I tell my students that people will assume that they have a direct connection to what they are researching. Therefore, it is important for them to have an answer for the personal questions and assumptions that might follow. As I begin my first AA related research project in many years, I realize that I will once again have people asking about my personal involvement with Alcoholics Anonymous.

Although I will admit that excessive drinking almost ended my graduate school career, if someone asks if I am involved in Alcoholics Anonymous, I will not answer the question. Instead, I honesty tell people that my involvement with AA related research began in 1984 when Win Weizer, a friend in Dignity, asked me to compile a bibliography on gay and lesbian alcoholics.

This request led to my first book and caused me to change my dissertation topic to AA, Spiritual Issues, and the Treatment of Lesbian and Gay Alcoholics. Over a decade of research and publishing about alcoholism and recovery followed. I will now build on this previous research as I develop the online tutorial “Succeed in College by Practicing These Principles in all Your Affairs.”

The reason I will neither confirm nor deny my involvement in Alcoholics Anonymous is because AA’s eleventh tradition includes the guideline that “we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films.” Although this traditional only guides the behavior of AA-alcoholics, I think any of us working in the field of addiction should observe it.

If those of us who are not in recovery freely state our non-involvement in the program, it means that those of us who refrain from answering questions about our involvement must be assumed to be alcoholic. To preserve the anonymity of AA-alcoholics who work in substance abuse research, all of us must refuse to answer the question.

–Steven L. Berg, PhD