artin, 1992). The differentiation
perspective recognizes inconsistencies in the organization that the
integration perspective does not, looking instead at subcultural forces
(Martin, 1992). Finally, the fragmentation perspective focuses on
am biguities, com plexities, inconsistencies, and m ultiplicitous
understandings in organizations (M artin, 1992). A lthough inherently
incom m ensurable on a num ber of conceptual levels (M artin, 1992),
each of the three perspectives focuses on organizational culture at
different levels of the organization.
M artin asserts that it is "both possible and desirable" to use a
m ultiperspective approach that blends the three concepts to cultural
research (pp. 185-187) in order to capture a fuller picture of the
organization at all levels, and to include the m ultiplicity of consensual
and dissensual understandings am ong m em bers. The current study
proposes a way in w hich this can be accom plished by extending the
m etaphor to acknowledge spirituality as a cultural feature, and by
grounding the research w ithin Banks' and Riley's (1993) concept of
structuration (Giddens, 1976) as an ontological approach to
com m unication research.
One of the key organizational issues that structuration
integrates is the m acro/m icro dichotom y (Banks & Riley, 1993).
G iddens is asserts that "m odernity m ust be understood on an
49
institutional level; yet the transm utations introduced by m odern
institutions interlace in a direct way w ith the individual" (Giddens,
1991, p. 1). There is an interconnection, according to G iddens, betw een
"globalizing influences" and "personal dispositions." This
interconnectedness occurs betw een agent and agency, betw een local
and global agency, and betw een external global and local forces and
both agent and agency. Structuration as a research approach
encom passes these interconnections.
S tructuration also addresses the m ultiperspective approach
endorsed by M artin (1992), and enables the researcher to explore
organizational phenom ena from the superficial to the deeply
em bedded and to contextualize it. Thus, structurationist inquiry
w ithin the organization is m uch like peering through a sailor's
spyglass, focused to a volleyball game on the beach (which is an
organization). The lens brings particular individuals and their
behaviors into sharp focus, while blurring others. As the pow er of the
lens is changed, or it is focused deeper into the group, different
individuals and different interactional activities becom e observable.
To begin to understand the sandy w orld of the volleyball game, the
sailor m ust focus the spyglass specifically on groups of players on the
periphery of the group as well as deep into its center, each time losing
some of the organizational elem ents in the focused lens. By putting the
spyglass aside, the sailor can get a better sense of the organization as a
whole, b u t loses detail. To truly grasp the game and its interactions, he
50
m ust look at it both as a whole and through the spyglass. Structuration
perm its the scholar of organizational culture to do just that.
Structuration: An Ontological Approach to Studying Organizational
Spirituality
Structuration theory, bu ilt prim arily through the w ork of
Giddens (1976; 1979; 1981; 1984), fram es hum an interactions as the ways
in w hich social structures are form ed. This study approaches the
Friendship group from a structurationist perspective, follow ing Banks
and Riley's (1993) proposal that com m unication scholars use
structuration as "a set of ontological principles and entailm ents from
w hich they can derive questions, base research explanation, and
ground the developm ent of com m unication theory across the field's
m any subspecialties" (p. 168). These principles and entailm ents m ust
be considered as an integrated whole, although they can be explicated
as five key concepts: agency and reflexivity, duality of structure, time
and space distanciation from praxis, system and social integration, and
institutional reproduction (Banks & Riley, 1993, p. 171).
G iddens proposes that hum an agency is the functioning of
stocks of knowledge; people know how to proceed in social
interactions based on m utually understood norm s and learning
experiences. Self-reflexivity of individuals allow s them to articulate
goals, and m otivations, although not all hum an action is consciously
j m otivated (Giddens, 1984). Structures are the rules and resources
people use in social interaction, and there are three basic types:
51
legitim ation (norm ative action), dom ination (allocation or
authorization of resources), and signification (symbolic action;
language). Duality of structure m eans that "the structural properties of
social system s are both the m edium and outcome of the practices they
recursively organize" (Giddens, 1984, p. 25).
In A.A., then, the universally-understood pattern of a speaker
introducing herself as an alcoholic enacts a social structure. The group
will not respond to Emma Lou until she has uttered w ords that identify
her as an alcoholic. If she fails to do so, the group w ill prom pt her until
the appropriate w ords are spoken to w hich they reply, "Hi, Emma
Lou." The structural features, in this case, includes rules of turn-
taking, norm s, and self-identification, and it is both the product and
constraint of the exchange.
Distanciation of praxis from time and space refers to the ways
in w hich structures exist only as actors' rem em brances across spans of
tim e and distances of geography. Structures have no reality beyond
the social interactions that create them. An A.A. m eeting, for example,
ceases to exist in time and space w hen its m em bers go home, except
w ithin their memories.
Systems in G iddens' structuration are the conventionalized
patterns that produce social structures. The structures that becom e
m ost deeply em bedded w ithin system s are typically the oldest and
m ost durable (Giddens, 1979) and become institutionalized.
52
Social integration refers to the interactive nature of systems;
there m ust be reciprocity over time. As Banks and Riley (1993, p. 176)
note, "social life is not em ergent per se but is reproduced by
know ledgeable, self-reflexive agents." The reproduced practices
become em bedded as institutional features of the system s through
w hich they were created.
The concept of duality of structure presents a critical elem ent
in the study of the Friendship G roup. In the case of Alcoholics
A nonym ous, the agents are m em bers of the organization w ith a goal of
transform ation. Their purpose is to recreate them selves; to transform
them selves and their lives from the despair of alcoholism to the
fulfillm ent of the "promises" offered in the Big Book (Alcoholics
Anonym ous, 1976, pp. 83-84). They are creating new selves as they
engage in the patterns and structures of the organization.
The Recovering Alcoholic: C reating a N ew Self
W hen A.A. was only five years old, Bill W. articulated w hat
resonates for m ost recovering A.A. m em bers as true in their lives; that
they change at a deep and personal level (Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1967,
p .l):
It has often been said of A.A. that we are
interested only in alcoholism. That is not true. We
have to get over drinking in order to stay alive. But
anyone w ho know s the alcoholic personality by
firsthand contact knows that no true alky ever stops
53
drinking perm anently w ithout undergoing a
profound personality change.
Rudy & Greil (1988) describe A.A. as an Identity Transform ation
O rganization (ITO) that encourages "radical shifts of worldview" in its
m em bers, m uch like a cocoon protects its contents from interference
during the process of m etam orphosis (p. 46). This concept of
transform ation is congruent w ith Bateson's assertion that m em bers of
Alcoholics A nonym ous undergo "a change in epistem ology, a change
in how to know about the personality-in-the-world" (Bateson, 1972, p.
313). Certainly, sober A.A. mem bers m anifest new behaviors, express
fresh or reclaim ed values, develop personal relationships, and
reconstruct a sense of "self." The ultim ate result is that the recovering
alcoholic "undergoes a radical transform ation of self" (Denzin, 1987a, p.
168).
Denzin (1987a, p. 130) calls alcoholism a "dis-ease w ith the
w orld that is tem poral, relational, and emotional." He posits that the
alcoholic "acquires a new language of self... a new set of m eanings
concerning alcohol, alcoholism, alcoholics, and the drinking act. By
becom ing a p a rt of the lived history of A.A. the individual is
transform ed into a 'recovering alcoholic' w ithin a society of fellow
alcoholics" (p. 168).
Even as the recovering alcoholic becom es p art of the A.A.
culture, he or she is disunited from "the larger society that continues to
sanction the cultural and interactional use of alcohol on a regular basis"
(Denzin, 1987a, p. 168). Thus, in striving for sobriety and maintaining
abstinence from alcohol, the alcoholic adopts a way of life that is not
congruent w ith the life he or she once saw as "normal," and which a
larger society condones. By com m itting to recovery, the alcoholic
eschews w hat is seen as norm al outside A.A.. He or she identifies as a
recovering alcoholic, em bracing the identity proscribed and
symbolically reinforced w ithin the organization. D raw ing on the
w orks of W illiam James, Burke (1954), Strauss (1959), Burger and
Luckmann (1967), Thune, (1977), Travisano (1981, pp. 242-244), and
Wallace (1982), Denzin identifies this process as a "radical
transform ation of personal identity that signals a conversion and
com m itm ent to a new way of life" (Denzin, 1987a, p. 168). Rasmussen
and Capaldi (1990) assert that this process is brought about through a
dialectical tension betw een the "pre- and post-recovery personae" (p.
255) in A.A. that facilitates acceptance of self. H yde (1991) would
identify the process as facilitated by "ontological rhetoric," a strategic
com m unication that brings about an "ontological shift in the audience's
way of Being" (p. 596). It deconstructs the identity of the drunken
alcoholic to create a clearing, transform ing "the way hum an beings
conceive themselves" (p. 597).
The question, then, becom es one of how individuals
undergoing such radical ontological shifts reflexively create the
| organizational culture of Alcoholics A nonym ous as it recreates them.
The duality of structure propounded by G iddens' structuration
55
indicates that the social interactions of these transm utational selves
create a collective culture that, in turn, constrains and recreates the
actor, facilitating transcendence and recovery. But the social
interactions of A.A. m em bers occur w ithin the context of a historically
constituted organization that has a strong and overt spiritual
dim ension. Thus, it is im portant to explore the spiritual aspects of
recovery. The following section provides an overview of current
scholarly thinking on the concept of spirituality.
Spirituality and Scholarship. Transcendence and Healing
A lthough little studied in relationship to com m unication, the
concept of spirituality, particularly as it is related to healing and
health, is central to this study, and is engaging scholarly interest across
disciplines. Coughlin (1992) observes that such interest is "a research
trend that began slowly in the late 1970's but has lately been gathering
steam" (p. A6). Schneider (1993) notes a recent "explosion of interest in
the transcendental dimension," and recom m ends "existential
spirituality or wonderm ent" as an alternative perspective for
psychological theorists that m ight bridge the extrem es of strict
| rationalism and transpersonalism . Rushing (1993) calls for scholars to
i
look for "Spirit" in the products of our culture, proposing that it
transcends "Power" or its antithesis, "Other." By "Power," Rushing
refers to the m odernist "Thinking Man"; "Other" is its opposite.
! Clearly, spirituality is gaining recognition as a significant
i
aspect of hum an experience that is w orthy of study by psychiatrists and
56
psychologists (e.g., Vaughan, 1991; Prasinos, 1992; W itm er & Sweeney,
1992; M adhere, 1993; Schneider, 1993; Watts, 1993; Valentine & Feinauer,
1993; W aldram , 1993; M organ & Cohen, 1994), the m edical community
(e.g., McKee & C happel, 1992; Diaz, Caplan, & M auer, 1993; Resnick,
H arris & Blum, 1993; Reed, 1993; Schmidt, 1993), crim inologists (e.g.,
Palerm o, Sim pson, K nudten, Turci, & Davis, 1993), social w orkers (e.g.,
Sheridan, Bullis, Adcock, Berlin, & Miller, 1992), educators (e.g.,
W eaver & Cotrell, 1992), and political and social scientists (e.g.,
Albanese, 1993; McGuire, 1993; Roof, 1993). Goodall (1993) believes the
trend is an intellectual response to the problem s of everyday living,
and that it addresses the difficulties raised by the deconstructedness of
postm odernism (pp. 41-42). He places spirituality squarely in the
center of com m unication studies, asking the question, "What w ould a
theory of com m unication include if we took seriously the idea that
hum ans are, first and forem ost, spiritual beings?" (p. 41). His question
articulates a key underlying assum ption of this study: th at people are
spiritual beings, and that organizations m anifest the spirituality of the
hum anity that creates them , and works through them , and plays within
them.
Traditionally considered "non-scientific," the realm of the
spirit is linked in scholarly works w ith a variety of definitions. Some
(e.g., Ellis & Schoenfeld, 1990; Zim m erm an & M aton, 1992; Sheridan,
Bullis, Adcock, Berlin, & Miller, 1992; Albanese, 1993) draw few
distinctions betw een spirituality and religion. O thers approach
57
spirituality from som ewhat more m ystical and nonconsensual
perspectives. Frohock (1993), w rites that although science disregards
the spiritual aspects of hum anity, scientific achievem ent is attainable
only through hum an im agination (a spiritual abstraction). M adhere
(1993) links spirituality w ith value system s. Roof (1993) addresses a
"new" spirituality for the ’ 90s that em phasizes personal choice,
exploration of faith, and holistic w ays of thinking. In a similar vein,
Albanese (1993) and C sikszentm ihalyi (1993) claim the new spirituality
is one that reintegrates hum anity w ith nature. W eaver and Cotrell
(1992, p. 426) define the term as a reference to "m atters of ultimate
concern that call for releasing the passions of the soul to search for
goals w ith personal meaning." Looking directly at linkages betw een
things spiritual and recovery from alcohol dependence, C arroll (1993)
operationalizes spirituality as the extent to w hich an individual
practices the Eleventh and Twelfth Steps of the A.A. program and the
expressed degree of purpose in life.
Regardless of the precise definition, spirituality is a salient
dim ension of social, psychological, and physiological health. Prasinos
(1992) argues that spirituality is fundam ental to psychotherapeutic
healing processes. Resnick, Harris, & Blum (1993) identify a sense of
spirituality as a "protective factor" against the "social m orbidities" of
adolescence. Schm idt (1993), reports a longitudinal study that
indicates spirituality is one of four major health determ inants
(nutrition, physical activity, and extended fam ily are the others).
58
W itm er and Sweeney (1992) identify five "life tasks" that m anifest the
characteristics they identify as useful for optim izing health:
spirituality, self-regulation, w ork, friendship, and love.
A clear trend that links spirituality w ith m edical healing also
em erges in the literature. Diaz, Caplan, and M auer (1993) urge
physicians to balance m edical decisions w ith non-m edical alternatives.
They specifically chronicle an agonizing case of renal failure in a four-
year-old child and the role spiritual values play in the child's life and
developm ent. On a more abstract level, Reed (1992) proposes a
paradigm for nursing that assum es hum an beings to have a "self
transcendent nature" and incorporates spirituality into the concepts of
health and well-being. McKee and Chappel (1992) review medical
literature on the link betw een spirituality and m edicine, draw ing a
distinction betw een spirituality and religion. They urge the
incorporation of spiritual issues into m edical education. Zim m erm an
& M aton (1992) identify spirituality as a significant factor in
intervention and prevention of high-risk behaviors (specifically
substance use) am ong African-Am erican adolescents. C arroll (1993)
reports significant correlations betw een A.A.'s Eleventh Step
(im proving one's conscious contact w ith God) and length of sobriety.
As noted in C hapter II, the A.A. program is founded on
spiritually-based tenets, claiming "spiritual progress rather than
i spiritual perfection" (Alcoholics A nonym ous, 1976, p. 60), and draw ing
attention from both scholars and popular press (e.g., Prezioso, 1986;
59
Stein, 1988; Galanter, 1990; Heise, 1991; Uva, 1991; Hanna, 1992; Carroll,
1993 ). Heise and Steitz (1991) consider the broad A.A. concept of
spirituality superior to fundam entalist C hristian perfectionism , which,
they claim , can be counterproductive for the im perfect individual.
Their w ork, though, like that of m any authors (e.g., Stafford, 1991;
Gelman, 1991; Brizer, 1993), seems to m uddle the distinction betw een
spirituality and the more synthetic construct of religion.1 Bill W.,
while acknow ledging a m onotheistic foundation, draw s a clear
differentiation in a 1954 letter:
Beyond a H igher Power, as each of us
may vision Him, A.A. m ust never, as a society, enter
the field of dogm a or theology. We can never
become a religion in that sense, lest we kill our
usefulness by getting bogged dow n in theological
contention.
D espite the occasional fuzziness surrounding spirituality versus
theology in Alcoholics Anonym ous, the literature show s a clear
consistency in recognizing a sense of connectedness w ith things
spiritual throughout the organization. Furtherm ore, there seem s to be
j a link betw een m em bers' spirituality and personal recovery.
!In an apparent reaction to the "religious" overtones of A.A.,
cognitively-based groups such as Rational Recovery have form ed and
are attracting some scholarly attention (e.g., Ellis, 1992; Galanter,
i Egelko, & Edw ards, 1993).
60
Spirituality in an organization, thus, is m ore than w hat is
heard in the discourse or w hat is read in the literature; more than the
religiosity or piety of individuals; m ore than the norm s and values
associated w ith the term , organizational culture. Rather, it is a
rediscovery of the spiritual nature of hum an collectivity. In the social
interactions w ithin A.A., then, a collective of spiritual beings also m ust
create collective spirituality. It is an extension of the culture m etaphor
that m ight be called organizational spirituality. In Alcoholics
A nonym ous (and other organizations), it is som ething one senses
throughout the organization upon entering a m eeting room or in
interactions w ith the people. Considering such a spirituality in the
Friendship G roup and the w ays in w hich the founding influences and
com m unicative practices create and perpetuate it m ay enable the
exploration of the lived but unarticulated aesthetic, em otional, ethical,
and intuitive aspects of the "webs of significance" (Geertz, 1973, p. 5)
w oven by and betw een actors w ithin the organization. This spirituality
affects the organizational climate, influences organizational norm s, and
is a significant part of the recovery process for m any A.A. m em bers. To
explore the ways in w hich this occurs in the Friendship group, the
m ethod of choice is an ethnographic study, described in the next
! section of this chapter.
M ethod of In q u iry
1
Lived experience shared among m em bers is a an essential
elem ent of A.A., and advancing knowledge through the languaging of
61
lived experience is the foundation of qualitative research. In his w ork
w ithin the realm of recovery, Denzin (1987a; 1987b; 1988; 1989)
advocates an interpretive approach for exam ining the relationships
betw een personal adversities, such as alcoholism , and the public
policies or institutions designed to deal w ith them (Denzin, 1989). This
m ethodology, w hich he calls "interpretive interactionism , ...attempt[s]
to join the traditional symbolic interactionist approach w ith the
interpretive, phenom enological w orks of H eidegger and the tradition
associated w ith herm eneutics" (p. 14). Denzin's m ethod involves both
a "collection of thick descriptions and personal experience stories of
problem atic hum an interactions," which are "then interpreted" by the
researcher (p. 12), a process congruent w ith the traditional
anthropological approaches to organizational culture (e.g., W hyte,
1943; Geertz, 1973). Thus, because this organizational culture study is
of an organization centered on alcohol abuse, the m ethod blends
Denzin's interpretive approach to the analysis w ith an ethnographic
approach to the collection of data.
The study tells tales (Van M aanen, 1988) of the Group and its
m em bers, w ho recount their ow n tales of "pitiful and incom prehensible
dem oralization" (Alcoholics A nonym ous, 1976, p. 30) induced by
alcoholism, and their experiences of recovery. M em bers of alcoholics
anonym ous "tell their stories," sharing them as a w ay of knowing and
I understanding (Fisher, 1987). Rasm ussen and Capaldi (1990), analyze
the A.A. stories as narratives that offer dialectical "good reasons"
62
(Fisher, 1987) for a life of sobriety by sharing their experiences of
alcoholism and recovery. Their stories also expand on the m em bers'
stocks of know ledge, enabling them to contextualize their experiences
in a historical and structural fram ew ork of larger understanding
(Denzin, 1989).
