AA is a religious organization

[Valteron]

@Bobotheoptimist

Ah, but you see, you were no more powerless than the farmer with the rock. Maybe the farmer (and you) were unable to do it without help, but you weren’t and aren’t powerless. You, I believe, needed a support structure of some kind, and with some support you quit drinking. Magical Trevor didn’t quit you drinking, God didn’t step in and change you so that you wouldn’t drink, you quit drinking. Stand up for yourself, fer crying out loud. You managed to fight a hell of a battle against a serious problem and are keeping things under control - sure, with help from people that have been in the same boat, but it’s all you buddy. You went to the meetings, you went a day without a drink.
Maybe being insulted and diminished helped you, some people need that I guess.

It can be, and has been, done without AA. Doesn’t mean AA is bad, but they certainly seem to have an agenda that goes beyond helping some people in need.
No, that’s possibly not be true - some people I’ve met that quit through AA have agendas, are dismissive of anyone that quit without the program, and redefine alcoholism as they see fit. They’re like fundamentalist AA, and are far less rational than this thread has been.

Then again, no one told me there’d be buffalo wings

That is precisely it. “Powerless” does not mean "you will never be able to stop, period, so just roll over and die. “Powerless” means “powerless without help”.

People come to AA BECAUSE they have already accepted they need help with their drinking, because they have already concluded that it has them licked. Why do you think I got up and went to AA after 20 years of trying to control it myself? Because there was nothing good on TV? Because I love the smell of a classroom in an old school that is used for meetings?

Once you get help, you are no longer powerless. That is why step 2 says that we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Of course it was me that did it! But it was me that did it with the help of resources outside myself. Because time after time when I tried, over the space of 20 years, I could not on my own resources. It just kept getting a little worse every year. But with the help of resources outside myself, I was able to stop and see myself in a whole new light, and become a radically different person than the guy who couldn’t face life in sobriety.

Other people are able to stop by themselves, or to cut back a bad habit to reasonable social drinking without the help of resources outside them. Fine. I have NO IDEA why they can and I could not. It may be any number of factors. Just like my parable of the farmer and the rocks, maybe the rocks on my property were bigger than the rocks other people had to lift on theirs. Maybe my muscles are weaker and I am older than the other guys who are clearing the rocks off their land alone. Maybe I just don’t have the courage and determination of the guys who are moving the rocks off their property with their bare hands. Maybe it is a combination of all these factors.

The hilarious thing about this whole thread is that the people who are dumping on AA keep accusing it of claiming it is the only way for people to deal with alcohol abuse. Which is clearly NOT what AA says.

On the contrary, the critics of AA seem to be the ones who refuse to recognize that there may be different forms and different intensities of addiction or alcohol abuse. Every time you say, “People have quit sucessfully on their own”, you are implicitly asking us to believe that all forms of alcohol addiction are the same, that all cases are the same, and that if some poeple can lick it alone, everybody should be able to.

“Insulted and diminished”??? What in the name of aunt Marie’s garters are you talking about??? I have NEVER felt insulted and diminsihed. I date my first genuine self-respect from the time I started working the program.

NOBODY in AA told me to say I was powerless over alcohol. I am the one who concluded that, after 20 long and unhappy years of trying and failing to control my drinking. I looked up the nearest AA meeting in my neighbourhood, and went there of my own free will. Even when I got there, nobody told me to say I was powerless. The other people there are the ones who said THEY had concluded THEY were powerless. Powerless ALONE. Not powerless in any and all circumstances in the future.

Do we have to keep tripping over this inability to understand that we are saying we WERE powerless (in the past tense) until we got help?

You said “Maybe the farmer (and you) were unable to do it without help, but you weren’t and aren’t powerless.” Look at that sentence you wrote. If a person is unable to move a rock by themselves, no matter how hard they try, then are they not, at that time “powerless” to move it? I am not saying they will never ever have the power to move those rocks, am I?

