Which groups do you think should be protected in the press from bad publicity? Please explain your answer.

"Caroline (not her real name), 39, took four years to break away from AA and looks back with loathing at what she now sees as its self-serving and coercive methods. "I had doubts from the start but I carried on because, at the time, I had very low self-esteem and no confidence. AA only works if you're prepared to take it on as a religion. I should know, I was brought up a Jehovah's Witness until I was 18 and the similarities are astounding."

"Indeed some of the AA steps make no bones about this. Step Two talks of believing "in a power greater than ourselves", three of turning "our lives and wills over to the care of God" albeit "as we understand him", while 11 encourages prayer and meditation. This aspect of AA rhetoric is supposed to be negotiable nowadays, but Caroline disagrees: "As with any religion, you have to play by their rules or you're out. They have a Big Book which is their equivalent of the Bible. Your sponsor encourages you to pray and refers you to the Big Book at times of stress. I'd done all that sort of stuff before with the Jehovah's Witnesses. It's about control, and AA controls you by telling you that alcoholism is for life; they offer no hope of recovery. Members feed off each other in a very unhealthy way; it's like a dating agency. Opposition is not encouraged; I once made the mistake of mentioning to another member that I was in contact with a woman who had dropped out. He was very critical that I would still speak to someone who had `fallen away'. I went for it all at first. I wanted friends and I wanted to be liked but now I've detached. It's sold to you as if you're part of a special order. You're not. You just can't have a drink. I've been emotionally damaged by their mind games to keep you a member, to keep you needing them. It's a bullying environment."

"David O, 43, went to AA for eight years on and off before leaving to cure himself through therapy. He agrees: "I did an undercover story about the Moonies for a local radio station once and the approach is the same. AA is bondage of another form. It is evangelical and rabid in outlook. It doesn't empower or encourage independence."

excerpts from the English paper The Independent.