Saints with Glasses: Mexican Catholics in
Alcoholics Anonymous
Journal of Contemporary Religion 20(2):217-229. 2005.
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Abstract
Observers of religion in the contemporary United States have
interpreted participation in quasi-religious organizations as evidence
of dissatisfaction with traditional religious institutions. In Latin
America, the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous are associated with
Protestant spirituality, and membership in the group has been seen as
rejection of the Roman Catholic Church. However, instead of abandoning
their religious affiliations, Catholic men in one Mexican Alcoholics
Anonymous chapter put their new beliefs and practices into the service
of the old. They revised both their conception of God and their manner
of participating in fiestas to become better functioning Catholics.
[Alcoholics Anonymous, Mexico, quasi-religious organizations, Roman
Catholic Church]
In Tzintzuntzan and its
neighboring communities in the Mexican state of Michoacán, the blue and
white triangular Alcoholics Anonymous logo inscribed in a circle is as
ubiquitous as colonial-era Roman Catholic churches. However, in
contrast to the staunch Roman Catholicism of central-western Mexico,
A.A. emerged from a United States-based Protestant movement in the
1930s and retains at its core a relationship with God unmediated by
saints or clergy. Participants in A.A. reject the hierarchical,
scripted character of Catholic liturgy in favor of a more egalitarian,
emotional style of assembly that characterizes Protestant worship. A.A.
meetings further resemble Protestant churches in their prohibition on
all forms of alcohol. Despite the clear association with Protestant
beliefs and practices, every member of A.A. in Tzintzuntzan considered
himself a Roman Catholic in good standing.
In this article, I
examine how members of one Alcoholics Anonymous chapter reconciled
their participation in an organization closely linked to Protestantism
with their enduring commitment to the Roman Catholic Church. This
loyalty is all the more significant given the widespread disdain for
Protestants expressed by many Roman Catholics in Mexico (Cahn 69-72).
Understanding how A.A. shapes the faith of its members will contribute
to a fuller appreciation for the role of quasi-religious organizations
in deepening connections to traditional forms of worship. Though often
dismissed as religion “lite” or cited as evidence for the obsolescence
of religious denominations, quasi-religious organizations play a
significant role in strengthening affiliations to mainstream churches.
The men of A.A. in Tzintzuntzan find in their new Protestant-tinged
behaviors a means to rehabilitate their weakened Catholic faith. They
credit the lessons of A.A. for repairing their frayed relationship with
God and their community, enabling them to become better Catholics.
Roman
Catholics in Alcoholics Anonymous
Quasi-religious organizations
have multiplied in both size and diversity in the past fifty years.1
Aspects of the health food movement conform to traditional
anthropological definitions of religion in that they create a symbolic
ordering of the universe though they lack a unified set of ritual
behaviors (Dubisch; Hamilton). Direct selling companies like Amway and
Mary Kay Cosmetics invoke religious principles in a business setting as
a way to reintegrate family and work lives (Biggart; Bromley).
Twelve-step programs, in particular, have attracted scholarly attention
for their religious characteristics (Chalfant; Lester; Minnick). There
is general agreement that Alcoholics Anonymous fits the definition of a
quasi-religious organization (Jones; Rudy and Greil; Whitley). While
none of these groups claims to be a religion, it is clear that they
borrow consciously from the ideology and practices of established
churches.
For the first two
years of its existence, Alcoholics Anonymous operated in the United
States from within the Oxford Group, an evangelical Protestant
organization that foregrounded the experience of conversion (Stafford
16). In 1937, Alcoholics Anonymous began to meet separately from the
Oxford Group using a modified set of their principles that retained the
focus on self-examination and the attainment of a “changed life”
through stages, which eventually became codified as A.A.’s Twelve
Steps. However, A.A. leaders tempered the aggressive proselytizing and
absolutist traits of the Christian group to fit the particular needs of
alcoholics . Even as they distanced themselves from the Oxford Group
and gained popularity, A.A. counted no Catholic members in any of its
chapters for two years.
