AA – Battery Included

How often have you heard recently that some sexually predatory and disgraced politician or cleric is OK now, the slate’s been wiped clean and it’s all good with jeebus because it was all about the booze, or the drugs, or the sex addiction and blah blah they’ve gone into rehab blah?

Rehab is a massive business worldwide; the teen rehabilitation clinic industry alone is worth $1.2 billion annually. Making money from human misery can even buy you an ambassadorxhip to Europe.

12-step programs, being peer-led and largely self-directed, really should be better than these medically industrialised warehouses of emotional trouble, shouldn’t they?

But a recent rape case questions whether anyone involved in 12 step programmes like AA ever give any thought to the damaged people that some of their admittedly criminal peers may have left in their wake. Are 12-step programmes a good alternative to medical rehab or are they ultimately an expression of pure selfishness in emphasising the addicts’ recovery above all other considerations including the law?

Tucked into Deborah Orr’s column in this morning’s Independent was this short item:

An astonishing rape case in the US features a man who got in touch with a woman he’d raped may years before and confessed to her by letter in order to “make amends” in step nine of his 12-step Alcoholics Anonymous programme. The woman in question, a Mrs Seccuro, was unimpressed by the gesture, because her own recollection was of a violent gang rape, while her assailant’s was of something deeply unpleasant but rather less elaborate.

I hadn’t picked up on this in my meandering around the internets so I went googling, and it’s a well reported but ugly story:

William Beebe, 42, raped Liz Seccuro, above, now 40, 20 years ago when he was a frat boy and she was a sorority pledge attending a party at Beebe’s fraternity house at the University of Virginia. Seccuro was first drugged by way of something the frat house bartender slipped into her drink. She was then led by Beebe into a room upstairs where he pulled her onto his lap and began reading poetry to her. Repulsed, she pushed him away and fled, screaming, “HELP!” but a frat brother of Beebe’s grabbed her and threw her back in Beebe’s direction instead, then left. Beebe, whom she remembers as reeking of alcohol and body order, then threw her on the bed, ripped off her clothes, pried her legs open and raped her. She had never had sex before, the pain was agonizing, and she bled profusely, then passed out. She believes that while she was passed out, she was gang raped, and that possibly frat rushees watched the rapes as though it were a spectator sport. She awoke wrapped in a bloody sheet, then walked to the emergency room.

She immediately reported the rape to campus police and the Dean at the University of Virginia, who, she says, blew her off, did not believe her, dismissed her. She was devastated by the attacks. Her grades dropped, she withdrew from friends and family, she entered into a tumultuous relationship, then married the man and was quickly divorced. She began to suffer panic attacks.

Beebe ”apologized” 20 years later in response to the “9th step” of the Alcoholics Anonymous recovery program, which requires that participants make amends to everyone they have harmed, unless to do so will cause additional harm. He mailed Seccuro a letter of apology 20 years after the rapes. The letter shocked and devastated her. She e-mailed Beebe, wanting to ask him more questions about his apology, the reasons for it, and what had happened that night. He insisted that although he’d been drunk, he remembered the events of that night, but his version was markedly different from what she remembered:

“I ‘convinced’ you after what seemed like hesitation, that staying w/me in my room upstairs was better than walking all the way back to the suites… Of course, seeing opportunity to have a good time w/you overrode any gentlemanly efforts to return you safely back to the dorms.

“We started to make out in my room a while…There was no fight and it was all over in short order. When we awoke in the morning it was still chilly out, so I lent you my jean jacket, and you walked home.

“There were no other men present. I was the only one.”

Disturbed by Beebe’s characterizing having raped her as “having fun” with her, Seccuro pressed him, and he finally acknowledged, in writing, that he had raped her.

I’ll let Deborah Orr pick up rest of the story again :

… Beebe, was arrested and charged with rape, which he then, with breathtaking cheek, denied. He later pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of aggravated sexual battery. Mrs Seccuro, on the other hand, started receiving hate mail, and had a miscarriage. I’ll say she did.

This case raises huge questions not only about rape and the terrible way victims are treated but also about the legitimacy and safety of 12 step programs.

Now I don’t doubt that joining AA has helped thousands of people, but AA’s tendency to put the wellbeing of the ‘client’ before the interests of soiciety at large is troubling. All that Beebe’s AA mentors seemingly cared about was his healing, to the disregard of all else. That there was a victim, Ms Securro, was an irrelevance to them as was the fact that Beebe had confessed to a crime. Every AA member he told about it as part of his ‘recovery’ failed to report the rape to the authorities.