Now, in my parable, I postulated a situation in which the farmer gets together with another farmer who has the same incapacity or powerlessness, and together they discover that they CAN move those rocks. Because that is how AA works.

I was waiting for some smart-ass to ask why the farmer did not rent a back-hoe. In fact , the parable would work that way too, because a back-hoe would be a power greater than himself upon which he depends to do something that he has repeatedly tried and failed at.

Look, I tried and tried and tried for 20 years to control my drinking, to cut down, to be reasonable, and I could not. I am not stupid or weak! I am not lacking in will power in any normal sense. I quit smoking 12 years ago on my own. I regularly watch my waistline by cutting down on calories and at 58 have the same waist I had at 25. I put myself through university and I was disciplined enough to do all the studies required and earn the money for my studies.

So why, oh why, will you not believe me when I tell you this: 20 years of trying and failing proved to me that my addiction to alcohol cannot be handled by me alone? Why will you not believe me?

So one day I got myself out of my chair, tossed back a few 222s with codeine to kill the hangover pain, and went to an AA meeting. Since then, I have enjoyed 16 years of sobriety and happiness I would have thought impossible, when I could not by myslef get 16 days of sobriety.

I concluded of my own free will and based on 20 years of bitter experience that I could not beat alcohol alone and so I joined an organization of guys and gals who also could not lick it alone.

Do you realize how cruel and unfeeling it is to keep pointing out to me that many people can and do handle it alone and are able to cut back to normal drinking? How do you know that my inner workings, my metabolism, my mind, my reactions to alcohol, my life experience, my “addictability” are the same as theirs? How much do you know about the factors behind the alcohol abuse in each individual case?

Would you come up to a cripple who is walking with the help of a leg brace and say: “Other people can walk without those weird metalic braces on their legs. Why can’t you?”

[Phlosphr]

@Kalhoun

How many of the 12 steps did you “leave?”

In one way or another I worked with all of them. So ‘zero’ I would say answers your question. I really couldn’t tell if you were trying to be sarcastic or not.

[Kalhoun]

@Phlosphr

In one way or another I worked with all of them. So ‘zero’ I would say answers your question. I really couldn’t tell if you were trying to be sarcastic or not.

I wasn’t being sarcastic. I know everyone takes a stab at most of them, but how many of them are meaningful to your sobriety? It sounds like all of them, from your post.

[Kalhoun]

@Valteron

That is precisely it. “Powerless” does not mean "you will never be able to stop, period, so just roll over and die. “Powerless” means “powerless without help”.

People come to AA BECAUSE they have already accepted they need help with their drinking, because they have already concluded that it has them licked. Why do you think I got up and went to AA after 20 years of trying to control it myself? Because there was nothing good on TV? Because I love the smell of a classroom in an old school that is used for meetings?

Once you get help, you are no longer powerless. That is why step 2 says that we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Of course it was me that did it! But it was me that did it with the help of resources outside myself. Because time after time when I tried, over the space of 20 years, I could not on my own resources. It just kept getting a little worse every year. But with the help of resources outside myself, I was able to stop and see myself in a whole new light, and become a radically different person than the guy who couldn’t face life in sobriety.

Other people are able to stop by themselves, or to cut back a bad habit to reasonable social drinking without the help of resources outside them. Fine. I have NO IDEA why they can and I could not. It may be any number of factors. Just like my parable of the farmer and the rocks, maybe the rocks on my property were bigger than the rocks other people had to lift on theirs. Maybe my muscles are weaker and I am older than the other guys who are clearing the rocks off their land alone. Maybe I just don’t have the courage and determination of the guys who are moving the rocks off their property with their bare hands. Maybe it is a combination of all these factors.

The hilarious thing about this whole thread is that the people who are dumping on AA keep accusing it of claiming it is the only way for people to deal with alcohol abuse. Which is clearly NOT what AA says.