Alcoholics Anonymous
first appeared in Mexico in the mid-1950s, and, despite its early
association with Protestantism, mushroomed to four thousand chapters in
the predominantly Roman Catholic country by 1981 (Sutro 182). Although
numbers for such a decentralized organization can be difficult to
verify, estimates say that membership in Alcoholics Anonymous grew
eighteen-fold between 1953 and 1990 to reach nearly two million people
worldwide. The bulk of this growth has come in Latin America, which
accounted for just 5.7 percent of A.A. groups in 1965 but over 26
percent of A.A. groups in 1988 (Mäkelä et al. 29). Every year the
national Alcoholics Anonymous convention draws more than thirty
thousand members from all over Mexico (Hecht). One A.A. leader I spoke
with in 1999 estimated that over one thousand groups operated in the
state of Michoacán alone, including groups devoted to women and youth.
When I began my
fieldwork in Tzintzuntzan in 1998, the community of only three thousand
inhabitants supported four chapters of Alcoholics Anonymous and two
more within easy commute distance. The oldest group claimed to be
nearly twenty years old. During my fifteen months of fieldwork ending
in 2002, the four A.A. chapters merged into two that met regularly. At
the invitation of a member, I attended sessions of Grupo Tanganxoan,
which bore the name of a pre-Columbian ruler, during at least one of
their three weekly meetings and at many of their special events with
other chapters in the area. Grupo Tanganxoan met in a rented room,
nearly indistinguishable from the houses on either side of it except
for the heavy curtain obscuring the window and the blue and white A.A.
sign hung over the door. Inside, portraits of the AA founders hung
behind the lectern, and posters with upbeat sayings lined the walls.
About fifteen men
belonged to the group, with a core of between six and ten attending any
given session. They ranged in age from young husbands to grandfathers
and in profession from farmers to civil servants. Meetings lasted two
hours and always followed the same pattern: prayer, readings from the
Big Book of AA, personal stories, and collection of alms followed by
informal socializing. Despite the focus on individual recovery, the
ritualized structure and respectful camaraderie between members
underscored the importance of group solidarity. Family members rarely
intruded on the men while they were in a session, nor did members from
other groups visit except during anniversary events. One member
confided to me in an interview that he would be happy to meet with the
group seven days a week, so comforting did he find the presence of his
colleagues.
All the men in Grupo
Tanganxoan and the other chapters in Tzintzuntzan were Roman Catholic,
and although they readily praised the Protestant-inspired underpinnings
of A.A., they revealed no desire to leave their religious denomination.
To the contrary, they spoke frequently of how participation in A.A. had
enabled them to become more devoted Roman Catholics. Their testimonials
during meetings narrated a transformation in their lives using the
vocabulary of religious conversion, though the end state was not a
radically changed outlook but a more proper performance of their
expected roles.2 Through A.A., they learned that their earlier way of
life may have given them a fleeting sense of satisfaction, but it
prevented them from fulfilling their responsibilities to their families
and community. Correcting their destructive ways required treating the
period of drunkenness as an aberration and their sobriety as a return
to acceptable behavior. Two influences in A.A., one ideological and the
other practical, facilitated renewed commitment to their natal church.
Renewing
faith in God
The drunkalogue or historial
is the primary way members of A.A. publicly affirm their acceptance of
group beliefs (Cain; Greil and Rudy 1983:20). While unscripted and
often laced with profanities, these speeches conformed to a basic
pattern as a result of both repetition and coercion (Brandes 78-79).
They usually lasted from five to fifteen minutes and were delivered
from behind a podium with some formality including the standard
exchange of greetings with the audience and the identifier, “My name is
So-and-so, and I am an alcoholic.” The most common subjects of the
testimonies were the retelling of past mishaps under the influence of
alcohol, the damage drinking inflicted on the member’s family, and how
he came to A.A. and found a measure of self-discipline through group
support. However, spiritual themes also appeared frequently in the
autobiographical speeches, and I have analyzed seventy-four
drunkalogues given over seventeen meetings of Grupo Tanganxoan. I
supplemented these data with unstructured interviews with core members
of the group.