A.A. m em bers tell tales of their personal "epiphanies"
(Denzin, 1989, p. 15), which form a focus of D enzin's w ork. He
describes four forms of epiphanies: the major, the m inor, the
cum ulation, and the illum inative, all of w hich are "interactional
m om ents that leave m arks on people's lives" (p. 15). Epiphanies are
confrontational experiences of crisis that are contextualized in history
or structure (p. 18), and Denzin draw s on Sartre's concept of the
"universal singular" (Sartre, 1981, p. ix) to explicate the relationship
betw een epiphanal singularity and generalizability in interpretive
research (p. 19):
No individual is ever just an individual. He or she
m ust be studied as a single instance of m ore
universal social experiences and social processes.
...Every person is like every other person, but like
no other person. Interpretive studies, w ith their
focus on the epiphany, attem pt to uncover this
complex interrelationship betw een the universal
and the singular, betw een private trouble and
public issues in a person's life.
This study focuses, in part, then, on 60 personal narratives as
told in the W ednesday night m eetings; they are w hat D enzin calls "self
63
stories" (Denzin, 1989, p. 38). It also includes the interactional text
(Goffman, 1983) in which the social situations take place (Denzin, 1989,
p. 19); in other w ords, the m eetings and adjunct activities of the G roup,
including rituals and practices of individuals and groups w ithin the
organization as they occur over time. As a result, it utilizes a variety of
data-collection techniques and data from diverse sources (described in
the next sections), both w ithin the Friendship G roup and in other A.A.
groups.
M uch of the data em anates from the voices of Friendship
G roup m em bers in their W ednesday night m eeting. The talks of all 76
people w ho served as ten-m inute speakers and a full-hour tape of Big
A1 addressing the G roup were transcribed. Since interview s were
prim arily confirm ing and disconfirm ing of em erging concepts,
transcriptions of them were not necessary, but interview notes of four
two-to-four-hour interviews, the interview of Big Al, and nine 15-to-20-
m inute interviews were analyzed. In addition, field notes of the seven-
m onths of observation and of personal interactions w ith Group
m em bers, 31 non-transcribed tapes of the W ednesday night 45-minute
speakers (representing personal narratives of both G roup m em bers and
non-G roup A.A. mem bers), a video tape of the G roup's annual
Christm as show, 31 weekly "Poop Sheet" new sletters, printed crew lists,
and G roup flyers w ere used to complete the analysis, perm itting a
triangulation of m ethods and sources to fill in detail and assess
research validity.
64
V alidity. Since the stu d y involves both individual and
group interactions, the data collection facilitates a "within-m ethod"
triangulation (Jick, 1983), w hich involves collecting and interpreting
the data w ith m ultiple m ethods. In the case of this study, data were
collected through participation/observation in the m eetings and
activities; naturalistic interview s of Friendship G roup m em bers,
form er m em bers, and other A.A. members; docum ent analysis of
G roup flyers and new sletters; and text analysis of Friendship G roup
speakers. Such triangulation provides an assessm ent of a the study's
validity as called for by H am m ersley and A tkinson (Ham m ersley &
Atkinson, 1983; Hammersley, 1990), because it provides a cross-check
for internal reliability and consistency (Hamm ersley & Atkinson, 1983).
D uring the course of this study, observations, docum ent
analysis, and interviews were p a rt of an iterative process, in which data
from one source w ere used to confirm or contradict theoretical or
categorical intuitions and propositions em erging from another data
source. This m ethod is congruent w ith both Jick's notion of within-
m ethod triangulation and Eisner’s "structural corroboration" (Eisner,
1991, pp. 110-113). The latter em phasizes using "multiple types of data"
and "consider[ing] disconfirm ing evidence and contradictory
interpretations or appraisals" (p. I l l ) as well as confirm atory evidence.
Interview s and docum ents, in particular, were useful in this regard.
W hen em erging theories or ideas were disconfirm ed, they were
discarded in favor of new concepts that were congruent w ith the data
65
and confirm ed through interviews. In addition, com puter software
(described below in the section on data analysis) provided a coherent
m ethod for coding, categorizing, and theorizing during the discourse
analysis of Friendship G roup ten-m inute speakers. The first m ethod of
the data collection, how ever, was prim arily that of
p articip an t/o b serv er in the Friendship G roup W ednesday night
m eeting.
Field observation. O bservation helps the researcher discover
underlying assum ptions and values of w hich the group participants
m ay be unaw are (Ham m ersley & Atkinson, 1983). Participant
observation provides richness of data (e.g., Whyte, 1943; Geertz, 1973).
This study began as a casual visit to the W ednesday night m eeting of
the Friendship group, born of curiosity. The experience w as like a
particularly intense m ovie or a vivid dream , lingering in the
consciousness for days, replaying images, prom pting conversation, and
raising questions. The end result was a year-long observation of the
A.A. organization, including a seven-m onth stay w ith the Friendship
G roup that entailed attending the W ednesday night m eeting each
week, and visiting A.A. meetings and m em ber activities of both the
Friendship G roup and other groups.
Field notes were w ritten off-site, to avoid self-consciousness
and possibly biased data from G roup m em bers (Ham m ersley &
Atkinson, 1983). Although audio taping was not feasible, m uch of the
W ednesday night m eeting was professionally taped, including both
66
ten-m inute speakers, the m ain speaker, the pream bles, some of the
secretary's announcem ents, and the one-m inute talks of mem bers
celebrating birthdays. These tapes were available for purchase each
week. In addition to m eeting attendance, the research included
naturalistic interviews with Friendship G roup m em bers; som e were
interview ed system atically at length.
In terv iew s. During and after initial G roup observations,
fourteen structured and sem i-structured interview s of Big A1 and
Friendship G roup m em bers and form er m em bers, lasting from ten
m inutes to four hours, provided detail and answ ered questions that
arose from observation to confirm or disconfirm em erging ideas
(Hammersley & Atkinson, 1983). G uiding questions developed for the
in-depth interview s include interview ees’ personal stories of recovery,
questions about spirituality, and their know ledge and im pressions of
the Friendship G roup and of Big Al, and additional questions clarified
questions em erging from other data as necessary. (A full listing of the
guiding questions appears as A ppendix C). To maximize richness of
data and to allow interviewees to express their personal experiences of
A.A. and the Friendship Group, the questions were open and w ritten as
broadly as possible. W ith the perm ission of the interviewees, notes and
audio tapes provided records of the interview sessions.
U nobtrusive m ethods of data collection. Since the ten-
m inute speakers are selected by the Group secretary shortly before
each m eeting, they are regular G roup m em bers. Therefore, during the
67
31 weeks of attendance, 60 ten-m inute speakers were recorded. One
special night, how ever, "Secretaries' Night," has an atypical form at. On
Secretaries' Night, the newly-elected secretary form ally takes office,
and rather than two ten-m inute speakers, each of the past secretaries
speaks for a m om ent or two. The main, 45-minute speaker is the
outgoing secretary. Thus, more m em bers of the G roup speak from the
podium on Secretaries' N ight than on other nights of the year. All are
past secretaries, and all 16 of the form er secretaries w ho spoke during
data collection w ere included in the transcriptions.
The speaker tapes provide docum entation of A.A. m em bers'
personal stories, and those of the Friendship G roup W ednesday night
ten-m inute speakers are the stories of Friendship Group m em bers. In
addition, historical tapes are available for purchase, both at "twelve-
step stores" and at m any A.A. m eetings, including the Friendship
G roup. Special tapes of Big A l’ s talks also provide historical context
and explanations of the Friendship Group and its practices. Beyond
the m eeting tapes, a few extant tapes of late talks by Bill W. and Doctor
Bob, along w ith printed m aterials, such as A.A. books, pam phlets,
flyers, and new sletters, provide inform ation on the Alcoholics
A nonym ous organization. The Friendship G roup, too, produces a
68
weekly new sletter called the "Poop Sheet,"2 w hich is posted
prom inently in several places throughout the m eeting area. A m em ber
of the G roup assisted w ith the data collection by providing "Poop
Sheets" each week from the kitchen. Flyers, announcem ents, and other
m aterials were collected as they presented them selves. These, along
w ith the "Poop Sheet," provided background inform ation, filled in
detail, and confirm ed hunches during the research. The prim ary
m ethod of data collection, however, w as observations of the m eetings
and interactions w ith the m em bers on W ednesday nights.
G aining access. Many A.A. m eetings, including the
W ednesday night Friendship G roup, are "open," w hich m eans anyone
can attend, w hether they identify w ith an alcoholic problem or not.
O thers are "closed," and only adm itted alcoholics are welcome in these.
Since the Friendship Group has a num ber of open m eetings, entry into
the organization is sim ply a m atter of walking through the door. The
ethics of study w ithin an organization that deals w ith such a sensitive
issue as alcoholism, how ever, is m ore complex.
Ethical considerations: privacy and inform ed c o n sen t. As
a m atter of ethics and courtesy, before this research w as undertaken,
Big A1 w as approached w ith a rough outline of the study and a request
2The "Poop Sheet" nam e is a pun, referring to the regular
activity of cleaning up Big Al's "Yard" for volley ball gam es and other
regular Group activities that are described in the next chapter.
69
for perm ission to conduct it. As indicated earlier in this dissertation,
although Big A1 holds no form al office, he is the undisputed leader of
the Friendship G roup, and his blessings are critical to anything that
m ight affect it. His response was unequivocally positive, and the w ork
began.
Scholars have debated in depth the ethics of ethnographic
research (e.g., Lofland & Lofland, 1984; Ham m ersley, 1990; Eisner, 1991;
Ely, Anzul, Friedm an, G arner, & Steinm etz, 1991; Glesne & Peshkin,
1992), and every effort was taken to conduct the study in as ethical and
socially responsible a m anner as possible. However, inform ing and
gaining consent from all 1,200 Friendship G roup m em bers w as neither
feasible nor desirable, since such action w ould be likely to alter the
nature of the phenom ena under study. No further perm ission beyond
Big Al's w as sought, because discussions through the Friendship
G roup operations com m ittees w ould run a risk of biasing the study.
Furtherm ore, since the W ednesday night m eeting w as an open meeting,
all occurrences at the podium were in a public arena, and the m eeting
tapes and new sletters becam e p art of the public dom ain. The ultimate
decision w as to take as low a profile as possible, but to avoid any
deception. If the research project cropped up in the natural course of
conversation, it was addressed; otherwise, it w as not m entioned in
interactions w ith m ost Friendship G roup m em bers. The exception to
this approach was the in-depth interview.
70
A list of interview questions included a set of orientation
statem ents that explained of the nature of the study and assured the
interview ee that personal privacy w ould be preserved in the reporting.
The orientation statem ent also inform ed interviewees that Big A1 had
granted perm ission for the study, and that results of the research w ould
be m ade available, should the interviewee request them. The
interview s w ere tape recorded only w ith perm ission of the
interview ees, who unanim ously agreed to the taping.
To preserve personal privacy, the nam es of all individuals
and groups in this study are pseudonym s, including the name of the
♦
Friendship G roup and the taped speakers. A lthough the speaker tapes
technically are in the public dom ain, the speakers generally target their
w ords to other sober alcoholics, rather than for public consum ption, so
sensitivity in reporting them is w arranted. Thus, specifics of tim e and
place that m ight identify individuals are deleted or disguised.
M ethod of analysis.
A legal secretary w ith professional transcription experience
transcribed the tapes to com puter text files. The printout totaled 159
I
t
J 60-line, typed pages. Accuracy of the transcriptions w as verified by
spot-checking the tapes against the transcriptions. Inaudible or
unintelligible w ords were so m arked, although there were few
problem s of this nature, since the tapes were of good quality. The
transcriber also was a m em ber of Alcoholics Anonym ous, so A.A.
jargon did not threaten transcription accuracy. The resulting
71
docum ents were analyzed and interpreted utilizing NUD*IST (Non-
num erical U nstructured Data Indexing Searching and Theorizing)
software, w hich supports grounded theory approaches (Glaser &
Strauss, 1967; Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Strauss & Corbin, 1990). The
selection of m ethod for the interpretation process m erits explanation, as
does the use of com puter software.
Rather than the relatively mechanical techniques of open and
axial coding (e.g., Strauss & Corbin, 1990) Denzin's (1989) more holistic
approach to the interpretive process provides understanding through
description and m aking sense out of "expressions of experience" (p.
108). D enzin’s process includes "bracketing" (Denzin, 1989, p. 55),
w herein the researcher inspects the data on its ow n term s, rather than
by that of extant literature. The researcher acts as an "informed reader"
(p. 56), bringing personal understanding and draw ing on a w ide
variety of concepts and term s to define the phenom ena under study.
The researcher then "constructs" (p. 58) or reassem bles the data in
thickly descriptive term s and "contextualizes" (p. 59) the construction
to locate the phenom ena in a larger social context. The ultim ate goal is
to bring the em otionality of lived experience to the reader, albeit
vicariously and to "show how lived experience alters and shapes the
phenom enon being studied" (p. 61). Interpretation, however, need not
be accom plished by craw ling around on the living room floor with
i large scissors and small bits of paper.
I
72
Only recently available for personal com puters, Lyn and
Tom R ichards of La Trobe U niversity, Australia, specifically designed
the NUD»IST software to help the researcher m anage data and explore
em erging theories and concepts. Researcher-defined units of analysis
can be searched by character strings or patterns and clustered at
"nodes," w hich create an inverted index "tree." As research progresses,
the researcher can attach memos and notes to nodes, and tree branches
can be m oved as the analysis defines and redefines ideas. The interface
perm its a graphical depiction of the tree as it is bu ilt and redesigned
during the interpretive process. The researcher can analyze docum ents
that are online or offline, and can add inform ation as the iterative
nature of interpretation dem ands. M ost of the docum ents used for
interpreting the data of the Friendship Group were online, in the form
of the transcribed data from the tapes. Figure 1 presents an exam ple of
three analysis units clustered at N ode N um ber 4.2.2 as they appear in a
report generated early in the analysis. (See Appendix D for a full
transcript showing units of analysis and the node num bers at which
they cluster.)
73
Figure 1. Example Node Cluster
(4 2 2) /Practices/Discourse/HonorPrivilege
*** Definition:
Search for '[honor|privilege]', no restrictions.
+++ ON-LINE DOCUMENT: Daryl
+++ Retrieval for this document: 1 unit out of 28, = 3.6%
++ Text units 3-3:
And, it's an honor and a privilege to share in Alcoholics
Anonymous, especially in my home group, except tonight. [Group
chuckles] 3
(4 2 2) /Practices/Discourse/HonorPrivilege
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
+++ ON-LINE DOCUMENT: Nancy
+++ Retrieval for this document: 1 unit out of 31, = 3.2%
++ Text units 3-3:
I wanna thank Fred for asking me to— to do this, it really is an
honor to speak in my home group. 3
(4 2 1) /Practices/Discourse/ThankSec
(4 2 2) /Practices/Discourse/HonorPrivilege
+++ ON-LINE DOCUMENT: Pam
+++ Retrieval for this document: 1 unit out of 27, = 3.7%
++ Text units 3-3:
First of all, I wanna thank Fred for the honor and privilege of
doing this. 3
(4 2 1) /Practices/Discourse/ThankSec
(4 2 2) /Practices/Discourse/HonorPrivilege
Since A.A. speakers don't typically talk in well-defined
paragraphs (or even sentences, in some cases), units of analysis were
defined rather fluidly as "context units" (Krippendorf, 1980, pp. 59-60),
in term s of the primary thrust of contextual and conceptual information
they contained. Typically, this w as the equivalent of a short paragraph,
but som etim es was less and often was more. The criterion was simply
that they make sense around a single theme or topic, sim ilar to the
74
m ethod described by K rippendorf (1980) for defining them atic units of
analysis. Rather than establishing predeterm ined them atic categories,
how ever, them es and categories em erged from a com bination of visual
inspection of the printed data and com puterized searches and indexing
of w ords (the sm allest linguistic units) and their contextualization
(Denzin, 1989). Thus, the initially-defined units of analysis required
only internal cohesiveness, rather than clustering around a
predeterm ined category, in order to 1) enable reasonable com puter
retrieval of analysis units that w ould make sense, 2) allow the creation
of a conceptual scheme that was appropriate to the data and the
interpretive interactionism approach, and 3) perm it flexibility of
ordering and reordering concepts as they were confirm ed or
disconfirm ed through triangulation of m ethods.
Ely, et al. (1991) compare the process to a "sim ultaneous left-
brain right-brain exercise" as one tries to "distill categories" and, at the
sam e tim e, "keep hold of the large picture so that the categories are true
to it" (p. 87). In Figure 1, for example, the units of analysis were
bracketed as they each m ade contextual and conceptual sense, not
specifically because they represented acknow ledgm ents of the
i secretary or self-awareness of speaking. Later analysis clustered them
at nodes that identified thanks to the secretary a n d /o r a phrase that
included the w ords, "honor" and "privilege" (which, as C hapter IV
show s, is com m only used am ong Friendship G roup mem bers). Thus,
75
although NUD*IST provides a statistical interface, it was neither
necessary nor appropriate for analyzing these data.
The context units of analysis were bracketed as sim ilarities
em erged through visual and com puterized inspection of the data. The
ongoing and iterative process of gathering data, bracketing it, and
confirm ing em erging theories and explanations resulted in refinement
of the research questions and theoretical constructs. The overarching
paradigm atic approach, though, rem ained that of structuration, and
the w ays in which the duality of structure are m anifested in the
reciprocal creation and recreation of organizational spirituality and the
recovering self.
While the first chapter outlined a rationale for the study, and
the second chapter described A.A. and the Friendship G roup, this
chapter defined key term s, the theoretical underpinnings of the study,
and the m ethods of analysis. The next chapter will give the reader an
opportunity to visit, if only vicariously through the analysis, the
Friendship G roup, and to "hear" the voices of its m em bers.
76
IV. Through the Neck of the Bottle: Visiting the
Friendship Group
And over the years, w e've had some kind
of little custom s here that I know som e— creates
questions and bothers some people and bothers
people w hen they're new. And there's two or three
little things that I w ant to talk about. This is kind—
this is kind of a filling in so you understand w hat
kind of a fellow ship the Friendship G roup is.
Big A1
1983
A lthough the Friendship G roup is p art of A.A., it is, as Big A1
points out, a special kind of Fellowship. It behaves and looks and feels
different than other A.A. m eetings. Not only is it bigger, denser,
louder, and busier, than other groups, the physical space in which the
W ednesday evening m eeting takes place surely strikes awe in the
newcom er. The bare-floored, back half of the cavernous room , where
coffee is served, opens to a carpeted auditorium that culm inates at a
raised altar, where the m eeting leader, speakers, and readers stand. The
altar is flanked by rows of cushioned arm chairs and draped w ith a
large banner, w hich proclaim s that this is the "Friendship Group" of
Alcoholics Anonym ous. The sights and sounds are the tip of a cultural
iceberg.
