I am so happy to find this blog. I quit drinking over 4 years ago. I too was told that AA was the only way and that if I stopped going to meetings that surely I would drink and die.
I never felt like I fit in, I hated the cheesy slogans that you hear over and over, I hated holding hands and reciting christian prayers, I hated being a lemming.
When I moved to another state after 18 months of not drinking, AA seemed even worse to me. My first 3 months of meetings and not one person offered me their number or welcomed me. I was not disappointed, nor was I surprised. But I was intrigued. These people had no idea I wasnt someone who was trying to quit drinking, but surely I didnt look like I would fit into their little click.
I stopped going, despite the fact they had armed me with the knowledge that “surely I would drink and die”. Hell, I like to live life on the edge. One month passed, two months passed, then three and four and I seemed to be sober AND happy. In fact I noticed I was happier than when I was going to meetings.
A year after I stopped going to meetings, I went back to a meeting, just to see. Before the meeting, I was getting all those pity looks and the incinuating question “Has everything been alright?” (aka. Did you drink! ARRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGG! I wanted to scream and I was feeling fiesty). I shared that I hadnt been to a meeting in a year and that I hadnt felt like drinking, my life was good and I was happy. Yeah……..I felt like stirring up a little trouble. Nearly everyone who shared after me had some robotic comment about how I was setting myself up for a relapse, I was a dry drunk, I was fooling myself…….One woman however, went on and on about how she relapsed on vanilla ice-cream…you know, the vanilla extract. She said she actually felt something. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I have since baked several things that require vanilla extract and never got drunk. (You know, like I said, I like to live life on the edge.)
After the meeting, not one single person acknowledged my existance. I was the black sheep, for sure. I left with a smug feeling, they werent going to win me over, they werent going to trap me this time, I wasnt going to play their cultish games anymore……….
And I wondered, as I walked away….how could these people actually speak about God and a higher power ? They didnt even know how to treat a fellow human being with kindness just because she didnt do exactly what she was “told”.
Back on the east coast… my “friends” from my meetings back home would call me once in a while. The first question out of their mouths was “How are your meetings?” I am not going to lie, I told them I didnt go anymore. They all dropped away from my life.
I treated these people as family, letting them use my car, listening to their problems, we had dinner together, saw shows, went for hikes…….but since I stopped going to meetings, they have had nothing to do with me. One even said, “call me after you have been to a meeting”. I never went, so I never called, and I never will.
I feel sorry for these folks. Most of them attend 3-4 meetings a week and have no time for anything but work and AA. AA is just another addiction, but harder for some to quit.
It is tough to say if I would have quit drinking on my own, but I will certainly stay quit on my own.
I KNEW there had to be others out there like me. Funny how the AA’ers tell you to “stick with the winners” and automatically assume that everyone who leaves AA drinks immediately. What a loser thing to think…………….
Comment of the Week
In desperation, I had decided to give aa another shot, not believing that there was any other way. I was greeted warmly into the “fellowship”, which meant a lot to me, (as most people don’t care much for ex-hookers and aren’t comfortable with the knowledge that I may have blown their husbands). Immediately, I began to feel uncomfortable with the dirge-like use of cliches that were supposed to explain everything. Outside of these cliches, there were no answers. When I expressed concern, as an atheist, about turning my life over to a higher power that I did not have, I was directed to “stay open minded”, believe in a different god other than the god of the bible, or to read the chapter on the agnostic. My lack of belief means as much to me as the beliefs of a devout follower of jesus or mohammed and I had, nor have no wish to change. somehow, my position was not respected and I became an outcast, yet again. Now, as I attend the meetings I am forced to by my (aa based) program, I watch these people in wonder. I truly believe that the program is a cult and it’s only success comes from the new high and exhultation one recieves from belief. Count me out. From the Chieftest of Sinners-
Recent Comments
ahenobarbus458 on Some Thoughts on Wilson’… ahenobarbus458 on Escape from AA Chaz on Escape from AA baneberry7 on Escape from AA Chaz on Escape from AA
February 14, 2008 at 2:24 pm
I couldn’t agree more. If you don’t see sobriety in AA terms, talk in slogans and “talk the talk”, you’re treated like a pariah in AA. You can be sober for donkey’s years but it doesn’t count if you don’t say you owe it all to AA. I suspect that the people who reject AA and achieve long-term sobriety far outnumber those who stay and remain sober.