Nearly as common as
mention of alcoholic-driven embarrassments were discussions of a
superior being. The Twelve Steps, while inclusive of all faiths,
underscore the importance of members acknowledging their own fallible
humanity and submitting themselves to the benevolence of God. In fact,
alcohol merits only one mention in all the Twelve Steps, while six of
the steps refer to a powerful deity. A.A.’s innovation was to add, in
italics, “as we understood Him” to the call for a surrender to God.
This modifier signaled A.A.’s ecumenicism, but made explicit that
belief in some Higher Power was imperative for success in the group.3
Drunkalogues in Tzintzuntzan incorporated this emphasis on a Higher
Power. Thirty of the seventy-four related how the principles of A.A.
enabled members to discard the image of God implanted in their
childhoods and to forge a new relationship with the divine appropriate
to their adult lives.
Alcoholics had felt
little attachment to the Roman Catholic Church before joining A.A. and
had assimilated church doctrine only superficially. Arsenio, one of the
leaders of Grupo Tanganxoan, summed up his lack of faith before joining
A.A. in one narrative before the group: “My parents are Catholic. They
transmitted to me what’s good and bad. I was lazy. I felt a spiritual
emptiness. I used to go to the temple, ask God for help, but I didn’t
see that He gave me the capacity to choose, and I took the easy path. I
had a sickness of the soul and had to be cured spiritually first.” A
companion in the A.A. group offered similar thoughts about how his
religious devotion before joining A.A. was incomplete: “I thought I was
a Catholic, but it was only superficial. I thought it was sufficient to
make the sign of the cross. But I was a hypocrite. I would ask God to
give me money.” One man used to confess, he told the group, but would
lie to the priest about his drinking. Another man admitted that before
becoming a member of A.A. he would go to Mass, but instead of listening
to the priest, he would ogle the women. Alcohol desensitized them to
the rigors of religious belief, leaving them with a selfish, child-like
understanding of God. The spiritual principles of Alcoholics Anonymous,
with its emphasis on surrender to a Higher Power, restored humility to
the men’s relationship with God so that they could reconcile their
earlier unease with the Roman Catholic Church.
Before joining A.A.,
many men had sought intervention from Roman Catholic saints to cure
their alcoholism, promising them veneration in exchange for divine
help. This state of being “pledged” to a saint for a particular period
of time is common throughout Mexico (Gutmann 186), even if it rarely
achieves its desired outcome. Anecdotes in the Big Book teach that
instead of placing demands on a superior being, alcoholics must follow
His plan for their lives. “We’re like the kid who gives Santa Claus an
impossible list,” one member said during his testimony to the group.
“We ask for healthy children, success at work, but we never ask Him to
do His will. Faith is trust, not a challenge.” Alcohol had made the men
feel strong and proud with little need for God, yet such bravado
amounted to hubris in the eyes of A.A. Pride, the Big Book warns,
exacerbates the sickness of alcoholism by preventing the drinker from
confronting his fallibility. Instead of seeing himself as God, the A.A.
member should open himself to the wishes of an omnipotent Higher Power.
A Roman Catholic
priest who spoke at an Alcoholics Anonymous assembly near Tzintzuntzan
commented on how his participation in A.A. had reshaped his
relationship with God. He admitted that before coming to A.A., he felt
he retained control over his consumption of alcohol. At every baptism,
wedding, or funeral he officiated over, the guests would always offer
him alcohol, but he reasoned that transubstantiated wine would not harm
his health. When he finally recognized his debility, he found succor in
the second step, belief that a Higher Power could restore him to
sanity. In A.A., he discovered that his earlier relationship with God
had deviated from the ideal:
They taught us as kids to ask God
for this, ask for that, but they never told us to listen. Communication
is two ways. We’ve been only informing God, but we don’t know His
answer. It’s like parents who don’t know the kids they live with. I
like to talk with God. I chat, He responds. My career before A.A. was
different from my career after. My conception of God changed when I
knew A.A. I had knowledge [saber] of God. With A.A. I have His flavor
[sabor]. I feel loved by God now.