77
This chapter explores the iceberg by answ ering the research
questions of the study, which, form ulated from a structurationist
perspective, focus on the organization as interaction betw een agent and
agency (Banks & Riley, 1993). These questions are: 1) In w hat ways
does the Friendship G roup culture m anifest the founder's influence?
2) W hat is the nature of the Friendship Group culture as constituted by
com m unicative practices? 3) By w hat com m unicative practices does
the Friendship G roup create and m anifest individual and
organizational spirituality? This chapter introduces the G roup
m em bers as organizational players through their ow n w ords, offering
exem plars of the ways in which Friendship G roup m em bers talk about
them selves, A.A., the G roup, and their sobriety. N arrative analyses are
interspersed w ith descriptive passages that, confirm ed through the
interview process, place the mem bers' personal stories w ithin and of
the Friendship G roup. This contextualizes their tales as reflective of
organizational phenom ena.
The chapter first describes the founder's influence as the
initial and still dom inant hum an agency w ithin the G roup
organization. It then answers the research questions, placing
! com m unicative practices at the center of the research, and explicating
i
! them in term s of the structures of signification, legitimation, and
i
! dom ination, w hich create the culture of the Friendship Group. The
answ ers to the three research questions will lay the groundw ork for a
78
conceptualization of organizational culture that accounts for
transcendent action in organizations.
Finally, the chapter offers the proposal th at the Friendship
G roup is a disem bedding m echanism (Giddens, 1991). As such, it
disembeds some of the global features of A.A., then, transform ing them
largely through the influence of the G roup founder, reform ulates them
in the local culture, which is created by and is a creator of the
constituent hum an agents.
Much of the report that follows em anates from personal
stories. Story telling is the com m unicative core of A.A., as w ell as a
w idely-studied expression of culture (Martin, 1992) and a way of
reporting ethnography (Van M aanan, 1988). In A.A., the personal
narratives are reiterations of the organizational story, because each
serves to create and recreate the other. The next section introduces the
G roup founder, and gives voice to the w ays in w hich the G roup
constituency views organizational players and their positions. As the
m em bers share their stories, they also tell tales of the organizational
culture, including how the hum an agents are positioned w ithin it.
R esearch Q uestion O ne: The Founder's Influence on O rganizational
C ulture
The first research question investigates the ways in which the
!
!
Friendship G roup culture m anifests its founder's influence. This
section describes how Big A1 founded and shaped the G roup. It draw s
I on data from Al's speaker tapes, observations of his interactions with
79
G roup m em bers in the W ednesday evening m eetings, and a personal
interview w ith him.
Four key aspects of Big Al’s founding role em erge from the
data. First, he is well read and articulate, and his w ords and values
saturate the discourse of G roup m em bers. Second, his personal
experiences create a filter through w hich the A.A. organization is
reified at the Group level. He founded the Friendship G roup as p a rt of
his own recovery (thus his "alcoholic self" both created the G roup and
was recreated by it), and the m easures he took to find personal
recovery are institutionalized in his G roup through activities and
practices he initiated. Third, to Friendship G roup m em bers, Big A1
em bodies A.A. values, institutionalizing G roup practices as they
em anate from his A.A. experiences, and those values are expressed
through his version of A.A. tenets. Fourth, although Big Al's formal
authority no longer exists, he exerts his influence through informal
authority, w hich is respected by m em bers as if he were a holder of
office. Each of these founding influences is addressed in the following
subsections of this chapter.
T he fo u n d er’s use of language and its im pact on the
o rganization. Big A1 is often quoted in the Friendship G roup, and his
turns of phrase are em bedded in the discursive practices of the
m em bership. One exam ple, and a com m on them e am ong all A.A.
m em bers, arises in the expression of personal alienation and isolation
from fellow hum an beings. A1 quotes the Big Book on the subject, w ith
80
unique em phasis, declaring that new com ers claim the A.A. program
w on't w ork, and that their sponsors don't understand them because
"my case is different." The result is a com m on use of the phrase
verbatim , w ith Al's inflections, in everyday discourse am ong G roup
m em bers, although it is a phrase that seldom occurs in discussions
outside the Friendship G roup.
Birthdays, described later in this chapter, celebrate mem bers'
dates of sobriety, and carry w ith them a special responsibility in the
Friendship G roup. In m any groups, birthday people are encouraged
to donate a dollar for each year of their sobriety to the A.A. Central
Office, and some groups have special funds set aside for birthday
money. In the Friendship G roup, birthday celebrants are expected to
"buy" their birthday candles, and the treasurer w aits at the back of the
room , collecting the m oney after each person has given his or her
birthday talk. A lthough the secretary has announced that this donation
is "purely voluntary," if the donation isn't m ade, a disciplinary
announcem ent appears in the following week's "Poop Sheet," the
Group's weekly newsletter, w hich is w ritten by Big Al, com plete w ith
the individual's name and the nam e of his or her sponsor, often using
w ords like "deadbeat" or "free loader."
Al's "kick-ass" m ode of com m unication is w idely used in the
G roup. He uses and encourages the use of confrontational or
rem onstrative language, although he openly frow ns on profanity or
rough bathroom hum or from speakers at the podium . This leads to
81
occasional dissonance for the mem bers. One speaker dem onstrates this
in an alm ost defiant m anner of delivering a joke, of w hich A1
disapproves. She first declares that "m arrying the same m an twice is
like taking a second bite out of the same turd," then, as the inevitable
burst of laughter subsides, takes great pains to explain that although
Al, who is her sponsor, frowns on the joke, she's "gonna tell it anyway."
The founder's experience as organizational experience. The
actions of the founder are based in experience (Schein, 1985), and Al's
experience of finding sobriety through hard knocks and "oldtime" A.A.
are oft-told stories in Southern California m eetings. He and Big Ben,
now deceased, started the Friendship Group on Hallow een night 1973,
"because," says Big Al, "I w anted a place to go on W ednesday night."
Over time, the m eeting grew to 16 m em bers, then to 23 m em bers. "Then
I pissed ’ em off, and we were back to 16," says Al. But the Group
survived, and so did A l’s m eeting form at, attracting the "tough nuts"
that responded to Al’s rigid brand of Alcoholics Anonym ous. The
m eeting has not changed significantly in thirty years.
Al has devoted the last 36 years of his life, and all of his
sobriety, to helping "low bottom " drunks, because he considers himself
to be one. Once an advertising executive, he ended up in downtown
Los Angeles, hom eless and kicked out of a m ission shelter for fighting
w ith another resident. Al found sobriety after several false starts by
attending A.A. m eetings while he w as living in the back of an
abandoned car. He describes his condition as a newcomer:
82
This time w hen I got sober, I didn't intend
to stay sober 'cause A.A. doesn't w ork for people
like me; I had all the professional analysis I could
get. I had understood. I read Nietzsche and I read
Schopenhauer; I'd gone into m etaphysical frenzies
that just enabled me to observe and m aintain an
understanding of truth that has not been
vouchsafed to many. I have— I was just about
cuckoo. And I didn't intend to stay sober and there
w as less to stay sober for and everything was gone.
My family was gone; my home was gone; my
occupation was gone; my front teeth were gone.
Everything was gone (1983).
Today, Al w orks as executive director of the same m ission
from w hich he w as ejected. His painful "low bottom," his recovery, his
w ork in the dow ntow n m ission, and his personal understanding of the
Alcoholics A nonym ous program undergird and perm eate the
Friendship G roup culture. He instills in the G roup a m ilitary,
Salvation Arm y, "war on alcoholism" edge. He is the drill instructor of
an A.A. "boot camp," designed to straighten out hitherto hopeless
drunks.
T he fo u n d er's form al and inform al authority. Big Al's
confidence is evident, the m om ent he enters the room on W ednesday
night. A short m an w ith thinning gray hair, he carries him self like a
leader. His dem eanor in the W ednesday evening m eeting can be
described only as "holding court," patting a shoulder here, shaking a
hand there, as the crowd parts in his path. He served as secretary for
83
two consecutive term s w hen the Group was first founded, then stepped
dow n in favor of an elected secretary.
...and I read across the page [in the
Twelve & Twelvel about how ...certain m em bers
try to hold onto the posts in AA and the
responsibility and do not turn it over. They are no
longer elder statesm en, they are bleeding deacons,
and they are— and I slamm ed it shut and tried to
forget it. [laughter] But I realized there's a message
there. So we had an election. We had the election,
and I was nom inated and they asked me to serve,
and thank God, God instructed me to say "No, I do
not w ant to serve because that's not w hat AA's
about,"--although I w anted to— I really w anted— just
another year or two. I could've, I could've really
done som ething w ith this Group.
A lthough Al has served only one other secretarial term , little
goes on in the Group of which he is unaw are, and m em bers are careful
to be sure all G roup activities garner his approval.
The founder's values as organizational v alu es. Big Al is a
m an of contrasts and conviction, and he has a m ajor im pact on how the
G roup operates, how it defines itself, and how it survives (Schein, 1983;
1985). Schein points out that "founders not only have a high level of
self-confidence and determ ination, but they typically have strong,
assum ptions about the nature of the world" (Schein, 1985, p. 210), and
that these assum ptions affect the ways in which organizational
exigencies are realized (Schein, 1985).
84
W hen approaching Big Al's office in a busy dow ntow n
m ission, one is struck by the incongruity of his big, silver (albeit
oxidized) Cadillac and the unkem pt m en sleeping on the sidew alk near
it. Al's office is cluttered w ith books, papers, and A.A. m em orabilia,
including a photo of Bill W. taken in Al's office and slipped under the
glass that covers his desk. The phone rings constantly, and Al handles
the calls w ith dispatch: "Okay. D on't drink, and call me tomorrow."
He is busy, and expects his sponsees to be busy, as well. Big Al
sponsors m any people all over the country, and the local ones call or
pop in throughout the day. Al speaks w ith equal aplom b w ith the lost
and the lum inary, but clearly enjoys his reputation as a semi-celebrity
in a tow n filled w ith rich and fam ous A.A. m em bers.
Both Big Al and the Friendship G roup enjoy some notoriety
and a certain controversy in the area. People seem to either love or hate
Al, but they all acknow ledge his contribution to the Friendship Group
and his dedication to Alcoholics A nonym ous. C ertainly, his "in-your-
face" version of A.A. is ubiquitous in the Friendship Group. He
epitom izes the G roup belief that alcoholism is a life-and-death
emergency, requiring tough actions and a no-nonsense approach. Key
Friendship G roup players, particularly secretaries and sponsors,
accept and reify his values, and their positions also influence the
organizational culture, both discursively and through enactm ent of
organizational schema (Weick, 1979). The most significant value is that
85
of sobriety, w hich to m any A.A. members, m ust "come first," because
nothing else is possible as long as one continues to drink.
M any of the G roup structures of signification, legitimation,
and dom ination draw on rules and resources first instituted by the
founder. The next sections of this chapter describe those structures as
they appear in the Friendship G roup culture, and elucidate the w ays in
w hich they are influenced by Big Al.
R esearch Q uestion Two: Com m unicative Practices C reating
O rganizational C ulture
The second research question asks about the nature of the
Friendship G roup culture as constituted by com m unicative practices.
The answers presented in this section are draw n from analysis of the
data in term s of the structures of signification, legitim ation, and
dom ination. The data include the m em bers' narratives from
transcribed tapes, w ritten com m unication (e.g., the "Poop Sheet" and
flyers), and organizational rituals and social interactions observed in
the W ednesday evening m eeting. In general, the structures of
signification em erged prim arily from the transcribed narratives, while
the structures of legitim ation and dom ination w ere discovered largely
through field observation. Throughout the analysis, interview s and
discussions w ith G roup m em bers during the data collection were used
to confirm or disconfirm em ergent concepts.
The symbols, norm ative actions, and allocation of resources
create a G roup culture that replicates the A.A. culture of recovery
86
through spirituality, but takes it to an extrem e. The m em bers hit "low
bottom s," find recovery through tough action, and dem onstrate
rigidity their beliefs of w hat it takes to get and stay sober. The
Friendship G roup, to its m em bers, is A.A. done "the right way."
Signification: personal narratives of lost sh ip s and found
lifelin es. The structures of signification include sym bolic action and
language (Giddens, 1984), including m etaphor, m yth, and legend.
A lthough the only official symbol of A.A. as a w hole, is the circle-
enclosed triangle, Alcoholics A nonym ous is rife w ith sym bol and
m etaphor. M embers easily spot and honk at one another on the
California freew ays, recognizing distinctive bum per stickers (popular
m otoring diversions in Southern California) that espouse A.A. slogans.
M any m em bers also w ear jewelry bearing the A.A. sym bol, or num erals
representing their years of sobriety to signify their recovered positions
as sober m em bers of society. A lthough it's unusual for a single group,
the Friendship Group boasts its ow n "FG" baseball hats and bum per
stickers, signifying the Group as a special entity w ithin the A.A.
organization. M embers identify them selves as Friendship G roup
m em bers, creating a subcultural cohesion w ithin the culture of A.A.
O ther sym bols play equally im portant roles in Southern California
A.A. m eetings, as w ell as w ithin the Friendship Group.
Both A.A. and the Friendship G roup are redolent w ith
m etaphor: the birthday (or anniversary, in some parts of the country)
represent rebirth and renewal. In Southern California, people "take
87
cakes," "get chips," send one another cards, have birthday parties, and
blow out birthday candles as signification of their "rebirth" in recovery
(Rasmussen & Capaldi, 1990) and the passage into a new year of
personal grow th. Like m any other A.A. m eetings, the W ednesday night
gathering celebrates birthdays w ith symbolic candles-on-the-cake and
the singing of "Happy Birthday." The way this is enacted as p a rt of the
Friendship Group m eeting form at is described in the next section of
this chapter, w hich addresses structures of legitim ation. The
rem onstrative language used, particularly in the "Poop Sheet" for
celebrants w ho do not "buy" their candles, however, signifies the
intensity w ith w hich members value their sobriety. Those m em bers
who do not make their birthday donations are labeled ingrates who do
not place appropriate value on their recovery.
Bill W. and Dr. Bob are the global A.A. heroes, and Big Al
approaches legendary status in the Friendship G roup as the local hero.
They all epitom ize the lost and found lives of recovering alcoholics.
A.A. m em bers all are prodigal sons in society, returning in recovery.
They create their own "in" group from an "out" group collective, and
they welcome their own prodigal sons after relapse.
The name of the Friendship G roup has, itself, evolved to a
level of signification. It represents victory for "low bottom drunks," a
"tough-love" sort of recovery, and, paradoxically, a haven for the both
renow ned and the invisible of Los Angeles. Friendship G roup hats and
bum per stickers proclaim m em bership status; a group of "outcasts"--
88
the "low-bottom drunks"~have created the m ost successful A.A. group
in the w orld, and they are self-consciously aware of their personal and
collective success.
A.A. m em bers talk in term s of their "stories," an expression
lifted directly from the Big Book: "Our stories disclose in a general
way w hat we used to be like, w hat happened, and w hat we are like
now" (Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1976, p. 58). Speakers share their stories
w ith one another in m eetings, in coffee shops, and on the phone, w ith
varying levels of expertise and eloquence. By telling and retelling their
stories, A.A. m em bers are engaging in w hat G iddens calls the "reflexive
project of the self," reconstituting their self-identities through the
ordering and telling of their autobiographical narratives (Giddens,
1991).
Story telling as comm unicative practice is n o t a new concept.
N arrative holds a historically im portant place in hum an
com m unication and hum an knowing. The great religious leaders of
the w orld are quoted in ancient and sacred texts, w ith profound
abstractions explicated in parables and hom ilies. Bettelheim (1976)
asserts that fairy tales, which have enchanted children for centuries,
provide youngsters w ith motifs for understanding their ow n lives and
the w ays in which the w orld functions, and that the stories provide
resonance and depth that other forms of com m unicating hum an
experience fail to plum b in the child's psyche. W alter R. Fisher
indicates this is a natural state of affairs, that people are, by nature,
89
storytellers, and that they author and co-author "the texts of life and
literature" (Fisher, 1987, p. 18). The narrative paradigm is m anifested in
the rhetoric of Alcoholics A nonym ous, and the m em bers' stories
prom pt their fellow alcoholics, as rhetorical beings, to value, as well as
to reason (Fisher, 1987, p. 105), the nature of abstinence versus
drunkenness.
The tales told in A.A. meetings and betw een A. A. m em bers
posit good reasons that are accepted as such because m em bers
recognize their coherence and fidelity in regard to the lives they lead,
or have led: good reasons for having imbibed in the past ("I was always
lonely"; "I never felt like I fit in"; "Liquor m ade it easier to talk to other
people.") and good reasons for not drinking ("I don't go to jail any
more"; "I never get a hangover now"; "I can hold onto a job today."), and
they are laced w ith an em otionality and spirituality that augm ent and
transcend strict rationality alone. The stories "make sense" in the
context of the alcoholic experience.
M embers share personal "experience, strength, and hope"
(A.A. G rapevine, Inc., 1993, p. 1), identifying w ith the underlying
em otions and values that explain how they came to A.A. and w hy they
stay sober. M ost A.A. talks are som ew hat form ulaic, describing "what
we used to be like, w hat happened, and w hat we are like now"
(Alcoholics A nonym ous, 1976, p. 58). In the Friendship G roup, these
stories often are m elodram atic, underscoring the good reasons for
staying sober by stressing the "low-bottom" tragedy of alcoholism. Tale
90
upon tale describes the horror and hopelessness of life before A.A. in
the Friendship group. In their words:
DARYL: ...I w ould do m eaningless acts of things
that were not sociable, I m ean, y'know,
against people that were, y'know, anyway,
y'know. Eventually, w hat happened to
me is I— is I got— I basically got sentenced
to, to jails and institutions.
DEANNA: W hen I was like about 1 5 -1 /2 ,1 w as raped
and I got pregnant as a result of that rape,
and I'm a real well person— I m arried that
m an -a n d I hated him. ...A nd w hen we
split up it was like now I can— now I can
drink the w ay I w ant to.
PAM : W hen I was 2 0 ,1 started running around
w ith some people who w ere incredibly
violent, and as a result of me running
around w ith these people, I w as brutally
beaten and strangled and raped, and I was
dum ped in east county....
ROBERT: And w hen I'd drink I'd go after "her," and
nine tim es out of ten I w ould get 'em in a
bar, and w hat I w ould do, I w ould take
them to a m otel and instead of havin' fun
w ith 'em, I w ould tie them up and beat
them up. So I did that for a while with
'em, too. And I didn't know w hat was
wrong w ith me. I thought I had some
m ental disorders.
