COMMUNAL INDIVIDUALISM: MANAGING CONFLICT IN ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS by HEATH CARTER HOFFMANN (Under the direction of Dr. Mark Cooney) ABSTRACT This study explores how members of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) manage conflict in the context of the AA meeting. AA is a unique organization because it lacks an institutionalized authority structure and thus does not have formal organizational mechanisms (e.g. a leader or manager) for responding to and mediating interpersonal conflicts between members. In the absence of formal authority structure, we might expect conflict to be rampant in AA. However, this is not the case. Certainly, as in other social contexts, AA members experience interpersonal and intra-personal conflicts during meetings, which they manage by using strategies like avoidance, tolerance, criticism, humor, therapy, and in rare cases members ask for help from the police. To explain variations in how members respond to deviant behavior I use Donald Black’s (1993) general theory of conflict management. Black suggests that conflict management varies with the social structure of the group or organization. The social structure of a setting embodies the configuration of statuses and social ties that participants share. In the case of AA, its members are relatively egalitarian and groups tend to be internally homogeneous producing a social structure that encourages the use of therapy and tolerance to manage conflict. However, more authoritative conflict management strategies such as criticism and law are used in social structures where the deviant member occupies a lower status in the group (i.e. has not been sober for very long) and has weak or infrequent ties to the AA program. In the same way, deviance by high status members is frequently tolerated by lower status members and only authoritatively challenged, if at all, by other high status members. This work contributes to the development of Black’s theoretical paradigm and also illustrates the importance of equality and egalitarianism in creating a therapeutic milieu. INDEX WORDS: Conflict management, Alcoholics Anonymous, Communal individualism, Social control, Donald Black, Therapeutic social control COMMUNAL INDIVIDUALISM: MANAGING CONFLICT IN ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS by HEATH CARTER HOFFMANN B.A., Western Washington University, 1995 M.A., The University of Georgia, 1999 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ATHENS, GEORGIA 2002 ©2002 Heath Carter Hoffmann All Rights Reserved COMMUNAL INDIVIDUALISM: MANAGING CONFLICT IN ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS by HEATH CARTER HOFFMANN Approved: Major Professor: Mark Cooney Committee: Paul Roman William Finlay Jody Clay Warner Joe Hermanowicz Electronic Version Approved: Gordhan L. Patel Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia May 2002 DEDICATION For Sara Thank you for your love, support, and patience. iv ACKOWLEDGMENTS First, I am indebted to the many members of Alcoholics Anonymous who welcomed me to their meetings and shared their recovery with me. There are several members, in particular, who I would like to personally thank. However, I must protect their anonymity and thus I hope they know who they are and how grateful I am to them. I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to my committee: Joe Hermanowicz, Jody Clay-Warner, William Finlay, Paul Roman, and Mark Cooney. Since the first day that I met Joe Hermanowicz, when he interviewed to join our Sociology faculty, he has been a supportive force, offering comments on various papers that I have written. His love for Sociology is often contagious and I am grateful to him. I am indebted to Jody Clay- Warner for her interest in this project when others questioned or doubted the approach I was taking. William Finlay is to be thanked, not only for his work on my dissertation committee, but also for the summer lunches during which we discussed various books to help prepare me for my comprehensive exams. In particular, I am indebted to William’s dissertation research (see Work on the Waterfront) for its exemplification of exciting qualitative inquiry and analysis. Paul Roman is the reason why I ended up at The University of Georgia. Paul is ultimately responsible for my interest in the study of alcohol, drugs, Employee Assistance Programs, and organizations. While we have worked less closely together during the course of this study on AA, he should know his influence and mentorship has positively influenced me for much of my writing and ideas seem as if they came from his mouth. Thank you, Paul. v Lastly, I am tremendously grateful to Mark Cooney. When I approached Mark about doing this project he was immediately supportive and enthusiastic. Mark has always given me immediate and honest feedback about the quality of my ideas and writing and he has encouraged me to search for sociological truth. Mark has been a wonderful mentor and I have appreciated and benefited from the many lunches and office chats that have contributed to the development of this project. I look forward to working with Mark in the future and I hope I can be a mentor to students in the same way that he has mentored me. A number of other scholars are partly responsible for my accomplishments and I am indebted to them, as well. My high school career was filled with wonderful teachers like Darryl Rast, Ms. Richardson, Dwayne Kendall, and Gene Dombrowski—each of you contributed to my thirst for knowledge. Those who have contributed to my intellectual development in college include Woody Beck, Karen Bradley, Kris Bulcroft, Diane Carmody, Jim Coverdill, Linda Grant, Cynthia Hewitt, Richard