For this priest, Alcoholics
Anonymous meetings became a kind of seminary teaching him to rework his
relationship with God. By acknowledging his own flawed faith, the
priest did not fault the institution of the Roman Catholic Church; he
learned how to become a more fulfilled Catholic.
To accept a new, more
trusting relationship with God, A.A. members replaced their image of a
castigating God with a more compassionate one. A man raised Catholic
gave a testimonial to his colleagues in Grupo Tanganxoan: “The God my
parents inculcated in me was punishing. He’d send you to Hell. I didn’t
believe in Him. Then I put myself in the hands of the Superior Power. I
now believe in God, but not the God my parents taught me. He is a fair
God.” Men felt defiant and demanding in the face of a stern God, but
lowered their guard for the Higher Power referred to in A.A. Many men
called this new father-child relationship with God a “spiritual
improvement.” They reinforced this newfound humility by rotating
responsibility for basic chores in the rented meeting space. More than
once, a man commented in an interview that he never washed dishes at
home, but in A.A. he did so willingly.
Adopting a more
subservient relationship with God also prepared the men in A.A. for a
return to participation in the local parish. Men who used to consider
going to Mass “a waste of time” began attending regularly. Arsenio
framed his new sober life in terms of a return to traditional religion:
“Now I’m trying with my same religion, Catholicism, to go back and
retake those ideas. I go to temple on Sundays. I confess. The priest
helps me. There’s no need to change religion.” Of course, his return
was accompanied by a new understanding of God and a strong conviction
to avoid alcohol. The names of many A.A. chapters in Michoacán
reflected the spiritual renewal that members hoped to experience. Group
names like “New Path,” “New Living,” “New Thoughts,” “A New World,”
“New Dawning,” “ New Life,” and “Good Path” conveyed the optimism that
joining a group will lead to an improved life. Staying sober meant
admitting powerlessness and adopting a new conception of God, changes
that allowed men to reshape and strengthen their Catholic faith while
helping them conquer addiction.
Reclaiming
the fiestas
On an ideological level, men
in Alcoholics Anonymous could appreciate the benefits of their renewed
relationship with God, but on a practical level, sobriety was difficult
to sustain. Success in A.A. required members to end contact with the
amigos de la botella, or “bottle buddies” who had accompanied and
encouraged their drinking. While they gained new friends through their
participation in A.A., men could not avoid interacting with drinkers
outside the group meetings. In particular, thirteen of the seventy-four
drunkalogues addressed the worry that involvement in the robust cycle
of Roman Catholic celebrations would provide opportunities for
backsliding in the effort to avoid drinking. Skipping the fiesta
revelry was too radical a step, so men used their time in A.A. to
discuss ways to observe Roman Catholic rituals without the debilitating
effects of excessive alcohol consumption.
As with other Roman
Catholics in Tzintzuntzan, the members of Grupo Tanganxoan spoke
animatedly about the fiesta cycle, one of the few outlets for
entertainment in a community without a bar, movie theater, or full-time
restaurant. Often they expressed to me with pride how Tzintzuntzan had
maintained its “traditions” and included in their testimonies
references to past and future fiestas. Invariably, these memories of
fiesta participation featured stories of drinking to excess. Arsenio
explained to me in a conversation after one meeting, “As you know,
we’re very traditional in this town. Fiestas and more fiestas. On a
fiesta day, I wouldn’t realize that I was no longer drinking socially,
but in exaggeration. Even if I didn’t have any money, I’d drink.”
