fair enough. The RR way really doesn’t appeal to me at all, but if it works for others, more power to them.
The longtime AAers I know – and we’re talking longtime – all say they really don’t care how somebody gets sober, anything that works is great. AA helps some people. Other things help other people. No big deal.
But with that reasoning, what evidence would ever convince you that AA was actually helping? In any case, statistics schmatistics, anecdotal evidence is quite good enough for the boatload of people I know who were helped – a lot – and the change in their lives coincided with their attendance of AA meetings. Of course, it’s not for everyone, and not everyone is for it, and people are different. But please…only in fantasy land can someone say with a straight face that there’s no evidence that AA has helped people.
As for the meetings themselves, I have attended several (maybe 4?)as an observer. Maybe my perspective is different, but the stories I heard sure didn’t sound like an advertisement for drinking to me. And I was able to take some of what was said and apply it to other things in my life. Perhaps there is as much variety among meetings as there is among people, so a broad brush is inappropriate.
The sister-in-law does sound like somebody entrenched in/addicted to addiction or victimhood or attention or something (sex addiction meeting for a girlie mag? wow) but is it possible, as has been alluded to, that she’s a “dry drunk” and only realized it 30 days ago (a stretch, perhaps)?
Is it possible that perhaps she knows that something is wrong, but is struggling to figure out what exactly that is? She could be hearing something in these meetings that resonates with her even if the root cause / trigger (i.e., alcohol) is not exactly the problem. She could be getting support that she lacks elsewhere & is getting it anonymously, for example.
Detox patients go to open meetings if you are with them. You will be asked to leave a closed meeting. Or should be…
I have been sober 17 years in AA.
Church did not do it and I’m a Roman Catholic.
Sitting on a stump did not do it.
RR type programs did not do it.
For my family did not do it.
Willpower… Bawahahaha
Due to the kind of work I used to do, I have been to thousands of meetings all over the USA with people form other countries in attendance a lot of times. There are those that I would never go back to as they were not real good IMO. Maybe 10%
I can go long periods without a meeting. Not addicted to them in the usual sense. I do enjoy them.
A lot of groups refuse to allow detox groups to come as they and their keepers cause the very problem to the meeting that you are complaining about.
For years, I have taken meetings into detox centers, treatment centers and hospitals. Usually detox centers are associated with law enforcement systems or judge appointed programs. The workers are in it for the money, it is just a job, not to really help the addicts. Not saying you , just most that I have dealt with…
As stated before, getting sober and happy and being able to live in society is the name of the game. People have done it many different ways. Many, many more had died as a direct result of addiction because they only tried one way or listened to those who said that what they knew was the only reasonable way and to not bother with any other way.
YMMV