On the contrary, the critics of AA seem to be the ones who refuse to recognize that there may be different forms and different intensities of addiction or alcohol abuse. Every time you say, “People have quit sucessfully on their own”, you are implicitly asking us to believe that all forms of alcohol addiction are the same, that all cases are the same, and that if some poeple can lick it alone, everybody should be able to.

“Insulted and diminished”??? What in the name of aunt Marie’s garters are you talking about??? I have NEVER felt insulted and diminsihed. I date my first genuine self-respect from the time I started working the program.

NOBODY in AA told me to say I was powerless over alcohol. I am the one who concluded that, after 20 long and unhappy years of trying and failing to control my drinking. I looked up the nearest AA meeting in my neighbourhood, and went there of my own free will. Even when I got there, nobody told me to say I was powerless. The other people there are the ones who said THEY had concluded THEY were powerless. Powerless ALONE. Not powerless in any and all circumstances in the future.

Do we have to keep tripping over this inability to understand that we are saying we WERE powerless (in the past tense) until we got help?

You said “Maybe the farmer (and you) were unable to do it without help, but you weren’t and aren’t powerless.” Look at that sentence you wrote. If a person is unable to move a rock by themselves, no matter how hard they try, then are they not, at that time “powerless” to move it? I am not saying they will never ever have the power to move those rocks, am I?

Now, in my parable, I postulated a situation in which the farmer gets together with another farmer who has the same incapacity or powerlessness, and together they discover that they CAN move those rocks. Because that is how AA works.

I was waiting for some smart-ass to ask why the farmer did not rent a back-hoe. In fact , the parable would work that way too, because a back-hoe would be a power greater than himself upon which he depends to do something that he has repeatedly tried and failed at.

Look, I tried and tried and tried for 20 years to control my drinking, to cut down, to be reasonable, and I could not. I am not stupid or weak! I am not lacking in will power in any normal sense. I quit smoking 12 years ago on my own. I regularly watch my waistline by cutting down on calories and at 58 have the same waist I had at 25. I put myself through university and I was disciplined enough to do all the studies required and earn the money for my studies.

So why, oh why, will you not believe me when I tell you this: 20 years of trying and failing proved to me that my addiction to alcohol cannot be handled by me alone? Why will you not believe me?

So one day I got myself out of my chair, tossed back a few 222s with codeine to kill the hangover pain, and went to an AA meeting. Since then, I have enjoyed 16 years of sobriety and happiness I would have thought impossible, when I could not by myslef get 16 days of sobriety.

I concluded of my own free will and based on 20 years of bitter experience that I could not beat alcohol alone and so I joined an organization of guys and gals who also could not lick it alone.

Do you realize how cruel and unfeeling it is to keep pointing out to me that many people can and do handle it alone and are able to cut back to normal drinking? How do you know that my inner workings, my metabolism, my mind, my reactions to alcohol, my life experience, my “addictability” are the same as theirs? How much do you know about the factors behind the alcohol abuse in each individual case?

Would you come up to a cripple who is walking with the help of a leg brace and say: “Other people can walk without those weird metalic braces on their legs. Why can’t you?”

Would you say any other program would have worked?

[I_Love_Me_Vol.I]

@Bobotheoptimist

If you (or he) were powerless over alcohol, how did you stop drinking? AA didn’t stop you from drinking, God didn’t stop you, you stopped you. You maybe needed help from a support group, but you were never powerless. You hadn’t found the right method or hadn’t mustered the anger necessary or whatever it was that AA brought out in you, but you were not powerless.

And this is my biggest problem with AA. They get it wrong, IMO, on the very first Step. For me, it’s hard to get past the fact that the most fundamental Step of all is flat-out wrong.

AA has helped many people, but then again, so has religion. AA has hurt many people, but then again, so has religion. Alcohol has hurt many people, but then again, it has also helped many people. I hope that someday humans will not need to depend so much on irrational constructs like AA and religion to help them with such irrational problems as depending on alcohol to a degree that is harmful.