Another man recounted to the group how he got drunk on the
alcohol-laced punch sold during the Day of the Dead celebration then
awoke the next day in the cemetery with his feet in a bonfire.
Even in less public
family life cycle rituals, the temptation to drink was too great. “When
my father died, I said I wouldn’t drink,” recalled one A.A. member in
his testimony. “But after we buried him and had the funeral, I wanted
to thank all the people who helped me. How did I repay them? Two big
bottles of brandy. I also drank to accompany them.” Similarly, the
cementing of godparenthood ties or the acceptance of a religious office
involved the exchange of bottles of alcohol. To reject the proffered
rum or brandy was to deny the responsibility of the position (Bunzel
373). Nor could the alcoholic count on social stigma to curb his
drinking habits. Drunkards occasion little scorn in many Mexican
communities and even serve positive roles as social commentators
(Dennis; Maccoby; Selby). Ritualized drinking may reinforce group
solidarity (Madsen and Madsen; Taylor).
Despite the prominence
of alcohol in nearly all ritual celebrations, few A.A. members ever
considered sitting out the fiestas. Their goal was not to avoid
fiestas, but rather to learn how to participate in them without risking
inebriation. Strategies for meeting this challenge occupied much of the
conversation in group meetings. Warnings against accepting “the first
drink” emphasized how sobriety could be achieved by the simple refusal
of a single drink, preventing the impaired judgment that led to second
and third drinks. By dividing a larger goal into smaller, more easily
attainable tasks, A.A. members regained power over a seemingly
uncontrollable addiction. Testimonials in Grupo Tanganxoan illustrated
practical ways to enjoy the benefits of fiesta conviviality without the
potential dangers. Members disabused themselves of the idea that only
by consuming alcohol could they have a good time at a fiesta or cement
a ritual tie.
The most popular
strategy for enjoying a fiesta without alcohol was to substitute soda
for the traditional cup of rum.4 This substitution gave men in A.A.
additional confidence that they could participate in the fiestas
without risking their sobriety. To members of A.A., the ideal person
was not the teetotaler, but the social drinker, someone who could drink
in communal situations but had the ability to stop before the harmful
effects of alcohol became evident. They did not condemn those neighbors
who sold and purchased alcohol, focusing their efforts on increased
self-discipline. Since they had already demonstrated their lack of
self-control, men in A.A. had only abstinence as an option for
recovery. Shortly before a traditionally raucous fiesta, one man
remarked in a speech to the group, “Corpus Christi is coming up. Last
time I was good and crazy. I’ve never been sober during a Corpus. This
year we’ll see how it is.” Attending a fiesta made it much more
difficult to refuse the first drink, but he hoped that the support he
received in A.A. would enable him to take part in the religious
celebration with only a soft drink.
For another member,
respecting the religious customs of the community was as important as
restoring his own health. As Corpus Christi approached, he took the
podium: “We should celebrate Corpus. I never refuse to give
contributions for religious fiestas. I give with pleasure. Money didn’t
matter to me when I went to bars, why should it matter to me to pay for
music for the Lord?” Many in Tzintzuntzan felt that the growing
presence of Protestant churches, whose leaders advocated withholding
financial contributions for community fiestas, threatened the vitality
of public celebrations, which relied on shared expenses. Even as they
came to adopt a new form of spirituality, participants in A.A.
continued to value the observance of their Roman Catholic heritage, of
which the fiestas are a central part. A veteran of the group spoke
about how he had benefited from attending the sessions:
I depend on this as I depend on
religion. I confess all my errors to the priest since it’s the most
mortal sin to receive the Lord without confessing all. Here too I have
to confess all my errors. Here they talk to us of good things. When I
came here and saw the pictures of the founders, I thought, “I’ve never
seen a saint with glasses before!”
His comments drew
laughter from the audience. Displaying the portraits of the founders
above the lectern echoed the placement of saints’ images in a Catholic
church. For this man, his A.A. colleagues were confessors; Bill W. and
Dr. Bob his saints.
