I am a fully-recovered alcoholic ~ transformed by the simple design for living outlined in simple steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Living this Way life on a daily basis creates personal transformation ~ a psychic change. Self-awareness and emotional intelligence increase and grow exponentially. Thinking becomes clear and inspired. Navigating challenging life events is successfully done because the mind operates from a place of calm. Meditation is key. Love and Service, AA works if you work it.
12 step groups and religions dont use any force, they are voluntary. Governments are people who are using threats and violence to force people to pay for their services. Taxes are not voluntary. Its pay or else. Normal people provide their services in the free market without using violence. IF the services of government are so valuable then why cant they provide them like normal nonviolent people. Citizens are cult members. They support the violence used against them like Battered wife syndrome
I've been stuck in the 12 step lifestyle for 4 years. Depression follows clean time. Addicts are shunning me out for being a inevitable frequent relapser. Being black listed for using. My recent max clean time was ten months. Went on a 24 hr death run now survived unfortunately by my disgrace back in the rooms. I keep coming back cause there is no where else to have a social network that doesn't use. Trying to find purpose in this life. also apparently I'm too analytical to get this...
@JenniferBubnis Depending on where you are located, there may be other non-12-step alternatives. If not, smartrecoveryforumdotorg has tons of on-line interaction. Check it out. Mike
I don't think it's really true that twelve step groups provide the only place to socialise without drinking/using, but I do remember thinking that way in the rooms. AA encourages that perception, and it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy the more one socialises exclusively with 12 steppers. Much better to develop contacts with new people based on positive shared interests rather than fixation on a common problem. I just wish I had realised this earlier myself.
@MrTobytwirl What a great realization! As a family members of several AA devotees I have often thought the same, that there needs to be reintegration and connection with the rest of the world but alas it seems AA promotes forming new families with members who fixate on their common problem and also validate continued manipulation, transference to other addictions, and enabling of victimization by promoting the belief in disease rather than responsibility and choice. I am happy you realized this
You certainly have alot of time on your hands for hate ......I just don't get why you need to prove your false sense of superiority. If this works for people and their lives improve, what's your problem?
AA/NA's motto- ask no questions and i will tell you lies lies, about how you are worthless, usless, incapable, diseased. they prey on vunerable people who are tacitly warned not to question, not to think, not to analyse. it's like come, be one of us, just like us. they should hand out uniforms that all look the same. i went once to check it. talk about bad vibes and fear. when people want to get off what their ''posien'' is, they lose their network and in steps the A's to exploit, with lies.
The truth is, there isn't hope for many. Let them do what they want to do. The courts should not waste their time sending people to AA. They just eat all the cookies and leave trash around. AA was never meant to be mental ward stuards. Besides that, they are dangerous.
it's not a disease, it can be a symtom of a disease but it's not a disease, see thats how you AA lot confuse the vonuable and make out it's not there fault for being who they are and what they have done, the easy way out to not taking responsibility for you are and become brainwashed robots with no identity or character. it will come back on you and you will regret it as your doing the same thing you did when you was drinking but not with the alcohol but running away from who you are.
it's not a disease, it can be a symtom of a disease but it's not a disease, see thats how you AA lot confuse the vonuable and make out it's not there fault for being who they are and what they have done, the easy way out to not taking responsibility for you are and become brainwashed robots with no identity or character. it will come back on you and you will regret it as your doing the same thing you did when you was drinking but not with the alcohol and that is running away from who you are.
@jonesgerard I was saying that AA say your powerless right so why hand everything over to some diety, god etc, I wasn't powerless I was strong to ask for help, my choice just like my choice to drink, my choice to give up, strength of mind & character is key, not some god who didn't give a shit before 1935
I think addiction is in the mind and AA wants you not to use your mind, which is stupid really. They want you to replace your mind with God and Groupthink ant the philosophy of a whacko like Bill w.
Go elsewhere then. Not everyone in the church, mosque, temple, etc, want to abandon their God either just because of atheists. Bill was a drunk, thats all. Why is the fact that he is not also an angel matter?
Bill is relevant in that nuts don't fall very far from the tree. To understand a movement, it is necessary to have some knowledge of its founder(s). Mike
@maddogmargetts1 He preached God, was convinced he was continuing the work of jesus christ and thought he was the reincarnation of some monk in the middle ages. Wilson was a self-serving hypocrite who did very well fianancially out of AA.
You forgot the "some" in front of people. Not everyone thinks as you do.
Through the desire to stop drinking hopefully you will find a way. AA is suggested as a program of recovery. It you don't like it and think there is something else then no one is stopping you from going back out the door you came in through. May you recover in whatever way works for you.
AA say the only requirement is to have a desire to stop drinking so why do they say you are powerless and throw these steps and big book at you, a bit contradictory to me :-)
The word must appears 68 times in the first 164. Lots of people recover from sitting in meetings, especially the ones who don't sit there very long. Why do step enthusiasts keep trying to convince non-enthusiasts that they should drink? We all have the power to not drink. Mike
"Why do step enthusiasts keep trying to convince non-enthusiasts that they should drink?"
They want to destroy you because you dare to question and disagree. They may seem nice on the outside, but scratch the surface and reveal the mean spirited ugliness just below the surface.
@jonesgerard you see you just saying that confirms how nuts you really are, your brainwashed dude, snap out of it and believe in yourself
I don't want to drink but if I did then no one could stop me, not even some higher power, if I wanted to do it then I will, choice is the answer, you have to really want to do it right just like giving up, you see doesn't that contradict your powerlessness and handing it over to god
@jonesgerard you see how messed up this cult is making you, go live in the real world and find yourself and not god, you will become a better person for it, stop being scared and live your life, it's easily done, you just have to be confident about who you are and what you want
AA has been helping alcoholics stay sobers for 74 years. There are millions of people who would tell you, without qualification, that AA saved their lives. That is what people really say about AA
And there are untold millions who would tell you there really is a Santa Claus, who brings deserving children toys near the winter solstice. Heck, maybe you are one of them. Mike
AA has kept me sober for 7 1/2 yrs and it unequivocally saved my life. Fact of the matter is 90% of the anti AA'ers are miserable people who aren't staying sober so they find a scapegoat as they have done their whole lives. But only by the Grace of God I am sober. So I consider myself and all of my other friends who lives were saved by AA as very blessed and fortunate. Disgruntled AA'ers are worst whiners in the world. They hate that is hasn't gotten them sober
You claim that I am miserable, when I am not. I just refuse to process BS. You are more offensive than you know. I have no need for "sober" Short Of Being Entirely Ready. I have been clean several years without your cult. Prove your "god" or you are simply making the argument from ignorance or even possibly arrogance.
You can "hate", I have no time for it. I have seen AA booster hate first hand.
I'm sober 3+ years, no thanks to AA in the end (I binge lapsed badly in AA); But for the grace of powers within me, my own honestly and opening of the mind I have growing sanity, serenity and humanity in my life. I truly am happy, joyous and FREE because I questioned AA and continue to be critical of the ideologies and methods of AA.
But then I'm probably just a "dry dunk" or fake alcoholic (not a REAL alcoholic), or dishonest or have "other problems", not really recovered... or whatever names and put downs you have for anyone who dares criticize anything about AA. Ho hum, same as it ever was in AA...
What do I think of AA? Not much. AA does not really do very much of anything. It is, basically, a nothing. Watching paint dry; or, listening to the corn grow is more useful.
Even between two people that disagree whole heartedly a basic respect and empathy for their mutual human experience it not a lot to ask and it builds a foundation between us all that allows for better understanding and working together. I was taught that by relatives before i screwed everything up and AA helped me rediscover it. if you can return this in kind I'll admit I was wrong about your problems and be on my way. It should be heartfelt and unconditional though.
Once more I apologize here, when I was working with schizophrenics one of the main steps in stabilizing a clients condition was to consistently confront them on statements that we're demonstrable false. We can, and will, disagree on AA but you insist on misquoting what I say and your response to many things seem to be vastly out of proportion to the circumstances. I know it's not my place to straighten you out but this sort of behavior is not going to help anyone, especially yourself.
You keep trying to imply that my views are false. You say AA helped you to think better & when I tell you to read certain pages in the BB that say to abandon logic & rational thinking, you claim to take it all with healthy skeptism? 3 points that make no sense on your part. What is written in the BB & the 12x12 is the program which is represented by the fellowship: all 3 entites are full of lies, contraditions, & false information.
I'm saying AA is guide or a recipe book. I always change recipes to suit me. If something sounds good but I'm allergic to cashews and don't like raisins I eliminate or substitute something else. Everything in the book is a suggestion so I don't see any problem with picking and choosing. I find that's how most people I respect lead their lives. Also their alway is the option of finding another recipe book.
This is a great example of how illogical the cult suggestions are open to interpretation. Sorry to inform you but I worked the entire program & once I saw it for what it really was (a cult) I rejected the entire recipe as a fraud. The life I lead is much better once I deprogrammed from being in the cult of AA. I found another recipe, but that doesn't make AA not a cult. If a recipe fails on a regular basis then it deserves a negative review so that others don't waste their time trying it.
BTW, you keep coming back to the program. I'm talking about here and now. The way you're interacting with me here has nothing to do with the program but it does tell me something about you. I listen to what people say and then watch what they do and what your doing seems kind of unhealthy to me. It's rather abusive, defensive, insulting and manipulative. Interestedly that's exactly what you accuse AA of, hey presto, transference.
When a cult member keeps attacking my character, because they can't provide any facts to prove their cult is providing any factual information any normal human being would become defensive. The fact is I was a victim of AA & your attempt to re-victimize the victim aren't going to work. Maybe you should look up that term? I like myself just fine exactly the way I am, and the perverted OTs 13-steppers aren't loving anyone. AA: every time you point a finger 3 are pointing back: look at yourself.
I'll make you a deal. If you can say one thing to me that can pass as pleasant and positive, just a kind word, well agree to disagree and go on our own way. I haven't seen much evidences that you able to do that. I'll start, I sincerely hope that recover from you trauma and that you and you loved ones do nothing but prosper. I mean that i certainly don't hold any ill will toward you and am honestly concerned for your general welfare. I feel the same way toward anyone that's been through a lot.
"AA is a cult. I am calling AA a cult." God bless America I'm all for that. but any opinion out in the public discourse does get the once over. I'm not critiquing you view of AA hell I have lots of my own issue with it, Some of the points here are valid. It's the tone that's strange and I think it's valid to ask Why so angry with a group of people who can't hurt you? Feelings of victimization are tricky things even when valid, they should be approached with empathy and care, for all concerned
This is about AA & I don't have to interact with you in any way to make you like me. How have I been abusive? Insulting? or manipulated you into anything? I haven't. This video is about what people really think of AA. I think AA is a cult that needs to be properly investigated for its fraud & crimes committed in the rooms. That is what I think. I don't care what any AA cult member thinks about anything. I have zero trust or respect for AA cult members or their organization.
here's how it works where in the rooms I attend we try and stay as honest, opened minded and willing as you can, we work the steps- inventory, reflection, amends,prayer-meditation and daily maintenance. We emphasize service, fellowship, love and tolerance and any other basic tools that help. If there is something in the BB we don't need we don't use it. We all have a different take on it and no one is suppose to tell anyone else what to do, just suggest. It works, your issues won't change that.
Even between two people that disagree whole heartedly a basic respect and empathy for their mutual human experience it not a lot to ask and it builds a foundation between us all that allows for better understanding and working together. I was taught that by relatives before i screwed everything up and AA helped me rediscover it. if you can return this in kind I'll admit I was wrong about your problems and be on my way. It should be heartfelt and unconditional though.
The msg you deleted is the one in my inbox. The reason I have a hard time being positive & pleasant in regards to AA members is: I was deeply involved in AA for several years. All the people who pretended to be nice? ended up being unsafe people. I kept thinking it was a select few, but the deeper I stayed involved even the best fakers ended up showing their true colors in ways that I attribute to the cult. Their example of "recovery" wasn't close to what was being faked & preached.
