Unity or Uniformity?

One of the big concerns (or one of the pre-planned excuses to leave) I had when I came to AA was that I would be joining a cult whose members would practice some form of mind control through psychological conditioning. This was not an idle fear on my part. A childhood friend had joined a cult while he was in college and had become exactly the type of zombie that cults are rumored to produce--in full flight from reality, feeling safe only in the confines of a world of prescribed behaviors and beliefs.