Wikipedia provides a needed venue about A.A. For some 30 years, sick, recovering, and "recovered" people have been subjected to the comments of "experts"--who've written a little, taught a little, sampled a few people, and promulgated weighty theories on alcoholism, spirituality, "higher powers," genes, and pharmaceuticals, and more. Peer reviewed? By whom? You'll recognize the experts: Those who experiment and seek repetitive results rather than reporting hands-on experiences. I've had excellent teaching at two great universities (Cal/Berkeley and Stanford). But until I saw my first client, courtroom, judge, jury, brief, will, estate, statute, and corporation I never realized that the distinguished profs who challenge our minds and test our qualifications neither trained nor tested us to deal with the law as it is practiced in the office, courtroom, and evidence-gathering. In the field of "alcoholism," such disparity may suffice for those who write books, train counselors, or record what medicine and psychology discover, but virtually disqualify if the "scientists, academics, and scholars" have never seen, smelled, or tended to a wet drunk, or provided love and service to this despairing creature. A few closet case "experts" have actually "been" alcoholics, but you'd scarcely know it. And many have never,for years,dirtied their hands with practicing drunks or recalled their own misery. Their opinions are backed by grants, statistics, behavioral analyses, pharmaceutical tests, nutrition ideas, genetics, preventatives, the pardoning of relapses, and their flooding the journals, conclaves, search engines, and fellow professionals with their conjectures. Look too at A.A.'s own cops--lawyers and professionals--not even alcoholics who frequent the publishing structure. They foist on us what is "conference approved" and not, "guidelines," secularized literature, warnings about what should or should not be sold or read, and dogma that careful in-house research, historical writings, and new discoveries about real cures should be avoided like the plague. I've seen see-saw jousting on Wikipedia; and I saw it become captive to canned output for a time. No mention of real A.A. roots, the Bible, God, or even the many sources, variations, detours, and contending ideas. Plenty of professorial talk about some illusory "higher power." And statistics about recovery and failure in an organization which has an ever-shifting, unmeasurable mass of adherents coupled with open welcome mat for those forced to be there or are merely "rim-running" onlookers. I've researched A.A. history for 18 years and been an active, recovered A.A. member for almost 21 years. I've personally worked with hundreds of sick, despairing, mentally disordered, troubled, fearful alcoholics and addicts than I ever saw in my law office in 36 years. Over 2 million have visited my website to learn. And Wikipedia supplements our work, looking at its meanderings, trying to upgrade with source citations, and welcoming a variety of facts. That far overcomes the censorship of some "moderators" today. It's needed because the best information about God, religion, Divine healing, withdrawal, misery, and the love and service found in A.A. is seldom rendered through scholarship, experiments, random samples, or biased views about "religion," "spirituality," "higher powers," and statistics measuring healing by attendance, dry periods, and subjective yardsticks. The Wikipedia article did a good job presenting what's going on today in its A.A. site. It's well displayed, widely viewed, battered with biased tripe, yet containing carefully rendered experiences, writings, and thinking. It's wide open to courteous, well-presented, thoughtful additions, subtractions, and amendments. Perhaps this assures that people will learn more about early A.A. principles of Abstinence, Divine aid, Obedience to the Creator, Growth in fellowship through Bible, prayer, guidance, and reading, and Intensive work helping others. If some want to add, subtract, substitute, report, condemn, laud or question therein: Let them! www.dickb.com.