Thank you for making my point. even if what you say is completely true and me and every AA "cult" member is two faced, uncaring and predatory when I gave you a chance to show me how someone should address another person all you could do was more tearing down, exactly what you accuse AA of, Hello transference again. AA is not a barrel full of bad apples any more than the Catholic church, is in spite of all the horrible things some priests have done. You're instance otherwise reflects you, not AA
Again you are using typical cult tactics to imply it is me. I was 15 when an archbishop gave a sermon & I never went back. I don't understand how anyone could remain a Catholic with all the things the church does. I was just reflecting on my life w/out AA & nothing that was taught in AA applied to my personal life. All the things I have had to face in my personal life: nothing AA says even applies (no real solutions), & it is all alcohol related. My life is better w/out AA.
You aren't making any point. To me you are an AA member, a stranger on YT over the internet. Regardless of how you think you have presented yourself better towards me than I have to you? When you are the one attacking me for not liking one single thing about AA reflects back on you. I don't have to "fake" nice or positive about an organization I consider to be a cult full of incurably diseased people practicing mental health, medicine, & relgion without any formal training or license.
Instead of holding those who misuse your trust responsible for their own actions or writing the whole thing off as a learning experience you insist on AA ALL BAD, that's silly. I tell you we all know very little and you call me a guru just to maintain you fantasy. I think you're an extreme example but you do a good job of representing the anti-AA movement as a whole. Instead of just taking some responsibility for your experiences and getting your needs met elsewhere let's go on a crusade.
Typical cult response to tell me to take responsibility for my experience with AA? You have no idea what damages the cult caused me that I had to fix myself. I am not responsible for what the cult does to other people. I am taking responsibility to speak out against it being a cult. What battles I choose to fight aren't yours to judge. AA may know a little, but I see ZERO attempt to bring modernization into the program. "New" ideas get silenced.
There you go again putting words in my mouth so you can continue to believe a child's view of the world. I never said I'm always right and I've congratulated you on more than one occasion for challenges to accepted norms, I certainly do in meetings. You seems absolutely dedicated to believe what you want of me in spite of what i say That's my point, only a child believes the world is all monsters under the bed or Winnie the Poo, nothing in between. The truth is it's usually both at the same time
This made me laugh: I said nothing about monsters under the bed or Winnie the Poo; you did. There you go trying to call me a child (I thought I was a child of God?) Scripture says unless you become like a child you will not see the kingdom. You are projecting that I am wrong by some measure to your standards & I don't care what you think about me. The AA literature on its own is full of lies claimed to be an honest program of recovery for alcoholism. Cults believe their own lies.
You pretend to be so open-minded about what happens in AA & how you enjoy challenging its norms (I don't) there is no point in it. Many people who left AA say there is (no use trying to change AA for the better: it falls on deaf ears) It gets taken back to by the book (the BB & 12x12 is what AA is selling to the people who are still suffering) then you get the diseased fellowship & all its diseased colorful interpretations of these deceptive books & it harms more than it helps.
What you seem to be describing is a group of people who are power tripping and just happen to be in the rooms of AA. I have no idea why you stuck around for years, it must have been obvious that something was wrong pretty early on. The St Francis prayer only goes back to 1912 and has pretty secular goals. Although, I don't have any issue with the spirit of Christianity once you strip the dogma and superstition away from it, like love thy neighbor and do the right thing even when it's hard.
There you go criticizing me for staying in the program several years as (my fault) it takes quite some time to figure out what is going on. "Don't tell the newcomers" ha!ha! ha! I don't see AA practicing the St Francis prayer, but a lot of empty preaching. You have no clue the amount of "recovery" issues that I have addressed by means not of AA's spiritual abuse methods. I don't have to love unsafe people. I do the right things in my life just fine without the cult of AA.
It's great you took control of your life and found things that work for you. That's all AA ever asked of me or anyone i've seen come in the rooms. It makes sense that individual responsibility is hard for you since it didn't occur to you to question what these people were telling you for years. No institution or individual can do anything for that, we all learn from trial and error, unfortunately it took you a very long time, that's not AA's fault "People will let you down" BB,
BS: I have taken personal responsiblitiy for myself my entire adult life!! AA tells people that their best thinking got them to AA even the BB says to let go of all your old ideas & work the AA program. I did ask questions. You don't know my AA experience to assume or project lies onto me (AA does this all the time: project falsehoods onto people). AA was a huge letdown & your AA (everything) doesn't apply to me: the BB is full of contradictions. I don't live by the BB's lies like you.
"Don't tell the newcomers" What does that mean? It's sad but if you can't figure out when someone is leading you down the garden path then your boned in or out of AA. Life insists we answer for our actions fair or not. The rooms here are nothing like you describe so it's obviously not inherently a issue of AA. It's an issue of some abusing another's trust and, if that what really happened, then that individual is responsible for their actions,
There are many people who have issues with the entire program of AA from top to bottom. You can play the cult games by saying that I am at fault for what the cult of AA does, but it isn't true. By leaving AA, deprogramming & warning others about AA is being responsible to not take part in a fraud cult. Anyone can go to AA & experience it for themselves regardless of what I think or say. I know that it is a dangerous cult. At least I am not claiming the lies of AA as true.
Right out of the mouth of an AA member: if AA is leading you down the wrong path, if its members are going to let you down, then it is (your) fault. According to AA it is a great & safe place to recover, but beware obviously it is very deceptive & untrustworthy in the first place to even bother. If you leave the cult, you will drink again, go insane, & die; follow Bill's wishy-washy path (forever) cuz he was such a great sober person & God told him AA was his will for you!!
Now that you thankfully have found your way out of a seemly horrible situation and found other ways to deal with your problems you have a chance to access you experiences. Instead of saying "Some of the people calling themselves AA are not very trustworthy one should proceed with caution" you say " All AA is a cult and all it's members are liars and out to hurt you" Do you see the pattern? It's all roses or rubbish for you, nothing in between, life's not like that you have to trust but verify.
My experience with AA was that there is such a high rate of dishonest, untrustworthy, dysfunctional, abusive, liars, sexual predators, con-artists, and all sorts of negative behaviors (encouraged & denied) that it is not worth wasting one's time looking for anything worthy of consideration. Yes, that is what I am saying. AA is a fraud cult that needs to clean its own house & get real before passing the buck off on a HP or the individual who speaks up about the horrors of attending AA.
"My experience with AA was that there is such a high rate of dishonest, untrustworthy, dysfunctional, abusive, liars, sexual predators, con-artists, and all sorts of negative behaviors (encouraged & denied) that it is not worth wasting one's time looking for anything worthy of consideration." Yet you we're there for years, there's a disconnect there. you put 1000% of you your faith in and when if didn't work you applied 1000% you you loathing. You're mind set is what's really at issue here.
There is no "issue" that my mind is set on what my experience with AA was. My opinion is an "issue" to you & so you keep trying to bash "me" as a person. AA promotes itself as a program of recovery & because that isn't what I experienced it does not make me (wrong). All you can testify forever how AA saved your life, just as much as I can testify: AA was a harmful cult. AA doesn't allow room for those who speak up about it. Ask every person who did & what happened? AA members turned on them.
The "fact" that I did stay in AA for several years trying to throughly work the program (for myself) within the rooms of a cult isn't an "issue". I didn't just hang around the edges before I spoke out about what I experienced. I have intimate knowing of what goes on inside of the AA organization on different levels & within several directly affliated programs AA denies having. I witnessed more people being harmed than helped. AA's see a lot of failure & they always blame the person never AA.
How about leave AA & deprogram. The BB & 12x12 is what AA is offering the newcomer, the people who are still suffering. It isn't about humility to attend cult meetings with incurably diseased people forever. I am deprogrammed from AA & its illogic rules & outlook of its members don't apply to me. Those are the cults ideologies not mine. There is nothing I want at AA that is why I left & deprogrammed from being in a cult. My truth that cult members can't seem to grasp.
If a person doesn't need the BB, 12x12, or a sponsor (which the 12x12 does push) then what is the point of attending mtgs? to get a headache from the dogma, or enjoy the dysfunctional social cult games. A person doesn't need to be in a cult to stay sober & improve their life. Attend AA & keep a "low profile" & try to get on with life? I got on with life much better once I stopped wasting my time on AA. Maybe other people need to hear that you won't drink, go insane, or die if you leave a cult.
kev - so when bill said AA is all about "being of maximum service to god & the people around us" he was just kidding?
or when the conference pre-amble says AA is "A fellowship of men & women who share their experience, strength, hope w/each other so that they might solve their common problem & help others to recover from alcoholism" they're just kind of winging it?
humility & that's it? jeez, the buddha taught that 2300 yrs ago. why do i need AA for that?
You are right: I took that 100% "leap of faith into the fourth dimension" with no half measures & when it didn't work 100% I put 100% into speaking up about what I experienced during my time in the cult of AA. "If you quit going to mtgs. our experience is you will drink again, go insane, get locked up, or die" we see it every day. "Does anyone have 30, 60, 90 days? Years? Oh, Joe congrats on 16 years tell us how you did it? AA every day for the rest of my life over & over & over.
Your personal messages trying to diagnose me is abuse. Many of the women in the program are abusive & aren't as recoverd as you claim. I don't operate by the modes of AA & no matter how hard you try to attack my character it doesn't phase me. The truth is AA's literature, organization, & fellowship are a cult of incurably diseased people trying to play therapist, clergy, & Dr. w/out a license. Too many people have been victims of AA & we can warn the public: 2 sides to every story.
There is one woman w/ 3 years in AA & she frequently still calls me crying, because "she has a disease & it is trying to kill her". This is what AA is teaching her. Then she goes on to tell me how she can't wait for the season's assembly where the GSRs get pretty frisky with eachother regardless of their relationship status. The sexual issues in AA are not those of sober life. I found them worse than the bar. The SA problems in AA are massive & well known. AA can keep their stds & their disease.
Clearly you can't hear anything except that rat in a coffee can going around and around in your head. believe it or not I'm sincerely sorry for that. I don't think as long as you make AA the source of all evil you'll ever be able to see your issues for what they seem to be and get help. I see now that anything more I say is just going to give you something more to struggle against and perhaps delay you getting the help you need. So I'll wish you well and hope for the best.
I gotta tell you, your posts do elicit reactions, but I wouldn't characterize any of them as "struggling against you". Did you ever ask yourself why we block the rest of the antagonists, trolls, and apologists, yet let you (and 12stepp) post to your hearts' content? Mike
the rat in the coffee can going around in your head, must be self-inflicted & then you try to say you are sincerely sorry (for what?) making the statement? Exactly what are my "issues"? I am dealing with my issues just fine w/out AA's quack diagnoses. You are a (self-diagnosed) member of AA (a cult) of people with abnormal minds & bodies, & an incurable disease, practicing "faith healing" on vulnerable people. That speaks volumes for your character.
I do try to be patient, I'll try again. I did say we're all responsible for the choices and actions we make. I didn't say say anyone is at fault or it was fair. It's not my fault my Mom's drinking put at risk and effected my well being and world view, it is my responsibility though to do something about it.t's not fair but it is true. For you to be in AA for years while people misused your trust you must not have questioned their motives or methods which most people would have done I think.
I have taken responsibility for the effect the alcoholism in my family had on me. I did ? AA's motives, but kept pushing forward in the program at some point I realized there was nothing good or real happening. When any organization has a high rate of its members harming or abusing others: I have no interest to be apart of it. That entity needs to clean house, it is not my fault of my job. I don't attend AA, the Catholic church, because of their abuses, & I feel the same about politics.
Responsibility? If I mail a letter with the post office & it gets lost there really isn't much recourse. The post office believes in their integrity so much they even offer insurance & certified delivery, & will compensate their customers if they fail to deliver (what they promise). The offer "risk" options. AA has zero integrity in its literature alone & add its diseased fellowship & it isn't comrades of a shipwreck. It is more like a yellow submarine full of fruitloops forever.
Anyone is welcome to join the cult of AA, because it is so helpful & positive. I went to get my sister & I am up with her while she detoxes. I will be there for her until she is stable & encourage her. I will hospitalize her if she needs it. I won't tell her in the morning she needs a mtg, to pray & meditate, or any other AA "solution". I will talk reality to her. Not tell her lies, false promises, & let her down (great solution for a dying person) with healthy skeptism too.