Ingersoll, Martha Myers, Steven Schact, and Barry Schwartz. John Richardson has likely had the greatest influence on my intellectual development and academic career. I regularly credit him for my completion of the doctoral program because he believed in me and encouraged me when I was riddled with self-doubt. John is an amazing human being and a brilliant Sociologist and I have never seen a professor captivate student audiences in the same way that John did when I was an undergraduate. Much appreciation and love go to John and his wife, Jill. vi I thank my parents for insisting that I go to college. Education and the pursuit of knowledge has been a blessing in my life and I thank them for the sacrifices they made to raise me and get me to college. Thank you and I love you. I am indebted to Suzan Hoffmann, my oldest sister, for being the educational trailblazer in our family and for showing me how to remain confident even under the most adverse circumstances. To Jennifer and Gene Bradshaw, my sister and brother-in- law, I thank you for your support over the years and I must say I am grateful that the conflicts my sister and I had as children are managed differently today. My youngest sister, Sara has been an inspiration to me at many times in my life. I wish you much luck in whatever path you choose in life. Wherever you go and whatever you do, I know you will do it well. To Matt, Kim, Amanda, and Cole Hoffmann—thank you. The packages, letters, phone calls, and emails have all helped sustain me during this journey. Matt is one of the hardest working people I know. While Matt did not go to college himself, he is one of the smartest people I know and I admire him for his knowledge and skill. Thank you for encouraging me along the way. I love you. Many of my fellow graduate students have made my graduate experience wonderful and intellectually adventurous: James Awbrey, Todd Bayma, Lorraine Evans, Dave Gavisk, Aaron Johnson, Hannah Knudsen, Carrie Oser, Pierre Oulevay, Cristie Rollins, Michelle Petrie, and Diana Wall. I thank each of you and am grateful that you were a part of my life in various ways. There are a number of people around me on an almost daily basis whose love, support, tolerance, and humor helped me to endure not only the research and writing of vii the dissertation but graduate school, in general. I thank David, Betty, and Amanda Arnold for welcoming me into their lives and for treating me like a son and brother. Freddie and Darlene Boan, you have been like parents to me, as well, and I thank you for the support and kindness that you have shown me. Mary Kay Lenzo should also be thanked for her kindness, laughs, and opposites. Candace Boan and Chris Lenzo—you both have taught me so much and given me more love and support than I can describe here. I look forward to having a lifetime of fun and discovery with you both and I thank you for everything—I love you both. It was Candace and Chris who introduced me to my wife, Sara. Sara has taught me much about strength, love, commitment, friendship, patience, and growth. Sara supported my nightly visits to AA meetings and she tolerated the many hours of note taking that followed each of those meetings. Sara has also tolerated and/or ignored my grumpiness when the frustration and obstacles of this dissertation got the best of me. For this, I am especially grateful to her and I know this was no easy chore. In addition to supporting and encouraging my pursuit of knowledge, Sara has helped me to laugh, play, and appreciate life outside of books and away from the computer monitor. These are a few of the million-and-one reasons why I love you, Sara—Thank you! viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...................................................................................................v LIST OF TABLES.............................................................................................................xi LIST OF FIGURES...........................................................................................................xii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION..............................................................................................1 The Alcoholic Self......................................................................................10 2 THEORY..........................................................................................................18 Therapeutic Conflict Management..............................................................27 The Social Structure of AA.........................................................................31 The Data......................................................................................................49 Contents.......................................................................................................52 3 INTEGRATIVE THERAPY............................................................................56 The Direction and Intensity of Integrative Therapy....................................66 4 CRITICISM......................................................................................................97 Moralistic Criticism...................................................................................107 Indirect Criticism.......................................................................................117 Humorous Criticism..................................................................................122 Compassionate Criticism...........................................................................124 Upward and Lateral Criticism...................................................................128 ix
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