February 14, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Here’s something related to the “powerlessness doctrine” that I have noticed in the rooms. ..the number of people who seem to be using their recovery as an excuse to blow off any sort of responsibility. So many middle aged men living off their families, going to meetings and moping around. One fellow I met recently gave me a little speech on how he wasn’t looking for work (“God wants me to concentrate on my sobriety, when he wants me to have a job, he will give me one.”), then made a cell call to his daughter to make sure she went in for a job interview because the family needed it.
I guess the question is – what do you call a drunken scumbag who gets sober? The answer – a sober scumbag.
February 17, 2008 at 3:56 am
I too escaped from aa.So many years wasted that I could have put to better use.I remain many years sober and am finally free of that cult.I was young when I started aa meetings and brain-washed into believing I owed my sobriety to aa and that I must attend meetings for life or die drunk-utter nonsense.What a relief to be free.I would tell anybody to RUN FOR YOUR LIFE AWAY FROM AA.Sherwoode
March 23, 2008 at 5:01 am
Love you blog! A few years ago I discovered that there were actually people who spoke out against the mythology and harmful practices of 12 step programs. Where I live 12 step programs are considered to be the “preferred method of treatment” for all sorts of ailments, especially drug and alcohol addiction. I am SO happy to have found little communities of people who can talk about how negative 12 step experiences can be – and back when I was trying to fit in I thought it was me and my character defects that were causing all the problems. No one would speak to me except to say Keep coming back. I kept saying Why? Why return to a dark circle of robotic brain dead people who don’t even have the human compassion to inquire about you – they were a glum lot for sure!
March 23, 2008 at 8:21 pm
I had terrible experiences in the twelve steps. I went in for treatment, the counsellors sent a gangsteer to my house. They intimidated me, threatened me and my family and finally brain injured my mother – she will be in hospital for the rest of her life. They indoctrinated me into their little world and little it is. There were one or two who were ok but mostly, the people I met, were prize scumbags: controlling, manipulative, dishonest, duplicitous, sneaking, aggressive, opportunistic, incapable of an original thought.
Some days I would share at meetings and if one of the brain dead liked the share they would leave it a week or two then regurtitate what I had said as their very own then criticise me to their sponsees. I was beaten up, gossiped about, maligned continually, I was not allowed a single original feeling or thought. They would collude at meetings on what to do about me. They told people on medication to stop using it and in some cases those people committed suicide. I ended up with post traumatic stress, which I am being treated for. I left. Damn right I did. Their behaviour was that of seriously deranged people. They talk about God but I never met anyone in the twelve steps who had a spiritual awakening. Not one. None of them were spiritual. They are fakes and scumbags who mess with the heads of people smarter, kinder and more imaginative than themselves.
There needs to be changes.
March 30, 2008 at 3:19 am
When I got sober many years ago I felt a great relief and when I finally left aa I felt an even greater relief.Each time I re-gained my life and freedom
April 4, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Whenever I would run into anyone from aa all they could talk about was their alcoholism or aa meetings.Where are you going to meetings?Then mention their length of sobriety and if they talked lately @ a meeting.Oh they might also name-drop if a public figure was seen @ a meeting.So many of them living off of others success.Very unhealthy group of people,getting sicker sitting in those dreary meetings
April 9, 2008 at 10:52 pm
When I think about AA I think back to what I was told by a member at one of my first meetings, “It gives you something else to do than drink.” Quite frankly I believe much of AA, like many those who drink problematically, is fueled by loneliness and boredom as much as a desire to get “better”. To see people who have been going for years still talk about themselves as having serious “character defects” is sad and self-defeating. A person with 20 years of sobriety who still has to go to meetings every day certainly isn’t someone I aspire to be like.