The point is that just because my Mom was not a very good parent doesn't mean every Mom isn't. Her Mom, my grandmother, stepped up and did a really great job actually. So assuming someone has all the answers for years and when I find out they didn't assuming that anyone remotely associated with that person is as untrustworthy as they are is all part of the same extreme thinking. Not all priests are abusers and not all AA members are liars out to hurt you, It's all case by case, thats life
Do you know what it is like to deprogram from AA & Alanon & then view the program from outside of its nonsense? Many people can see how nonsensical AA's are. A woman who isn't alkie had a sister join Alanon (it destroyed their relationship) she was interested about the cult concept, because her sister changed to be weird, talk program lingo, & she doesn't like how it changed her sister. This is what a lot of normal people see in 12-step members. AA & Alanon doesn't represent real life.
This is what I would do with AA: throw its entire program out the window. Teach facts about alcohol & what it does to a person: there are even chemical explanations for what is happening in specific parts of the mind & body when addicted. Teach cognitive behavior. There would be zero religion involved. Teach about the nutritional deficencies alcohol causes. Focus on positive activities & personal growth issues. Any problems identified seek out specific advanced knowledge & solutions.
The program has always been for me coming together and helping one another day to day stay sober and prosper. Some of us lean heavy on the BB and some of us just lean on each other. No one every tired to sell me on the BB, I was encouraged to read it and do the steps and come to my own conclusions, which I did. No one ever tried to critique my progress, at least to my face. If it had been any different I wouldn't have stuck around as that would have been contrary to the spirit of the BB and Trad
There would be zero tolerance towards unsafe people. If a person has a complaint the club manager should be responsible to help resolve it or report it to the proper authorities. There would be some process to hold its members accountable for being ethical. Companies who don't take complaints seriously usually go out of business. AA's stance on serious harms done: is silence, blame the victim, play "your part" games, deny harms done exist, laugh about it, or attack any one who questions.
Thank you for making my point. As a cult member you think the guru (yourself) is perfect & right, that your illogic should be mine. To doubt, mistrust, or criticize the AA guru will make me wrong & it is "me" for thinking AA is a cult full of incurably diseased people playing God. You aren't scoring points with me. Every time you attack my character for my 100% dislike of AA: reflects on you as a member of the cult of AA. Anyone is free to attend & experience AA for themselves. AA fakers abound
Actually that makes you more oriented toward Christianity than AA, great work. Now if you can just focus on the St. Francis prayer maybe you can move forward a little bit
By an atheist: This is another (cult game) the St. Francis prayer (used more than once). For one, people thought St. Francis was insane in his day. Now people claim to practice it? I am sorry, but I lived like St. Francis for almost a decade (meaning I walked away from society & gave everything from my empty cup to others) & using (spiritual means) as a weapon is called: spiritual abuse. Look up the term. You are throwing cult tactics at me without knowing my truth. AA does this all the time.
Anyone can go find any speaker's tape on the net right now & listen to an hour of at least 45 minutes making their drunkalogue really funny mixed in with AA lingo or some weird sponsor's advice. Lots of laughing, clapping, & praising AA for saving their lives. Occassionally you find the hard-core stepper who gives some strange verison of how the program works. I have yet to hear one problem properly identified or any accompanying reality based solutions. AA testimonies are empty.
To all the AA members who think they are an example of a changed person: they need to realize that when a person does work the entire program & experiences huge not okay issues with OTs who are all tight as thieves at some point some of us: said this is messed up!! enough that I don't want whatever AA thinks it has. I thought I was involved with people trying to be good people, but it was the farthest thing from the truth. Once I deprogrammed, it all became a sham cult. I don't trust AA at all.
Talking in cliches? You know the saying one bad apple spoils the barrel? Well in my experience AA is full of barrels of rotten apples & for the few sincere ones its over-all effect on the rest isn't worth me looking through barrels of rotten apples for one without a worm. AA is full of so much unhealthy BS that I think AA needs to address their issues. The BB & 12x12 are so full of dishonesty that when you add the incurably diseased fellowship: I would rather take the road less traveled.
Maybe a huge issue I have with AA is that it doesn't even begin to address the real problems associated with alcohol nor does it teach real problem solving skills. It has not advanced in 70 years. It teaches nonsense, complete nonsense. The entire organization is a joke with all its dishonesty, contradictions, & excuses. There is nothing you can say that will change my truth about AA being a dishonest, dangerous, dysfunctional, abusive cult for huge profits preying on vulnerable people.
Upon deprogramming I can think just fine enough to know everything AA is teaching & its fellowship faking is fraud. AA doesn't properly identify behaviors or how to think clearly that is far from the truth. When I listen to speaker's mtgs/tapes: I hear no reality: a comedy drunkalogue, AA dogma, & cult praise (not one single reality based solution to any problem is ever identified). I have been around enough reality to know the difference. That is my ESH. Leave the cult & seek something real.
I know you believe everything you say dear but as you point out that doesn't make it true, i don't know how much of your experiences are due to someone misusing the program for nefarious means or how much of it is just in your head, when some casts something as pure evil they generally have issues with perspective in my experience, that's why I left Christianity behind. I've seen AA give multitudes of drunks the chance they need to turn it around. You don't have to believe it but it's true.
If you can sit in AA without the twisted Christian lies effecting you then more power to you. I was in AA long enough to see the terrible failure rates, to witness the abuses & exploitation, the failure to help people recover. Just because AA cult members claim they have helped millions doesn't make it true either. I can't give the name of one OT who represents anything I want as "recovered". Put AA's lies vs. honesty? on the scales are tipped towards: evil. That is how dishonest AA is.
Maybe? in the next few weeks I will go to an AA meeting with an open-mind. I am going to really listen to each person for something valuable. I am going to watch to see how helpful they are. I will report back to you. I have gone to mtgs. over & over & watched the abuse & nonsense enough to know it is not "me". Sorry but there are many people with real courage to bash AA & coin it as a cult religion of diseased & dangerous members who harm more people than they help. Empty like speaker tapes.
The difference between us is I will admit the rooms do reflect a fair cross section of the population. They do have there share of a**holes, BS artists and users, expecting anything else from a group of people is unrealistic. In the end though far more are helped than hurt. You insist that AA is nothing more than an evil cult full of liars, cheats and thieves. That's just as unlikely, things just aren't all one way or the other. The need to believe they are tells us about ourselves, I think.
Take the BB & 12x12 without the fellowship. Even if people gave a page by page account of all the lies in these books AA denies all of them by using one of their thousands of excuses: progress, suggestions, ESH etc... These 2 books are exactly what 12-step rehabs sell for $12-28k directly affiliated with AA (AA denies this) then these people get to AA & the fellowship tells them rehabs know nothing & close to 100% relapse. Screwy by all means. These 2 books are so dishonest AA reeks of fraud.
The difference between you & I is that I will forever tell of the crimes that exist in AA's cult. I will not be affiliated with a robber's den of dangerous people faking to be recovered, helpful, or insta-friends preying on vulnerable people. The difference between you & I is that I am not going to turn a blind eye to what "honestly" goes on in the AA cult. I am going to tolerate the married/single men's secret 13-steppers & rapist club where the women get blamed for "your part" lies & abuse.
The difference between you and I is I try to lead with the Love and tolerance I was taught as a child from my grandparents and in the rooms of AA. "I think AA & its fellowship are directly responsible for every suicide & crime committed inside its organizatoin" This sounds a lot like someone who's dealing with some paranoia. Some of your points I'm sure r valid but that all or nothing world view will color any conclusions you come to. I suspect that mind set is prevalent in the anti AA movement.
You are wrong again, because my grandparents did teach me love & they also were honest, hard working, with normal behaviors. I did not learn love & tolerance in the rooms of AA, because there wasn't any. HavIng OT's hug you pervertedly isn't love. Being told abusive slogans or exploited is not love. I don't have to tolerate the behaviors of AA's fellowship. Many of my points are valid. People seeking help for addiction & their problems need real solutions not a cult of diseased people.
I don't quite understand why you would bother going to any more meetings. You've obviously left AA for what you feel are perfectly valid reasons and gone on to find what you need elsewhere. If you did come back to tell me how pure evil the rooms are I'll say that's not my experience. You clearly don't have to prove anything to yourself or me. The question is why is our views on AA so completely different? You're not going to represent the entirety of the program to me anymore than I am to you.
I am going to a mtg just for you, because you tell me it is "me" & I beg to differ. I am not going to spend forever in a cult of BS looking for a speckle of anything valuable. You tell me AA taught you to think better, & I showed you in the BB where AA teaches people to abandon logic & reason. What AA teaches in not reality based, the fellowship don't know what they are doing, & when the results aren't good they say "it's God's will" & deny any responsibility.
I think AA & its fellowship are directly responsible for every suicide & crime committed inside its organizatoin. The handicapped woman who was encouraged to get a ride with known rapist in "12 step horror stories" for every person who was harmed in AA: AA should be liable for the damages & for some reason AA is above the law: sick peole doing anything they want without any recourse. AA does bully women to make ammends to rapists, no rape counselor would ever say to this. The lists are endless.
The difference between you & I is even if one person realizes about how fraudulant & cult quakery AA is in relationship to a solution to alcoholism (my real true life experience with the cult of AA). It is worth the progress that many people are bringing to light about how dangerous AA recovery really is. People in general are getting tired of all the lies used to keep them in compliance to blindly accept (lies as truth) & AA is on the list of cults marked for crimes against humanity.
Ill it say again, don't go to any trouble on my account. I know you're doing your best but you've already made up you mind and I'm all for that. For all those who claim AA is satan born there will be just as many or more that credit it for turning things around for them. One person's hug is another's shove. I'm glad to live in a time that one of us can't force the other to believe or do anything. Admit it or not but AAs been adaptable enough to be the tool multitudes have used to fix their lives
I didn't say anything about satan you did. Hug/shove. You don't get it once a person deprgrams AA's lies, rules, & slogas don't appy anymore. I think AA has had 70 years to prove they have a huge failure rate. I am not impressed with the members "fake" testimonies. I have been around AA members long enough to no be impressed even outside of the rooms. My mind is made up: AA's fellowship is a dangerous cult, the literature is full of lies & dishonesty, & it is a fraud recovery program.
"for every person who was harmed in AA: AA should be liable for the damages" You know a part of me would like to apply that formula to the Republican party. I know it wouldn't be fair though. It would be fair to hold all those neocons who hijacked the party responsible for their actions. Personal responsibility makes it possible for all of us to come and go as we please and be accountable for what we do, I lean left in my politics but I'm really conservative on that issue.
AA is about recovery except for in places AA has managed to weasel its way into the courts, detoxes, rehabs, jails, prisons, & any other outside affiliations it denies having. This is not about politics it is about AA's claim of alcoholism being a incurable disease & all its following lies. When AA's program harms people it should be held accountable. There should be a complaint dept where rape, theft, & abuse are taken seriously. Changing the subject is avoidance.
I agree you certainly don't have to "tolerate the behaviors of AA's fellowship" no one does. It's entirely voluntary, even if your court mandated you can just bring a book and read. For many of us though we do find love and tolerance in the rooms and everyone else just moves on. That's really a great arrangement for all. I don't expect you righteous indignation to abate. You may disagree but some might say feelings that toxic for that long are a problem in themselves, You can't blame AA for that
I have told you before that Edward S. Kubany, Ph.D., M.B.A. says the only place with as high a rate as meeting a batterer as the bar is in AA & NA. I witnessed enough abusive men & women OTs in AA that I believe it. Many abusive people fake in public a lot, & will develop sophisticated covert behaviors to stay abusive. DV is the #1 problem associated with alcohol. Batterers have almost a 0% rate of never abusing even with specialized DV therapy. I am not buying AA's love & tolerance lies.