There’s been a fair bit of discussion on US blogs about this case: well, I call it discussion but on some blogs it’s just abuse. Some commenters are saying it’s all about forgiveness and he’s making amends and should be forgiven but then they add that oh, by the way, she’s a filthy slut who was asking for it. A couple of comments chosen at random from an apparently sensible law policy blog:

I am a Criminal Justice Student.

This poor, poor man was trying to do what’s right and his victim tries to lynch him after 20 years. It seems from what i’ve read that the woman still doesn’t accept his apology, even though she says she did. I agree with the sentence and i hope he can get past this and move on with his life. Hopefully the victim and offender can both find closure.

Only a cynical, victim personality would consider apologizing for bad behavior to be an attempt at legitimizing that behavior. People do make mistakes and have regrets and an apology is the first step to attempting to own the behavior and make amends.

Securro apparently made the smarmy comment that “alcohol doesn’t rape people, people rape people.” Let’s take that a bit further. How about if we say that “alcohol doesn’t say ‘yes’ people say ‘yes'” when women use alcohol as their excuse for the morning after regret claims of rape while under the influence.

Securro is a victim, because she clearly enjoys that role. But she’s not a survivor. She went to a college party and she wasn’t careful. She doesn’t even remember what happened herself, except that she was penetrated. And 23 years later, she still hasn’t gotten over her own belief that her vagina is a sacred object that the college and the legal system are responsible for.

It sounds as if Beebe took responsibility for his life and is moving forward, but Securro seems to want to remain stuck in her victimhood.

Does he deserve to be “punished?” By law, yes. But he’s been sentenced due to a combination of two factors. The first is his ownership of his own behavior. The second is Securro’s pathetic need for revenge.

And that’s the polite stuff. You get the drift of what Ms Securro has been subjected to.

Beebe is at last in jail where a convicted rapist belongs, thanks to her continuing bravery. Seccuro was prepared to go all the way rather than see an injustice continue.

I have to wonder if prison will actually be a punishment for this man though. From the various reports on this story Beebe seems to enjoy telling his story a little too much – will he be having a grand old time in jail, comparing rape stories with the other sexual predators he’s banged up with?

I get the sense that this continuing supposed expiation of guilt that Beebe’s been wallowing in is just more ego-tripping, a revelling in his power over his victim over and over again. He chased her for years to try and get her to accept his ‘apology’. By indulging him in this AA acted as enabler to a stalker. AA must take responsibility for that, not act as though peer-counseling programs are something sacrosanct that should take no responsibility but should be accorded some sort of quasi-medical status re confidentiality, like doctors or psychiatrists.

How far is anonymity and confidentiality in these quasi-official psychological peer-counselling groups supposed to go? How effective are they? Who’s actually evaluating them?

It seems an area that at least merits further study. But is that likely?

For instance, AA has had a problem with dealing with multiple addictions for some time. The Village Voice published an excellent expose on how AA deals with internal issues like – go to AA addicted to booze and prescription drugs or crack and you can only talk about the booze. Anything else is, it seems, a little bit declasse and not something to be addressed.

AA deals with criticism in a very efficient way – it simply fails to deal with it at all. To do so would mean bringing members into the public eye and one of their problems is just how of those members are professionals in medicine, law enforcement, the judiciary and other public positions. Public accountability and the inevitable exposure of their personal frailties is, understandably. not really what they want.

And I suppose I really shouldn’t be so surprised at AA members’ enabling of a stalking former frat-boy rapist who gets off on guilt when I read things about the organisation like this like this:

For a long time AA was all male, virtually all white, mostly Protestant, mostly middle-class, and all “pure” alcoholics. And drug addiction wasn’t the only blind spot. AA historically discriminated against African Americans (who were only allowed in as visitors until the mid 1940s, and then were encouraged to start their own meetings) and women.

The AA book Pass It On notes that “even Dr. Bob [an AA cofounder] had expressed uneasiness about admitting women to AA membership when the first few appeared.” Alcoholics Anonymous is still gender-specific to men throughout (despite social changes over the last 50 years, purists refuse to alter even one word Bill wrote). The only chapter for women is titled “To Wives.”

Women have made some strides in AA since Dr. Bob, but the fellowship’s racial demographics continue to reflect its racist origins. As of a 1998 AA survey, an estimated 34 percent of members were women, and AA was 88 percent white.

Aha. the patriarchy strikes again. There’s a surprise..

Published by Palau

Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, washed the t-shirt 23 times, threw the t-shirt in the ragbag, now I'm polishing furniture with it.

9 Comments

  • Adam

    March 17, 2007 at 9:09 am

    The writer of this article is strikingly mis informed. Yes the rape was wrong, that is obvious, however at least this guy fessed up and owned what he had done. I am sure there are lots of other criminals out there that aren’t taking responsibility for their actions 20 years ago. You clearly have no idea what you are talking about regarding AA and you sound very ignorant. It is clear that AA stands for something, not sure if you knew that, but there are people there trying to recover from alcohol not pills or crack and there are other groups that people can attend if that is their problem. And yes AA was at one time segregated, much like the busses and bathrooms and everywhere else for that matter in 1940. Today there are many women involved in AA and they play a major role in helping each other recover. I think it is sad when people try and make it sound like they know what they are talking about when in reality they have no clue. Why don’t you go to an AA meeting sometime and then you may be more suited to draw conclusions about the organization.

  • JoeBuddha

    March 17, 2007 at 11:10 am

    I’ve seen figures that AA recovery rates are about equal to going it alone, so I don’t really see the point. It may help a few people, but I’ve seen no evidence that it works in general.

  • Professor Zero

    March 17, 2007 at 11:20 am

    “I get the sense that this continuing supposed expiation of guilt that Beebe’s been wallowing in is just more ego-tripping, a revelling in his power over his victim over and over again. He chased her for years to try and get her to accept his ‘apology’. By indulging him in this AA acted as enabler to a stalker.”

    That is right.

  • Palau

    March 17, 2007 at 6:22 pm

    Adam: Please note the part where I acknowledged that AA help thousands What I’m saying about AA in short is not insulting:anyone involved it’s that it got punked by an abuser.and handled it badly.

    I feel I must point out also that you have no idea about what my experience of sunstance abuse or counselling actualy is.

  • Adam

    March 17, 2007 at 8:25 pm

    Palau: Well based on your references of AA helping “thousands” when it actuality is in the millions, and also pulling out of context a part of the Big Book making it seem as though AA is a sexist/racist organization It is clear that you don’t know much about AA.
    Also AA is not counseling. AA is not represented by any one member, and this guy gives no indication as to what the organization is about. I have read that this guy was advised by his sponsor that he should not write the victim and went against the advise of his peers.

    Joebuddah: What are your sources that AA doesn’t work? Last time I checked that is a hard number to track, however there are millions of members and meetings that span the globe. I don’t know how you can dismiss the effectiveness of a organization that has millions of members.

  • StarWatcher

    March 17, 2007 at 11:01 pm

    Adam — “Yes the rape was wrong, that is obvious, however at least this guy fessed up and owned what he had done.”

    Unbelievable. This rapist destroyed a life; he murdered the person that young woman might have become. We don’t let murderers walk away with an “I’m sorry” and the observation that they’ve lived a “good” life since then.* Big fucking deal! He executed a crime; he should do the time; his behavior since the rape has absolutely no relevance.

    *And we don’t KNOW that he’s lived a good life since then; most men who rape — especially if they face no consequences after the first incident — are multiple offenders.

  • Palau

    March 18, 2007 at 4:27 am

    Adam: I gave no references except a vague ‘thousands’, because I couldn’t find even a ballpark figure.

    What is your reference for the ‘millions’ helped? I’d be quite happy to accept your figure if you have a cite for it.

  • Micky

    September 2, 2007 at 2:05 am

    FALSE PROPHET
    It is important to note that Bill Wilson’s faith system was not based on Jesus Christ and Him crucified; nor is there any mention of Jesus Christ being the Savior from his sin. Both he and Bob Smith (co-founder of AA) embraced and promoted a variety of spiritual experiences, which included practicing spiritualism and conversing with the dead (which the Bible forbids) and being heavily involved in séances. Wilson also acted as a medium or channeler. It was while involved in these types of religious experiences, not Biblical Christianity, that Wilson developed his Twelve Steps (Pass It On, pp 156, 198, 275, 278).
    PEACE BE WITH YOU
    MICKY

  • Micky

    September 2, 2007 at 2:06 am

    Nowhere in the 12 steps does it say that you should quit drinking, or help anyone else to quit drinking, either. Nowhere do the words SOBRIETY, RECOVERY, ABSTINENCE, HEALTH, HAPPINESS, JOY, & LOVE appear in the 12 Steps. The word ‘alcohol’ is only used once, when it was PATCHED into the 1st Step for the word “sin.” But Wilson wrote “ We are powerless over ‘alcohol’… Oxford Group Slogan; “We are powerless over sin & have been defeated by it.
    PEACE BE WITH YOU
    MICKY