SO SAYS Mohammed Al-Turaiki, the Chief Executive of the Riyadh-based Saudi Care for Rehabilitation and Health Care, who recently travelled to the US to study one of the countries oldest addiction treatment centres in Detroit.
According to this report, he had travelled 7,000 miles to Michigan in hope of finding answers to a problem so taboo in the conservative Muslim kingdom that no official statistics exist: alcohol and drug addiction.
Alcohol is illegal in Saudi Arabia, where a strict interpretation of Islam forbids everything from liquor to allowing women to drive. For those who suffer from alcohol and drug abuse, treatment is scarce and the stigma so great that most never talk about their addiction, even to close family members.
Al-Turaiki is trying to change the negative image of addiction by creating a network of treatment facilities in the oil-rich kingdom. He came to Brighton Hospital earlier this year to check out the facility and its treatment programmes that have long have included the Detroit region’s large Arab and Muslim population.
Said Al-Turaiki, whose company plans to build a public-private 250-bed treatment hospital and referral centers not just in Saudi but throughout the Middle East:
We will need to build an Islamically grounded 12-step culture, and meetings to support patients post-discharge.
While at Brighton, he met with Alec Berry, an 82-year-old US-born Arab and Muslim who helped create the bilingual program. Berry, an alcoholic who has been sober for more than 40 years, is planning to go to Saudi Arabia later this year and develop post-treatment programmes if Brighton and Saudi Care finalise their consulting agreement in the weeks ahead.
Alec Berry
Said Berry:
They could see this is a very spiritual program that will fit in with Islam very easily — it’s seamless, almost.
The 12-step program at Brighton forms the core of the recovery program established by Alcoholics Anonymous, which isn’t allied with any religion or sect. But Al-Turaiki and Berry say the programme resonates with Muslims, since the third step speaks of turning one’s life:
Over to the care of God as we understood him.
Despite the success of 12-step programmes in the West, one the biggest roadblocks to recovery and awareness in Muslim and Arab communities is denial and shame.
Said Berry:
In the Arabic-Muslim community, because Islam forbids the use of alcohol, you can imagine how much more intense the denial system is going to be.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
May 29th, 2010 at 9:31 pm
I remember watching a tv documentary some time ago about Iran, and drug taking is rife over there. No reason why any other Muslim nation can’t share the misery of it, especially when a lot of comes from Afghanistan.
May 29th, 2010 at 10:27 pm
@AngieRS
I watched a television documentary about migrant workers in Iran. They were getting paid in heroin! I can’t remember if the migrants were from Pakistan or Afghanistan, one or the other, but the Iranians treated them horribly.
May 29th, 2010 at 11:44 pm
The statement that Alcoholics Anonymous isn’t allied with any religion or sect is inaccurate. AA was invented by a fanatic Christian, and for the whole of its existence its avowed purpose has been to replace the mind-crippling opiate of alcohol addiction with the even more mind-crippling opiate of god addiction. But don’t take my word for it. Go to Google and type in Wikipedia AA big book
It was precisely because AA is a wholly owned subsidiary of the god delusion that nontheists founded the alternative, Secular Organization for Sobriety (SOS).
Of course rugbutters would like to copy the West’s 12-step program, since step (3?) is unconditional surrender to the sky fairy.
May 30th, 2010 at 12:30 am
Broadsword, could be the same program Was a while ago now.
May 30th, 2010 at 4:52 am
I thought the imams already had an effective two step program:
step 1: you get drunk
step 2: they flog your ass to ribbons
end of problem.
May 30th, 2010 at 6:41 am
sailor1031, yeah turns out that isn’t true. welcome to islam outside of richard dawkins world.
May 30th, 2010 at 7:48 am
harwood (aka chicken agnostic) said:
“its existence its avowed purpose has been to replace the mind-crippling opiate of alcohol addiction with the even more mind-crippling opiate of god addiction.”
Bad news, doc, alcohol is not an opiate, neither is religion. But, I catch your drift, that they are replacing one crutch with another. I am left wondering, though, why you didn’t just say that?
NeoWolfe
May 30th, 2010 at 9:42 am
What about female muslim alcoholics? Do they get included?
May 30th, 2010 at 12:42 pm
Chaba: who says it ain’t true?
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/954
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php.....260398B264
http://yuvaz.com/blog/drunk-pe.....ria-court/
and from the UK’s finest standup comic, anjem choudary: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new.....ogged.html
Flogging for drunkeness was recently introduced in Aceh, Indonesia. So flogging in the Middle East,Africa, Pakistan, Indonesia andthat’s just from page 1 of a google search – seems pretty widespread to me.