I'm not asking you to but anything, honest. I've seen two cases of domestic violence in the rooms of AA in all my time, That doesn't seem out of proportion. The courts here make attendance in anger management classes mandatory for violent offenders so they know there behavior is being monitored, I've seen a lot of turn around there as well Some of us need to get well from a lot of things The rooms are a safe place to do that generally. I haven't seen anyone hurt in the rooms, I'm sure it happens
"the only place with as high a rate as meeting a batterer as the bar is in AA" Well any place a drunk is recovering I suppose you'll find all the problems inherent in using represented in the place of recovery as you would the place of using, it's the same population. Maybe some therapies may make that violent minority less violent but if you can't afford it then what do you do? I haven't seen any of the depravity you describe but I admit the programs not perfect but neither are we.
The chapter "To the Wives" reeks of covert abuse & it is one of Bill's worst mistakes to write from his twisted mind. Women in AA have obviously been silenced (a form of abuse) because by today's standards that chapter is horrible advice. Even the advice given by Alanon is terrible. I have seen plenty of abuse in AA. There is a violent man in one club where OTs encourage him to hit newcomers & laugh at them. The cult of AA doesn't impress me. I witnessed & experienced plenty of it at AA.
In an odd way I can agree with this comment, but the truth is: AA does encourage the exact behaviors associated with alcoholism & addiction. I witnessed more (encouragement of) & zero real talk to change those behaviors. Silence, secrets, isolation, denial, & rigid rules: permenate AA & I wasn't impressed w/ the OTs claiming to be gurus with their ignorant & abusive advice preying on newcomers. I did not experienced "recovered" people at all. They can't even see how messed up they still are.
I don't know what happened to you but I'm really sorry it did. If some people misused your trust that's just wrong and your right to be angry, at them not AA. The BB actually warns people will disappoint you, they are not the program. The program is one of gentle self reflection, discovery and responsibility. We have the same guidelines as every room in the world and experience nothing like the madness you describe. If everything else is equal it must be individuals
Again your AA logic & rules don't apply to me, besides all of the sick dysfunctional con-artists in AA: the complete lies of the AA literature, program, & organization are not "me" it is AA who is the fraud. "Gentle reflection" my ass nor responsibility: AA members are the AA organization just cuz AA says they aren't doesn't mean it is true. Sorry I will never own AA's distortion as my perceptions. You are wrong 100%.
The approach in the rooms I attend is try and stay as honest, opened minded and willing as you can, we work the steps- inventory, reflection, amends,prayer-meditation and daily maintenance. We emphasize service, fellowship, love and tolerance and any other basic tools that help. If there is something in the BB we don't need we don't use it. We all have a different take on it and no one is suppose to tell anyone else what to do, just suggest. It works, your issues won't change that.
Just what are you praying about? or to whom or what? You don't believe in God remember & even if it isn't God (I am not interested in the wishy-washy approach, pick & chose anything goes chaos) or the disease model of AA. It is killing my sister, it killed her friend, & I am not buying into your "fake" that AA is a wonderful group of people or program. I worked the entire program & I know what I witnessed & experienced for myself & others. Go lie to someone else.
humyepright I'm really clear on you position, AA is worthless and completely evil. That is your absolute unassailable truth. I'll give you that AA does have it's problem children. It's whole demographic is, by the nature of alcoholism, problem children. Still your insistence that AA is all wrong all the time is an obvious reflection of a fragile mental state that may well have existed before you started drinking and may well have been the reason you started to self medicate, no shame there.
You are not going to blame all of AA's dishonest claims & lies on my "mental state" sorry, but that is typical cult behavior. AA can't even own up to its own dishonest as an organization or fellowship. What about all those outside affiliations it denies? huge profits? Your AA illogic doesn't work on me. You AA's haven't cleaned up the damages you caused other people. I have seen the truth enough to know. I know what AA is teaching is false, fraud cult quackery cure of complete lies.
I suggest we end this worthless debate right now, because I am not going to buy into how great AA is when my sister ends up dead. I know exactly the people she has been involved with for 12 years & you aren't going to blame your quackery cult BS on "me" as "me" it is your cult of dangerous people who are selling a fraud cure for alcoholism. Back off! It isn't going to work here because I have every reason & right to hate the cult of AA!
I'm not faking anything, I'm not trying to convert you or say your experiences aren't real to you. I'm just saying it's interesting that my long experience with AA is nothing like yours. That's a personal opinion that's as valid as any. The fact that you can't hear that without lashing out with the most insulting invective you can muster does say something about your point of view and choices which may factor in to your experiences with AA, that's a valid point as well.
I composed my first three posts before reading your last two.
Please allow my final post to be the last word between us concerning my intentions and feelings. Honestly, I wish you and everyone well, I've seen way to much ugliness to find any joy in the pain of others. That's why AA is so important to me it connected me to others who not only feel that way but act as though they mean it
My tone is a reflection of my sister dying in the present tense this moment as we speak. My sister is a real alcoholic not just a fake wannabe (she is the still suffering) & I don't see anyone from her fancy pants rehab, her AA or Alanon mtgs, or counselors, fake-friends, b/f, no one is "helping" her. I am going to be the only person who shows up today & as long as it takes. My sister is the type that will end up dad & I am mad & sad ... too bad!!! AA never "helped" my sister!!!
One last thing: AA is the exact organization that I don't like & I don't have to be joyous about your cult. AA helps the still suffering alkie (lie)? They will push you over the edge for dead & then say it is your fault for not doing it right? My sister has done the entire program & more right in regards to this quackery & I do know exactly why it is killing her & I do my best to get her beyond where she is at. There are thousands of members in this town? not one is helping her then or now.
OK I thought we were winding this, that's fine. I don't doubt your sister is sick. I have a friend whose been going out regularly for months now and I always check in with him but he's a adult and an addict I can't make him do anything. Sometimes freedoms a bi*ch."AA helps the still suffering alkie (lie)?" It;s helped me and my family. We had to want to be helped, wether we used or not was up to us. I've lost loved one to this long before I was in the rooms and it sucks, some folks want to drink
"AA does encourage the exact behaviors associated with alcoholism & addiction. " That's certainly not true. It starts with those behaviors because that's what people bring in with them but it encourages an understanding of how those behaviors impact ones life and a house cleaning through the steps, very basic stuff. The steps are a simple template to understand and reorder your life. If you take the word God out and treat everyone in the room with a healthy skepticism they work just as well.
Your analogy isn't going to fly with me. As I write this: the AA program & fellowship are for real killing my sister. She has been involved with AA for 12 years. I know exactly what types of people she has met in AA (dysfunctional people) & the steps don't address the real issues & neither do mtgs. Now you are representing AA by telling me to take God out & just play skeptism games? AA does have a monopoly on recovery & it is a fraud cult of incurably diseased people keeping other people sick.
My opinions, thoughts, & feelings about the AA organization, literature, program, & fellowship are just as valid as AA's claims. You try to say it is "me" I say it is AA. You are on the wrong side of the street (seriously) to convince me that what I experienced was a virtuous program of recovery. It has fraud written all over it from top to bottom & it is killing my sister NOW & she is court-ordered to it (grand AA LIE) & she has no option but to suffer its ego bashing BS, abuse, & predators!
Before I go: you are not talking to someone of a "fragile emotional or mental" state. I am not some timid sheep that is going to let the abusive men of AA individually or group bully me into buying their abusive, dysfunctional, fraudulant, cult of a cure incurably diseased insanity & death BS! You aren't talking to a fool & I can slice & dice your entire program up & expose every single lie with actual valid facts. You are barking up the wrong tree: go find a vulnerable woman to guru-taunt.
I believe it works for those who make an honest effort and for everyone else they just move on."My opinions, thoughts, & feelings about the AA organization, literature, program, & fellowship are just as valid as AA's claims." They're valid to you but may not be to others. My thoughts on AA, for instance, couldn't be farther apart from yours making yours not as valid to me and visa versa. Your conclusions and tone are extreme which brings up your state of mind again. I don't judge you for that.
Man, That kind of rage, in my experience, simply isn't the product of some bad experience. If you've "escaped" and you're still going on like this then something is going on with you. If your sister is in AA and you talk to her like this my guess is she's keeping her distance, which is a shame because your experience may very well benefit her. To clarify I meditate and not to God. I on more than one occasion admitted to the downsides of AA, I never referred to it a wonderful group of people
Excuse me: but I don't talk to my sister the way you are implying. She calls me every single time she is dying, because I am the only one who has been taking care of her since she was 14 & you don't know (a lot) Everyone else including AA will leave her for dead & I go & take her to the hospital, detox, & rehab & all that other jazz that goes on with loving an alcohol: I am not leaving her for dead like AA does. I help her (a lot!!) without enabling (no faking here).
I am a fully-recovered alcoholic ~ transformed by the simple design for living outlined in simple steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Living this Way life on a daily basis creates personal transformation ~ a psychic change. Self-awareness and emotional intelligence increase and grow exponentially. Thinking becomes clear and inspired. Navigating challenging life events is successfully done because the mind operates from a place of calm. Meditation is key. Love and Service, AA works if you work it.
lcwest1 6 months ago
@lcwest1 Spoken like a True Believer.
lancerandy 23 hours ago
This has been flagged as spam show
12 step groups and religions dont use any force, they are voluntary. Governments are people who are using threats and violence to force people to pay for their services. Taxes are not voluntary. Its pay or else. Normal people provide their services in the free market without using violence. IF the services of government are so valuable then why cant they provide them like normal nonviolent people. Citizens are cult members. They support the violence used against them like Battered wife syndrome
mustaffa1611 7 months ago
Smartrecovery worked for me where AA did not.
ndrthrdr1 9 months ago 2
I spoke with a devoted AA'er on the weeekend, and even she admitted she was sober in spite of AA...
katoe9871 1 year ago 4
@katoe9871 Why was she going to AA then?
henryporter101 1 year ago
I've been stuck in the 12 step lifestyle for 4 years. Depression follows clean time. Addicts are shunning me out for being a inevitable frequent relapser. Being black listed for using. My recent max clean time was ten months. Went on a 24 hr death run now survived unfortunately by my disgrace back in the rooms. I keep coming back cause there is no where else to have a social network that doesn't use. Trying to find purpose in this life. also apparently I'm too analytical to get this...
JenniferBubnis 1 year ago 3
@JenniferBubnis Depending on where you are located, there may be other non-12-step alternatives. If not, smartrecoveryforumdotorg has tons of on-line interaction. Check it out. Mike
blamethenile 1 year ago 5
@JenniferBubnis there are other recovery groups other than AA and yes they work
yam500 1 year ago 2
Comment removed
MrTobytwirl 1 year ago
@JenniferBubnis
I don't think it's really true that twelve step groups provide the only place to socialise without drinking/using, but I do remember thinking that way in the rooms. AA encourages that perception, and it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy the more one socialises exclusively with 12 steppers. Much better to develop contacts with new people based on positive shared interests rather than fixation on a common problem. I just wish I had realised this earlier myself.
MrTobytwirl 1 year ago
@MrTobytwirl What a great realization! As a family members of several AA devotees I have often thought the same, that there needs to be reintegration and connection with the rest of the world but alas it seems AA promotes forming new families with members who fixate on their common problem and also validate continued manipulation, transference to other addictions, and enabling of victimization by promoting the belief in disease rather than responsibility and choice. I am happy you realized this
beautifulmind546 8 months ago 2
You certainly have alot of time on your hands for hate ......I just don't get why you need to prove your false sense of superiority. If this works for people and their lives improve, what's your problem?
irobot2k 1 year ago
@irobot2k Same post, different video. Mike
blamethenile 1 year ago 5
Just a pity I wasted years in the recovery cult before I found the courage.
MrTobytwirl 1 year ago
@MrTobytwirl me too
breda83 1 year ago
@MrTobytwirl same here
yam500 1 year ago
Gimme 12 steps
Gimme 12 steps mister
Gimme 12 steps outa the door
Gimme 12 steps mister
And you'll never see me no more.
(with apologies to Lynnrd Skynnrd).
Those were the only steps I was ever interested in. Glad I took them.
Andy.