As for the steps themselves, I guess it works as much as you believe in it or at least give it credit for your “sobriety”. At its face it’s about diverting your attention towards an external “Higher Power” and then telling your sponsor about past behavior, promising to stop that behavior, making amends and then seeking a closer relationship with that “Higher Power” while spreading the AA message in the guise of “helping another alcoholic.” Quitting drinking, getting honest and trying to be a helpful, better person isn’t bad by itself. However, you the individual take the action (or inaction) of not drinking. Inserting a “Higher Power” doesn’t replace that reality. Whatever inspiration we use we’re still ultimately responsible for our own lives.
For me the last straw with AA was when my sponsor told me that I had to write out a more “complete and thorough” 4th step including “dishonest” sexual and/or financial behavior as well as “unjustified resentments”. After some debate I finally just told him that there were some areas of my life that were either resolved or simply none of his business. I said that with regards to any personal business I didn’t feel comfortable sharing with him that I’m a grown man and I was resolved to solve any problems in those areas as I saw fit. Following this I was told I was “taking my will back” and that if I didn’t do what he “suggested” that he would stop being my sponsor. I was also told that other sponsors would probably ask the same questions and that with my “attitude” I risked my “sobriety” since I was only “as sick as your secrets”. I told him to hit the road and stopped going to meetings. Of course once I did that all those people who were in my AA “network” and I thought were my friends disappeared like crackheads at a DEA raid.
Some people probably just need that sense of structure and being told what to do and how to act. It was amazing when people at meetings would share that before they came to the rooms they “never knew” basic life skills like patience, responsibility, consideration, etc. I was just there because I drank too much. Getting healthier has in itself made me happier and allowed me to focus on areas where I want my life to move forward. As for that self-will, it’s still happily “running riot”.
May 21, 2008 at 10:17 pm
what a great blog to find. I left AA today and was told by all that it was ’suicide.’ To be honest, dropping my sponsor (who ran my life with military precision) and handing in my commitments to my meetings has left me feeling ‘happy, joyous and free!’
July 27, 2008 at 11:47 pm
I have struggled for 5 years through AA. Unfortunately I really like to get drunk and that landed me in many clinics to detox which it was suggested that my only option was AA – “nothing else worked”. Well I tried AA again and I like so many of you find myself asking the same questions and having the same issues with “the program”. I do have to say there are a lot of good people that I have met who aren’t trying to push their agenda on me but I am also not trying to rock the boat either by challenging everything I disagree with. Ultimately I am going to walk away from meetings, meetings before meetings, and groups of guys who don’t seem to be under 40 and who the majority seem rather miserable. I can say that I have read the big book with a critical eye and have done my reearch and I don’t like what I have found. If this is supposedly a program about “rigorous honesty” then why isn’t AA honest about the rampant dishonesty from it’s founders (eg Bill Wilson who I have read actually took credit away from many who contributed to Alcoholics Anonymous). Where I live it’s so sad to see courts ordering people into these meetings that they want no part of. Sadder still is these people don’t have the guts to tell the judge it’s been ruled unconstitutional (in 1996 if my facts are right) and they are entitled to alternate treatment. I guess I too would choose meetings over jail though since that’s what a lot of people faced with. I really wish AA would be exposed for what it is – an organization that flies under the radar of public scrutiny but benefits from those in the court system and healthcare who are in bed with a treatment program that has a high failure rate.
August 15, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Being a woman who grew up with an incestous father (and therefore struggling with self-esteem issues) I found I had nothing in common with a program largely created by an upper class male doctor. I didn’t need my self-esteem knocked down, I needed it knocked up big time! I needed to be empowered! AA does not do that – it actually WORKS at doing the opposite of that – which when I spend too much time thinking about it, actually frightens me. I am glad to have found this site.