Alcoholics
Anonymous and religious conversion
As quasi-religious
organizations increase in popularity, scholars have begun to analyze
the impact that such rapid growth on the margins of the religious
landscape will have for how people profess their faith. A large survey
project interviewed over one thousand people in the United States who
belonged to small groups like Bible studies and twelve-step programs.
The researchers concluded that the limited scale of small groups belied
their outsized impact on the country’s spirituality. “They are
dramatically changing the way God is understood. God is now less of an
external authority and more of an internal presence” (Wuthnow 1994:3).
Participants in small groups, many of which qualify as quasi-religious,
refashioned their faith to make it more relevant to their daily lives.
With this emphasis on the pragmatic came a decline in the importance of
explicit doctrines and traditional denominations. Alcoholics Anonymous
and other quasi-religious groups consciously refer to themselves as
broadly “spiritual” rather than narrowly “religious.”
This inclusive,
anodyne tone has come to characterize many contemporary religious
experiences, some observers contend. Wolfe (3) describes how in his
visits to the fast-growing mega-churches in suburban North America
“talk of hell, damnation, and even sin has been replaced by a
nonjudgmental language of understanding and empathy.”5 As personal
satisfaction has replaced denominational loyalty, believers have become
more likely to switch between churches in pursuit of the most effective
spiritual therapy. The popularity of quasi-religious self-help groups
has encouraged a generation of seekers, “spiritual tourists” who roam
from destination to destination, collecting souvenirs but never putting
down roots (Roof). Greil and Robbins confirm this view by arguing that,
“The growing appeal of quasi-religion suggests that large numbers of
people are not finding satisfaction with the transcendent worldviews
offered by many of their traditional religious options…” (16). The
proliferation of quasi-religious groups, some argue, exemplifies how
religion has become disconnected from particular institutions and has
come to resemble secular pursuits of individual satisfaction (Beckford).
Ethnographic evidence
from Tzintzuntzan, Mexico suggests that participation in a
quasi-religious organization like Alcoholics Anonymous does not
represent dissatisfaction with traditional religious institutions. The
image of a spiritual seeker may describe the North American baby
boomers who pursue self-fulfillment without respect for prior church
affiliations, but in Mexico, members of A.A. remain committed Roman
Catholics even as they adapt the ideology and practice of their
religion. This is not to deny that restless searchers exist, but to
suggest that people join quasi-religious groups for a variety of
reasons, not all of which result from dissatisfaction with existing
religious options. For the men of A.A., the group offered a solution to
a pragmatic problem that participation in Catholic fiestas exacerbated.
However, their testimonies to their peers did not fault the Roman
Catholic Church for making alcohol such a central part of the
sacraments and celebrations. Instead, the Twelve Steps encouraged the
men to view their lack of control over drinking as a personal defect
that only a spiritual reorientation could correct.6
In Latin America,
where a significant difference between Roman Catholics and evangelical
Protestants is that the latter abstain from alcohol, any teetotaler
risks being labeled a religious convert. An early observer of the
growth of Protestantism in a Guatemalan Maya community found that
“joining a Protestant sect was analogous to becoming a member of
Alcoholics Anonymous” (Nash 50). Since the damaging effects of
alcoholism prevented many Maya from achieving economic independence,
conversion offered a supportive environment in which to stop drinking.
Similarly, in Brazil, Chesnut has argued (58) that pervasive alcoholism
among Roman Catholic poor underlies growth in Pentecostal churches
where twelve-step support groups are in short supply. Anthropologists
have also described conversion as a strike against the abusive
consequences of alcohol in traditional religions . Kearney found that
of twenty-three Protestant converts in a rural Mexican community,
twenty were middle-aged men with histories of problem drinking. “The
strong social coercions to drink pose a painful dilemma to many men”
(150).