MrTobytwirl 1 year ago
AA/NA's motto- ask no questions and i will tell you lies lies, about how you are worthless, usless, incapable, diseased. they prey on vunerable people who are tacitly warned not to question, not to think, not to analyse. it's like come, be one of us, just like us. they should hand out uniforms that all look the same. i went once to check it. talk about bad vibes and fear. when people want to get off what their ''posien'' is, they lose their network and in steps the A's to exploit, with lies.
jacotango 1 year ago
@jacotango love it so very true.
passionitliberal 1 year ago
The truth is, there isn't hope for many. Let them do what they want to do. The courts should not waste their time sending people to AA. They just eat all the cookies and leave trash around. AA was never meant to be mental ward stuards. Besides that, they are dangerous.
Grinchmon 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
it's not a disease, it can be a symtom of a disease but it's not a disease, see thats how you AA lot confuse the vonuable and make out it's not there fault for being who they are and what they have done, the easy way out to not taking responsibility for you are and become brainwashed robots with no identity or character. it will come back on you and you will regret it as your doing the same thing you did when you was drinking but not with the alcohol but running away from who you are.
JupiterJelly1 1 year ago
it's not a disease, it can be a symtom of a disease but it's not a disease, see thats how you AA lot confuse the vonuable and make out it's not there fault for being who they are and what they have done, the easy way out to not taking responsibility for you are and become brainwashed robots with no identity or character. it will come back on you and you will regret it as your doing the same thing you did when you was drinking but not with the alcohol and that is running away from who you are.
JupiterJelly1 1 year ago
@jonesgerard I was saying that AA say your powerless right so why hand everything over to some diety, god etc, I wasn't powerless I was strong to ask for help, my choice just like my choice to drink, my choice to give up, strength of mind & character is key, not some god who didn't give a shit before 1935
JupiterJelly1 1 year ago
I think addiction is in the mind and AA wants you not to use your mind, which is stupid really. They want you to replace your mind with God and Groupthink ant the philosophy of a whacko like Bill w.
breda83 2 years ago
Go elsewhere then. Not everyone in the church, mosque, temple, etc, want to abandon their God either just because of atheists. Bill was a drunk, thats all. Why is the fact that he is not also an angel matter?
maddogmargetts1 1 year ago
Bill is relevant in that nuts don't fall very far from the tree. To understand a movement, it is necessary to have some knowledge of its founder(s). Mike
blamethenile 1 year ago
Why are so angry then? aren't you supposed to be spiritual,tolerant & loving. Is your imaginary freind an angry jealous one then or what?
breda83 1 year ago
@maddogmargetts1 He preached God, was convinced he was continuing the work of jesus christ and thought he was the reincarnation of some monk in the middle ages. Wilson was a self-serving hypocrite who did very well fianancially out of AA.
yam500 1 year ago 2
You forgot the "some" in front of people. Not everyone thinks as you do.
Through the desire to stop drinking hopefully you will find a way. AA is suggested as a program of recovery. It you don't like it and think there is something else then no one is stopping you from going back out the door you came in through. May you recover in whatever way works for you.
ubdigger 2 years ago
AA say the only requirement is to have a desire to stop drinking so why do they say you are powerless and throw these steps and big book at you, a bit contradictory to me :-)
JupiterJelly1 2 years ago 6
dishonesty
dix345 2 years ago
they don't
2008goo 1 year ago
@JupiterJelly1
"the only requirement is to have a desire to stop drinking " ...for MEMBERSHIP.
If you want sanity then there are 44 "MUSTS" in the Big Book.
No-one ever recovered from sitting in meetings.
And if you're not powerless go ahead and drink, stop when you want to.
You have the power right?
jonesgerard 1 year ago
The word must appears 68 times in the first 164. Lots of people recover from sitting in meetings, especially the ones who don't sit there very long. Why do step enthusiasts keep trying to convince non-enthusiasts that they should drink? We all have the power to not drink. Mike
blamethenile 1 year ago
@blamethenile:
"Why do step enthusiasts keep trying to convince non-enthusiasts that they should drink?"
They want to destroy you because you dare to question and disagree. They may seem nice on the outside, but scratch the surface and reveal the mean spirited ugliness just below the surface.
LordKelvin100 1 year ago
@jonesgerard you see you just saying that confirms how nuts you really are, your brainwashed dude, snap out of it and believe in yourself
I don't want to drink but if I did then no one could stop me, not even some higher power, if I wanted to do it then I will, choice is the answer, you have to really want to do it right just like giving up, you see doesn't that contradict your powerlessness and handing it over to god
JupiterJelly1 1 year ago
@jonesgerard you see how messed up this cult is making you, go live in the real world and find yourself and not god, you will become a better person for it, stop being scared and live your life, it's easily done, you just have to be confident about who you are and what you want
JupiterJelly1 1 year ago
@jonesgerard
If I was looking for sanity I wouldn't look for it in the "big book". I think your post is a great example of aa compassion.
MrTobytwirl 1 year ago
@JupiterJelly1 And you must serve God as Wilson said
yam500 1 year ago
well, theopolism, good that you are shut of that
dix345 2 years ago
AA has been helping alcoholics stay sobers for 74 years. There are millions of people who would tell you, without qualification, that AA saved their lives. That is what people really say about AA
anotherbusbozo 2 years ago
And there are untold millions who would tell you there really is a Santa Claus, who brings deserving children toys near the winter solstice. Heck, maybe you are one of them. Mike
blamethenile 2 years ago
anotherbusbozo: prove it.
dix345 2 years ago 4
AA has kept me sober for 7 1/2 yrs and it unequivocally saved my life. Fact of the matter is 90% of the anti AA'ers are miserable people who aren't staying sober so they find a scapegoat as they have done their whole lives. But only by the Grace of God I am sober. So I consider myself and all of my other friends who lives were saved by AA as very blessed and fortunate. Disgruntled AA'ers are worst whiners in the world. They hate that is hasn't gotten them sober
jmg4314 2 years ago
Name-calling gets you blocked, and the offending post removed. Mike
blamethenile 2 years ago
jmg4314 -- another failed comedian. Tongs; window.
dix345 2 years ago
you are probably not sober, miserable, confused about life or all of the above
jmg4314 2 years ago
Steeeerike threee! Mike
blamethenile 2 years ago
You are nicer than me :-)
sorry if this shows up twice YT was goofing up on me.
isegoria1 2 years ago
go to hell, jmg, and by the shortest road.
dix345 2 years ago 2
Anecdotal and Testimony both utterly worthless. Care to show us a published peer reviewed paper that supports the assertions AA has made?
isegoria1 2 years ago 2
Prove your assertions.
You claim that I am miserable, when I am not. I just refuse to process BS. You are more offensive than you know. I have no need for "sober" Short Of Being Entirely Ready. I have been clean several years without your cult. Prove your "god" or you are simply making the argument from ignorance or even possibly arrogance.
You can "hate", I have no time for it. I have seen AA booster hate first hand.
isegoria1 2 years ago 2
I'm sober 3+ years, no thanks to AA in the end (I binge lapsed badly in AA); But for the grace of powers within me, my own honestly and opening of the mind I have growing sanity, serenity and humanity in my life. I truly am happy, joyous and FREE because I questioned AA and continue to be critical of the ideologies and methods of AA.
Theopolism 2 years ago 2
Welcome to the fringe
isegoria1 2 years ago 2
But then I'm probably just a "dry dunk" or fake alcoholic (not a REAL alcoholic), or dishonest or have "other problems", not really recovered... or whatever names and put downs you have for anyone who dares criticize anything about AA. Ho hum, same as it ever was in AA...
Theopolism 2 years ago
What do I think of AA? Not much. AA does not really do very much of anything. It is, basically, a nothing. Watching paint dry; or, listening to the corn grow is more useful.
dix345 2 years ago
This has been flagged as spam show
Even between two people that disagree whole heartedly a basic respect and empathy for their mutual human experience it not a lot to ask and it builds a foundation between us all that allows for better understanding and working together. I was taught that by relatives before i screwed everything up and AA helped me rediscover it. if you can return this in kind I'll admit I was wrong about your problems and be on my way. It should be heartfelt and unconditional though.
Phorph1 2 years ago
Once more I apologize here, when I was working with schizophrenics one of the main steps in stabilizing a clients condition was to consistently confront them on statements that we're demonstrable false. We can, and will, disagree on AA but you insist on misquoting what I say and your response to many things seem to be vastly out of proportion to the circumstances. I know it's not my place to straighten you out but this sort of behavior is not going to help anyone, especially yourself.
Phorph1 2 years ago
You keep trying to imply that my views are false. You say AA helped you to think better & when I tell you to read certain pages in the BB that say to abandon logic & rational thinking, you claim to take it all with healthy skeptism? 3 points that make no sense on your part. What is written in the BB & the 12x12 is the program which is represented by the fellowship: all 3 entites are full of lies, contraditions, & false information.
humyepright 2 years ago
I'm saying AA is guide or a recipe book. I always change recipes to suit me. If something sounds good but I'm allergic to cashews and don't like raisins I eliminate or substitute something else. Everything in the book is a suggestion so I don't see any problem with picking and choosing. I find that's how most people I respect lead their lives. Also their alway is the option of finding another recipe book.
Phorph1 2 years ago
This is a great example of how illogical the cult suggestions are open to interpretation. Sorry to inform you but I worked the entire program & once I saw it for what it really was (a cult) I rejected the entire recipe as a fraud. The life I lead is much better once I deprogrammed from being in the cult of AA. I found another recipe, but that doesn't make AA not a cult. If a recipe fails on a regular basis then it deserves a negative review so that others don't waste their time trying it.
humyepright 2 years ago
BTW, you keep coming back to the program. I'm talking about here and now. The way you're interacting with me here has nothing to do with the program but it does tell me something about you. I listen to what people say and then watch what they do and what your doing seems kind of unhealthy to me. It's rather abusive, defensive, insulting and manipulative. Interestedly that's exactly what you accuse AA of, hey presto, transference.
Phorph1 2 years ago
When a cult member keeps attacking my character, because they can't provide any facts to prove their cult is providing any factual information any normal human being would become defensive. The fact is I was a victim of AA & your attempt to re-victimize the victim aren't going to work. Maybe you should look up that term? I like myself just fine exactly the way I am, and the perverted OTs 13-steppers aren't loving anyone. AA: every time you point a finger 3 are pointing back: look at yourself.
humyepright 2 years ago
Comment removed
Phorph1 2 years ago
This has been flagged as spam show
I'll make you a deal. If you can say one thing to me that can pass as pleasant and positive, just a kind word, well agree to disagree and go on our own way. I haven't seen much evidences that you able to do that. I'll start, I sincerely hope that recover from you trauma and that you and you loved ones do nothing but prosper. I mean that i certainly don't hold any ill will toward you and am honestly concerned for your general welfare. I feel the same way toward anyone that's been through a lot.
Phorph1 2 years ago
"AA is a cult. I am calling AA a cult." God bless America I'm all for that. but any opinion out in the public discourse does get the once over. I'm not critiquing you view of AA hell I have lots of my own issue with it, Some of the points here are valid. It's the tone that's strange and I think it's valid to ask Why so angry with a group of people who can't hurt you? Feelings of victimization are tricky things even when valid, they should be approached with empathy and care, for all concerned
Phorph1 2 years ago
This is about AA & I don't have to interact with you in any way to make you like me. How have I been abusive? Insulting? or manipulated you into anything? I haven't. This video is about what people really think of AA. I think AA is a cult that needs to be properly investigated for its fraud & crimes committed in the rooms. That is what I think. I don't care what any AA cult member thinks about anything. I have zero trust or respect for AA cult members or their organization.
humyepright 2 years ago
here's how it works where in the rooms I attend we try and stay as honest, opened minded and willing as you can, we work the steps- inventory, reflection, amends,prayer-meditation and daily maintenance. We emphasize service, fellowship, love and tolerance and any other basic tools that help. If there is something in the BB we don't need we don't use it. We all have a different take on it and no one is suppose to tell anyone else what to do, just suggest. It works, your issues won't change that.
Phorph1 2 years ago
Even between two people that disagree whole heartedly a basic respect and empathy for their mutual human experience it not a lot to ask and it builds a foundation between us all that allows for better understanding and working together. I was taught that by relatives before i screwed everything up and AA helped me rediscover it. if you can return this in kind I'll admit I was wrong about your problems and be on my way. It should be heartfelt and unconditional though.