The m etaphor for hitting bottom and finding A.A. is one of
near-death experience, "seeing the light" (also p art of Bill W.'s "spiritual
91
awakening"), and a return to living through recovery. Trixi
sum m arizes the general concept:
And w hen the booze and the boys isn't
there, I don't know w hat you do, but w hat I do is I
cease fighting anyone or anything, and I decided to
comm it suicide. And I w ent hom e and I attem pted
to do that. And my room m ate found me the next
day. A nd my sponsor talks about seconds and
inches. She says— she taught me that we all have a
seconds and inches story. And seconds and inches
and I w o u ld n 't be behind the podium tonight,
because I m eant to die that night.
W hy do people who have plunged to such depths find solace
in the Friendship G roup w hen other A.A. groups fail? "Because this
was the first place where I felt like somebody gave a dam n w hether I
lived or died," says Beau, an interviewee who was living in a local park
and selling plasm a to survive w hen he came to the Friendship Group.
Beau voices a com m on them e am ong members. He was ostracized
from society, and welcom ed into the G roup by people like him , and
his fellow pariahs created the m ost successful group of its kind in the
w orld.
The first act in m ost m eetings involves a simple ritual w hen
the leader, speaker or reader identifies as an alcoholic and the group
responds:
LEADER: My name is George, and I’m an alcoholic.
GROUP: Hi, George.
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In the Friendship G roup, this ritual often involves an
additional expression of the esteem w ith which speaking in a m eeting is
regarded. M ost A.A. m em bers view speaking as a way in w hich to be
of service. In the Friendship G roup, how ever, it is a m atter of
distinction. Anyone who talks at a Friendship G roup m eeting is
visually elevated at the altar and fram ed in stained glass by the convex
floor-to-ceiling window that surrounds it. This sense of elevation has
becom e em bedded in the discourse:
NANCY: I wanna thank Fred1 for asking me to— to
do this, it really is an honor to speak in
my hom e group.
JILL: I w ant to thank Fred for asking me to
participate in this m eeting tonight. It's an
honor and a privilege to do so— especially
in front of my hom e group
LOUISE: I'd like to thank Mary for asking me to
share w ith you this evening. It is an honor
and it is a privilege to share at this
m eeting, w hich is my hom e group
m eeting, and to be able to participate in
my sobriety, w hich I hold very dear.
The visual elevation and the ritualized discourse rem inds the
m em bership that sobriety is a "privilege," and that it m ust be earned
through hard w ork and tough action. Active participation at any
1 First Fred then Mary was the secretary of the W ednesday
night m eeting at the time these speakers were recorded.
93
m eeting privileges the agent, because it is a reprieve from the only
alternative of untenable drunkenness and despair.
A com parison of the structures of signification betw een A.A.
and the Friendship is sum m arized in Table 2, below. The com parison
shows that the Friendship G roup is som ething of an A.A. anomaly,
although it does not depart radically from basic A.A. tenets.
Figure 2. S tructures of Signification
D ifferences b etw een A.A. and Friendship Group
A lcoholics A nonym ous F rien d sh ip G roup
Signification: Metaphor, myth, legend
Prodigal "sons" of society Prodigal "sons" of society and
A.A.
Straightforw ard discourse Tough, m asculine talk
Flitting bottom Flitting a low bottom
In-group of out-group m em bers
A lienation and isolation Outcasts
Service for recovery Service as honor and privilege
Birthdays or anniversaries Birthdays
Birthday donations suggested Rem onstrative use language if
donations not m ade
Bum per stickers w ith A.A. "FG" bum per stickers, hats
m ottoes
N ear-death experience N ear-death experience
Bill W. & Dr. Bob as heroes Big A1 as hero
Friendship Group m em bers see them selves as outcasts, not
only of an alcohol-consum ing society, b u t of the A.A. fellowship in
94
w hich others attain sobriety, or don't. They are the "hard core," "low-
bottom " alcoholics that m ay not have been able to find recovery in
other A.A. groups, and they embrace the tough-talking Big Al, in
addition to Dr. Bob and Bill W., as their hero. They feel a sense of
caring that is largely a result of ritualized G roup practices.
M any G roup practices are disem bedded from the global
organization, transform ed through the founder’ s influence, recreated,
and institutionalized. One exam ple of this is the way in which
m em bers behave (and are expected to behave) during m eetings,
described in the next subsection.
L egitim ation: navigation to sobriety. Structures of
legitim ation are those of norm ative action (Giddens, 1984). The m ost
obvious of these in A.A. is the collective guardianship of individual
anonym ity. In the Friendship Group, well-known m em bers feel safe in
their personal celebrity and in their A.A. anonym ity, because the tacit
agreem ent is that the only order of business is recovery. Paradoxically,
the reputation of the Group has m ade it, and, to some extent, its
m em bers, less than anonym ous. In addition, the special treatm ent of
Big Al, w ho has a specially-reserved parking space, secretaries
(described later), and the star quality of the speakers all contradict the
dem ocratizing and hum bling underpinnings of A.A. anonym ity.
In m any A.A. m eetings other than those of the Friendship
G roup, norm ative behavior is one of chaotic action. While the
T raditions are being read, m em bers often are engaged in finishing up
95
last-m inute conversations, grabbing an extra cup of coffee, or lingering
over the final puffs of a cigarette. In contrast, the Friendship Group
meetings institutionalize a show of respect that legitim ates sobriety and
Alcoholics A nonym ous. D uring the opening readings, for example,
Friendship G roup m onitors stand in pairs in the aisles, blocking
anyone who m ight distract the audience by m oving to or from their
seats. M em bers also are expected to arrive on time, stay seated during
the meeting, rem ain until all birthdays have been celebrated, and thank
the speaker before they leave. A lthough this sounds like eighth-grade
sum m er cam p, the prevailing attitude is one of propriety. This is the
way it's supposed to be done, and deviation is viewed as "old
behaviors," or lack of respect for the G roup and its principles. These
new behaviors, and respect for Alcoholics A nonym ous, thus, are
legitim ated through rules-based action. O ther structures of
legitim ation are evident in institutionalized rituals and practices, as
w ell as hum an agency.
Birthdays: legitim ating sobriety. In some A.A. m eetings, all
the "birthday people" line up for a "Happy Birthday" serenade from
the group, blow out candles on a shared cake, then speak individually
for a few m oments (usually in reverse order of sobriety, w ith the "baby"
going first). In the Friendship G roup, though, this tim esaver is
ignored, and the entire G roup sings for each individual celebrating a
birthday. This is a fairly com m on practice in other nearby meetings,
but the process is lengthy in a group so large, w here more than twenty
96
people m ay celebrate on any given evening. The birthdays legitimate
the "normalcy" of the m em bers' new lives of sobriety, and help realign
the sense of self that is m oving from the greater, alcohol-condoning
society.
The expectation of m aking birthday donations extends
beyond the geographic region of the G roup. M em bers who have
m oved away and are attending m eetings in other parts of the world
continue to send their "birthday money" to the Friendship Group
rather than giving it to their local m eetings, thus adding to the G roup's
reputation as a large contributor to A.A. Central Services. They, thus,
legitim ate not only the norm alcy of sobriety, they legitim ate the G roup
itself, as a success in enabling recovery.
O bviously, the processes of an organization the size of the
Friendship Group require significant tim e. This im poses strict
constraints on G roup functions, w hich som etim es m anifest themselves
as institutionalized practices. For the birthday celebrations, the
m easured, single m inute each person gets at the podium has evolved
into a virtual litany, which, w ith m inor variations, nearly all Group
m em bers recite:
I'd like to thank my sponsor for her
guidance, Big Al for the structure of the group, my
H igher Power for helping me through this last year,
97
Big Al and Amy2 for the Yard3, and Alcoholics
Anonym ous as a whole.
In spite of its rigid structure and time constraints, the
W ednesday night Friendship G roup m eeting is longer than m ost A.A.
m eetings, w hich last for one to one-and-a-half hours. M embers report
that the m eeting has been know n to last until 11:30 p.m. (more than
three hours), w hen there are a lot of birthdays, announcem ents, or
special activities like elections. "Oh, it's the event of the week," said
one w om an during early data collection, in response to expressions of
am azem ent at the m eeting's length. In the Friendship Group, then, the
rigidity of the birthday rituals, coupled w ith the sheer size and length
of the W ednesday evening m eeting, serve to legitim ate both the unique
place the W ednesday evening m eeting holds in the G roup culture, and
the rules-based constraints placed upon its m em bers.
The W ednesday nig h t m eeting: legitim ating respect of self
and others. The form at of the W ednesday night m eeting has not
changed since its inception. Partly because of its size, and partly
because of Big Al's influence, the operation of the m eeting is
2Like all other nam es of individuals in this report, Amy is a
pseudonym . A lthough she is not a m em ber of A.A., Big Al's wife also
is w idely recognized as a p art of the Friendship Group.
3Every Saturday m orning, Friendship G roup m em bers gather
at "The Yard," a large yard at the home of group founder Big Al, where
they clean up after a variety of anim als before engaging in softball and
volleyball games.
98
exceptionally expeditious w hen com pared to the rather relaxed
procedures of other m eetings in the L.A. area. M eetings of Alcoholics
A nonym ous include a variety of norm s and form ats that vary, to some
extent, by region. In Southern California, for example, A.A. audiences
typically applaud w henever a m em ber "shares," a custom not normally
found outside the state. All, however, are relatively form ulaic and
ritualized, and all are intended to legitim ate the m essages of the Big
Book and Alcoholics A nonym ous.
The W ednesday night Friendship G roup m eeting follows a
general, but rigid, "speakers' meeting" form at that is fairly standard
throughout the country, w ith m inor variations. The m eeting secretary
(who is elected for a one-year term in the Friendship G roup rather than
the usual six-m onth term of other groups) arranges for speakers to visit
and for a G roup m em ber to lead the m eeting. G roup m em bers also are
asked to read short portions of the Big Book, after which two people
speak for precisely ten m inutes each. After a short break, the m ain
speaker, also an A.A. m em ber, tells a personal story of alcoholism and
recovery, tim ed for exactly 45 m inutes.4 The close of the m eeting
includes the "Seventh Tradition," which is a voluntary donation to
support operating costs, A.A.- related announcem ents, and the
4The F riendship G roup boasts a surprisingly sophisticated
tim ing system for an A.A. speakers, including colored signal lights at
the podium .
99
celebration of "birthdays" for each person in the group who has
reached an anniversary of abstinence from alcohol and drugs.
Al's influence on the W ednesday evening m eeting is
obviously m anifested as each arriving m em ber passes through a
reception line. After w aiting in line to park for a half hour or 45
m inutes, m em bers queue up again for another half hour or so to enter
the m eeting. Entry is a formal process in w hich m em bers are greeted
by the secretary and three or four other Group representatives. Big Al
is responsible for institutionalizing the practice, described in a 1983
talk to the Group:
A nd then I started this custom of standing
at the door, shaking hands. That had never~
anyw here that I ever knew, they’d never done that:
the secretary standing there shaking— it was OK
w hen there was 9 people cornin' in. But after a
while, it got to be m ore, and I--uh— there were
people who didn't w ant their hands shaken. On
m ore than one occasion, a guy'd come up and try to
get by, and I'd say, "C'mon, shake hands."
"I'm not gonna shake hands."
"You're gonna shake hands or you're not cornin' in
here!"
"I ’m not cornin’ here!"
"AND D O N 'T COME BACK!" [Group laughter]
Love is the answer.
100
Following Big Al's precedents, G roup m em bers shake hands
w ith strangers in an alm ost m indless fashion, and welcome newcom ers,
w hether they actually have anything to say to them or not. Often, this
action is the result of direction from a sponsor ("Go out there and shake
ten hands, then report back to me."), but it also has become a G roup
norm , and is a direct bequest from Al, legitim ating sobriety for the
newcom er, and the w orthiness of all mem bers to attain it.
W hen the W ednesday night m eeting finally ends, the
attendees file out the front door as they came in, each shaking hands
w ith the secretary and the speaker (exiting can take up to twenty or
thirty m inutes), as other m em bers who have com m itted to clean up
then sweep, put away chairs, and w ash coffee pots. "My hand was
really sore after that meeting," com plains one non-Friendship Group
speaker. "Most of them try to take it easy on you, b u t it can really
hurt." Although it is a trial for the speakers and slows the egress of the
m em bership, this handshaking ritual, like the reception line at the
beginning of the m eeting, legitim ates "civilized" behavior in which
m any of the "low-bottom" alcoholics may not have engaged for m onths
or years. They, thus, learn how to com port them selves in society by
practicing on one another. Respect for sobriety, for A.A., and for one
another are legitim ated through regulated politeness. Similarly, a
Friendship G roup "dress code" legitim ates self-respect and respect for
Alcoholics Anonym ous, elevating the m eetings to special events.
101
Friendship G roup m em bers are expected to "look" sober by
dressing the part. It's comm only know n throughout Southern
California that when Friendship G roup m em bers serve as speakers in
any m eeting of Alcoholics Anonym ous, the m en w ear jackets and ties,
and the w om en w ear skirts or dresses. For the Friendship Group
mem ber, this signifies respect for the A.A. program , as well as a new
life in sobriety, and follows Big Al's logic that it m ay be the only thing
to influence a newcom er. Indeed, the fashionable W ednesday night
m eeting looks more like a business conference or church activity than
the m ore usual "dress down" m eetings of Alcoholics Anonym ous. Big
Al, while insisting this is not a rule, also posits that it is critical for the
successful reconstruction of self:
One of the great problem s that bothers a
lot of people in our group: W here else do you have
to w ear a shirt and tie to talk? W here else do you—
does a wom an have to w ear a dress? In an era of
m odern slack-suits and attractive slack-suits, you
know there're stories all over— m any tim es people
get the im pression to— to go to an A.A. m eeting in
the Friendship G roup, you gotta be dressed up.
N ot true. You don't have to be dressed up to attend
this meeting. We'll suggest if you w ant to have
some self w orth you try not to come in lookin' like a
bum .
The W ednesday evening m eeting operates like a well-oiled
m achine, a necessity of G roup size. While some organizations answer
com plexity of size by "downsizing" or im posing lim itations, such
102
actions are counter to the spirit of Alcoholics A nonym ous and the
Friendship G roup. W hen more people show up at the W ednesday
night m eeting than are expected, crew m em bers sim ply set up more
chairs. In other A.A. m eetings, the problem is solved by m em bers
supplying their own chairs or sitting on the floor. No one is turned
aw ay from any m eeting of Alcoholics Anonym ous; the inn is always
open.
One illustration of the com plexity of Friendship G roup
organization is that of collection baskets for the "Seventh Tradition." At
the front of the auditorium , near the foot of the alter, "crew chiefs"
assemble to hand out collection baskets, and see that other tasks
necessary to the running of the m eeting are carried out. These are not
small jobs. One crew chief, an assistant, and seven supervisors oversee
a total of 48 people who handle the collection baskets, alone. Each
basket is num bered and labeled w ith a schematic diagram of the
section from which weekly donations are to be collected, and "basket
people" are expected to take collections from the same section each
week.
Anyone w ith a regular m eeting assignm ent is expected to
report to the crew chief or supervisor no later than 7:45 p.m. M em bers
sign up for "commitments" each year, and a new person has no control
over the type of job to w hich he or she is com m itting for the next twelve
m onths. Com m ittees m ake the assignm ents, and crew chiefs or their
assistants call w ith assignm ent inform ation. Once a m em ber has "been
103
around" for a while, though, com m itm ents often becom e routinized.
One m an has been in the kitchen, preparing coffee, nearly every
W ednesday night for 16 years. These com m itm ents are im portant in
m any A.A. m eetings b u t are nearly m andatory for Friendship Group
mem bers, legitim ating the actions that enable transcendence.
H um an agents in action: legitim ating action and
transcendence. Friendship G roup m em bers exhort and expect one
another to im m erse them selves in G roup activities, and to serve the
G roup in some capacity. U pon entering the W ednesday night meeting,
the bustle and "busy-ness" of 1,000 people is striking. M embers are
engaged in far more than simple greetings and an exchange of personal
news. They are planning holiday show s (which are videotaped for
future sales), show ers and w eddings for fellow m em bers, m ountain
retreats, "class reunions,5" household m oves for G roup m em bers,
"watches" (described below), Yard activities, and parties (including an
annual Fourth of July barbecue at the Yard).
There is an inform al but perceptible pressure for all m em bers
to participate in watches, the Yard, parties, m oves, and other Group
activities. M em bers who do not are m arginalized; they are not p art of
5M embers declare them selves m em bers of the "class" of
w hatever year they first attain com plete abstinence. Thus, if a sobriety
date were June 26, 1985 (which may be the last day of drinking or the
first day w ithout a drink, based on the m em ber's preference), the
individual w ould automatically be a m em ber of the "class of '85."
104
the G roup unless they participate fully in G roup functions, and if they
are not present to w itness the birth of G roup stories, they are excluded
from m any of the in-jokes, and m uch of the G roup cam araderie. "It's
like being ostracized," says one interviewee who left the G roup because
of the pressure to attend watches, "and m edical reasons are no excuse."
The philosophy behind this stems from Big Al, w ho, in a 1983
Secretaries' N ight talk to the G roup, Big Al called the Friendship
G roup an "activist group," referring not to political activism b u t to life
action:
But I know for me, I get more when I give
more. The buffet type of A.A. is not my style
because I will then have to m ake judgm ents on w hat
is good for me and my judgm ents are not always
good. They are sometimes, b u t w hen I need it the
most, it's when it's the worst. In m om ents of
em otional distraction. One of the things that we
always insisted on here, and I guess it was because
of my own shortcom ings in the area.
G roup m em bers reflect Big Al's interpretation of the A.A.
concept for action in their lives, often m aking reference to the w ays in
w hich the Friendship G roup activities enable them to m aintain their
abstinence and enhance the quality of their sober lives. M uch of the
A.A. Fellow ship occurs outside the m eetings and during coffee breaks,
and m em bers are encouraged to "get involved"; to "go to ninety
m eetings in ninety days"; to immerse them selves in the program . The
Friendship G roup, in particular, espouses extra-m eeting activities,
105
them selves institutional rituals in their own right, including the Yard.
G roup m em bers also hold "watches," at local coffee shops, in
anticipation of "watching" fellow m em bers’ A.A. birth d ay s begin at
m idnight. Announcem ents for w atches are posted at the W ednesday
m eeting in the "Poop Sheet" and in flyers. These activities absorb the
newcom er, legitim ating a life w ithout alcohol, consum ing the tim e that
m ight otherw ise be spent on drinking, and enveloping the individual
in a healing "cocoon" (Rudy & Greil, 1988, p. 46) that is spun of action:
EILEEN: A nd— and so I started doing the things that
the Friendship G roup people do, you
know, you go to the watches, you go to
the Yard, you go on— on m oves and you
just do things. I mean, you m eet people
for dinner and you go to birthday parties
and you go to show ers an d — and you're
busy, and it's good. Because I was busy
drinking m ost of those tim es, you know,
and I couldn't function and go places
w ithout alcohol in me. But not any more.
BRYAN: I came here in April of 1966. I’d been in
and out of Alcoholics A nonym ous for 18
years by that time. And I couldn't p u t a
year of sobriety together. And I stayed
here. I did the things that we do. I was
privileged to have part of the first Yard
that we ever had; the first softball, the first
volleyball, the first touch football game.
