Fundamentals

When you encounter something that’s yes or no, with nothing in between, you’ve found fundamentalism, the bi-polar oversimplification of a situation that’s the stock and trade of fanatics. Or perhaps it’s just a naive interpretation by a shallow thinker. Or the agenda of a true believer that sees you as either one of us or one of them.

In the Southern United States, you were once black or white. In many lands, a believer or an infidel. A virgin or a whore. Saved or damned.

Say you believe a man left alone with an unmarried woman is helpless in the face of biological urges to have sex. This gives the man license to have his way with any temptress who dares show him the top of her head. It’s not a matter of choice: it’s so obvious that dropping the veil is a taunt to be sinful that men kill their sisters if they are found in such a compromising position. Rape victims are treated as harlots.

Fundamentalism to a fundamentalist is like water to a fish. Invisible. How else could it be?

All of which brings me to a well-meaning, local religious movement that morphed into a self-righteous cult that tells its members it is the only way forward. Anyone who disagrees is viewed as misguided, clueless, or hopelessly “in denial.” Follow our twelve steps or you die.

People join AA because they want to get out from under the thumb of alcohol. Or the justice system has mandated they participate because their alcoholism is a threat to themselves and/or society.

AA’s intolerance betrays its religious origins. (God told Bill W to found AA while he was in a belladonna-induced trance in a hospital detox program.) At AA, you’ve one of us or you don’t understand; AA never cops to being wrong. The meager statistics available show AA to be a failure by and large, but religions are immune to mere facts. Miracles? Divine intervention? Virgin birth? Raise the dead? Take it on faith

Alcohol is a scourge that encourages abuse. Helping the helpless is a noble goal. But AA takes it a step too far. AA dogma calls for absolute and total abstinence. Entering a bar is like leaving a devote young Muslim in a secluded spot with his unveiled girlfriend. A sip of whisky puts one on the slippery slope that leads to ruin.

As the Chad Mitchell Trio sang in the early sixties, “We never eat fruitcake because it has rum, and one little bite turns a man into a bum. Can you imagine a sorrier sight, than a man eating fruitcake until he gets tight?”

Did I mention the helplessness part? To be a member of AA, you have to vow that you are powerless.

What a set-up for failure. Alcohol is everywhere. Beer blasts, pubs, white wine with fish, red wine with steak, rum in the tropics, drinks to loosen up your date, James Bond sipping martinis, cowboys in the saloon, champagne at weddings, wine at communion, and so forth. Booze is omnipresent, and the odds of not crossing its path are astronomical. So why on earth would you tell someone that in the likely occurrence that they take a sip, they might as well buy another couple of rounds, because, after all, they are helpless and one slip leads back to drunkenness.

“Social drinking,” defined as drinking a little but not too much, is anathema to AA. It challenges the basic equation of “You’re helpless, so you better not leave the fold.” Yet people moderate bad habits and addictions all the time.

Nicotine is generally recognized as more physically addictive than alcohol for most of us. Hells bells, nicotine is way more addictive than cocaine.

Thirty years ago, most of my friends smoked. Non-smoking hotel rooms did not exist. No workers huddled in doorways of office buildings sharing a smoke. Everyone smoked indoors. Restaurants were smoky inside. Bars were lined with ashtrays. The air in nightclubs turned blue from cigarette smoke. Everybody smoked.

Today I rarely encounter a smoker. All my friends quit. Most of them did so on their own. Through self-control. No Smokers Anonymous. Some still smoke an occassional cigar.

Booze is a pernicious habit. Not long ago, enjoying a glass of wine was not in my personal repertoire. Half a bottle maybe. A whole bottle, even better.  I went through a period of abstinence, and then I returned to social drinking about three months ago. I know to be cautious if it’s time to HALT (hungry, angry, lonely or tired), but I haven’t been waking up in gutters, and I feel in control.

Last night I returned to my apartment in Brisbane around 7:00 pm. I’m on a business trip. I could have poured a glass or two or three from the icy cold bottle of local white wine in the fridge. Nobody but I would be the wiser. But I didn’t. Because I am a social drinker, and there was no society around. Because it just didn’t make any difference to me. Because I’m not helpless. And because I’ve escaped the clutches of the fanatics who would suggest that because I had a glass of bubbly with my oysters an hour earlier, my fate was preordained. I pray at a different church. Anyone can join.