Dr. Keith Humphreys

They've survived as an organization.

They were Rockefeller off the money.

They said, no, we should limit that.

That would be too grandiose.

So it's very, you know, and they're perpetually broke by design.

They have just enough to keep going.

You pass the hat.

Yes, they give away the literature, you know, so they don't do that.

The other thing is they don't stop anybody from leaving, literally.

Any meeting, you can literally stand up and say, I'm going to go get drunk.

Bye, you know, and that's different than a cold.

You can't.

They will usually let people sit as long as they're quiet if they're drunk, rather than throw them out.

If they start talking drunk, then that's a different thing, but usually they will.

And relapse is a normal part of recovery and nobody knows that better than people in AA.

I mean, they appreciate that, even though they don't want to hear from a drunk person, obviously.

But then the religious thing, yeah, they got the word God there, right?

And so there are...

people who just have had bad experiences, you know, and just that word is a repellent to them.

You know, it doesn't really, in a sense, it doesn't even matter how, if they know how the organization defines it, they're just like, look, I was, you know, I went to Catholic school, I hated Catholic school, I hate religion, and this sounds like religion, so I don't want to go.