Two more things: One, I have many other thoughts about AA–most of which outline my problems with the organization. But some of which are my feelings of how an organization like AA can be helpful to some people.

Number two, I have gone to some AA meetings that I found to be positive and helpful. For me these are the meetings that don’t promote the Steps or suggest you get a sponsor. Sadly, many in AA wouldn’t consider a group without Steps or Sponsors to be an AA group at all. Which is contradictory to Bill W’s writings on the subject.

And it’s THAT very sort of Groupthink (“it’s OUR way or the HIGHWAY”) that besmirches AA’s name (“Quit pouring the booze down your throat and pour our Trite Bullshit down there instead!”).

[Valteron]

@Kalhoun

I wasn’t being sarcastic. I know everyone takes a stab at most of them, but how many of them are meaningful to your sobriety? It sounds like all of them, from your post.

Sorry buddy, I don’t mean to intrude on your conversation with Philosphr, but in my case, I have practised all 12 steps, but always in my own way. You must understand that the program is intensely personal and everyone works the steps in their own way.

Take step 3. “We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.” (P.s., some women say “her” instead of “him”.

But what about this “God” part? AHA!!! GOD!!! Proves you were right! IT IS A RELIGION!!! :dubious:

Not at all. The part that helps me is the “turning over to the care”. All of my drinking career, I was an anxiety freak. I could worry about anything. Everything was my fault. I had to be sure about everything. How do I know I won’t have an accident? How do I know my house won’t burn down? They will blame me for this and for that? Did I turn off the stove? Better go back and check five times!

No wonder I drank! I knew of no other relief.

Now, I take each neurotic anxiety and “turn it over” to my higher power. The universe. The power of love. Whatever. As long as it is not sitting in my mind, polluting and poisoning me from inside. What happens will happen. I will cross my bridges when I come to them. That is also what “living one day at a time” means to an AA. It does not just refer to drinking. It refers to your whole way of thinking and controling your emotions.

That is my interpretation of step 3. This is how I use it. Not everybody is an anxiety neurotic. The guy beside me intereprets it to mean:“I trust that God sent his only begotten son Jesus to die for me, and that I only need to trust to such a loving God and to live my life to the best of my ability, one day at a time.”

That is his interpretation. The guy next to him is a Muslim. The next guy is an atheist. And so on and so on.

By the way, there are no “atheist” or “religious” meetings. There are just AA meetings. There are “gay” meetings in many large cities, but they are NOT for gays only. They were started because some gay alcoholics, especially very closety older ones, could never have sat there and spoken frankly about themselves to straight people. But believe it or not, most gay people prefer to go to gay meetings, because everybody is accepted as they are in ordinary meetings. So gay meetings are kind of dying out.

[Kalhoun]

I guess I’m trying to find out how many steps a person can dismiss before it’s no longer “AA”. Can you use *none of it * and still be considered an AA success story because you went to meetings and drank coffee?

[Valteron]

@Kalhoun

Would you say any other program would have worked?

To be honest, I cannot say if any other program would have worked, because this is the only one I tried.

I am assuming you now believe me when I say I can’t do it alone? Thanks. But why not some other program, you ask? Good question.

AA is free, takes a few hours a month, and has given me back my life and my health and has brought me a life far, far happier than I ever imagined possible. They were there near my home when I needed them.

It has never once in 16 years harmed me, or insulted me, or forced a religious belief on me. It has never done me anything but good.

There is an AA meeting in pretty much every town of any size in the western world(large cities have literally HUNDREDS – I am not exagerating.) When I go to Key West (yes, little Key West in Florida) on vacation next month, I know there are two or three AA meetings to go to. I will probably strike up a friendship with other AAs on vacation and we will probably start hanging out together and having a huge load of SOBER fun. Dinners, cruises, snorkeling, pushing each other into the pool, cards, dancing, SEX, SEX, SEX —you name it. Sober does not equal dull, believe me.

If you know another program that offers the same in terms of cost/benefit for people like me, please tell me about it.

