13th Stepping is a term that refers to the act of more experienced 12-step support group members taking advantage of newer, more desperate and impressionable 12-step group attendees – financially, or sexually.
At times, it’s been referred to jokingly. I remember a movie with Greg Kinnear and Gary Shandling where they used AA meetings as a pick up spot for women. However, it’s not a laughing matter. Literal predators are being sentenced to attend 12-step meetings by the courts, and they’re using the meetings find their victims. And because of AA’s traditions of anonymity, they are welcomed there, and much of their behavior is tolerated and subsequently blamed on the victims. The victims unsuspectingly learn to trust their fellow AA members. Many have been murdered, raped, and otherwise abused by predators they thought they could trust in 12-step groups.
Enter Monica Richardson – a 35 year long AA member, heavily involved in the service structure of AA. She started to catch wind of this, and tried to get AA to officially make newcomers aware of this potential danger and to give them safety information about it. They didn’t care, and refused to take any action.
Monica has been spreading the word about the dangers, and now she’s making a film to expose this to a wider audience, in the hopes that things will change, or at least new members will be aware of the dangers and protect themselves. She needs your help. Please visit her fundraising page where you can watch a teaser of the film, and donate if possible. Anything helps. Please do it now, the campaign ends September 16th 2013.
Click here to see the trailer for “The 13 Step”, and learn how to support this important work.
Thank you for all your support and getting the word out . I have added a new longer 14 minute trailer to explain more as well.
Personally I have seen some predators and witnessed the behavior. But in my experience (5 years) We have done a decent job in my area of making it known for men to stick with men & women to stick with women. It only takes the homegroup and women such as yourself a little while to weed them out. I cant speak for AA because I am not a member but it only takes one person to file harrasment charges, ask for a restraining order or even confront the predators a couple of times and they move along or stop. If you are a member with any amount of clean time it is your responsibility to make sure the meeting is inviting & safe under the traditions. And bulletins put out by NAWS encourage the interventions ranging from members with more clean time speaking with offenders in a loving manner to calling the police & pressing charges in circumstances where laws have been broken. All groups are autonomous of course but for our survival and to carry the message that their is a better way of life and this is how we have found recovery it stays that way. I hope that your film doesnt do more harm than good. And I truly hope that you are still in the rooms carrying the message and being a responsible member of your homegroup. Encouraging newcomers male & female alike and doing your best to help lead the ones who are there for recovery. It’s a dodgy thing for women who’s self worth in their own mind has always been tied to what other men (or women) want from them. We can only warn them (which is why very few make it to many meetings before they hear the term). I have been guilty of over warning men & women of the dangers of relationships in the first year and few listen. And I have seen more newcomers get high with other newcomers then if they tried to form a relationship with someone with more clean time. We try to help as many as possible and to do that there is no way to segregate newcomers from old timers. I just quit working at a rehab that was notorious for staff being involved with patients to a much more sickening degree then I have ever seen in the rooms, and these people were in a very expensive treatment program. Good luck with your film and God bless.
The “13th step” is not at all common, especially in closed AA meetings and it does not deserve enough attention to take away from the heart and soul and true goodness of AA.
AA meetings (most of them, by the way) are CLOSED to the public and they are posted as such… AA also has open meetings that are open to the public just as bars are open to the public. A USA court can only order a person to go to an open meeting because AA has a right to ask non-alcoholics to leave a closed meeting. The ONLY requirement for attending AA is a desire to stop drinking. If the leader of a meeting directs said meeting according to rules, regulations, and traditions, a “newcomer” would be asked if he or she has a desire to stop drinking. If the new person does not want to stop drinking, that person should be asked to leave a closed meeting. Sex offenders come from all walks of life and they have a serious mental disorder, albeit they do not get help or an audience at AA meetings and there is no place in AA for helping them any more than there is a place in AA for helping someone with cancer, other physical maladies, or any other mental illness. Not all alcoholics are criminals nor are all criminals suffering from alcoholism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholics_Anonymous
Going on 20 years in the rooms of AA, I am forever grateful to AA. It works and it saves lives.