Phorph1 2 years ago
The msg you deleted is the one in my inbox. The reason I have a hard time being positive & pleasant in regards to AA members is: I was deeply involved in AA for several years. All the people who pretended to be nice? ended up being unsafe people. I kept thinking it was a select few, but the deeper I stayed involved even the best fakers ended up showing their true colors in ways that I attribute to the cult. Their example of "recovery" wasn't close to what was being faked & preached.
humyepright 2 years ago
Thank you for making my point. even if what you say is completely true and me and every AA "cult" member is two faced, uncaring and predatory when I gave you a chance to show me how someone should address another person all you could do was more tearing down, exactly what you accuse AA of, Hello transference again. AA is not a barrel full of bad apples any more than the Catholic church, is in spite of all the horrible things some priests have done. You're instance otherwise reflects you, not AA
Phorph1 2 years ago
Again you are using typical cult tactics to imply it is me. I was 15 when an archbishop gave a sermon & I never went back. I don't understand how anyone could remain a Catholic with all the things the church does. I was just reflecting on my life w/out AA & nothing that was taught in AA applied to my personal life. All the things I have had to face in my personal life: nothing AA says even applies (no real solutions), & it is all alcohol related. My life is better w/out AA.
humyepright 2 years ago
You aren't making any point. To me you are an AA member, a stranger on YT over the internet. Regardless of how you think you have presented yourself better towards me than I have to you? When you are the one attacking me for not liking one single thing about AA reflects back on you. I don't have to "fake" nice or positive about an organization I consider to be a cult full of incurably diseased people practicing mental health, medicine, & relgion without any formal training or license.
humyepright 2 years ago
Instead of holding those who misuse your trust responsible for their own actions or writing the whole thing off as a learning experience you insist on AA ALL BAD, that's silly. I tell you we all know very little and you call me a guru just to maintain you fantasy. I think you're an extreme example but you do a good job of representing the anti-AA movement as a whole. Instead of just taking some responsibility for your experiences and getting your needs met elsewhere let's go on a crusade.
Phorph1 2 years ago
Typical cult response to tell me to take responsibility for my experience with AA? You have no idea what damages the cult caused me that I had to fix myself. I am not responsible for what the cult does to other people. I am taking responsibility to speak out against it being a cult. What battles I choose to fight aren't yours to judge. AA may know a little, but I see ZERO attempt to bring modernization into the program. "New" ideas get silenced.
humyepright 2 years ago
There you go again putting words in my mouth so you can continue to believe a child's view of the world. I never said I'm always right and I've congratulated you on more than one occasion for challenges to accepted norms, I certainly do in meetings. You seems absolutely dedicated to believe what you want of me in spite of what i say That's my point, only a child believes the world is all monsters under the bed or Winnie the Poo, nothing in between. The truth is it's usually both at the same time
Phorph1 2 years ago
This made me laugh: I said nothing about monsters under the bed or Winnie the Poo; you did. There you go trying to call me a child (I thought I was a child of God?) Scripture says unless you become like a child you will not see the kingdom. You are projecting that I am wrong by some measure to your standards & I don't care what you think about me. The AA literature on its own is full of lies claimed to be an honest program of recovery for alcoholism. Cults believe their own lies.
humyepright 2 years ago
You pretend to be so open-minded about what happens in AA & how you enjoy challenging its norms (I don't) there is no point in it. Many people who left AA say there is (no use trying to change AA for the better: it falls on deaf ears) It gets taken back to by the book (the BB & 12x12 is what AA is selling to the people who are still suffering) then you get the diseased fellowship & all its diseased colorful interpretations of these deceptive books & it harms more than it helps.
humyepright 2 years ago
What you seem to be describing is a group of people who are power tripping and just happen to be in the rooms of AA. I have no idea why you stuck around for years, it must have been obvious that something was wrong pretty early on. The St Francis prayer only goes back to 1912 and has pretty secular goals. Although, I don't have any issue with the spirit of Christianity once you strip the dogma and superstition away from it, like love thy neighbor and do the right thing even when it's hard.
Phorph1 2 years ago
There you go criticizing me for staying in the program several years as (my fault) it takes quite some time to figure out what is going on. "Don't tell the newcomers" ha!ha! ha! I don't see AA practicing the St Francis prayer, but a lot of empty preaching. You have no clue the amount of "recovery" issues that I have addressed by means not of AA's spiritual abuse methods. I don't have to love unsafe people. I do the right things in my life just fine without the cult of AA.
humyepright 2 years ago
It's great you took control of your life and found things that work for you. That's all AA ever asked of me or anyone i've seen come in the rooms. It makes sense that individual responsibility is hard for you since it didn't occur to you to question what these people were telling you for years. No institution or individual can do anything for that, we all learn from trial and error, unfortunately it took you a very long time, that's not AA's fault "People will let you down" BB,
that's life.
Phorph1 2 years ago
BS: I have taken personal responsiblitiy for myself my entire adult life!! AA tells people that their best thinking got them to AA even the BB says to let go of all your old ideas & work the AA program. I did ask questions. You don't know my AA experience to assume or project lies onto me (AA does this all the time: project falsehoods onto people). AA was a huge letdown & your AA (everything) doesn't apply to me: the BB is full of contradictions. I don't live by the BB's lies like you.
humyepright 2 years ago
"Don't tell the newcomers" What does that mean? It's sad but if you can't figure out when someone is leading you down the garden path then your boned in or out of AA. Life insists we answer for our actions fair or not. The rooms here are nothing like you describe so it's obviously not inherently a issue of AA. It's an issue of some abusing another's trust and, if that what really happened, then that individual is responsible for their actions,
Phorph1 2 years ago
There are many people who have issues with the entire program of AA from top to bottom. You can play the cult games by saying that I am at fault for what the cult of AA does, but it isn't true. By leaving AA, deprogramming & warning others about AA is being responsible to not take part in a fraud cult. Anyone can go to AA & experience it for themselves regardless of what I think or say. I know that it is a dangerous cult. At least I am not claiming the lies of AA as true.
humyepright 2 years ago
Right out of the mouth of an AA member: if AA is leading you down the wrong path, if its members are going to let you down, then it is (your) fault. According to AA it is a great & safe place to recover, but beware obviously it is very deceptive & untrustworthy in the first place to even bother. If you leave the cult, you will drink again, go insane, & die; follow Bill's wishy-washy path (forever) cuz he was such a great sober person & God told him AA was his will for you!!
humyepright 2 years ago
Now that you thankfully have found your way out of a seemly horrible situation and found other ways to deal with your problems you have a chance to access you experiences. Instead of saying "Some of the people calling themselves AA are not very trustworthy one should proceed with caution" you say " All AA is a cult and all it's members are liars and out to hurt you" Do you see the pattern? It's all roses or rubbish for you, nothing in between, life's not like that you have to trust but verify.
Phorph1 2 years ago
My experience with AA was that there is such a high rate of dishonest, untrustworthy, dysfunctional, abusive, liars, sexual predators, con-artists, and all sorts of negative behaviors (encouraged & denied) that it is not worth wasting one's time looking for anything worthy of consideration. Yes, that is what I am saying. AA is a fraud cult that needs to clean its own house & get real before passing the buck off on a HP or the individual who speaks up about the horrors of attending AA.
humyepright 2 years ago
"My experience with AA was that there is such a high rate of dishonest, untrustworthy, dysfunctional, abusive, liars, sexual predators, con-artists, and all sorts of negative behaviors (encouraged & denied) that it is not worth wasting one's time looking for anything worthy of consideration." Yet you we're there for years, there's a disconnect there. you put 1000% of you your faith in and when if didn't work you applied 1000% you you loathing. You're mind set is what's really at issue here.
Phorph1 2 years ago
There is no "issue" that my mind is set on what my experience with AA was. My opinion is an "issue" to you & so you keep trying to bash "me" as a person. AA promotes itself as a program of recovery & because that isn't what I experienced it does not make me (wrong). All you can testify forever how AA saved your life, just as much as I can testify: AA was a harmful cult. AA doesn't allow room for those who speak up about it. Ask every person who did & what happened? AA members turned on them.
humyepright 2 years ago
The "fact" that I did stay in AA for several years trying to throughly work the program (for myself) within the rooms of a cult isn't an "issue". I didn't just hang around the edges before I spoke out about what I experienced. I have intimate knowing of what goes on inside of the AA organization on different levels & within several directly affliated programs AA denies having. I witnessed more people being harmed than helped. AA's see a lot of failure & they always blame the person never AA.
humyepright 2 years ago
Attend meetings regular and dont take a drink, what is more simple than that.
Sposorship is not a requirement neither is reading the big book or anything else..
Take what you want and leave the rest.
I can see old zelots and dogamatic people in AA but i give them a wide birth.
The joe and charlie brigade are madmen along with idiots like clancy.
Keep alow profile and try and get on with your life and AA does work.
Its all about having a degree of humility.
kevphillips02 2 years ago
How about leave AA & deprogram. The BB & 12x12 is what AA is offering the newcomer, the people who are still suffering. It isn't about humility to attend cult meetings with incurably diseased people forever. I am deprogrammed from AA & its illogic rules & outlook of its members don't apply to me. Those are the cults ideologies not mine. There is nothing I want at AA that is why I left & deprogrammed from being in a cult. My truth that cult members can't seem to grasp.
humyepright 2 years ago
If a person doesn't need the BB, 12x12, or a sponsor (which the 12x12 does push) then what is the point of attending mtgs? to get a headache from the dogma, or enjoy the dysfunctional social cult games. A person doesn't need to be in a cult to stay sober & improve their life. Attend AA & keep a "low profile" & try to get on with life? I got on with life much better once I stopped wasting my time on AA. Maybe other people need to hear that you won't drink, go insane, or die if you leave a cult.
humyepright 2 years ago
kev - so when bill said AA is all about "being of maximum service to god & the people around us" he was just kidding?
or when the conference pre-amble says AA is "A fellowship of men & women who share their experience, strength, hope w/each other so that they might solve their common problem & help others to recover from alcoholism" they're just kind of winging it?
humility & that's it? jeez, the buddha taught that 2300 yrs ago. why do i need AA for that?
notspeedy0314 2 years ago
You are right: I took that 100% "leap of faith into the fourth dimension" with no half measures & when it didn't work 100% I put 100% into speaking up about what I experienced during my time in the cult of AA. "If you quit going to mtgs. our experience is you will drink again, go insane, get locked up, or die" we see it every day. "Does anyone have 30, 60, 90 days? Years? Oh, Joe congrats on 16 years tell us how you did it? AA every day for the rest of my life over & over & over.
humyepright 2 years ago
Your personal messages trying to diagnose me is abuse. Many of the women in the program are abusive & aren't as recoverd as you claim. I don't operate by the modes of AA & no matter how hard you try to attack my character it doesn't phase me. The truth is AA's literature, organization, & fellowship are a cult of incurably diseased people trying to play therapist, clergy, & Dr. w/out a license. Too many people have been victims of AA & we can warn the public: 2 sides to every story.
humyepright 2 years ago
There is one woman w/ 3 years in AA & she frequently still calls me crying, because "she has a disease & it is trying to kill her". This is what AA is teaching her. Then she goes on to tell me how she can't wait for the season's assembly where the GSRs get pretty frisky with eachother regardless of their relationship status. The sexual issues in AA are not those of sober life. I found them worse than the bar. The SA problems in AA are massive & well known. AA can keep their stds & their disease.
humyepright 2 years ago
Clearly you can't hear anything except that rat in a coffee can going around and around in your head. believe it or not I'm sincerely sorry for that. I don't think as long as you make AA the source of all evil you'll ever be able to see your issues for what they seem to be and get help. I see now that anything more I say is just going to give you something more to struggle against and perhaps delay you getting the help you need. So I'll wish you well and hope for the best.