But yes, other programs may well have been as sucessful at keeping me sober, if they have a record of helping some people like me. Note that I said some people. I know AA fails to help many people. Don’t know why, but I know that it is not 100% effective. Neither is any other program that I know of.

If I tell my AA buddies that I am leaving AA and going to another program, nobody will be bothered, nobody loses anything. They will wish me good luck and remind me I am always welcome back if the other program does not work for me.

[Fear_Itself]

@Kalhoun

I guess I’m trying to find out how many steps a person can dismiss before it’s no longer “AA”. Can you use *none of it * and still be considered an AA success story because you went to meetings and drank coffee?

Yes. It is about stopping drinking. All the steps, the traditions, everything about AA is suggested. The only requirement is a desire to stop drinking. And if you can quit drinking, even if it is only one day, it is a success.

[Phlosphr]

@Fear Itself

Yes. It is about stopping drinking. All the steps, the traditions, everything about AA is suggested. The only requirement is a desire to stop drinking. And if you can quit drinking, even if it is only one day, it is a success.

I agree with this.
Kalhoun - I know several old timers (25+ years in the program) who worked the steps early on, or not at all, and don’t do them anymore. They don’t go to step meetings, they go to open discussion meetings, where basically, people sit around bullsh*ting about a given topic. No mention of the steps, God, etc…etc… for some people that’s ok, for others, they live by the steps.

The steps you asked about earlier that I hold close to me - well as a moral human being I had already done some of the steps before I even looked at them in a list…Like making amends. There were people in my past I was a complete dick to, or acted hideously towards, and I had already sought their forgivness. If I can call it that. Really, I just wanted them to know I was sorry for acting a fool, I could care less what they did with the information.

[Valteron]

@Kalhoun

I guess I’m trying to find out how many steps a person can dismiss before it’s no longer “AA”. Can you use *none of it * and still be considered an AA success story because you went to meetings and drank coffee?

In theory you could dismiss every one of the steps because NOBODY asks you or checks on how many steps you have done, or how, or when or anything. It is all 100% personal and individual. You can tell the others during discussion if you want to what steps you have done or intend to do, but NOBODY is in charge of checking on you.

When we read the steps at each meeting, we say “Here are the steps we took, which are suggested (note that word) as a program for recovery”.

If you go to AA metings and drink coffee, do not work a single one of the steps, but keep drinking alcohol, and your drinking keeps getting worse and worse (which is what was happening to just about all our members before they came through the doors of AA) I guess you are not going to be a success story. But that is really an unrealistic hypothesis. It is like saying can you be a member of a gym but just show up and sit on a seat and not move day after day.

Chances are the person who does nothing but sit there and does nothing at home, no steps, no readings, nothing, will eventually decide AA is a bunch of fucking idiots and stop coming.

But working the steps in your own way is the key to happiness. If you remember nothing else remember this. Alcohol was only one problem. My character defects were the main problem. They are what made me unhappy and made me need to drink.

Note that the word “alcohol” is mentioned only in the first step, and the word “alcoholics” is mentioned in the last step. Why? Because working the steps is a program of recovery and rebirth by which I am constantly remaking myself into the happy, better-adjusted person I have always wanted to be. It is a life-long journey and the joy is in the journey.

That is really what the steps are. The more I work them in my own way, in my own time, as I need to, the more I become a happy and normal person. Or as close to normal as a nut like me can get.

[Phlosphr]

@Valteron

In theory you could dismiss every one of the steps because NOBODY asks you or checks on how many steps you have done, or how, or when or anything. It is all 100% personal and individual. You can tell the others during discussion if you want to what steps you have done or intend to do, but NOBODY is in charge of checking on you.

When we read the steps at each meeting, we say “Here are the steps we took, which are suggested (note that word) as a program for recovery”.