BENNY: I'd never been to the Yard, and it was
som ething that I really enjoyed from the
beginning. It sort of m ade up for a lot of
106
lost time w ith respect to sports and
getting involved w ith people. A nd I got
com m itted here in the group.
For the Friendship G roup m em ber, com m itting to service in
G roup m eetings also occupies tim e once spent in drinking. The notion
of com m itm ent is an im portant concept for Alcoholics A nonym ous,
bordering on religious fervor for Friendship G roup m em bers:
PAM: And, you know, I'm really grateful I'm a
m em ber of this group, because we don't
say no. At least, I don't. If people ask me
to work w ith them, I say yes. I say yes to
com m itm ents in Alcoholics Anonym ous.
TREVOR: And I w ent to a m eeting a day and got
com m itm ents and time flew, and that may
not sound like m uch if you're shakin' and
sw eatin' now , and w ipin' the bugs off
your arm s, but it works. It'll really work.
GARY: A nd Jerom e becam e my sponsor for my
first year. He said, "Come live w ith me"
for my first six months. And, "All I w ant
you to do is go to m eetings. Every single
night. I w ant you to get at least five
com m itm ents. And I did that.
Big Al considers keeping com m itm ents to be an underlying
necessity for developing a sense of dignity or self w orth in the
recovering alcoholic; a way in w hich the individual can begin to
construct a new sense of self. For him, this sense of com m itm ent and
responsibility extends to recreational activities:
107
I don't get on you, b u t sponsors
som etim es get on you about coming even into the
Yard. We're there to have fun; why be on time?
Because it's a com m itm ent, and you do w hat you're
gonna do. You don't have to be there w hen gate
opens, b u t you can't come drifting in at 12 and say,
"Oh, I ju st-ju st d id n ’t feel like cornin' this
morning." Because w hen you're engaged in actions
that are to renovate your perception of yourself and
thereby your perception of the w orld around you,
you gotta do these things. You take these actions.
Thus, the G roup m em bers are self-reflexive agents creating
new identities, both through narrative and through action (Giddens,
1991), and their interactions construct the agency, enabling them to
develop routines of recovery. All social life, according to G iddens, is
"substantially routinised," (Giddens, 1992, p. 71). Everyday life tends
to fall into patterns, routines, habits, and addictions. W hen actions
becom e addictions, they are com pulsive and often ritualized, and
w ithdraw al from them "generates an unm anageable anxiety" (Giddens,
1992, p. 71). G iddens recognizes that A.A. acknowledges lifestyle
changes and self-reflexivity as necessities for recovery from alcoholism
(Giddens, 1992). In A.A., the alcohol-addicted new com er engages in
new actions to replace the "high" or the "fix," which, to G iddens, are
both forms of "time out" (p. 72). The atm osphere is one in which
"criticism or judgem ent are suspended" (p. 75). One of the key actions
that perm its agents to rew rite the narrative of self is sponsorship by
non-judgm ental fellow alcoholics, w hich tends to fall into routinized
108
patterns throughout A. A., and has evolved into an institutionalized
practice w ithin the Friendship G roup.
Sponsors: legitim ating the rules. Styles of A.A. sponsorship
vary widely, from laissez-faire approaches to those requiring daily
telephone calls and regular reporting from sponsees. Of course, all
A.A. m em bers are counseled to call someone— anyone— if they are
tem pted to drink. M any develop practices of routinized calls to
sponsors or other A.A. friends, but to be truly effective, Friendship
G roup m em bers insist, the sponsor should be a m em ber of the Group.
One interviewee, known throughout the G roup as a strong sponsor and
outstanding A.A. mem ber, indicated she once left the G roup for a few
years, and that no one she sponsored during that time stayed sober. To
clarify her position, the next question was, "So you w ould consider
your sponsorship more effective w ithin the G roup th an in other
groups?" H er response w as im m ediate: "I consider m y sponsorship
outside the G roup com pletely ineffective."
The significance of an in-Group sponsor is evident alm ost
im m ediately to the newcom er, who is asked alm ost constantly, "Do you
have a sponsor?" If the reply is affirmative, the resulting query always
concerns w hether the individual is a m em ber of the Friendship Group.
For Friendship G roup m em bers, there appears to be a distinctive
sponsorship style that reflects Big Al's benevolent totalitarianism , and
dictates the rules and norm s for sobriety:
109
CHUCK: I got Vic to be my sponsor w hen I was
new. And I needed that. I needed
som ebody to tell me to get my telephone
list, and tell me to go get a driver's
license, and push me to get a checking
account, all those little things everybody's
tired of hearing me talk about, b u t those
are things that've kept me sober. It's just
doing the little things that m ake me feel a
little m ore responsible and a little bit
more grow n up.
CHLOE: And I called my sponsor every day, and
her only direction was to stick my hand
out to newcom ers, call her at 7:00 o'clock
in the m orning every day, and no back-
talk. And I thought to myself, "How
rude," you know. I did not understand
that at all. But she knew w ho I was.
JACKIE: And my sponsor M arnie is a trem endous
influence to me. Eleven and a half years
later, the answers never change. They're
always the same. Go to another meeting.
Go to a m eeting; you'll feel better. Talk to
a newcom er. Give your telephone
num ber out. Call me every day.
U nfortunately, I'm one of the sicker ones.
I still have to call her every day.
Strong, directive sponsorship, then, is one A.A. institution
that becom es a stock of inform ation upon w hich the m em ber draw s to
enable them to function in everyday life. Transform ed by Big Al and
recreated in the Friendship G roup, sponsorship also often entails
intim idation, as is the case for Pam:
110
I follow ed Bart Berry and W ilbur up from
San Diego [to the Friendship Group] and my life
really started changing as a direct result of getting
com m itm ents and w orking the Steps, and you
know, having a sponsor who intim idated me. A nd
Callie intim idated me. H eh— and, you know, she
just w ould not p u t up w ith my crap, and that's
w hat I needed, and as a result of following a strong
sponsor's direction, and getting com m itm ents, and
sharing my life w ith other wom en, my life is really
good today.
Sponsoring and being sponsored, though, is only one of the
actions that enable G roup m em bers to construct new selves. All
regular m em bers are expected to serve the G roup in some capacity.
The concept of selfish recovery through selfless acts carries w ith it the
inherent rew ards of volunteerism and service to fellow hum an beings
that are offered in churches and charitable organizations. It is
considered in A.A. to be a key elem ent in restoring hum an dignity in
the alcoholic self. In the Friendship Group, service w ithin the
organization is elevated from being a w ay in w hich A.A. m em bers can
contribute to their own sobriety and that of others to becom ing part of a
hierarchy of pow er and prestige. The m ost obvious case of such
ennobled servitude is Secretaries' N ight, w hich honors those who have
served as Friendship G roup secretaries.
Secretaries: legitim ating A.A. service. Secretaries are at the
top of the Friendship G roup organizational hierarchy, and are elected
each year by secret ballot, following the regular W ednesday evening
I l l
m eeting. Other titles of office include assistant secretary, treasurer,
scribe, and crew chief. M embers vie for choice commitments:
COREY: My life has really changed. I m ean, I'm
still a hum an being, and I’m an alcoholic
and I'm a crazy sick person at tim es, but,
you know, I'm really— I really believe in
this program . A very interesting thing
happened a couple weeks ago. I got a
phenom enal com m itm ent in Alcoholics
Anonym ous, and I w on’t tell you w hat it
is, because some of you w ill find out soon
enough, but I really hope that I can be of
service.
The secretary is responsible for securing outstanding
speakers ("I w ant them all to be stars in that meeting," admits Big Al),
and for the general, sm ooth operation of the weekly m eeting. Each
year, the changing of the secretarial guard includes a ritualized
departure from the norm al W ednesday night meeting. Each of the past
secretaries serves as a reader or speaker, w ith the outgoing secretary
being the 45-minute speaker. Past secretaries clearly enjoy their
privileged position, and are well received by the m em bership as they
share stories of the Group and its members:
CLIFTON: There's a dinner where all the ex
secretaries get together, and we had it
tonight, as we usually do, and I never sit
dow n at that table w ith those m en and
w om en w ithout feeling very fortunate to
be a part of that group.
112
IGGY: And I can't tell you how honored I am,
and pleased to be here tonight to be a
m em ber of the secretary's group and I
w ant to thank all the past secretaries for
m aintaining the structure and the vitality
that w as started by Big Al.
JACK: I'm also very honored to be num bered
among the living ex- secretaries of the
Friendship G roup, and I hope to be
counted am ongst them for m any, many,
m any years to come. ...It was one of the
real highlights of my sobriety, to becom e
the secretary of this group, and I
rem em ber w hen I was elected, I thought,
well, okay, I finally arrived, I finally got
mine. And I loved the pow er and the
prestige of this whole situation— not
realizing that the experience was going to
transform me.
KURT: And it’s certainly a pleasure to be a p a rt
of this illustrious group, and I w ant to
thank them all for being h e re -th e ones
that came before me and the ones that are
gonna come after me and have come after
me.
K urt's acknow ledgm ent of G roup continuity is w ell-founded. The
agent/agency interactions and institutionalized practices, em bedded
over time, prom ise G roup survival and m em ber recovery.
Reconstruction of self is possible because the organization enables
restoration of self w orth, and the mem bers, in turn, w ork to ensure
organizational health. The em phasis on legitim ating m em bers' self
113
w orth is exaggerated through Big Al's influence, exem plified by
Clifton's Secretaries' N ight story:
I was saying tonight at dinner about years
ago in the mid-'70s— one of the L.A. Rams— the Rams
were in Los Angeles at that time— was arrested at the
airport for drugs. And he got sentenced to
com m unity service and w ound up doing that
com m unity service at the ...M ission. A nd boy, he
had to p u t on an NFL film and p u t on and answer
questions for a while afterwards. ...A nd he w as a
little salty w ith the guys that were sitting there, the
skid row people— and he said afterw ards, "Big Al,
I'll see you next week." And Big Al said, "No, not—
not here.” He said, "What do you mean? I'm
ordered here by the judge." He said, "No, you're
not coming back here." "Why not?" "Because you
were rude and insolent w ith those m en that w ere
there. They're skid row people, but they have every
right to be there, and we give them their dignity
here, and if you w ant to come back again, be on
time and be courteous.
Figure 3 illustrates the structures of legitim ation in
Alcoholics A nonym ous and the ways in which they differ from those of
the Friendship G roup.
114
Figure 3. Structures of Legitim ation
D ifferences b etw een A.A. and Friendship Group
A lcoholics A nonym ous F rien d sh ip G roup
Legitimation: Normative action
Shaking hands, hugging Formal reception line, thanking
speaker, shaking hands by
assigned "quota"
Birthday talks Birthday "litany"
Tasks as voluntary service Tasks by assignm ent lists and
diagram s
Personal anonym ity Personal anonym ity; G roup
celebrity
G ood or poor speakers Exem plary speakers
Birthday donations Buying candles
Open election of secretaries and
other "trusted servants"
Secret ballot election of
secretaries and other "trusted
servants"
Aisle m onitors
M em bers welcom e any time Punctuality for m eetings
Staying seated during m eetings
som etim es requested
Staying seated during m eetings
enforced
Dress unim portant Dress code, clean shavenness
G roup anniversary celebrations,
potlucks or parties
C hristm as Show,
4th of July @ Yard,
weekly Yard activities,
video tapes, audio taped G roup
"histories"
The Friendship G roup structures of legitim ation outline the tough,
dictatorial basis upon w hich the global A.A. program is recreated at
115
the local Group level. This results in rules that free the m em bers from
their self-destructive patterns, and at the same tim e, perm it them to
acknow ledge and celebrate individual and Group spirituality. The
nature of this spirituality is discussed later in this chapter. First, the
following subsection presents some of the G roup structures that carry
w ith them the fading values of their historicity and the founder's
influence.
D om ination: w om en on b o ard . Structures of dom ination
include allocation or authorization of m aterial resources (Giddens,
1984). H ere, the G roup founder's pow er is evident, as weekly "Poop
Sheet" pronouncem ents brand both the m em bers who failed to donate
birthday money and their sponsors as less than honorable. The m ost
obvious resource w ithin the G roup is its m em bership, w hich is
allocated by com m ittees (com prised of "involved and active"
m em bers). Structures of authorization are held inform ally but tightly
by the founder, and by the elected officers. W hen com m itting to
service for the Group during the coming year, m ost m em bers have no
control over the assignm ent. The structure is unabashedly hierarchical,
in a Fellow ship that claims only to offer "guides to progress"
(Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1976, p. 60), and w here, as alcoholics in
recovery, all members are peers. By the same token, sponsorship takes
on the cloak of a m aterial symbol of one's status in the organization.
While prim ary status is signified by length of sobriety (candles on the
cake), certain individuals, including Big Al, carry w ith them a
116
m ystique as sponsors that enhance the m embers' status w ithin the
G roup.
Big Al is w idely considered sexist, although he sponsors
w om en as w ell as men. His totalitarianism , coupled w ith the
positioning of the organization in the evolution of gender issues in the
U nited States, evince a quickly-disappearing sexism, but one that still
em erges in the discourse and the G roup practices. The athletic
activities at the Yard, for example, and the language associated w ith it
tend to be male oriented. "The wom en clean the bathroom , and the
m en clean up the poop," com m ents one interview ee of the distribution
of labor on Saturday m ornings. The w ork generally is view ed, though,
as a pragm atic precursor to play. "We have to clean up the poop,
unless we w anna step in it during the [softball] game," says Beau.
D uring data collection, first visits to the G roup evinced no
female parking lot attendants, but this changed (perhaps partly because
of the change in secretary from a male to a female office holder) by the
end of data collection. The first female secretary, though, conveys an
oral history of fem inism in the Friendship G roup, albeit w ith the
unw itting inclusion of a m asculine m etaphor:
M O N A And I am very grate—you know,
naturally I noticed that there were no
wom en being nom inated, and I had
m yself placed in nom ination m any years
ago. I knew I w asn't going to win, but I
w anted to take a little stand, and— you
know, I think it sort of annoyed Big Al
117
w hen I did it, and by the time I got
elected, I think I was the favorite son
candidate, by the tim e— it took until 1985.
Like m any other m em bers in a leadership position, the
w om en who have served as past secretaries tend to have dram atic and
oft-told stories of recovery and transformation:
PAULA: You know, 22 years ago w hen I got sober,
perhaps more so than today, wom en
alcoholics w ere really regarded w ith
contem pt. And I think that is still true to
a degree, but m uch m ore so years back.
And so— that's why tonight at dinner, I was
looking around the table at the w om en
who are the former secretaries of this
g ro u p And then I look at the w om en
here tonight— Rhonda, the scourge of
Bakersfield— and Mona, who suddenly left
Las Vegas under aw kw ard circum stances,
and Susan, who crawled in from the side
of the road, and Paula, who was the
m ariachi artist suprem a— Stella clim bed
up out of the barbecue pit, for crying out
loud. A nd I w as dropped by a speeding
car. A nd— here we all are, you know.
G ender bias m ay stem, in part, from the paternalistic
foundation upon w hich A.A. and its groups are built, im plied by Bill
W. (Alcoholics A nonym ous, 1967,p. 269):
You m ust rem em ber that every A.A.
group starts, as it should, through the efforts of a
single m an and his friends— a founder and his
hierarchy. There is no other way.
118
The early invisibility of wom en in A.A. also is a product of a
time in which w om en were assum ed to be tem perate. In the m id- and
late-1930's, few wom en belonged to the organization, so, although the
Forew ord to the First Edition identifies the authors as "We, of
Alcoholics A nonym ous, are more than one hu n d red m en and w om en
who have recovered from a seem ingly hopeless state of m ind and
body" (Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1976, p. xiii), m uch of the Big Book
focuses on m en (Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1976). Early evidence of
concern for w om en alcoholics nonetheless appears in the Big Book (p.
104):
W ith few exceptions, our book thus far
has spoken of men. But w hat we have said applies
quite as m uch to w om en. O ur activities in behalf of
wom en who drink are on the increase. There is
every evidence that wom en regain their health as
readily as m en if they try our suggestions.
It seems clear, then, that a paternalistic heritage of A.A.,
coupled w ith the values of the founder led to a rules-based imbalance
of pow er and sexism. Figure 4 sum m arizes the structures of
dom ination that em erged from analysis of the data.
119
Figure 4. S tructures of D om ination
D ifferences b etw een A.A. and the Friendship G roup
A lcoholics A nonym ous F rien d sh ip G roup
Domination: allocation or authorization of material resources
W omen invisible W omen invisible
W omen segregated in task
assignm ents
M embers as resources: expected
to serve the G roup
T reasurer's recom m ended
donations approved by "group
conscience"
G roup donations routinized
and expected
In spite of the historically-generated im balance of pow er, the
gender-based structures of dom ination are dissipating in the
Friendship Group. Democracy is reasserting the role of females,
placing them in key positions. The election of the secretary, for
exam ple, is now determ ined by gender to the extent that each incoming
secretary m ust be the opposite sex of the outgoing secretary,
guaranteeing equitable fem ale/m ale rotations. Clearly, in the
Friendship Group, agents and agency recreate each other. As they do
so, m atters of spirituality, as w ell as pow er, emerge.
120
R esearch Q uestion Three: In dividual and O rganizational
S p iritu ality
The third research question concerns how the Friendship
G roup creates and m anifests organizational spirituality. The data used
to answ er this question are prim arily the members' narratives,
triangulated w ith interview s and inform al discussions during the
observations.
The spirituality of the Friendship G roup is one that avoids
any particular conceptualization of God or afterlife, b u t rather is
considered p art of the hum an condition in a personally defined way.
This is by design, rather than accident. During the w riting of the Big
Book, after considerable debate, Bill W. used "spiritual rather than
religious or entirely psychological terms," (Alcoholics A nonym ous,
1985a, p. 17) including the phrase, "God, as we understood Him," [Italics
in original] (Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1976, p. 59). As a result, A.A.
welcom es personal beliefs from agnosticism 6 to Zen Buddhism , and
every A.A. m em ber is free to express personal spirituality in as theistic
or secular way as he or she finds personally meaningful:
6One chapter of the Big Book is w ritten specifically to
agnostics, and entitled, "We Agnostics" (Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1976,
pp. 44-57), and the L.A. area offers several "agnostic" m eetings. M ost
m eetings, how ever, encom pass all religious faiths as well as the
faithless.
121
DARREN: And w hat it was told to m e— my first
sponsor sat me dow n and he said, "Listen,
if the God thing bothers you, why don’ t
you take the w ord, GOD, and just
consider that Good O rderly Direction,
and consider w here you came from, and if
you w ant to go back to that, following
your ow n direction, or m aybe you w ant
to stick around and try applying this
good orderly direction and tu rn your life
around like you see the other people
doing in A.A..