Phorph1 2 years ago
I gotta tell you, your posts do elicit reactions, but I wouldn't characterize any of them as "struggling against you". Did you ever ask yourself why we block the rest of the antagonists, trolls, and apologists, yet let you (and 12stepp) post to your hearts' content? Mike
blamethenile 2 years ago
Your (AA type analogies don't apply to me)
the rat in the coffee can going around in your head, must be self-inflicted & then you try to say you are sincerely sorry (for what?) making the statement? Exactly what are my "issues"? I am dealing with my issues just fine w/out AA's quack diagnoses. You are a (self-diagnosed) member of AA (a cult) of people with abnormal minds & bodies, & an incurable disease, practicing "faith healing" on vulnerable people. That speaks volumes for your character.
humyepright 2 years ago
I do try to be patient, I'll try again. I did say we're all responsible for the choices and actions we make. I didn't say say anyone is at fault or it was fair. It's not my fault my Mom's drinking put at risk and effected my well being and world view, it is my responsibility though to do something about it.t's not fair but it is true. For you to be in AA for years while people misused your trust you must not have questioned their motives or methods which most people would have done I think.
Phorph1 2 years ago
I have taken responsibility for the effect the alcoholism in my family had on me. I did ? AA's motives, but kept pushing forward in the program at some point I realized there was nothing good or real happening. When any organization has a high rate of its members harming or abusing others: I have no interest to be apart of it. That entity needs to clean house, it is not my fault of my job. I don't attend AA, the Catholic church, because of their abuses, & I feel the same about politics.
humyepright 2 years ago
Responsibility? If I mail a letter with the post office & it gets lost there really isn't much recourse. The post office believes in their integrity so much they even offer insurance & certified delivery, & will compensate their customers if they fail to deliver (what they promise). The offer "risk" options. AA has zero integrity in its literature alone & add its diseased fellowship & it isn't comrades of a shipwreck. It is more like a yellow submarine full of fruitloops forever.
humyepright 2 years ago
Anyone is welcome to join the cult of AA, because it is so helpful & positive. I went to get my sister & I am up with her while she detoxes. I will be there for her until she is stable & encourage her. I will hospitalize her if she needs it. I won't tell her in the morning she needs a mtg, to pray & meditate, or any other AA "solution". I will talk reality to her. Not tell her lies, false promises, & let her down (great solution for a dying person) with healthy skeptism too.
humyepright 2 years ago
The point is that just because my Mom was not a very good parent doesn't mean every Mom isn't. Her Mom, my grandmother, stepped up and did a really great job actually. So assuming someone has all the answers for years and when I find out they didn't assuming that anyone remotely associated with that person is as untrustworthy as they are is all part of the same extreme thinking. Not all priests are abusers and not all AA members are liars out to hurt you, It's all case by case, thats life
Phorph1 2 years ago
Do you know what it is like to deprogram from AA & Alanon & then view the program from outside of its nonsense? Many people can see how nonsensical AA's are. A woman who isn't alkie had a sister join Alanon (it destroyed their relationship) she was interested about the cult concept, because her sister changed to be weird, talk program lingo, & she doesn't like how it changed her sister. This is what a lot of normal people see in 12-step members. AA & Alanon doesn't represent real life.
humyepright 2 years ago
This is what I would do with AA: throw its entire program out the window. Teach facts about alcohol & what it does to a person: there are even chemical explanations for what is happening in specific parts of the mind & body when addicted. Teach cognitive behavior. There would be zero religion involved. Teach about the nutritional deficencies alcohol causes. Focus on positive activities & personal growth issues. Any problems identified seek out specific advanced knowledge & solutions.
humyepright 2 years ago
The program has always been for me coming together and helping one another day to day stay sober and prosper. Some of us lean heavy on the BB and some of us just lean on each other. No one every tired to sell me on the BB, I was encouraged to read it and do the steps and come to my own conclusions, which I did. No one ever tried to critique my progress, at least to my face. If it had been any different I wouldn't have stuck around as that would have been contrary to the spirit of the BB and Trad
Phorph1 2 years ago
There would be zero tolerance towards unsafe people. If a person has a complaint the club manager should be responsible to help resolve it or report it to the proper authorities. There would be some process to hold its members accountable for being ethical. Companies who don't take complaints seriously usually go out of business. AA's stance on serious harms done: is silence, blame the victim, play "your part" games, deny harms done exist, laugh about it, or attack any one who questions.
humyepright 2 years ago
Thank you for making my point. As a cult member you think the guru (yourself) is perfect & right, that your illogic should be mine. To doubt, mistrust, or criticize the AA guru will make me wrong & it is "me" for thinking AA is a cult full of incurably diseased people playing God. You aren't scoring points with me. Every time you attack my character for my 100% dislike of AA: reflects on you as a member of the cult of AA. Anyone is free to attend & experience AA for themselves. AA fakers abound
humyepright 2 years ago
Actually that makes you more oriented toward Christianity than AA, great work. Now if you can just focus on the St. Francis prayer maybe you can move forward a little bit
Phorph1 2 years ago
By an atheist: This is another (cult game) the St. Francis prayer (used more than once). For one, people thought St. Francis was insane in his day. Now people claim to practice it? I am sorry, but I lived like St. Francis for almost a decade (meaning I walked away from society & gave everything from my empty cup to others) & using (spiritual means) as a weapon is called: spiritual abuse. Look up the term. You are throwing cult tactics at me without knowing my truth. AA does this all the time.
humyepright 2 years ago
Anyone can go find any speaker's tape on the net right now & listen to an hour of at least 45 minutes making their drunkalogue really funny mixed in with AA lingo or some weird sponsor's advice. Lots of laughing, clapping, & praising AA for saving their lives. Occassionally you find the hard-core stepper who gives some strange verison of how the program works. I have yet to hear one problem properly identified or any accompanying reality based solutions. AA testimonies are empty.
humyepright 2 years ago
To all the AA members who think they are an example of a changed person: they need to realize that when a person does work the entire program & experiences huge not okay issues with OTs who are all tight as thieves at some point some of us: said this is messed up!! enough that I don't want whatever AA thinks it has. I thought I was involved with people trying to be good people, but it was the farthest thing from the truth. Once I deprogrammed, it all became a sham cult. I don't trust AA at all.
humyepright 2 years ago
Talking in cliches? You know the saying one bad apple spoils the barrel? Well in my experience AA is full of barrels of rotten apples & for the few sincere ones its over-all effect on the rest isn't worth me looking through barrels of rotten apples for one without a worm. AA is full of so much unhealthy BS that I think AA needs to address their issues. The BB & 12x12 are so full of dishonesty that when you add the incurably diseased fellowship: I would rather take the road less traveled.
humyepright 2 years ago
Maybe a huge issue I have with AA is that it doesn't even begin to address the real problems associated with alcohol nor does it teach real problem solving skills. It has not advanced in 70 years. It teaches nonsense, complete nonsense. The entire organization is a joke with all its dishonesty, contradictions, & excuses. There is nothing you can say that will change my truth about AA being a dishonest, dangerous, dysfunctional, abusive cult for huge profits preying on vulnerable people.
humyepright 2 years ago
Upon deprogramming I can think just fine enough to know everything AA is teaching & its fellowship faking is fraud. AA doesn't properly identify behaviors or how to think clearly that is far from the truth. When I listen to speaker's mtgs/tapes: I hear no reality: a comedy drunkalogue, AA dogma, & cult praise (not one single reality based solution to any problem is ever identified). I have been around enough reality to know the difference. That is my ESH. Leave the cult & seek something real.
humyepright 2 years ago
I know you believe everything you say dear but as you point out that doesn't make it true, i don't know how much of your experiences are due to someone misusing the program for nefarious means or how much of it is just in your head, when some casts something as pure evil they generally have issues with perspective in my experience, that's why I left Christianity behind. I've seen AA give multitudes of drunks the chance they need to turn it around. You don't have to believe it but it's true.
Phorph1 2 years ago
If you can sit in AA without the twisted Christian lies effecting you then more power to you. I was in AA long enough to see the terrible failure rates, to witness the abuses & exploitation, the failure to help people recover. Just because AA cult members claim they have helped millions doesn't make it true either. I can't give the name of one OT who represents anything I want as "recovered". Put AA's lies vs. honesty? on the scales are tipped towards: evil. That is how dishonest AA is.
humyepright 2 years ago
Maybe? in the next few weeks I will go to an AA meeting with an open-mind. I am going to really listen to each person for something valuable. I am going to watch to see how helpful they are. I will report back to you. I have gone to mtgs. over & over & watched the abuse & nonsense enough to know it is not "me". Sorry but there are many people with real courage to bash AA & coin it as a cult religion of diseased & dangerous members who harm more people than they help. Empty like speaker tapes.
humyepright 2 years ago
The difference between us is I will admit the rooms do reflect a fair cross section of the population. They do have there share of a**holes, BS artists and users, expecting anything else from a group of people is unrealistic. In the end though far more are helped than hurt. You insist that AA is nothing more than an evil cult full of liars, cheats and thieves. That's just as unlikely, things just aren't all one way or the other. The need to believe they are tells us about ourselves, I think.
Phorph1 2 years ago
Take the BB & 12x12 without the fellowship. Even if people gave a page by page account of all the lies in these books AA denies all of them by using one of their thousands of excuses: progress, suggestions, ESH etc... These 2 books are exactly what 12-step rehabs sell for $12-28k directly affiliated with AA (AA denies this) then these people get to AA & the fellowship tells them rehabs know nothing & close to 100% relapse. Screwy by all means. These 2 books are so dishonest AA reeks of fraud.
humyepright 2 years ago
The difference between you & I is that I will forever tell of the crimes that exist in AA's cult. I will not be affiliated with a robber's den of dangerous people faking to be recovered, helpful, or insta-friends preying on vulnerable people. The difference between you & I is that I am not going to turn a blind eye to what "honestly" goes on in the AA cult. I am going to tolerate the married/single men's secret 13-steppers & rapist club where the women get blamed for "your part" lies & abuse.
humyepright 2 years ago
The difference between you and I is I try to lead with the Love and tolerance I was taught as a child from my grandparents and in the rooms of AA. "I think AA & its fellowship are directly responsible for every suicide & crime committed inside its organizatoin" This sounds a lot like someone who's dealing with some paranoia. Some of your points I'm sure r valid but that all or nothing world view will color any conclusions you come to. I suspect that mind set is prevalent in the anti AA movement.
Phorph1 2 years ago
You are wrong again, because my grandparents did teach me love & they also were honest, hard working, with normal behaviors. I did not learn love & tolerance in the rooms of AA, because there wasn't any. HavIng OT's hug you pervertedly isn't love. Being told abusive slogans or exploited is not love. I don't have to tolerate the behaviors of AA's fellowship. Many of my points are valid. People seeking help for addiction & their problems need real solutions not a cult of diseased people.
humyepright 2 years ago
I don't quite understand why you would bother going to any more meetings. You've obviously left AA for what you feel are perfectly valid reasons and gone on to find what you need elsewhere. If you did come back to tell me how pure evil the rooms are I'll say that's not my experience. You clearly don't have to prove anything to yourself or me. The question is why is our views on AA so completely different? You're not going to represent the entirety of the program to me anymore than I am to you.