If you go to AA metings and drink coffee, do not work a single one of the steps, but keep drinking alcohol, and your drinking keeps getting worse and worse (which is what was happening to just about all our members before they came through the doors of AA) I guess you are not going to be a success story. But that is really an unrealistic hypothesis. It is like saying can you be a member of a gym but just show up and sit on a seat and not move day after day.

Chances are the person who does nothing but sit there and does nothing at home, no steps, no readings, nothing, will eventually decide AA is a bunch of fucking idiots and stop coming.

But working the steps in your own way is the key to happiness. If you remember nothing else remember this. Alcohol was only one problem. My character defects were the main problem. They are what made me unhappy and made me need to drink.

Note that the word “alcohol” is mentioned only in the first step, and the word “alcoholics” is mentioned in the last step. Why? Because working the steps is a program of recovery and rebirth by which I am constantly remaking myself into the happy, better-adjusted person I have always wanted to be. It is a life-long journey and the joy is in the journey.

That is really what the steps are. The more I work them in my own way, in my own time, as I need to, the more I become a happy and normal person. Or as close to normal as a nut like me can get.

People like Valteron are a great asset to AA. It’s people like you who say things like " I’m a grateful recovering alcoholic " Grateful to be in the program, grateful to have a better life. We just happened to use AA to achieve those means.

[Valteron]

A number of posts back, I used HUGEn letters like that to yell at Kalhoun (or somebody). I wish to apologize.

If it was not Kalhoun, I apologize the whoever it was.

I now realize that the so-called “anti” AA posters are for the most part just using Socratic dialogue to bring out facts.

Now, this is a perfect example of how we deal with our defects in AA. The tenth step says “Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.”

As I take personal inventory, I realize that one of my worst defects is that I think anyone who disagrees with me is a creep who deserves to be yelled at. Alcohol did not make me that way. It is probably based on fear. Fear that anyone who disagrees with me is attacking me. Fear that I might be wrong. So I lash out.

Sixteen years ago, I would have been even worse than I was.

The more I indulge this defect, the unhappier I will be and the more I spread unhappiness in others.

The anitdote to this defect is humility and slowly understanding that people who disagree with me have a right to their opinion as well. I don’t need to be a doormat, but I don’t need to go after them with a verbal meat cleaver when they disagree with me.

Now that is almost exactly what I would say during my sharing at an AA meeting. I would think about what I just said and how much happier I am when I discuss intelligently with Kalhoun instead of yelling.

I now have to leave you because I have to go get my posessions out of my car, which was totalled in an accident December 28. No, I was not drinking (sober people have accidents too). It is a lot of sweat and problem, but I have remained sober and I am looking for what this time of trial can teach me in terms of character development.

Jope I can keep discussing with all you folks on this thread in a couple of days.

[Kalhoun]

@Fear Itself

Yes. It is about stopping drinking. All the steps, the traditions, everything about AA is suggested. The only requirement is a desire to stop drinking. And if you can quit drinking, even if it is only one day, it is a success.

So then it really isn’t “AA” program that works, per se…it’s the camaraderie that keeps you sober?

[Bobotheoptimist]

Darn it, I got a long rambling pointless response almost done, and Valteron can’t play anymore. I’ll post it anyway, I guess.

@Valteron

“Insulted and diminished”??? What in the name of aunt Marie’s garters are you talking about??? I have NEVER felt insulted and diminsihed. I date my first genuine self-respect from the time I started working the program.

“You are powerless to control yourself” is, to me, insulting and diminishing. It’s the kind of thing that abusers say to their victims - “Without me you are nothing!”
If it worked for you, but I don’t have to respect AA. I might respect AA slightly more if the first step was something like “You realize you are master of your own destiny”

@Valteron

NOBODY in AA told me to say I was powerless over alcohol.

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol.

The very first step is to admit that you were powerless. I’m sure, however, that no one said “Valteron, stand in that corner until you say ‘I am powerless against alcohol’” Or are we arguing because of the difference between “were powerless” and “are powerless”?
But like Kalhoun implied, if the steps aren’t really necessary, then the basic premise of AA is undermined. If it’s just another group therapy session with mediocre results, what’s the big deal?