JACK: And, for some reason, that I'll call Higher
Pow er, I began to give in Alcoholics
Anonym ous during that regim e as a
secretary. And I look back on it w ith fond
memories of the time w hen I crossed over
into a more com fortable, m ore serene,
m ore giving sobriety.
SUSAN: But you have given me the actions, you
have taught me how to w ork the Steps,
you have w alked me thought m uch of my
life— you have been w ith m e— and you
have given me a God that is my very own.
JENNIFER: A nd, you know, this G roup and this
program , you know, the spiritual w ay of
life we have here is so incredible. I mean,
you k n o w -a n d the ties that you have w ith
people, and the w ay our lives becom e
intertw ined.
A lthough often denied during active drinking, this sense of
spirituality is acknowledged in sobriety. Such acknow ledgm ent is
122
partially the result of an ontological shift w ithin the m em bers, b u t also
is a m anifestation of the G roup as a collectivity of spiritual beings.
M em bers describe entering A.A. as spiritually bereft newcom ers, then
finding spiritual replenishm ent in recovery. The phenom enon is found
throughout A.A., but, as is the case w ith other organizational features,
it seem s to be m ore dram atic and intense in the Friendship Group.
As the earlier review of literature indicates, this overt
spirituality enables the healing process th at occurs as the recovering
m em ber draw s upon G roup structures as stocks of know ledge in
navigating everyday life. The rules-based pow er structures of the
G roup enable the hum an agents to begin to rebuild a sense of self
w orth, and at the same tim e, disengaging them from their former
destructive occupations of drinking. This em pow ers the m em bers to
turn to m atters of the spirit and transcendence, leading to recovery and
a reconstructed self.
The Friendship Group and the Reconstruction of Self
A.A. serves sim ilar self-reflexive purposes as therapy, w hich
G iddens considers an expert system . As a recovering alcoholic hovers
betw een the two lives of sobriety and intoxication (Denzin, 1987a,
1987b), the A.A. group and its m em bers fill a void of time. The ways in
w hich people spend their time can be defined as occupations, and
those occupations affect people's health and recovery as they
reconstruct self after cataclysmic life events. Clark, Parham , Carlson,
123
Frank, Jackson, Pierce, et al. (1991) address the significance of hum an
occupation:
W hat our patients do really m atters— it
influences their health, their self-respect, and their
sense of dignity. But we have also declared that it is
not so m uch w hat they do that is critical as it is the
acknow ledgm ent that occupation is alw ays
pregnant w ith m eaning. O ccupation is a uniquely
hum an enterprise because of the extent of its
symbolic vehicle (p. 301).
In recovery, w here the act of drinking once consum ed m uch
of an individual's tim e, Friendship G roup activities now construct
sobriety and fellowship as occupations in recovery. These
occupations, past and present, are enactm ents of reconstituting self-
identity, from a drunk to a recovering alcoholic. The latter is
facilitated as the A.A. group envelops the new com er in tim e and space,
ultim ately disem bedding the individual from an alcoholic reality
(itself a disem bedm ent) and providing w hat G iddens term s ontological
security as he or she develops trust in the organization and engages in
social exchanges w ith others in the Fellowship.
In G iddens' term s (draw ing on H aberm as), G roup structures
form a social site for em ancipation, freeing the individual from self
destructive choices and creating a rules-based social order that perm its
constructive choices, and these "life-style choices are constitutive of the
reflexive narrative of self" (Giddens, 1992, p. 75). The Friendship
G roup thus provides the new ly-recovering m em ber a "protective
124
cocoon" that G iddens describes as som ething "all norm al individuals
carry around w ith them as the m eans w hereby they are able to get on
w ith the affairs of day-to-day life" (p. 40). The alcoholic, unable to
function in day-to-day life w ithout alcohol, perm its A.A. to spin the
cocoon until he or she can develop the necessary skills to do so. Since
A.A. m em bers are> them selves, alcoholics, this social cocoon is both a
product of and a constraint upon the hum an beings and the social
interactions that create it. The symbolic interactions and discursive
practices, then, create the Friendship Group social structures of
hierarchy and rules-based pow er that surround and enable the
recovering m em ber to transcend alcoholism and transform self in
recovery.
The F rien d sh ip G roup as a D isem bedding M echanism
In the process of facilitating the transform ation of the
alcoholic self, Alcoholics A nonym ous m ight be considered w hat
Giddens (1991) calls an expert system. He defines expert system s as one
of two types of disem bedding mechanisms. They typically are
technological or social, and they "bracket" tim e and space, concepts
separated by the m odern differentiation of lived time from social
structures.
Because no one can be an expert in all things, some element of
tru st in disem bedding m echanism s is a "sort of 'effort-bargain'" in
which individuals engage (Giddens, 1991, p. 23). T rust is a key aspect
of the A.A. program , defined by Giddens (1991, p. 19) as, "a leap to
125
com m itm ent, a quality of 'faith' w hich is irreducible." In A.A., it is
dem onstrated as new com ers enter the organization, trusting that the
system w ill prove to be one that can help them w ith their addictive
drinking behaviors, and it is reiterated as the recovering alcoholic
transfers faith from "self will" to a "Higher Power." Bill W. recognized
the im portance of trust in recovery (Alcoholics A nonym ous, 1986a, p.
18):
O ur entire A.A. program rests on the
principle of m utual trust. We tru st God, we trust
A.A., and we trust each other.
The social relationships betw een A.A. m em bers transcend
time and space distances. M embers draw on the resources of the
organization as tacit knowledge for how to carry on as sober, social
agents. Thus, the m echanism disembeds the interactions of the actors
from the particulars of location and time.
In general, then, the Friendship G roup m anifests the
organizational culture of A.A., b u t in an intensified and dram atic way,
having been transform ed by the "low bottom " founder and reform ed
for the "low bottom " m em bers. The Friendship G roup is A.A., but
"more so."
The Friendship G roup structures of signification,
legitim ation, and dom ination constitute and characterize the culture of
the G roup through com m unicative practices, creating a rules-based
pow er that is necessary to enable transcendence and healing. The
126
G roup culture acknow ledges a spiritual dim ension in the individual
and in hum an collectivity. Equally im portant, at a deep structure
level, the Friendship Group rules and resources, both as recreated
features of the A.A. culture and as instilled by the founder, enable the
transm utational alcoholic selves to carry on in everyday life, even as
they are created by alcoholic selves. The social life that is reproduced
by self-reflexive agents also serves to em pow er those agents in
reordering their biographical narratives and recreating self. A t the
same tim e, the constraint of the social structures upon the alcoholic self
em ancipates the individual, offering protection from an unsym pathetic
w orld and freedom from self-destructive choices, thus enabling the
personal transition into acknow ledgm ent of a personal, individual
spirituality that evokes transcendence and recovery. The alcoholic self
is, then, both agent and outcom e as it evolves through recursive group
practices and individual actions. As such, it is both creator of and
created by social interactions w ith other alcoholic selves that spin the
shared silk of personal understandings, social cocoons, and collective
spirituality.
While this is evident, to some extent, in A.A. as a whole, it is
m ore intense, more dramatic, and on a grander scale in the Friendship
G roup than elsew here in Alcoholics Anonym ous. These am plifications
and exaggerations are the very reasons the G roup is an ideal locus for
study. Like the intensely-dyed, perfectly m ounted, m icrobiological
plate illustration that exaggerates the pallid reality of a living microbe,
127
the intensity of the Friendship G roup m ay draw attention to cultural
features that are pale and difficult to discern in other groups.
This chapter explored com m unicative practices of the
Friendship G roup, the founder's influence, and the relationship
betw een G roup culture, spirituality, and individual recovery. It
proposed that the Friendship G roup is a disem bedding m echanism
(Giddens, 1991), and presented illustrations of Friendship Group
com m unicative practices, contextualizing them in the W ednesday
evening m eeting, and placing them w ithin the fram ew ork of Giddens'
structures of signification, legitim ation, and dom ination. The
following chapter sum m arizes the study, addresses im plications for
com m unication research, and suggestss possible directions for future
studies in the realm of non-corporate organizations.
128
V. Returning to Port: Summary and Conclusions
From the beginning, com m unication in
A.A. has been no ordinary transm ission of helpful
ideas and attitudes. Because of our kinship in
suffering, and because our comm on m eans of
deliverance are effective for ourselves only w hen
constantly carried to others, our channels of contact
have always been charged w ith the language of the
heart.
Bill W.
A .A . Today, pp. 7-8
(Cited in As Bill Sees It, p. 195)
This final chapter sum m arizes the purpose of the study, its
theoretical fram ew ork, m ethodology, results, and lim itations, then
discusses im plications for organizational culture research and poses
ideas for future study. Bill W .'s w ords foreshadow Rasm ussen's and
Capaldi's (1990) analysis of the A.A. narratives, and how the A.A.
speakers' tales w arrant recovery through identification and acceptance
of self. They explore the w ays in w hich recovery is legitim ated, but
their focus is on the individual m em ber as a rhetorical entity, rather
than on m em bers organizing (and being organized). Rasm ussen and
C apaldi consider speakers' m eetings to be rhetorical rituals, and
contextualize rhetorical activities w ithin a "supportive community" (p.
257), but do not focus on either the historicity of the organization, or the
129
social interactions that occur before, during, and after the m eetings,
w hich are im portant elem ents of the organizational whole. They also
m ention spirituality only obliquely, although m atters of the spirit
undergird the organizational value system , and are a m ainstay of A.A.
discourse.
Denzin (1987a; 1987b, 1988) and Bateson (1972) also explore
the w ays in w hich the alcoholic self is transform ed through recovery,
b u t are m ore concerned w ith the individual than w ith hum an
collectivity. The current study fills these gaps, and extends the w ork of
Bateson, Denzin, and Rasm ussen & Capaldi by focusing on the social
interactions in w hich hum an agents are engaged, and the w ays in which
those interactions create (and are created by) agents and agency. It also
considers spirituality as inherent in hum an agency, w hich is evoked or
brought to presence through social interaction and an organizational
culture, regardless of hum an understanding or level of articulation.
Two m otivating interests im pelled the selection of the
Friendship G roup for this study. The first was an abiding curiosity
about the cultures of non-corporate and alternative organizations. The
second w as the em ergence of spirituality as a field for scholarly
inquiry. Bringing these interests together required blending several
disparate bodies of literature as they relate to organizations, culture,
spirituality, and a non-corporate entity. This inquiry placed the
Friendship G roup as a locus of organizational culture research, and
explored the w ays in w hich individual and organizational
130
com m unication practices facilitate personal recovery w ithin a spiritual
context. The next section sum m arizes the project and its findings.
Sum m ary of the Study
P u rp o se. The Friendship G roup is a unique organizational
entity w ithin the "Twelve-Step" culture of recovery th at resides
adjacent to and w ithin the Southern California entertainm ent
com m unity. The prim ary purpose of this study w as to reconceptualize
organizational culture, incorporating individual and collective
spirituality as cultural features, by answ ering three questions
concerning the Friendship Group: 1) In w hat w ays does the Friendship
G roup culture m anifest the founder's influence? 2) W hat is the nature
of the Friendship G roup culture as constituted by com m unicative
practices? and 3) By w hat com m unicative practices does the
Friendship G roup create and m anifest individual and organizational
spirituality? These are answ ered later in this section, in the sum m ary
of results.
It is clear that w ith burgeoning scholarly interest in
spirituality, an organization that professes spiritual underpinnings as a
basis for healing w arrants serious study as a cultural phenom enon.
W hen the organization is A.A., w hich w as founded on a pot of coffee
and conversation betw een two people, it seems a natural arena for
com m unication research.
The proxim ity of the largest and m ost successful G roup
w ithin the A.A. organization offered an open door for the exploration
131
of organizational spirituality as a feature of its culture, and the w ays in
w hich the m em bers create and are recreated by it. M artin's (1992)
proposal that a m ultiple-perspective approach to organizational
culture can provide the researcher w ith insights that a single
perspective overlooks was answ ered by using structuration as a
theoretical fram ew ork for inquiry. The structurationist approach
perm itted looking at the deep layers of the organization, viewing them
as dynam ic structures that are m aintained and sustained through social
interaction, rather than as mere artifacts of the culture (Riley, 1983).
T heoretical fram ew ork and m ethodology. Following Banks
and Riley's (1993) proposal that structuration theory (Giddens, 1976;
1979; 1981; 1984) be used as an ontological basis for comm unication
research, this study adopted structuration as a fram ew ork for studying
the social interactions w ithin the Friendship G roup. Structures are the
rules and resources hum an agents use in social interaction:
legitim ation (norm ative action), dom ination (allocation or
authorization of resources), and signification (symbolic action;
language). A key concept of structuration is duality of structures; they
are both the creation and creator of the practices they organize. In that
vein, this research approached the alcoholic "self" as both the m edium
and the product of the patterns and structures of the organization.
Lived experience is a foundation of the qualitative m ethods
used for this research, w hich focused prim arily on the members'
personal narratives and field observation. Several m ethods of data
collection facilitated "within-m ethod" triangulation (Jick, 1983) to
assess the study's validity. These entailed collection of corroborating
(and noncorroborating) data, including field notes of ethnographic
participant/observation, transcriptions of 76 speakers and a full-hour
tape of the founder, interview notes of four in-depth interview s, an
interview of the founder, and nine 15-to-20-minute interviews, as well
as 31 non-transcribed tapes of the W ednesday night m ain speakers,
notes of personal interactions w ith G roup m em bers, 31 weekly Group
new sletters collected over a period of seven m onths, and m iscellaneous
flyers. The analysis was guided by a structurationist fram ew ork and an
interpretive interactionist m ethodology outlined by D enzin (1989).
R esu lts. The data provided a rich portrait of the Friendship
G roup, com plete w ith organizational idiosyncrasies and an eccentric
cast of characters. The answ er to the first question, which concerns
w ays in w hich the Friendship G roup culture m anifests the founder's
influence, dem onstrates how Big Al transform ed and instituted his
personal vision of the A.A. tenets into his Group.
Structuration perm its a view of Big Al as agent interacting
w ith agency, as he enacts A.A. structures while those structures enable
his recreation of self. He is the G roup founder, but also is, first and
forem ost, a recovering alcoholic, engaged in his ow n reconstruction.
This is particularly apparent in the w ays that, over tim e, he
disem bedded A.A. institutions and recreated them in the Friendship
G roup, based on his personal experience of recovery w ithin the
133
organization. His background and experience filter and recreate the
A.A. tenets, and are m anifested as G roup values.
After m any false starts, Al found recovery only through the
insistence of "hard-assed old-tim ers" that he follow their interpretation
of the Big Book and the Steps. To him, A.A. "suggestions" becam e
dictum . He ignored the diversity of interpretations encouraged by Bill
W. and Dr. Bob, and he institutionalized in the Friendship Group his
w orldview and his perception of how A.A. w orked (and continues to
work) for him. He rules inform ally through personal pow er
intim idation; he is the classic drill instructor of A.A. boot cam p, and he
is both respected and loved by his trainees. Many of the Group
structures of signification, legitim ation, and dom ination are traceable
to Al, or are A l’ s spin on A.A. structures.
Big Al is a charism atic and forceful leader who em bodies the
"soul" of the Friendship G roup's spirituality. His influence is felt far
beyond the core of the G roup. His experiences and stocks of
know ledge disem bed and transform cultural features from the global
organization, then recreate them in the structures of the local
organization. His turns of phrase translate to popular discursive
practices (e.g. , "my case is different" to express the sense of alienation
and uniqueness felt by m any new com ers, and described in the Big
Book), and his precedents are institutionalized rituals (e.g., the
evolution of a form al reception line from his insistence on shaking
hands at the door of the meeting; punctuality at meetings and the
134
Yard). Al has em bedded norm al group etiquette and respect for A.A.
as institutional values and Group norm s. He sets the exam ple, and
em bodies G roup values, derived from Alcoholics A nonym ous and
shared experience.
Al's concept of self-acceptance is one of learning self-worth
through action, and his ow n actions of sponsorship and speaking at
A.A. meetings instills in his sponsees and listeners a value akin to a
Puritan work ethic. He claims that w hen he w as a new com er, he was
forced to act better than he felt, which, in turn, m ade him feel better than
he was. To him , and to his followers, disciplined behavior and
rigorous m aking and keeping of com m itm ents are the w ays in which
the hum an agents recreate them selves and the organization. For Group
m em bers, Al is an incarnation of A.A. itself. He was a "low-bottom"
drunk, and he knows w hat it takes to get sober and stay that way. His
rhetorical strategies, as Rasm ussen and Capaldi describe, are
"dialectical 'good reasons' that generate a perspective on self and
reality, creating a new ly sensible world."
A lthough Al’s formal authority ended w hen the first G roup
secretary w as elected,1 his inform al authority indisputably rem ains
m ore im portant today than that of any elected officer. It is his Group,
and he is the holder of pow er. The G roup he created has a w idespread
xBig Al later served as secretary again, which reinstated his
formal authority, and reaffirm ed his position as inform al leader.
135
reputation that has taken on a life of its own. It continues in Al's
absence w hen he is out of tow n, and it will continue after his demise,
because the rules and resources he institutionalized have been in place
for m ore than three decades, and are em bedded at deep structure
levels (e.g., shaking hands; birthdays). His language helps produce the
structures; he speaks of having to act better than he feels, both because
his sponsors have insisted upon it, and because he m ust do so for those
he sponsors. Action is necessary because alcoholism is a life-and-death
em ergency. Rigorous adherence to A.A. principles and
acknow ledgm ent of the H igher Power that is the source of all hum an
spirituality are, together, the only hope for survival. It is discourse
designed to institutionalize rules-based pow er and structured
behaviors am ong m em bers, in order to facilitate transcendent action.
Some structures reside at a relatively superficial level, and
m ay change or disappear, should Al leave the G roup (e.g., the Yard),
but m uch of w hat Big Al has institutionalized has become central to the
G roup culture, and m em bers enact and perpetuate G roup rules and
resources w hen Al is out of town, or w hen they are in other geographic
areas. A m em ber is a m em ber, no m atter where he or she may be, and
individual com portm ent alw ays is congruent w ith G roup practices
and values. Furtherm ore, there is a "low-bottom," "hard-nosed-
sponsor" heir apparent to carry on in Al's image.
The second research question asked about the nature of the
Friendship G roup culture as constituted by com m unicative practices.
136
Figure 5 presents a sum m ary of the structures of A.A. com pared to
those of the Friendship Group.
Figure 5. D ifferences betw een A.A. and F riendship G roup
A lcoholics A nonym ous F rien d sh ip G roup
Signification: Metaphor, myth, legend
Prodigal "sons" of society Prodigal "sons" of society and
A.A.
