Here to help

We Cult Survivors is an anonymous 12-Step fellowship modeled after Al-Anon.  We are former cult members (or those who have seen a loved one captured by an extremist ideology) who are here to help cult members and their families recover.  It is very difficult for people who have not been in a cult to understand what members of destructive cults go through.  We understand -- we have been there, and we are here to help.  There are no dues or fees whatsoever.  We simply wish to be helpful to those who are afflicted.

We Cult Survivors is not affiliated with any creed, sect, dogma or religion.  When we refer to God or a Higher Power in our writings, we mean the God or Higher Power of your understanding.  No one in We Cult Survivors will tell you what you must believe.  Our spiritual path is wide enough for anyone who wishes to walk it.

We have developed a questionnaire to help you determine whether the group you belong to, or belonged to, is a destructive cult.  Ask yourself:

1. Is the leader of your group considered beyond criticism?
2. Is the leader of your group thought to have a special relationship with God that places him or her beyond criticism?
3. Are you asked to report criticism of the leader coming from other members?
4. Is your group leader having sex with multiple group members?
5. Are members of your group permitted only a limited amount of sleep?  Are you frequently exhausted performing the work of the group?
6. Are members of your group on a restricted diet?
7. Are you expected to contribute a considerable amount of money to the group?
8. Are you expected to contribute a considerable amount of time and labor to the group?
9. Is an important part of your spiritual growth ego-deflation? (this goes under many names) Are you subjected to harsh or withering criticism that is said to be an aid in this process?
10. Are you frequently afraid that you may lose the group leader’s approval?  Will the rest of the group turn on you if you incur the leader's disapproval?
11. Is it extraordinarily difficult to win the group leader’s approval?
12. Does your group have a “pecking order”, where the members are informally ranked according to their spiritual progress?  Do the members higher in the ranking sometimes abuse those lower in rank?

1. We admitted we were powerless over the cult leader, cult thinking and/or a cult member—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God or a Higher Power as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God or a Higher Power, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God or a Higher Power remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God or a Higher Power, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to former cult members, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through.  We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook on life will change. Fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.

Alcoholics Anonymous, pp. 83-84