@Valteron

Do we have to keep tripping over this inability to understand that we are saying we WERE powerless (in the past tense) until we got help?

Yes, because of steps 2 and 3

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 as we understood Him.

Unless we disregard the 12 step program and just look at it as a group therapy, the first three steps certainly look cult-like to me. (I know it’s not, but just looking at if from the outside, can’t you see what we’re talking about?)

@Valteron

So why, oh why, will you not believe me when I tell you this: 20 years of trying and failing proved to me that my addiction to alcohol cannot be handled by me alone? Why will you not believe me?

I believe that you couldn’t do it alone, never said I didn’t, but not that AA is the answer for most people. Worked for you, great. I’m glad. But I’m more impressed that you were able to quit than I am that AA was involved.

@Valteron

Do you realize how cruel and unfeeling it is to keep pointing out to me that many people can and do handle it alone and are able to cut back to normal drinking? How do you know that my inner workings, my metabolism, my mind, my reactions to alcohol, my life experience, my “addictability” are the same as theirs? How much do you know about the factors behind the alcohol abuse in each individual case?

And this gets back to my primary and greatest disagreement with AA. If one isn’t as bad off as you, then they aren’t really alcoholics. If someone goes through all the shit that you went through, but does it on their own, without the support structure in place, and is able, 5 years later, to force themselves to have only two glasses of bubbly on New Years Eve, then they obviously weren’t really alcoholics, just drunks.
You know nothing about their metabolism, self control, addictability, family history, or psychology, yet the AA attitude I’ve come to expect is that only people who go through AA have real problems. That hasn’t been the case through most of this thread, thankfully. Somehow most AA defenders here have been fairly rational, but I find that to be unusual. Could be that I just run into the vocal jerks while polite, informed, intelligent folks like yourself keep out of other peoples business, so I’m basing my strongest opinions of AA on the Fred Phelps’ of alcoholism.

Hey, I’m fairly sure my way wasn’t right for most people - I’m stubborn and self-loathing, and I use that anger against myownself. Any group thing would have driven me to drink even more, but I understand that most people aren’t like me and probably won’t benefit from what I did. I’m certainly not going to tell anyone that they didn’t have it as rough as me or anything.

[Bobotheoptimist]

@Bobotheoptimist

I’m certainly not going to tell anyone that they didn’t have it as rough as me or anything.

Not meaning to imply that anyone in this thread has done so. :smack:

[Fear_Itself]

@Kalhoun

So then it really isn’t “AA” program that works, per se…it’s the camaraderie that keeps you sober?

I cannot speak for others, I can only speak for myself. But it is more than just camaraderie for me. Yes, I draw strength from the group that enables me to say, “I don’t have to drink today”. But I also gain the understanding that I don’t have to be in control of everything in my life, and that comes from the AA traditions. I gain the wisdom to change the things I can, and accept the things I cannot. By realizing the Universe is greater than I am, I feel an enormous burden lifted from my shoulders; it is a big responsibility to be the highest power in the universe. I don’t need to pray to a god to gain this understanding, and Universe does not have to speak to me for this understanding to be felt. But it is the essence of AA that brought me closer to the peace I am seeking. I am not there yet, but I am closer than I would have been without AA.

[Phlosphr]

@Fear Itself

I cannot speak for others, I can only speak for myself. But it is more than just camaraderie for me. Yes, I draw strength from the group that enables me to say, “I don’t have to drink today”. But I also gain the understanding that I don’t have to be in control of everything in my life, and that comes from the AA traditions. I gain the wisdom to change the things I can, and accept the things I cannot. By realizing the Universe is greater than I am, I feel an enormous burden lifted from my shoulders; it is a big responsibility to be the highest power in the universe. I don’t need to pray to a god to gain this understanding, and Universe does not have to speak to me for this understanding to be felt. But it is the essence of AA that brought me closer to the peace I am seeking. I am not there yet, but I am closer than I would have been without AA.