Straightforw ard discourse Tough, m asculine talk
H itting bottom H itting a low bottom
In-group of out-group m em bers
A lienation and isolation Outcasts
Service for recovery Service as honor and privilege
Birthdays or anniversaries Birthdays
Birthday donations suggested Rem onstrative use language if
donations not m ade
Bum per stickers w ith A.A.
m ottoes
"FG" bum per stickers, hats
N ear-death experience N ear-death experience
Bill W. & Dr. Bob as heroes Big Al as hero
Legitimation: Normative action
Shaking hands, hugging Formal reception line, thanking
speaker, shaking hands by
assigned "quota"
Birthday talks Birthday "litany"
Tasks as voluntary service Tasks by assignm ent lists and
diagram s
Personal anonym ity Personal anonym ity; G roup
celebrity
137
Figure 5. (C ontinued)
A lcoholics A nonym ous F rien d sh ip G roup
Legitimation: Normative action
Good or poor speakers Exem plary speakers
Birthday donations Buying candles
O pen election of secretaries and
other "trusted servants"
Secret ballot election of
secretaries and other "trusted
servants"
Aisle m onitors
M em bers welcome any time Punctuality for m eetings
Staying seated during m eetings
som etim es requested
Staying seated during m eetings
enforced
Dress unim portant Dress code, clean shavenness
G roup anniversary celebrations,
potlucks or parties
Christm as Show,
4th of July @ Yard,
weekly Yard activities,
video tapes, audio taped G roup
"histories"
Domination: allocation or authorization o f material resources
W omen invisible W omen invisible
W omen segregated in task
assignm ents
M embers as resources: expected
to serve the G roup
T reasurer's recom m ended
donations approved by "group
conscience"
G roup donations routinized
and expected
138
To G roup m em bers, this is the real A .A ., an organization of
"low-bottoms" and tough recoveries; of rebirth through action and
renew al through discipline. It is the culture of Alcoholics A nonym ous,
b u t a m ore intense version, w here A.A. "suggestions" become m andates
for recovery. Like m ost A.A. m eetings, the W ednesday evening
Friendship G roup m eeting ends w ith a prayer, and m em bers openly
discuss God, a H igher Power, and spirituality. They see the G roup as a
haven, a cocoon, a nurturing disciplinarian that clears their self
destructive paths for a contem plation of personal spirituality, thus
enabling transcendence and recovery. It is the safe harbor in the shark-
infested w aters of alcoholic life.
The Friendship G roup is a "celebrity" am ong Alcoholics
A nonym ous groups, producing stellar speakers, record am ounts of
m oney for Central Services, and long-term sobriety. Furtherm ore,
m any of its m em bers are celebrities in the entertainm ent or film
industries. Thus, both agent and agency are paradoxes of anonymity.
The Friendship G roup is "power A. A.," to w hich M ichael Tolkin refers
in "The Player," but the "deals" being m ade are for recovery, rather than
for m ovie contracts.
The last research question asked by w hat com m unicative
practices the Friendship G roup creates and m anifests individual and
organizational spirituality. One of the m ost visible form s of
com m unication is the discourse, w hich is sprinkled liberally w ith
quotations from Big Al, the Steps, the Traditions, and the Big Book,
139
each of w hich espouses a H igher Pow er and a focus on spirituality.
M em bers tell their stories, reordering their lives and perceptions of
self, in dyadic conversations and telephone calls, inform al group
discussions over dinner or coffee, and as speakers in m eetings. Rituals
reinforce and celebrate sobriety (e.g., birthdays), action (e.g., cleaning
the Yard on Saturdays for the softball games), and service (e.g.,
Secretaries' Night). All of these social interactions carry w ith them the
sense of a H igher Power, of selflessness and altruism as m eans for
recovery, and of personal spirituality and transcendence brought about
through hum an agency.
M uch of the Friendship G roup com m unication also takes
place through norm ative action and sanctions, such as the birthday
candle m oney, or the social pressure to attend group activities. Formal
and inform al dyadic a interactions betw een m em bers (e.g.,
sponsorship), group interactions (e.g., coffee-shop get-togethers,
watches, parties), and official activities all serve to reinforce cultural
norm s and give m em bers opportunities to learn how to live sober lives,
enveloping them in social cocoons to enable recovery. The agents,
thus, enact G roup values as inculcated by Big Al, reconstructing
them selves in the process, and reifying and recreating concentrated
versions of A.A. cultural norm s and values into the G roup deep
structures as they are institutionally reproduced.
From a structurationist perspective, social interactions
betw een G roup m em bers (both including and excluding the founder)
140
create the institutional structures that w ithstand tim e and space
distanciation. This is evident as Friendship G roup m em bers manifest
their culture both w ithin and outside their hom e group by adhering to
the dress code, and taking pains to shake hands (often by rote) with
new com ers at any m eeting of Alcoholics Anonym ous. A casual
listener often can identify a Friendship G roup speaker in another
m eeting by observing a salutary phrase that indicates speaking is an
"honor and a privilege."
Alcoholics Anonym ous, in general, m ay serve as a
disem bedding m echanism (Giddens, 1991), but the Friendship G roup
takes the notion a step further. For the new m em ber, both organizations
fill the time void that results from hour upon endless hour of
new found sobriety; time once filled w ith drinking and intoxication.
They provide ontological security (Giddens, 1991) as the alcoholic self
transm utes into a recovering self. The Friendship G roup practices, in
particular, make it nearly im possible for the new com er to float
aimlessly or rem ain isolated betw een the two states of being. Time,
both in and out of the m eetings, is tightly scheduled. Group m em bers
often are told by sponsors to "go out there and shake ten newcom ers’
hands, then come report to me," and it's not unusual for a Group
m em ber to become a self-appointed sponsor to a newcom er w ithin the
first few m inutes of an introduction.
Friendship Group sponsors often expect their sponsees to
travel rem arkable distances several times each week, in order to attend
141
Friendship G roup m eetings. One w om an, for exam ple, travels 80 miles
round trip on W ednesday evenings to see her sponsor at the big
m eeting, and another 70 miles two other tim es during the w ork week,
in order to attend the m eetings he attends. She has done this faithfully
j for years, even though there are m any m eetings, both large and small,
w ithin m inutes of her hom e and workplace. All of this m eans that the
Friendship G roup m em ber develops occupations other than drinking;
|
that the Group brackets time and space for the alcoholic self,
enveloping and protecting the individual in a social cocoon spun of
i organizational com m unicative practices, until new skills for living are
j
’ developed (a cocoon in w hich some m em bers choose to rem ain).
| Caveats and Constraints
Several caveats are in order for the interpreter of this
research. First, the goal of this study was not prim arily one of
generalizability. The selection of the Friendship G roup as the arena for
I
data collection is both the study's greatest strength and its greatest
w eakness. As noted earlier, the Friendship G roup is idiosyncratic, and
not necessarily representative of Alcoholics A nonym ous as a whole. It
w as selected partly because of its idiosyncrasies, and because of its
acknow ledged success in helping alcoholics find recovery. Eisner
^ (1991) asserts, however, that generalizability, while a natural tendency,
is not the only way in w hich learning takes place. He, like Denzin, calls
upon the philosophical "concrete universal," (p. 203) the concept that
universalities can be discerned through the study of exem plars; that
142
there is m uch to be learned from "the particular." In this sense, study of
the Friendship G roup offers an opportunity for a cultural case study,
an appropriate endeavor for exploring a new link betw een hum an
spirituality and social collectivity, w hich is discussed in the next
section of this chapter.
Second, the individuals chosen for interview and tape
transcription did not constitute a random sam ple of G roup m em bers.
The selection of ten-m inute speakers, in particular, was based on their
G roup m em bership, since each was a speaker at the W ednesday
evening m eeting during the seven m onths of data collection w ithin the
G roup. Together, they represent the tenures of two different secretaries
(who select the ten-m inute speakers), b u t cannot be considered
representative of the entire Group, since they constitute only betw een
six and eight percent of the total W ednesday evening attendance.
Interview ees, too, do not represent a random sam ple from the Group,
w hich w as impractical and inappropriate, for tw o reasons. First, of
course, is that w ith no formal records of the group m em bership, no
stable population frame existed from w hich to draw a random sample.
Second, and perhaps more critical, was the concern of altering the
subject of study. While it may be im possible to enter an organization
w ithout altering it to some extent, the ethnographer m ust use caution to
avoid serious damage. A lthough it was fairly easy to get "lost in the
crow d," serious attem pts at w idespread, random interview s could
jeopardize the study, both by creating self-consciousness in individual
143
G roup m em bers (H am m ersley & Atkinson, 1983), and by draw ing
undue attention from governing com m ittees that the research was
taking place. Therefore, the data and the reporting represent personal
experiences.
Third, this study was a prelim inary exploration of an
extension to the culture m etaphor in organizations. It drew from
diverse literatures, and attem pted to bridge them but, as Goodall (1993)
advises, m ade no attem pt to define the ineffable. W hatever spirituality
is, w hatever affect it has on hum an mortality and rationality, is not at
issue in this research. Rather, the focus was on the nature of
organization in which hum an agents attem pt to engage and m ake sense
of social interaction in order to renew , sustain, and perpetuate
them selves and the social structures they create.
Finally, as w ith all qualitative studies, the reader should bear
in m ind that the researcher was the interpreter, using "self as
instrument" (e.g., Ely, et al., 1991). It is not replicable, because other
researchers w ith different paradigm atic approaches or personal world
view s undoubtedly w ould see and interpret the same data differently.
M oreover, like any organization, the Friendship G roup changes w ith
time, as actors enter and leave, thus changing the shape and the face of
the G roup. Today's Friendship G roup is not identical to the
Friendship Group during the time of data collection. Its m em bers do,
how ever, still enact m any of the structures detailed in this dissertation.
144
D iscussion and Im plications
This study contem plated the Friendship G roup’s rules-based
pow er and its dialectic w ith constitutive spirit, indicating that
structure and pow er facilitate the enactm ent of spirituality, and that
transcendence and recovery are enabled by a pow er-based structure,
w hich is transcended by spirit. The organizational culture is a bequest
of tw o m en w ho discovered recovery from alcoholism through
conversation (Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1972/1975; Alcoholics
A nonym ous, 1976; Alcoholics A nonym ous, 1980; Alcoholics
i A nonym ous, 1984a; Alcoholics Anonym ous, 1985a). This culture is
transform ed and reinstituted at the at the G roup level by a local
founder. It is culture as communication.
The process of triangulation during data collection and
analysis both confirms and disconfirm s em erging ideas about the
G roup, often revealing unanticipated organizational features. The
biggest surprise in this study was disconfirm ation of the initial
assum ption that the Friendship G roup culture w as a "mutation" of the
A.A. culture, w ith concom itant variations on the G roup interpretation
of the Twelve Traditions and, possibly, the Twelve Steps. While there
is a clearer pow er base in the Friendship Group than in other A.A.
groups or A.A. as a whole, the real cultural differences were those of
intensity of culture norm s and held values, rather than in their nature.
The Friendship G roup, contrary to possible first im pressions, is well-
seated w ithin the m ainstream AA. culture of recovery.
145
In addition to adding to the an understanding of Alcoholics
A nonym ous and the organizational enablem ent of recovery, this study
adds to the organizational culture literature by approaching the
research from a structurationist perspective, w hich bridges both the
local/global, m icro/m acro dichotom y (Banks & Riley, 1993), and the
internal endpoints of consensus and dissensus. The structurationist
focus on agent/agency interaction, rather than agents within an
organizational entity, perm its both a consideration of the smallest
subcultural unit (the individual actor), hierarchies (e.g., officers, crew
chiefs, and comm ittees), group subcultures (e.g., "classes" of sobriety
years), and an understanding of the organization, its historicity, and its
environm ental context. This allows the researcher a more complete
view of the organizational culture than m ight be seen through an
integration, differentiation, or fragm entation perspective alone, while
avoiding the paradigm atic incom m ensurabilities of the three
perspectives combined (Martin, 1992). As a result, analysis of the data
show strong G roup cohesion (e.g., deep structure values of sobriety
and service, stem m ing from A.A.), b u t they also show profound
individual differences (e.g., personal definitions of a H igher Pow er or
spirituality), distinct subcultural groups (e.g., the secretaries), and loci
of pow er (e.g., Big Al; sponsors; the rem nants of masculine
dom ination).
As a disem bedding m echanism , the Friendship Group
focuses on the alcoholic self w ithin the geographical seat of a cultural
146
view of self that Foucault calls the "Californian cult of the self"
(Foucault, 1986, p. 362). This is the seeking of one's "true self, to
separate it from w hat m ight obscure or alienate it, to discover its truth
thanks to psychological or psychoanalytic science" (Giddens, 1992, p.
22), and it is the opposite of the Classical Greek view of self that
involves integration "into an ethics of the cultivated, aesthetic
existence" (Giddens, 1992, p. 22). Thus, biographical narratives in the
G roup often involve self-conceptualizations as spiritual beings
coupled w ith therapy-induced insights and understandings, fram ed in
a Hollywood-conscious awareness of self. The A.A. concept of the
alcoholic self is, thus, disem bedded from the global organization and
recreated in the Southern California local organization; it is both the
creation and creator of the organizational culture.
This leads to the issue of trust in organizations. Giddens
(1991) asserts that everyone m ust trust abstract systems because no one
can be expert in all things. Trust, for Giddens, is a creator of the social
cocoon that enables creativity and learning. On an em otional level, it is
an acceptance of reality that enables one to function in the external
world. Clegg (1990) considers the concept of tru st as a w ay in which
organizations becom e em bedded in their cultural contexts. French
bakeries survive because of the culture in which they reside, and the
roles played in the French psyche by freshly-baked bread, its daily
purchase, and the familial bakery. Similarly, the newcom er to A.A.
147
m ust trust som ething beyond self, and that som ething is A.A. and a
personally-conceived H igher Power.
D enzin indicates that the alcoholic individual undergoes a
profound changes in self identity (1987a; 1987b), a notion congruent
w ith Bateson's position that by taking the first of the Twelve Steps, the
alcoholic undergoes an epistem ological change (Bateson, 1972; p. 313).
This change arises out of an adm ission of personal pow erlessness over
alcohol, and brings the individual to an ontological abyss or "clearing"
(Hyde, 1991), a point at w hich the alcoholic self is neither accepting of
nor acceptable to the greater, alcohol-condoning society; it is a m om ent
in w hich acknowledgm ent of a "power greater than one’s self" is the
only hope of reprieve from alcoholism . Regardless of personally-held
theological beliefs, the hum an agent m ust tru st th at A.A. can provide
that pow er, or direction for finding it. As the hum an agent engages in
reconstruction of self through the Twelve Steps and other A.A.-
suggested action, the ontological shift or "spiritual awakening" occurs.
This doesn't happen in a vacuum . It comes about as the
result of a collective effort, w ithin the context of A.A.'s organizational
culture, w hich is form ed by a constituency of alcoholic selves. The
com m on lived experience of those selves form the basis of
com m unication betw een Friendship G roup m em bers. T hrough hum an
activity and trust, the Friendship Group enables a collective a focus on
hum an spirituality, which, in turn, is m anifested in the Group.
Friendship G roup structures constitute and characterize an
148
organizational culture through com m unicative practices, creating a
rules-based pow er that is necessary to enable transcendence and
healing. The G roup culture instills in the transm utational self stocks of
knowledge, even while it is created by a collective of alcoholic selves.
At the same time, social constructions constrain and em ancipate the
agent, offering protection from an unsym pathetic w orld and freedom
from self-destructive choices, thus enabling the transition individual
spirituality, transcendence and recovery.
Spirituality, in the A.A. and Friendship G roup context, is a
personally-defined state of being; its specifics are determ ined by
m atters of faith. Because A.A. is grounded in W estern Christianity, it
often is articulated as m onotheistic, b u t it encom passes all faiths and
religions. H aw ley (1993) attem pts to define spirituality, particularly as
contrasted to religion, w ith some success. To him , it is beyond body,
m ind, thoughts, feelings, passions, m em ories, or innate tendencies
(Hawley, 1993, p. 16). Spirituality, for Hawley, is the goal; religion is
the path. It moves the individual from uncertainty to clarity; it is an
inquiry into "true Self," w hereas religion involves sets of beliefs, rituals,
and cerem onies (p. 4). To Goodall (1993), spirituality is ineffable, and
m ost of the literature seems to support this view. A lthough a num ber
of com m unication scholars have talked around, spirituality, or
149
described aspects of spirituality,2 a true grasp of its features apparently
rem ains out of reach, and considerable confusion betw een spirituality
and religion seems to m uddy the waters.
One im portant consideration is th at religiosity, spiritual belief
and m atters o f faith need to be teased out of the snarled discourse. The
question is not w hether hum an agents believe in a God, or gods, or
oneness w ith nature, or hobgoblins, nor w hether the religious path is
Christian, Buddhist, Druid, or witchcraft, but that there is some power
that is greater than mere humanity. H um an understanding or
acknow ledgm ent of that pow er does not create it, nor does hum an
denial destroy it. It sim ply is.
The organizational issue, particularly as it relates to A.A., is
an acknow ledgm ent of hum an agents as spiritual beings, that there is
some pow er to which hum anity is connected beyond that of the
individual, and to come to some understanding of w hat it m eans to be
spiritual. To help m ake these differentiations, and at the risk of being
presum ptuous, Figure 6 presents a table that proposes w ays in which
spirituality m ight be differentiated from religion or faith. This figure
clarifies the distinction that is m ade in A.A. betw een the concepts of
religion and spirit, and encom passes the m yriad w ays in w hich A.A.
2A particularly interesting conversation on spirituality and
religion appears in C om m unication Studies. 40, (e.g., Bineham, 1989;
Tukey, 1989; Hikins, 1989; Scott, 1989).
150
■ m em bers talk about their personal spirituality. It also describes the
features of individual spirituality that m ight be applied to a
reconceptualization of organizational culture as an approach to
studying organizations.
Figure 6. C om parisons of Religion, Faith, and Spirituality
Features and
D efinition of
R eligion
Features and
D efinition of Faith or
Belief
Features and
D efinition of
S pirituality
Collective definition
of deity or deities
Personal definition or
rejection of deity or
deities
H um an incarnation
of m ulti-defined
extra-hum an pow er
A rticulated collective
understanding
A rticulated or
unarticulated personal
understanding
Personal
understanding,
incom pletely
articulated
Creator of ethical
systems
D eterm inant of ethical
systems
M anifested in ethical
systems
Social construction Social construction H um an inherence
S pirituality
acknow ledged and
accepted
S pirituality
acknow ledged or
denied
A cknow ledgm ent or
denial of spirituality
irrelevant to its being
Collective m atters of
faith
C onstructed of and by
religion
Essence of Being
M anifestation of
collective
spirituality; "pious"
organizations
A rticulated
collectively and
individually; "pious"
or "agnostic"
organizations"
Invoked or
suppressed in
groups and
organizations
151
If the prem ise of hum an spirituality as m anifested in
Alcoholics A nonym ous is accepted, it follow s that hum an collectivity
brings about collective spirituality. But can this concept of
organizational spirituality be extended to encom pass other
I organizations? Can engineering or aerospace or m icroelectronics firms
be considered spiritual collectives? W hat are the im plications if
organizational m em bers deny hum an spirituality? The answer, of
course, is that denial of som ething does not m ean it doesn't exist.