September 27, 2008 at 7:36 pm
I am new to sobriety and I figured that AA would be a good place to get my footing. At first, it seemed like the cure-all until I showed just a bit of self-will. My sponsor has me doing a 90 in 90 and frankly, it’s too much. I have a life and I feel like I have to neglect that life in order to accommodate the demands of this program. When I expressed this sentiment to my sponsor and in meetings, I was told that I should go to MORE meetings. I’m already going 7 days a week! Should I quit my job then? I’m really pleased that I stumbled upon this blog. I believe that it’s possible to quit drinking without AA and I’m going to give that a try for awhile.
December 13, 2008 at 4:27 am
After about 4 years in AA, I have yet to hear anyone say it is the only way. I have two friends who got sober and stayed sober by means other than AA. Frankly, they were miraculous supernatural events that seemed to instantaneously free them from drugs and alcohol.
Granted that these kinds of situations are the exception rather than the rule. These two friends and I do not compete for whose recovery method is more valid. We are all clean and sober and only one of us is in AA.
I also tried another well-known recovery program that claims to have “The cure for the drug problem”. It was a disaster for me and many others, yet some did get clean, sober and stay that way.
My point? I really do not see the competition by AA for anyone’s sobriety. It is simply a program that works very effectively for many of us. And not for others. I am the type of alcoholic for whom it does work. Very well. Others are not.
I have experienced zealots in AA and other programs who would perhaps fit the description of the type originally posted about. This will always happen in any group of people where there is a deep passionate belief and high stakes.
From this AA member however, I am equally happy about your recovery and the recovery of others who do not go to AA as I am of my own. Congrats! And I wish you all the best on your journey. Hey… maybe I will join you one day.
Ciao. Chaz
December 14, 2008 at 11:41 pm
I have been very happy without AA for 17 years and have chosen not to drink at all in that time. Prior to that I had been a regular at AA meetings and kept going back to drinking. I firmly beleive that AA is a cult and I wouldnt recommend it to anyone who was trying to quit alcohol or drugs. I found by reading a book called the “Truth about Recovery and Addiction” was the best thing I ever did. From that book learned to go have fun in my life and be normal and most importantly to make good choices. I took up excercise ,new exciting hobbies,a new girlfriend that supported my choice not to drink and no AA. I soon filled my life with a new business and so many new things like travel,metal detecting on some ocean beach, that I had absolutely no problem quitting by filling that negative void with new positive things in my life and guess what ,it has worked tremendouisly well and I have taken full controll of my life and I am not a dry drunk just the oppositte and I love living chemical free with out AA,and trust me I was a case load prior to quitting.
Be Free People
December 16, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Baneberry…. arent the facts that those of us who have found sobriety and recovery are now living better lives good enough?
The thing that confuses me is the incessant battle of philosopies that seem to ignore the most imporant outcome… an improved life for the drinker! (and their families).
Whether one arrives to that point through AA or another means is of little concern to me. The kids who gets their Daddy or Mommy back doesnt care if it was AA, religion, psychology or whatever that got them their parent back. Etc.
I happen to be the type of alcoholic that AA can and has helped. Others are not. No big deal. The cult label hung on AA is unduly judgemental. And frankly serves no purpose but to perpetuate an argument.
The world cult is far too over-used and dished out with ridiculous frequency to monger fear. I can stay or go from AA any time I want. There is more freedom in AA than in most local churches, synagogues, or temples. A franchised store shows more cultic behaviour with its requirments for conformity by its employees than I have ever experienced in AA.
I know numerous people who sobered up and recovered without AA. None of us compete for whose phylosiphy or methods are superior. We are all different so different things get through to us. That simple.
And yes, there are lots of narrow-minded zealots in AA. So perhaps these types of behaviours have affected your experience. Or maybe it is just that your type of alcoholism does not connect with AA. Does that mean that others should be dissuaded from a method that has worked for millions for the past 70 years?
Sorry…. I just dont get it.
For any alcoholic or addict to get clean or sober is a miracle given the number that dont and eventually die and harm others. I think, frankly, we are picking the fly shit out of the pepper if we focus too closely on method versus results.
