Page "Alcoholics Anonymous" Paragraph 21

Nevertheless, sociologists David Rudy and Arthur Greil evaluated AA's literature and observed AA meetings for sixteen months.

They note that although AA's ideology denies AA is religious in nature, for an AA member to remain sober a high level of commitment is necessary.

This commitment is facilitated by a change in the member's world view.

To help members stay sober AA must, they argue, provide an all-encompassing world view while creating and sustaining an atmosphere of transcendence in the organization.

To be all-encompassing AA's ideology places an emphasis on tolerance rather than on a narrow religious world view that could make the organization unpalatable to potential members and thereby limit its effectiveness.

AA's emphasis on the spiritual nature of its program, however, is necessary to institutionalize a feeling of transcendence.

A tension results from the risk that the necessity of transcendence, if taken too literally, would compromise AA's efforts to maintain a broad appeal.

As this tension is an integral part of AA, Rudy and Greil argue that AA is best described as a quasi-religious organization.