The assumption has
been that without the option of secular support groups, Catholic
drinkers who wish to quit must seek an alternative space of worship
through religious conversion. Alcoholics Anonymous, then becomes the
functional equivalent of joining a Protestant church. In his study of
an Alcoholics Anonymous chapter in Mexico City, Brandes acknowledges
the pervasive structural and symbolic similarities between A.A. and
Protestantism. However, he concludes that rather than coming to change
their religious affiliation, members found parallels between their
participation in A.A. and their long-standing involvement in the Roman
Catholic Church. “To join A.A. in working class Mexico City,” he
writes, “does not mean abandoning one’s religious tradition. It means
adapting it to the circumstances at hand” (52). A similar process of
adaptation occurred among A.A. members in Tzintzuntzan, where the
decorated walls of the meeting room—like stations of the cross—and
collective affirmation of core beliefs further underscored the
similarity to the celebration of Mass in Roman Catholic Churches
(Wilcox 45).
The ambiguous position
of Alcoholics Anonymous between sacred and secular enables groups to
cultivate loyalty among members, who may choose to emphasize either the
religious or nonreligious qualities at different times. This ambiguity
has enabled many Roman Catholics to claim congruence between their
faith and the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous. A Catholic nun
(Monahan) credits A.A. for deepening her spiritual life, and a
Franciscan priest (Davis) notes parallels between the Twelve Steps and
the spiritual exercises of Saint Ignatius. Another Catholic, this one
so disaffected from his natal church that he attended his first A.A.
meeting only because it took place in a Presbyterian—not a
Catholic—church, discovered a new appreciation for the Roman Catholic
Church through his involvement in A.A. (“New Wine”). Even the National
Catholic Reporter, an independent Catholic newsmagazine, declared that
Alcoholics Anonymous is consistent with Catholic doctrine. The article
praised the practical goals of A.A.’s mission, calling it “spirituality
with its sleeves rolled up” in the tradition of Liberation Theology
(Unsworth).
Conclusion
Social scientists who analyze
changing religious patterns in the United States and western Europe
have found that the growing popularity of quasi-religious groups has
caused a fundamental shift in the way believers profess their faith.
Searching for a personalized, therapeutic experience of the divine has
replaced loyalty to a specific denomination. In a 1955 poll, only one
in twenty-five adults in the United States no longer adhered to the
faith of his childhood. By 1985, as many as one in three adults had
converted his religion (Wuthnow 1988:88). Scholars have attributed the
rise of small groups with a quasi-religious nature like Alcoholics
Anonymous to the spiritual searching of self-reflexive believers, who
prefer cobbling together a soothing, therapeutic faith over loyalty to
a single doctrine that speaks of sin and sacrifice. In turn, the
success of these quasi-religious groups has exerted pressure on
traditional churches to modify their message and form of worship by
adopting similarly empathetic tones.
However, these
conclusions have been based almost entirely on evidence from mainstream
churchgoers in the United States. Research with quasi-religious groups
like Alcoholics Anonymous from outside the United States shows how
their popularity may be promoting a return to traditional church
membership. Even as the religious arena in Latin America becomes
increasingly heterogeneous, and upstart Protestant churches strive to
tailor their worship services to a media-savvy audience, identification
with the Roman Catholic Church remains steadfast. Since the 1980s,
Tzintzuntzeños have been able to worship in organized churches outside
the centuries’ old Catholic parish. While several families have joined
congregations of Jehovah’s Witnesses and Pentecostals, the overwhelming
majority continues to identify with the Roman Catholic Church.
The men of Grupo Tanganxoan
have all suffered crises that they were both physically and spiritually
unprepared to confront. Catholicism does not condone alcoholism, but
its sacralization of wine undermines any program of strict
abstemiousness.7 Through the literature and activities of Alcoholics
Anonymous, members achieved a spiritual adjustment that helped them to
control their drinking. At the same time, the quasi-religious setting
of A.A. encouraged them to adopt both a new conception of God and a
recognition of their own fallibility. The more humble relationship with
the divine that they fostered in A.A. enabled men to re-establish their
frayed connections with the Roman Catholic Church. Adherence to A.A.
principles did not automatically prohibit enjoyment of disorderly
celebrations. The testimonials in A.A. meetings offered suggestions for
how men could observe fiesta rituals without consuming alcohol. Rather
than seeing Catholic Mexicans’ participation in A.A. as a form of
religious conversion, it should be viewed as a redoubling of their
traditional faith.