May 30th, 2010 at 12:47 pm
Broga: do they get included in the floggings, do you mean?
http://islamic-law.suite101.co.....nking_beer
May 30th, 2010 at 2:30 pm
Actually, you can see why the AA cult would be so attractive to Islamists. As Berry well knows, but isn’t admitting, denial and shame aren’t ‘problems’ to such parasites, they’re the very things that make AA such a goldmine for whoever runs the local scheme.
AA absolutely depends on the victim giving away confidential info to leaders (who are almost inevitably linked to the dodgiest types of evangelical church) in order to proceed through the steps. Far from helping, that just makes them more and more susceptible to blackmail and ties them to the AA cult or the particular bunch of godbotherers running the local program. No different to joining, say, Scientology, the Jesus Army or some wackjob terrorist gang.
The real danger,as in the US and increasingly some parts of the UK, would be if folk who turn up in court on some alcohol-related offence get a sentence which requires AA or some near relative as a condition of early release. I can imagine such a handy form of social control, repackaged as ‘therapy’ or even ‘human rights’ for Western critics, would go down well in an Islamic regime.
May 30th, 2010 at 2:37 pm
NeoWolfe: I too am sick and tired of being singled out as the target for your tizzy fits. If you are determined to embarrass yourself, do it without involving me.
May 30th, 2010 at 5:00 pm
“…Despite the success of 12-step programmes in the West”
evidence, please?
I enjoy this unflattering, muckraking blog about AA
http://stinkin-thinkin.com/
Yes, AA sprang from an evangelical Protestant prayer group, but today it is actually formally neutral with respect to religion and should “work” for Jews, Hindus, Muslims, as well as Christians of all stripes. It substitutes one delusion for another. Non-Christians might object to finishing meetings with the Lord’s Prayer, however. Denial is already a problem for alcoholics, and I guess the article is trying to say that it’s compounded by Islamic culture with its already strict taboos on alcohol consumption.
For us atheists and agnostics, I’d recommend what I used, which is Rational Recovery (www.rational.org); There is also SMART Recovery, and the aforementioned SOS (Secular Organizations for Sobriety), affiliated with the Center for Inquiry (CFI). And some religionists also prefer these secular alternatives, wanting a separation of church and recovery, as it were.
May 30th, 2010 at 6:09 pm
The AA website declares that:
“The majority of A.A. members believe that we have found the solution to our drinking problem not through individual willpower, but through a power greater than ourselves.”
It goes on to state:
“…everyone defines this power as he or she wishes. Many people call it God, others think it is the collective therapy of A.A, still others don’t believe in it at all. There is room in A.A. for people of all shades of belief and nonbelief.”
From my own experience of friends and people I know who have been through the AA programme, belief in a ‘higher being’ is an absolute prerequisite. However, the main source of AA success seems to be replacing one form of addiction with another (ie attending meetings rather than drinking).
I admire all those who have gone through it and come out the other side deeply.
However, should I ever find myself in need of such help, I know I could never submit myself to such a programme because from the off I know I would be living an out and out lie.
May 31st, 2010 at 4:54 am
harwood said:
“NeoWolfe: I too am sick and tired of being singled out as the target for your tizzy fits.”
I don’t do fits. I also don’t rewrite verses of the bible, take them out of context to use as political tripe. I don’t rewrite Russian history to make an invalid point about history. But, I do make mistakes, and when I do, I admit them, correct them, then move on.
If that’s a tizzy fit, fine, it seems preferrable to being a fraud.
NeoWolfe
May 31st, 2010 at 5:57 am
Addendum, harwood,
I never accused a fellow free thinker of being “chicken” because they stood by their principles and refused to “believe” anything that was unsupported by empirical evidence. So I will leave the politics and the psuedo-religion to you. I’ll just be the freethinker on the sideline ridiculing your lame ass. Label me “brain amputee” like everyone else who disagrees with you.
NeoWolfe
May 31st, 2010 at 5:42 pm
BARRY: Flush this troll. His continued presence on this site is an embarrassment to all of us.
May 31st, 2010 at 10:58 pm
Well, I guess it’s up to you BDuke. Freethinker or fraud. It’s your website.
NeoWolfe4
July 6th, 2010 at 11:16 pm
The perceptions and are most humorous to one who has and continues to follow the suggestions found in the AA program for over 25 years. Substitution? – hummm ..suppose you could say that – substitute insanity for sanity ok..substitute hopelessness for hope …it is quite interesting how fear manifests itself in such intense rationalizations – justifications for one to not question themselves about their behavior/actions nor be willing to entertain an open mind….well as it has been said “There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance – that principle is contempt prior to investigation.” -Herbert Spencer
Live n let Live…. happy trails to all
July 9th, 2010 at 7:10 pm
Being both a muslim and a member of AA i applaud this. I think there needs to be more dialogue but I havent met enough aa muslims only about 2 or 3 and they are more muslims that are court ordered to aa than anything. it would be nice for an imam to give a ruling about 12 step programs.
And all you Marx quoting Atheists GO DIE!