I could not have said that any better.

Further, and slightly conversly, I have seen people enter the rooms, not give it a chance, then bolt. I’ve seen people try to white knuckle quitting drinking and have intense feelings of being alone, anxious, and down and out.

I love seeing people come into the rooms for the first time and have that overwhelming feeling that everyone is staring at them, or some other such feeling. Then to see the look of awe when someone else besides themselves says somthing that fits in thier story. I love that look…

Like this…

“OH MY GOD - OTHER PEOPLE HIDE ALCOHOL…[SUP] in the garbage, poland springs bottles, laundry, potting soil…[/sup]”

Or

“I was sick and tired of being sick and tired, I hated waking up everyday with my head feeling like it weighs 1000 pounds…”

Or

I can smell the booze coming from my pores, even after I have taken a shower…
ad infinitum

[Kalhoun]

@Bobotheoptimist

Darn it, I got a long rambling pointless response almost done, and Valteron can’t play anymore. I’ll post it anyway, I guess.
“You are powerless to control yourself” is, to me, insulting and diminishing. It’s the kind of thing that abusers say to their victims - “Without me you are nothing!”
If it worked for you, but I don’t have to respect AA. I might respect AA slightly more if the first step was something like “You realize you are master of your own destiny”
The very first step is to admit that you were powerless. I’m sure, however, that no one said “Valteron, stand in that corner until you say ‘I am powerless against alcohol’” Or are we arguing because of the difference between “were powerless” and “are powerless”?
But like Kalhoun implied, if the steps aren’t really necessary, then the basic premise of AA is undermined. If it’s just another group therapy session with mediocre results, what’s the big deal?
Yes, because of steps 2 and 3 Unless we disregard the 12 step program and just look at it as a group therapy, the first three steps certainly look cult-like to me. (I know it’s not, but just looking at if from the outside, can’t you see what we’re talking about?)I believe that you couldn’t do it alone, never said I didn’t, but not that AA is the answer for most people. Worked for you, great. I’m glad. But I’m more impressed that you were able to quit than I am that AA was involved.
And this gets back to my primary and greatest disagreement with AA. If one isn’t as bad off as you, then they aren’t really alcoholics. If someone goes through all the shit that you went through, but does it on their own, without the support structure in place, and is able, 5 years later, to force themselves to have only two glasses of bubbly on New Years Eve, then they obviously weren’t really alcoholics, just drunks.
You know nothing about their metabolism, self control, addictability, family history, or psychology, yet the AA attitude I’ve come to expect is that only people who go through AA have real problems. That hasn’t been the case through most of this thread, thankfully. Somehow most AA defenders here have been fairly rational, but I find that to be unusual. Could be that I just run into the vocal jerks while polite, informed, intelligent folks like yourself keep out of other peoples business, so I’m basing my strongest opinions of AA on the Fred Phelps’ of alcoholism.

Hey, I’m fairly sure my way wasn’t right for most people - I’m stubborn and self-loathing, and I use that anger against myownself. Any group thing would have driven me to drink even more, but I understand that most people aren’t like me and probably won’t benefit from what I did. I’m certainly not going to tell anyone that they didn’t have it as rough as me or anything.

I agree with your take that it’s “group therapy with a twist” (sorry…couldn’t resist.)I believe, and have always believed, that personality “defects” as they refer to them as, have zero to do with alcoholism or recovery from it. This is part of the undercoating of religion that the organization denies having. There are other subtle techniques, right down to the biblical-style font they choose, the 12 Steps (read “Ten Commandments”), and the positively pathetic writing style, written in “preacher speak” that scream religion, and not science.

The effectiveness, as has been attested to here, has little to do with the steps and everything to do group therapy.

[Fear_Itself]

@Kalhoun

The effectiveness, as has been attested to here, has little to do with the steps and everything to do group therapy.

Attested to? By whom?