Quasi-religious
organizations like Alcoholics Anonymous have gained popularity around
the world, usually by enhancing personal experiences of the sacred and
providing a therapeutic service. However, the proliferation of such
groups does not necessarily betoken a privatized search for faith born
from dissatisfaction with existing religious institutions. In some
cases, participation in a quasi-religious organization serves as a
vehicle for strengthening commitment to more traditional churches.
Roman Catholic members of Grupo Tanganxoan took advantage of Alcoholics
Anonymous meetings to arrive at a revised conception of their faith and
a new understanding of what it meant to be a Catholic man.
Notes
1 Defining quasi-religious
organizations poses the same challenges as arriving at a definition of
religion. Greil and Rudy (1996) propose a “subjective” approach. Rather
than demarcating what is religious from what is not, they prefer to
define religion from the point of view of the people who are engaged in
what they consider to be religion. Taken from an emic perspective,
quasi-religious organizations are those “entities whose status is
anomalous given contemporary folk definitions of religion” (221).
Groups like Alcoholics Anonymous, Scientology, and Weight Watchers are
“sort-of” religious according to their participants. While these groups
preach disciplined activity to achieve a morally superior state, they
do not advocate veneration of any nonempirical being.
2 The typical story of
joining A.A. resembles a religious conversion in that a profound crisis
precedes the acceptance of a Higher Power. The drinker cannot escape
from this emotional and physical nadir without outside help. Faced with
this predicament, an alcoholic will experience comfort only once he
allows God into his life. In the supportive environment of A.A., the
alcoholic can then reinterpret his past suffering as meaningful in that
it led him to be “born again” (Bateson).
3While A.A. holds that this
image of God is malleable, the God invoked in meetings invariably
reflects the New Testament God, forgiving and nonjudgmental, never a
stern enforcer of laws.
4 The debilitating effects of
alcoholism have provoked similar movements across Latin America. In the
community of San Pedro Chenhaló, Chiapas, women have substituted soft
drinks for rum in traditional rituals and emphasized native language
and clothing as symbols for community solidarity (Eber). Practitioners
of indigenous religion in Peru recognize that soda has the same
animating essence as alcoholic beverages and allow the replacement of
Coca-Cola for beer in offerings to the Mountain Lords (Allen 33).
Alarmed by the high rates of liver disease and deaths linked to
alcoholism among Latinos in the United States, a handful of Cinco de
Mayo festival organizers have taken the drastic step of banning alcohol
at their events (Gogek).
5 Antze (174) notices a
direct parallel between the A.A. conception of drinking and Martin
Luther’s model of sin and salvation. According to A.A. teachings,
alcoholism is not a sin, but like Original Sin, it can be resisted only
by suppressing personal pride and committing to divine guidance.
6 Increasingly, this
abdication of personal responsibility embodied in A.A.’s religious
rubric has alienated many alcoholics. Three new groups in the United
States, Rational Recovery, Secular Organization for Sobriety, and Women
for Sobriety, base their philosophies on tracts like Emerson’s
“Self-Reliance” that advocate choice and competence as ways to conquer
alcoholism. The founder of Secular Organization for Sobriety explained
the difference between his group and A.A.: “We credit ourselves for
achieving sobriety…Some people in SOS are quite religious, but they
don’t believe in an intervening God who would come down and stir their
coffee for them” (
7 A Roman Catholic A.A.
member in Toronto recalled to Petrunik (34) that when he confessed his
drinking problem, his priest responded, “You’re not alcoholic. Come,
let’s have a drink and talk about it.”
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