personality disorders explained

Literature studied in
most 12-step groups
is limited to their own
publications, as these
groups claim no
outside affiliation. The
members of 12-step
groups make the
distinction that the
groups are spiritual,
and not religious.
Some members of 12-
step groups are also
members of a wide
variety of religious
bodies. Nearly every
meeting begins with
the Serenity Prayer, a prayer addressed to "God." Some critics also question the
idea of giving up on self-reliance, which, they argue, results in a form of idealized
despair. Others acknowledge a debt to the twelve-steps movement but do not
have a culture of belief in God.
Court-mandated Twelve-step attendance
The success of twelve-step programs in aiding the recovery of chemicallydependent
persons is an argument of significance in jurisdictions of some criminal
justice systems. The criminal justice system of the United States has ordered
attendance at 12-step meetings to convicted criminals as well as inmates as a
condition of parole, condition of shortened sentence, or as an element of a
sentence. Four courts have ruled that Alcoholics Anonymous groups are religious
organizations. The New York Court of Appeals ruled in Griffin v. Coughlin, 88
N.Y.2d 674 (1996) that doing so compromises the Establishment Clause of the
United States Constitution on the grounds that A.A. practices and doctrine are (in
the words of the district court judge
who wrote the decision)
"unequivocally religious". The
Supreme Court of the United States
denied US Legal Certiorari and
allowed the New York court's
decision to stand. Such a denial
"imports no expression of opinion
upon the merits of the case, as the
bar has been told many times."
Missouri v. Jenkins, 515 U.S. 70
(1995). Denial of certiorari means
that no binding precedent is
created, and that the lower court decision is authoritative only within its area of
jurisdiction -- in this case the State of New York. However, the decision does
create a persuasive precedent for other jurisdictions.
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