Phorph1 2 years ago
I am going to a mtg just for you, because you tell me it is "me" & I beg to differ. I am not going to spend forever in a cult of BS looking for a speckle of anything valuable. You tell me AA taught you to think better, & I showed you in the BB where AA teaches people to abandon logic & reason. What AA teaches in not reality based, the fellowship don't know what they are doing, & when the results aren't good they say "it's God's will" & deny any responsibility.
humyepright 2 years ago
I think AA & its fellowship are directly responsible for every suicide & crime committed inside its organizatoin. The handicapped woman who was encouraged to get a ride with known rapist in "12 step horror stories" for every person who was harmed in AA: AA should be liable for the damages & for some reason AA is above the law: sick peole doing anything they want without any recourse. AA does bully women to make ammends to rapists, no rape counselor would ever say to this. The lists are endless.
humyepright 2 years ago
The difference between you & I is even if one person realizes about how fraudulant & cult quakery AA is in relationship to a solution to alcoholism (my real true life experience with the cult of AA). It is worth the progress that many people are bringing to light about how dangerous AA recovery really is. People in general are getting tired of all the lies used to keep them in compliance to blindly accept (lies as truth) & AA is on the list of cults marked for crimes against humanity.
humyepright 2 years ago
Ill it say again, don't go to any trouble on my account. I know you're doing your best but you've already made up you mind and I'm all for that. For all those who claim AA is satan born there will be just as many or more that credit it for turning things around for them. One person's hug is another's shove. I'm glad to live in a time that one of us can't force the other to believe or do anything. Admit it or not but AAs been adaptable enough to be the tool multitudes have used to fix their lives
Phorph1 2 years ago
I didn't say anything about satan you did. Hug/shove. You don't get it once a person deprgrams AA's lies, rules, & slogas don't appy anymore. I think AA has had 70 years to prove they have a huge failure rate. I am not impressed with the members "fake" testimonies. I have been around AA members long enough to no be impressed even outside of the rooms. My mind is made up: AA's fellowship is a dangerous cult, the literature is full of lies & dishonesty, & it is a fraud recovery program.
humyepright 2 years ago
"for every person who was harmed in AA: AA should be liable for the damages" You know a part of me would like to apply that formula to the Republican party. I know it wouldn't be fair though. It would be fair to hold all those neocons who hijacked the party responsible for their actions. Personal responsibility makes it possible for all of us to come and go as we please and be accountable for what we do, I lean left in my politics but I'm really conservative on that issue.
Phorph1 2 years ago
AA is about recovery except for in places AA has managed to weasel its way into the courts, detoxes, rehabs, jails, prisons, & any other outside affiliations it denies having. This is not about politics it is about AA's claim of alcoholism being a incurable disease & all its following lies. When AA's program harms people it should be held accountable. There should be a complaint dept where rape, theft, & abuse are taken seriously. Changing the subject is avoidance.
humyepright 2 years ago
I agree you certainly don't have to "tolerate the behaviors of AA's fellowship" no one does. It's entirely voluntary, even if your court mandated you can just bring a book and read. For many of us though we do find love and tolerance in the rooms and everyone else just moves on. That's really a great arrangement for all. I don't expect you righteous indignation to abate. You may disagree but some might say feelings that toxic for that long are a problem in themselves, You can't blame AA for that
Phorph1 2 years ago
I have told you before that Edward S. Kubany, Ph.D., M.B.A. says the only place with as high a rate as meeting a batterer as the bar is in AA & NA. I witnessed enough abusive men & women OTs in AA that I believe it. Many abusive people fake in public a lot, & will develop sophisticated covert behaviors to stay abusive. DV is the #1 problem associated with alcohol. Batterers have almost a 0% rate of never abusing even with specialized DV therapy. I am not buying AA's love & tolerance lies.
humyepright 2 years ago
I'm not asking you to but anything, honest. I've seen two cases of domestic violence in the rooms of AA in all my time, That doesn't seem out of proportion. The courts here make attendance in anger management classes mandatory for violent offenders so they know there behavior is being monitored, I've seen a lot of turn around there as well Some of us need to get well from a lot of things The rooms are a safe place to do that generally. I haven't seen anyone hurt in the rooms, I'm sure it happens
Phorph1 2 years ago
"the only place with as high a rate as meeting a batterer as the bar is in AA" Well any place a drunk is recovering I suppose you'll find all the problems inherent in using represented in the place of recovery as you would the place of using, it's the same population. Maybe some therapies may make that violent minority less violent but if you can't afford it then what do you do? I haven't seen any of the depravity you describe but I admit the programs not perfect but neither are we.
Phorph1 2 years ago
The chapter "To the Wives" reeks of covert abuse & it is one of Bill's worst mistakes to write from his twisted mind. Women in AA have obviously been silenced (a form of abuse) because by today's standards that chapter is horrible advice. Even the advice given by Alanon is terrible. I have seen plenty of abuse in AA. There is a violent man in one club where OTs encourage him to hit newcomers & laugh at them. The cult of AA doesn't impress me. I witnessed & experienced plenty of it at AA.
humyepright 2 years ago
In an odd way I can agree with this comment, but the truth is: AA does encourage the exact behaviors associated with alcoholism & addiction. I witnessed more (encouragement of) & zero real talk to change those behaviors. Silence, secrets, isolation, denial, & rigid rules: permenate AA & I wasn't impressed w/ the OTs claiming to be gurus with their ignorant & abusive advice preying on newcomers. I did not experienced "recovered" people at all. They can't even see how messed up they still are.
humyepright 2 years ago
I don't know what happened to you but I'm really sorry it did. If some people misused your trust that's just wrong and your right to be angry, at them not AA. The BB actually warns people will disappoint you, they are not the program. The program is one of gentle self reflection, discovery and responsibility. We have the same guidelines as every room in the world and experience nothing like the madness you describe. If everything else is equal it must be individuals
or a perception issue.
Phorph1 2 years ago
Again your AA logic & rules don't apply to me, besides all of the sick dysfunctional con-artists in AA: the complete lies of the AA literature, program, & organization are not "me" it is AA who is the fraud. "Gentle reflection" my ass nor responsibility: AA members are the AA organization just cuz AA says they aren't doesn't mean it is true. Sorry I will never own AA's distortion as my perceptions. You are wrong 100%.
humyepright 2 years ago
The approach in the rooms I attend is try and stay as honest, opened minded and willing as you can, we work the steps- inventory, reflection, amends,prayer-meditation and daily maintenance. We emphasize service, fellowship, love and tolerance and any other basic tools that help. If there is something in the BB we don't need we don't use it. We all have a different take on it and no one is suppose to tell anyone else what to do, just suggest. It works, your issues won't change that.
Phorph1 2 years ago
Just what are you praying about? or to whom or what? You don't believe in God remember & even if it isn't God (I am not interested in the wishy-washy approach, pick & chose anything goes chaos) or the disease model of AA. It is killing my sister, it killed her friend, & I am not buying into your "fake" that AA is a wonderful group of people or program. I worked the entire program & I know what I witnessed & experienced for myself & others. Go lie to someone else.
humyepright 2 years ago
humyepright I'm really clear on you position, AA is worthless and completely evil. That is your absolute unassailable truth. I'll give you that AA does have it's problem children. It's whole demographic is, by the nature of alcoholism, problem children. Still your insistence that AA is all wrong all the time is an obvious reflection of a fragile mental state that may well have existed before you started drinking and may well have been the reason you started to self medicate, no shame there.
Phorph1 2 years ago
You are not going to blame all of AA's dishonest claims & lies on my "mental state" sorry, but that is typical cult behavior. AA can't even own up to its own dishonest as an organization or fellowship. What about all those outside affiliations it denies? huge profits? Your AA illogic doesn't work on me. You AA's haven't cleaned up the damages you caused other people. I have seen the truth enough to know. I know what AA is teaching is false, fraud cult quackery cure of complete lies.
humyepright 2 years ago
I suggest we end this worthless debate right now, because I am not going to buy into how great AA is when my sister ends up dead. I know exactly the people she has been involved with for 12 years & you aren't going to blame your quackery cult BS on "me" as "me" it is your cult of dangerous people who are selling a fraud cure for alcoholism. Back off! It isn't going to work here because I have every reason & right to hate the cult of AA!
humyepright 2 years ago
I'm not faking anything, I'm not trying to convert you or say your experiences aren't real to you. I'm just saying it's interesting that my long experience with AA is nothing like yours. That's a personal opinion that's as valid as any. The fact that you can't hear that without lashing out with the most insulting invective you can muster does say something about your point of view and choices which may factor in to your experiences with AA, that's a valid point as well.
Phorph1 2 years ago
I composed my first three posts before reading your last two.
Please allow my final post to be the last word between us concerning my intentions and feelings. Honestly, I wish you and everyone well, I've seen way to much ugliness to find any joy in the pain of others. That's why AA is so important to me it connected me to others who not only feel that way but act as though they mean it
Phorph1 2 years ago
My tone is a reflection of my sister dying in the present tense this moment as we speak. My sister is a real alcoholic not just a fake wannabe (she is the still suffering) & I don't see anyone from her fancy pants rehab, her AA or Alanon mtgs, or counselors, fake-friends, b/f, no one is "helping" her. I am going to be the only person who shows up today & as long as it takes. My sister is the type that will end up dad & I am mad & sad ... too bad!!! AA never "helped" my sister!!!
humyepright 2 years ago
One last thing: AA is the exact organization that I don't like & I don't have to be joyous about your cult. AA helps the still suffering alkie (lie)? They will push you over the edge for dead & then say it is your fault for not doing it right? My sister has done the entire program & more right in regards to this quackery & I do know exactly why it is killing her & I do my best to get her beyond where she is at. There are thousands of members in this town? not one is helping her then or now.
humyepright 2 years ago
OK I thought we were winding this, that's fine. I don't doubt your sister is sick. I have a friend whose been going out regularly for months now and I always check in with him but he's a adult and an addict I can't make him do anything. Sometimes freedoms a bi*ch."AA helps the still suffering alkie (lie)?" It;s helped me and my family. We had to want to be helped, wether we used or not was up to us. I've lost loved one to this long before I was in the rooms and it sucks, some folks want to drink
Phorph1 2 years ago
"AA does encourage the exact behaviors associated with alcoholism & addiction. " That's certainly not true. It starts with those behaviors because that's what people bring in with them but it encourages an understanding of how those behaviors impact ones life and a house cleaning through the steps, very basic stuff. The steps are a simple template to understand and reorder your life. If you take the word God out and treat everyone in the room with a healthy skepticism they work just as well.
Phorph1 2 years ago
Your analogy isn't going to fly with me. As I write this: the AA program & fellowship are for real killing my sister. She has been involved with AA for 12 years. I know exactly what types of people she has met in AA (dysfunctional people) & the steps don't address the real issues & neither do mtgs. Now you are representing AA by telling me to take God out & just play skeptism games? AA does have a monopoly on recovery & it is a fraud cult of incurably diseased people keeping other people sick.
humyepright 2 years ago
My opinions, thoughts, & feelings about the AA organization, literature, program, & fellowship are just as valid as AA's claims. You try to say it is "me" I say it is AA. You are on the wrong side of the street (seriously) to convince me that what I experienced was a virtuous program of recovery. It has fraud written all over it from top to bottom & it is killing my sister NOW & she is court-ordered to it (grand AA LIE) & she has no option but to suffer its ego bashing BS, abuse, & predators!
humyepright 2 years ago
Before I go: you are not talking to someone of a "fragile emotional or mental" state. I am not some timid sheep that is going to let the abusive men of AA individually or group bully me into buying their abusive, dysfunctional, fraudulant, cult of a cure incurably diseased insanity & death BS! You aren't talking to a fool & I can slice & dice your entire program up & expose every single lie with actual valid facts. You are barking up the wrong tree: go find a vulnerable woman to guru-taunt.
humyepright 2 years ago
I believe it works for those who make an honest effort and for everyone else they just move on."My opinions, thoughts, & feelings about the AA organization, literature, program, & fellowship are just as valid as AA's claims." They're valid to you but may not be to others. My thoughts on AA, for instance, couldn't be farther apart from yours making yours not as valid to me and visa versa. Your conclusions and tone are extreme which brings up your state of mind again. I don't judge you for that.
Phorph1 2 years ago
Man, That kind of rage, in my experience, simply isn't the product of some bad experience. If you've "escaped" and you're still going on like this then something is going on with you. If your sister is in AA and you talk to her like this my guess is she's keeping her distance, which is a shame because your experience may very well benefit her. To clarify I meditate and not to God. I on more than one occasion admitted to the downsides of AA, I never referred to it a wonderful group of people
Phorph1 2 years ago
Excuse me: but I don't talk to my sister the way you are implying. She calls me every single time she is dying, because I am the only one who has been taking care of her since she was 14 & you don't know (a lot) Everyone else including AA will leave her for dead & I go & take her to the hospital, detox, & rehab & all that other jazz that goes on with loving an alcohol: I am not leaving her for dead like AA does. I help her (a lot!!) without enabling (no faking here).
humyepright 2 years ago