My take anyway. Ciao. Chaz
December 18, 2008 at 3:10 am
Chaz, I agree with you quite a bit ,however there is a lot of teaching that AA puts out at most meetings that I just simply do not agree with such as the disease concept , once an alcoholic always an alcoholic and many more things that they push (especially upon newcomers) at the meetings, and because of this I think people can be be very easly coerced into a thought process that they are diseased and stuck with this stigma the rest of there lives ! Because I beleive just the oppositte that I am not diseased with Alcoholism and that I can run a normal life with lots of self discipline and that I can take controll of my own life and not be powerless over alcohol ,oh and the other thing I did was I simply matured out of that lifestyle . These things are things that the table at AA would sneer at me with great disdain over. So I choose not to go to AA and would like other people to be aware of the option I took and that AA is definately not your only way!That being said I am glad your sober and good for you and I would rather see you on the road then a practicng drunk!!!
December 18, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Baneberry….
Thank you for your reply and acknowledgements.
I can see your point about how AA comes accross. Thinking back, I was unimpressed and uncomfortable with AA when I first stepped into the rooms. A lot of AA people tend to be narrow-minded and evangelistic about the way they have discovered. They take it a step further and project in many ways that AA is the only way.
Having read the Big Book a few times, I would say that this was never the intent of the founders. The founders had basically stumbled accross a way that after a long, long history of hopelessness, finally provided them with hope. The medical community was amazed. Ministers were amazed. Society was amazed. My understanding is that even Sigmund Freud considered alcoholics and addicts untreatable.
So in the context of the revelation of what AA was discovered to be able to achieve in the early years, I can see the foundation for zealousness of many members. It is not unlike human beings to take an element of truth, especially an emotionally charged one, and add zeal to it and turn it into something beyond what it actually is. We see this with religions, philosopies, and hey… even sports fans often carry their enthusiasm to ridiculous extremes. So human nature seems to prove itself out in many examples.
The disease concept I agree is a little challenging. For me, I have simply made it a meaningful descriptor of how my alcoholism functions. For me, I say “If I treat my alcoholism as if it were a disease, I am able to stay sober and recover”. Whether or not it actually is a disease …. well… my jury remains out on the issue and frankly I have stopped asking the question.
I had at different times tried to control or limit my drinking but it apperears through many a chaotic failure, that I have the type of alcoholism that does behave like an ongoing disease. This does not mean to me that everyone else’s is. Many AA’s wish to project their own experiences and outlooks onto others. Most of them are well meaning in their misguidedness however, I can see how bothersome it would be to be on the receiving end of such a message that does not necessarily ring true to you and your experience.
Again, in my reading of the origins of AA, this was never intended. The founders of AA were men who suffered from lifelong-disease-like alcholism. Yet, they appeared to have been very gracious and open-minded in spite of where the program they founded has gone.
The results of AA have been revolutionary and history-making on a global scale. Bill W was nominated for either a nobel or pulizer prize…. which he declined because he did not wish to take anything for himself in his efforts to help others. That is how powerful AA has been. And I think the decline of the prize (as well as nomination of Time Magazine man of the year… which he also declined)… these declined offers are a strong indicator of the humility of the founders and their intended purpose of AA.
What others have since done with it is perhaps a different story. Desparate and attention-hungry people getting ahold of something so powerful and life changing (such as the people who you may have experienced) are bound to corrupt it and make it something it is not. I have experienced the same in AA.
I have been told that if I miss a week of meetings that I would go back to drinking. I have missed weeks at a time and remain sober. The misguided, well-meaning zealots strike again! So ya… I can imagine your distaste for such treatment.
Also on the disease concept, frankly, I find it hard to put alcoholism as a disease in the same category as say cancer. There is far more selfishness involved by the alcoholic in the manifestations of his disease than the cancer patient. So I settle for looking at my alcoholis “as if it were a disease” and leave it at that. In doing so, I have found a way to remain sober.
Anyway… I celebrate your recovery too! Glad you are doing well. Am enjoying the dialogue and hope I am not coming accross in any way offensively.
Talk to you again I trust.
Ciao. Chaz
July 7, 2009 at 2:24 am
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