The review of the literature indicates that spirituality is alive
and w ell in the late m odern and postm odern era, and that healing is
linked w ith it. In A.A., this connection relatively easy to see. But
people vary widely in belief system s and values, and not all
organizations evince a spiritual base. The Friendship G roup m ight be
called "spiritually enriched." G roup m em bers are enthusiastic and
intense in their expression of spirituality, valuations of Big Al, and
organizational goals. They cohere and m ake collective sense of deeply
layered structures that span space and time. This sense-making
acknow ledges and ultim ately celebrates hum an spirituality in o rd er to
capitalize on it for personal betterm ent.
One unintended and som etim es devastating consequence of
organizational spirituality occurs w hen personal spirituality and
transcendence are acknow ledged at the organizational level, b u t the
natu re of their collective spirituality becom es destructive, usually
through a transform ation brought about by charism atic leadership,
152
com bined w ith subjugation of organizational dem ocracy to individual
pow er. Dramatic illustrations of this occurred in Jonestow n and Waco.
Jim Jones and D avid Koresh both disem bedded organizational features
of their religious institutions, transform ed them , and reconstituted
them at the local level as institutional structures in w ays that proved
catastrophic to the organizational m em bers. A lthough both of these
organizations were religious as well as spiritual, their cases provide
vivid exem plars of organizational spirituality, transcendence, and
agent/agency interactions that can result in cataclysmic ends. But
spirituality also plays a key role in the ongoing search for
organizational excellence.
A variety of scholars have approached different aspects of
spirituality in their works: T urner's version is "communitas" (1969);
Eisenberg approaches it as "jamming" (1990); Csikszentmihalyi calls it
"flow" (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975; C sikszentm ihalyi & Selega-
Csikszentmihalyi, 1989; Csikszentm ihalyi, 1990; 1993). The difference is
that most research interest focuses on the existence of the transcendent
action, rather than how it is created. Conceptualizing organizational
spirituality as a feature of organizational culture serves to address this
question. Acknowledging it in organizations requires trust, as w ell as a
shift in traditional ideas of m anagerial pow er and control (which
already is evident, for exam ple, in self-m anaged w ork teams).
The assum ption that culture is som ething an organization is
rather than som ething an organization has (Riley, 1983) points to the
153
idea that transcendent collective action stem s not from tem poral
collectivity, b u t rather from spiritual collectivity. While organizing
creates the opportunity, collective hum an spirituality creates synergy
that enables individual and collective transcendence. Organizations,
then, w hether spiritually deprived or spiritually enriched, are
constituted of spiritual beings, and their aggregate spirituality. They
need not acknow ledge or deny spirituality for it to be m anifest in the
organization, in whole or in part, but transcendent action m ay be
facilitated by acknow ledging it.
O rganizations, like their hum an agents, m anifest belief and
value system s. The Friendship G roup is, of course, a "pious"
organization. Its m em bers, including Big Al, are overtly spiritual, and
speak openly of their spirituality, God, or H igher Power, and of
recovery grounded in action. Collectively, the hum an agents in the
Friendship G roup create and recreate them selves and their
organization, spinning com m unicative w ebs of rules-grounded action
that envelop and, ultim ately, transform their conceptions of self as
drinkers and as spiritual beings.
At the opposite end of the spectrum are organizations that
m ight be called "spiritually deprived." These are the organizations in
w hich spirituality is relegated to a level of invisibility, w here only the
bottom line, "left-brained," "just-the-facts-ma'am" sorts of things m atter
to organizational constituents. Even here, though, pockets of
spirituality often are evident, and it need not be acknow ledged to be
154
evinced. The dynam ic assem bly team, the stellar fund-raising
com m ittee, the cham pion athletic team, and the brilliant orchestral
perform ance all em body the abstraction.
Some organizations, w hether spiritually enriched or
spiritually deprived, m ay be "agnostic" or even "atheistic" (e.g.,
"agnostic" groups of A.A.). O rganizational agnosticism or piety is a
different phenom enon than spiritual deprivation, w hich refers to
organizations in w hich organizational spirituality is denied or
suppressed. Spiritual deprivation is independent of the belief system s
of organizational constituents. Furtherm ore, spiritual enrichm ent or
deprivation, while polar opposites, do not constitute a true dichotom y,
b u t rather opposing ends of a continuum . Organizational piety or
agnosticism refers to the valence of organizational spirituality, and its
constitutive belief and value system s. This suggests possibilities for
additional research directed from a perspective of structuration, and
g rounded in the concept of spirituality as a feature of organizational
culture.
Suggestions for Future Research
Beyond providing an understanding of transcendent action
in organizations, the concept of organizational spirituality can help
address current concerns for organizational survival in an increasingly
globalized w orld. M ahoney, Huff, & H uff (1994) are m oving in that
direction by positing that "altruism , ethics, goodwill, m oral sentim ents,
and tru st need to be placed in the foreground of our [organizational]
j 155
j vision" (p. 153). In a sim ilar vein, Mitroff, M ason, and Pearson (1994)
I
I declare that the w orld is undergoing a revolution as "profound as that
!
j from the A grarian to the Industrial Age" (p. 11), w hich requires a re-
j thinking of today's obsolete nineteenth- and tw entieth-century
organizations. They propose five new organizational entities. One of
i
these entities addresses the well-being, developm ent, and recovery of
hum an constituents; a second, called the "World Service/Spiritual
I
Center," focuses on w orld service and global health. This sort of
1 reconceptualization, like H aw ley's w ork on spiritual organizations,
i
i recognizes the im portance of organizational acknowledgm ent of
! hum an agents and global connectedness as critical for organizations to
| thrive. It is not sim ply a m atter of hum anitarianism for its own sake; it
is a m atter of organizational survival. In this regard, the corporate
sector m ay learn m uch from non-corporate siblings, such as charitable
and religious organizations,
j Future studies m ight explore organizational spirituality by
focusing on the critical agent/agency interaction from a
structurationist perspective. The follow ing five features, in particular,
are guideposts that indicate organizational spirituality: 1) structures of
signification that address synergism or a pow er greater than the
individual members; 2) norm ative actions that encourage altruism ,
1 m orality, or comm unity; 3) structures of dom ination that invest or
allocate resources tow ard a greater good, perhaps beyond the
organization; and 4) visionary or charism atic leadership, embodying
156
the "soul" of the organization; and 5) hum an agents engaged in
transcendent action. Such a theoretical focus can provide an
ontological approach to praxis that considers hum an agents w ithin the
organization as more than mere "hum an resources," and the
organizational position as one of social responsibility in an increasingly
global environm ent.
In addition to the new ly-raised issues of organizational
spirituality, four key questions rem ain unansw ered by this study,
w hich can be considered only a prelim inary investigation of an
organizational culture from a structurationist perspective. First, some
local A.A. m em bers consider the Friendship G roup as a "cult" within
A.A., and, as indicated in C hapter I, Alcoholics Anonym ous, as a
whole, has been com pared w ith cults. W hat, then, is the precise
difference betw een the Friendship G roup as an Identity Transform ation
O rganization (ITO) (Rudy & Greil, 1988) and a cult, in term s of the
com m unication practices th at constitute the organizational culture?
There are some clear sim ilarities in the features of each type of
organization, including charism atic leadership, ontological shifts in the
m em bers, and an em phasis on things spiritual. One difference m ay be
the way in which the Friendship G roup m aintains a clear focus on its
m ission of recovery. Do its structures prevent it from the entering the
extreme organizational behaviors that often earm ark a cult? If so, how?
A second question concerns the ways in which Big A1
disem beds and recreates global structures at the local level. Clearly,
157
his techniques w ork well in Southern California, but this is a
geographical area that is w idely considered atypical of the rest of the
nation. W ould Big Al's organization flourish as well in Fairbanks,
Alaska or G reensboro, N orth Carolina? To w hat extent m ight his
com m unicative practices be effectively transplanted to other p arts of
the country, or the w orld? A.A. works (although to a yet unknown
extent) in countries outside the U nited States, despite its clear
Protestant A m erican philosophical underpinnings. The Friendship
G roup culture m ay or m ay n o t fair as well in a m arkedly different
culture. H ow m ight such a group, or sim ilarly constructed
organizations, be recreated w ithin or influenced by other
environm ental cultures?
A third question concerns the founder's influence and
organizational longevity. Big Al's im print is evident in every facet of
the organization. A lthough the Group undoubtedly w ill survive Al,
and his successor seems evident, to w hat extent will Al’s influence
rem ain after he is gone? Will the Friendship G roup revert to
"ordinary" A.A., losing its "low-bottom" intensity, or is the founding
ideology, like that of the parent organization, deeply enough
em bedded to survive? Is the charism atic leader a necessity for
organizational spirituality to em erge?
Finally, the Friendship G roup exem plifies a "recreated"
group. It is a product, not only of agent/agency interaction, but of
local/global tension. How m ight these dialectics w ork w ithin other
158
organizations, w ith or w ithout strong founders' influences? In w hat
ways do these tensions m anifest them selves in other organizational
cultures?
This study analyzed the organizational culture of one group
in Alcoholics A nonym ous. It discussed the w ays in w hich the G roup’s
rules-based pow er em ancipated constitutive spirit, indicating that
structure and pow er facilitate the enactm ent of organizational
spirituality. It reconceptualized organizational culture as
organizational spirituality, and the w ays in w hich agency and agent
interact to enable transcendent action. While this knowledge will not
elicit transcendent action on dem and, it helps explain the role of
com m unication in culture and the duality of the nature of the
agent/agency relationship. It m ay provide a fuller understanding of
the ways in which organizations are created and sustained through
social interactions, and the significance of their historicity and cultural
contexts, in order to help guide future research for organizational
survival and hum an successes in organizations.
159
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180
Appendix A: The Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics
Anonymous
1. O ur com m on w elfare should come first; personal recovery
depends upon A.A. unity.
2. For our group purpose there is but one ultim ate authority— a
loving God as He may express Him self in our group conscience.
O ur leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.
3. The only requirem ent for A.A. m em bership is a desire to stop
drinking.
4. Each group should be autonom ous except in m atters affecting
other groups or A.A. as a whole.
5. Each group has but one prim ary purpose— to carry its m essage to
the alcoholic who still suffers.
6. An A.A. group ought never endorse, finance or lend the A.A.
nam e to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problem s
of m oney, property and prestige divert us from our prim ary
purpose.
7. Every A.A. g ro u p ought to be fully self-supporting, declining
outside contributions.
8. Alcoholics A nonym ous should rem ain forever nonprofessional,
b u t our service centers m ay em ploy special workers.
9. A.A., as such, ought never be organized; but we m ay create
service boards or com m ittees directly responsible to those they
serve.
181
10. Alcoholics A nonym ous has no opinion on outside issues; hence
the A.A. nam e ought never be draw n into public controversy.
11. O ur public relations policy is based on attraction rather than
prom otion; we need alw ays m aintain personal anonym ity at the
level of press, radio and films.
12. A nonym ity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever
rem inding us to place principles before personalities.
182
Appendix B: The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics
Anonymous
1. We adm itted we w ere pow erless over alcohol--that our lives had
becom e unm anageable.
2. Came to believe that a Pow er greater than ourselves could
restore us to sanity.
3. M ade a decision to turn our w ill and our lives over to the care of
God as we understood Him.
4. M ade a searching and fearless inventory of ourselves.
5. A dm itted to God, to ourselves, and to another hum an being the
exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God rem ove all these defects of
character.
7. H um bly asked Him to rem ove our shortcomings.
8. M ade a list of all persons we had harm ed, and became willing to
make am ends to them all.
9. M ade direct am ends to such people w herever possible, except
w hen to do so w ould injure them or others.
10. C ontinued to take personal inventory and w hen w ere w rong
prom ptly adm itted it.
183
11. Sought through prayer and m editation to im prove our
conscious contact w ith God as we understood Him, praying only
for knowledge of His will for us and the pow er 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.
184
Appendix C: Guiding Questions for In-Depth
Interviews
(Modified, to past tense for former members)
O rientation: a) Explanation of this as an organizational culture
study.
b) A ssurance that personal anonym ity will be preserved
in the reporting.
c) Big Al’s perm ission has been secured for the study.
d) Perm ission to use tape recorder.
e) Results of the com pleted study available upon
request.
1. H ow long have you been sober in Alcoholics Anonym ous?
2. Tell me a little of your story. W hat brought you to A.A.? How
did you feel? W hat was your first experience like in the
program ? How does it com pare w ith your experience of the
program today? How does it com pare w ith your feelings about
yourself today?
3. W hen d id you first come to the Friendship Group? Why did
you come to the Friendship Group? How long have you
attended regularly? Which m eetings do you attend on a regular
basis? Are these the same as the meetings you first attended?
W hat other m eetings do you attend? Do you attend other
m eetings on a regular basis?
185
4. W hat first brought you to the Friendship Group? W hy did you
stay? If you no longer attend Friendship G roup m eetings
regularly, w hen did you quit going? W hy did you leave?
5. Do you usually prefer speaker m eetings or participation
m eetings? Why?
6. Do you attend other Friendship G roup activities? W hich ones?
H ow long have you been involved in those activities?
7. H ow do other m eetings com pare to the Friendship G roup? Are
there differences? If so, w hat are the major differences, in your
opinion?
8. Can you give an exam ple of the Friendship G roup at its best?
9. Can you give an exam ple of the Friendship G roup at its worst?
10. W hat is your best experience in Alcoholics Anonym ous?
11. W hat is your w orst experience in Alcoholics Anonym ous?
12. Do you know Big Al? H ow long have you know n him? How
well do you feel know him? W hat is your experience of him?
13. Do you go to the Yard? How often? W hat do you like best
about the Yard? W hat do you like least?
14. How do you w ork the 12 steps? Do you w ork them differently
w ithin the Friendship Group than you have or m ight outside the
Friendship Group? Why? Can you think of an exam ple?
15. Have you ever had a Friendship G roup sponsor? Have you ever
a sponsor outside the Friendship Group? Do your experiences
of being sponsored differ in or out of the Friendship Group? In
w hat ways?
186
16. H ave you ever sponsored anyone w ithin the Friendship Group?
H ave you sponsored anyone outside the Friendship Group? Do
your sponsorship experiences differ in or out of the Friendship
Group? In w hat ways?
17. How do you think the Friendship G roup upholds the 12
traditions? How do you think this com pares w ith other groups?
Why? Can you think of an example?
18 Do you consider A lcoholics A nonym ous spiritual? How w ould
you describe the spirituality of Alcoholics A nonym ous? Can
you give an example?
19. Do you consider the Friendship G roup spiritual? H ow w ould
you describe the spirituality of the Friendship G roup? Can you
give an example?
20. Have you had a spiritual aw akening in Alcoholics Anonym ous?
Can you tell me about it? How w ould you describe it? W hat
brought it about?
21. How w ould you describe your spirituality? Can you give an
exam ple?
22. W hat adjectives best describe Alcoholics A nonym ous for you?
23. W hat adjectives best describe the Friendship Group for you?
24. Do you have any additional com m ents you'd like to make?
187
Appendix D: Sample Transcript
The following transcript illustrates how em ergent them es
were bracketed and coded. Because of the recursive nature of the
m ethodology and because structures are not m utually exclusive, units
of analysis m ight belong to more than one node in the indexing scheme.
All identifying inform ation of the individual speaker has been
rem oved. The num eral on the far right represents the num ber of the
text unit. The num erals in parentheses represent the node num bers or
categories in w hich each text unit is identified.
NUD•1ST Macintosh Version 3.0 GUI.
Licensee: Diane Penkoff.
PROJECT: DissNUDIST, User Diane Penkoff, 6:10 pm, Jun 21, 1994.
+++ ON-LINE DOCUMENT: 06/02Clifton
+++ Document Header:
* CLIFTON
* 06/02/93
* SECRETARY
+++ Retrieval for this document: 8 units out of 8, = 100%
++ Text units 1-8:
1
(4 6)
Thank you. I'm Clifton. I'm an alcoholic. [Group: Hi,
Clifton.]
2
188
(4 6)
There's a dinner where all the ex-secretaries get together, and we
had it tonight, as we usually do, and I never sit down at that
table with those men and women without feeling very fortunate to
be a part of that group. 3
(4 4) (4 6)
And I feel very fortunate to be here tonight with you. All this
talk about the "good old days" is— Jesus. I'll tell you what we
did in those days— we went to the blood bank. Remember that?
God. We'd line up— carloads of us to go down to blood banks.
That was the day before they checked you out that thoroughly, and
everybody— we lost a pint of blood, and strong men weeped and
women fainted and it was just a hideous mess. And then somebody
said there was some idea that maybe we'd go to the eye bank next
year. And I— I remember losing a little interest around then.
4
(4 4) (4 6)
But those memories are precious and the people that have served as
your secretaries over the years have been very— have, without any
question or any exception— something about being a part of this
group restores dignity to human beings. And, I'm most pleased to
have watched it and been a part of it. 5
(4 4) (4 6) (5 1) (5 2)
I want to— I was saying tonight at dinner about years ago in the
mid-'70s— one of the L.A. Rams— the Rams were in Los Angeles at
that time— was arrested at the airport for drugs. And he got
sentenced to community service and wound up doing that community
service at the Midnight Mission. And boy, he had to put on an NFL
film and put on and answer questions for a while afterwards. And
half a dozen of us were down— we really wanted to see this thing—
and this big football star— nationally known football star— and he
was down there and showed up a little bit late, but there was no
big deal— and he was a little salty with the guys that were
sitting there, the skid row people— and he said afterwards,
"Clancy, I'll see you next week." And Clancy said, "No, not— not
here." He said, "What do you mean? I'm ordered here by the
judge." He said, "No, you're not coming back here." "Why not?"
"Because you were rude and insolent with those men that were
there. They're skid row people, but they have every right to be
there, and we give them their dignity here, and if you want to
come back again, be on time and be courteous. Well, we were all
189
there the next week. We wanted to just see what this would look
like. And he showed up and he showed up on time, and he put his
film on and he was courteous and— and absolutely wonderful with
those people. And I think he must have gained very much out of
life that week because somebody cared about his dignity as well as
those people on skid row. 6
And I think that if there's anything I've noticed about this
group, it's that somehow or other there is an opportunity for
every one of us to live a life of sobriety and also do the things
necessary to gain a dignity in a way that we present ourselves to
the world and to each other. And I'm glad to be a part of it.
(2 1 ) (4 4) (4 6) (5 1)
7
(4 4)
Thank you.
(4 6) (5 1) (5 2)
8

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Asset Metadata

Creator Penkoff, Diane W (author)

Core Title A ship in a bottle: How communication builds the lifeboats of the world's largest A.A. group

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Communication Arts and Sciences

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag OAI-PMH Harvest,Speech Communication

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Riley, Prticia (committee chair), Cummings, Tomas G. (committee member), Fisher, Walter (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c17-730352

Unique identifier UC11344537

Identifier DP22498.pdf (filename),usctheses-c17-730352 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier DP22498.pdf

Dmrecord 730352

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Penkoff, Diane W.

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA