Feeling the fallout from "A Million Little Pieces"

Recovering from drug or alcohol addiction is no easy matter. Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step spinoffs have proved to be highly effective treatment programs, to which more than 70 years of success would attest. And why do they work?

As any "12-stepper" will tell you, it's honesty. AA and its spiritual cousins don't just work — they thrive — because of truth and anonymity.

Absent such integrity — absent Sue or Bob or Jim standing in front of peers and talking truthfully about addiction — how could such programs be expected to work, those in recovery ask. Lying, to themselves and others, they contend, helps fuel addiction.

Author James Frey is not a member of a 12-step program. But he is an addict, whose best-selling book, "A Million Little Pieces," contends that programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous are not for everybody and merely provide one of several options en route to recovery. Frey sought help at a rehabilitation clinic, but because his book deals entirely with addiction and recovery, the storm surrounding its publication is being followed closely by the 12-step community.

And because the storm is derived from the fact that Frey was less than truthful in writing what he proclaimed was nonfiction, the issue of honesty and the role it plays in recovery has taken on the dimensions of a national debate.

(The New York Times reported that counselors at Hazelden, a Minnesota treatment facility, have come forward to question claims made by Frey about events he says happened there.)

While the beleaguered author is not a 12-stepper, he claimed to be a fellow addict seeking recovery, say members of Alcoholics Anonymous, and thus attached himself to the same aim that they seek while disavowing the benefits of AA for himself.

But as several of them noted, since when does a self-proclaimed addict get away with not being honest, even in a rehabilitation program?

"Detector went off"

The alarm bells sounded for Dr. John Talmadge, a psychiatrist at UT Southwestern Medical School who specializes in treating addictions, after he read the book. "My b.s. detector went off immediately. There was just something about it. ... But in our current culture, I can't say I'm surprised at all by what's unfolded."

Talmadge has followed the controversy "A Million Little Pieces" has caused in the world of recovery. It raises the question: Are 12-step programs the only way to reach sobriety?

"It is the case that 12-step programs don't work for everybody," said Talmadge, who has been sober 22 years. "In fact, they don't work for a lot of people, despite the fact that I credit a 12-step program with saving my own life. I believe there are many paths to sobriety, and I happen to believe a 12-step program is the best. But I encourage people to look at all the alternatives."

But for Carolyn, 44, a substitute teacher who lives in Connecticut and whose own life has benefited from the 12-step program Al-Anon, the ruckus doesn't matter. For her, the book is so much more than a gripping read; it's a must-have for almost anyone in recovery. (In keeping with the creed of anonymity in 12-step programs, no one is identified by his or her last name.)

"I loved the book," says Carolyn. "I thought it was an exciting story."

Carolyn says she recently had lunch with her Al-Anon sponsor, who shares her praise for Frey's book.

"My sponsor said, 'They're waiting for him to fall, because they want people to believe that the only way to get clean or sober is through AA or another 12-step program.'

"But the truth is, there is sobriety outside such programs, even though the numbers reflect that AA is the primary means toward sobriety. People simply shouldn't think it's the only way to get clean or sober, because it's not."

She understands the resistance to Frey's book, however, because 12-step programs have saved so many people's lives.

"A 12-step program should be tried by anyone struggling to find sobriety," she says, "but if it doesn't work, it's not a death sentence."

Gretchen, Carolyn's sister-in-law, is a 17-year veteran of Alcoholics Anonymous, and while she has yet to read "A Million Little Pieces," she finds the controversy troubling.

"So," says Gretchen, "the question becomes, does it matter to me as a person who's been through her own trials and tribulations as an addict? And I would have to say, 'Yeah, it matters a lot.' The 12-step model works because it's based on honesty and anonymity, and it's a combination that's so powerful. It's a place you go to hear people tell the truth.

"In sitting through meetings, you hear people telling stories about all sorts of embarrassing and shocking and degrading things they've done. That's the nature of addiction and the truly destructive behavior it spawns. But you're always assuming that people are not exploiting those revelations and turning them into profit or blessings from Oprah. So, yes, I have a problem with that."

After all, she says, "Honesty is part of the definition of what recovery is."

"Claimed to be a peer"

Tom, 48, a teacher who lives in Dallas, is an AA veteran with 10 years' sobriety.

"I think the main reason AA works is the peer-to-peer nature of the program," he says. "And the only way you come to know your fellow peers is by their stories."

Regardless of whether Frey belongs to a 12-step program, "he claimed to be a peer" in exposing his addiction, says Tom, "and then we find out he made a lot of it up."

In the long run, Tom contends, "A Million Little Pieces" will have little, if any, sway over whether people become sober or stay addicted.

By the time "we turn to AA, most of us have come to a point where our lives are pretty desperate," he says. A book, made up or otherwise, "shouldn't really have much effect."

"A centerpiece of the program is learning to give up resentment. Addicts spend a lot of time being resentful. One of our sayings is 'Resentment is giving people space in your brain rent-free.' We're pretty equipped to do what we can at not getting hung up on being mad at someone who's taken advantage of the program.

"This is only my opinion — please, I do not speak for AA or any other 12-step program. But these programs have been around for a very long time and will continue to be around ... long after this author and his book have been forgotten."