From what I've heard, AA relies alot on religious doctrine, which would probably be less than ideal for non-believers. I hope you find something that suits you Dean, so you can get the support you deserve in this battle. Well, besides the 5000 people a day cheering you on through their modems.

Oh, it's not all that much in the way of religious doctrine. They're pretty loose about the whole "higher power" thing. That's not even my issue. In fact, I kind of dug praying The Lord's Prayer at the end. Hadn't prayed that in years and years, it was kind of cool.

No, my issues run a lot deeper. I said I wouldn't write about this but now I can't stop. I believe there are deep and significant danger to 12-step programs, and more than a little dishonesty.

First off, most problem drinkers quit without ever attending AA.

Second off, AA can encourage deep feelings of guilt, worthlessness, and powerlessness in people who might not need to feel that way.

Women, in particular, seem to be vulnerable to that. Women in general tend to be prone to feelings of guilt and/or powerlessness, and AA seems to exacerbate that in some of them. I've seen that before, and I saw it agin this evening, with some shattered looking women sitting in the back, looking scared, looking miserable while they listened to speakers tell them that AA was their only answer, their only alternative, that they needed to admit their powerlessness and that AA was the only chance to be free.

They didn't look happy with the guy who said he'd been sober since 1988 and still struggled with feelings of hopelesness and despair and suicidal tendencies, either. Neither was I, for that matter.

Then you meet people who speak cultishly of "living the 12 steps," putting them into practice in every aspect of their lives. My father is like this, and I think it's made him freaky, not more healthy. He's been sober for a decade and a half, and comes across as stiff and self-conscious about everything, everything, everything, all because of those fucking 12 steps.

Then there's the lie they tell at every AA meeting. The Big Fucking Lie, a lie that can HURT PEOPLE. That lie goes like this (it's straight out of the handbook, and they read it at practically EVERY meeting):

"Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at faul; they seem to have been born that way."

Oh my God. Oh my God. This is sickness, this is diseased, and they should stop telling people this because it is fucking slanderous and insidious. What message do you think that gives anyone who falls off the wagon and fails?

"I fell off the wagon. I can't stop. It's because I am an unfortunate, I was born this way, and I am constitutionally incapable of being honest with myself."

Do you not see the danger there? I do, and it horrifies me. I've talked to people who've cried, who've gone to AA meetings, who will be totally honest about their problems, totally honest about their addiction, and still cannot stop--only now they believe they are liars who are constitutionally incapable of change. So they quit in despair, and never go back, and just keep drinking themselves into hell.

In other words, AA told them they're incurable, and sad, and hopeless. AA cannot contemplate that their program may have taken the person in the wrong direction, so it must be the person's fault.

Any consideration that other alternatives might work better? Not for the 12-steppers!

You think I'm ranting? Try talking to someone who's dying of alcoholism who quotes that shit at at you and then tells you they've just given up on themselves. I've talked to two in the last week. "The AA people are right. I choose death."

Fuck that. Fuck that. They're lying to people, and they need to cut it the fuck out.

AA is not the Word of God. No peer-reviewed study has ever proven AA to be superior to other methods of beating addiction. Psychologists will tell you that for some people--women especially--AA meetings can produce feelings of deep despair, worthlessness, guilt, and powerlessness.

And oh, by the way, AA veterans can tell you that guys looking to get laid who are manipulative will go to AA meetings and play on those feelings and beliefs shamelessly just to get women into bed.

There is an ugly side to AA--a self-righteous belief that it is the only solution, an inability to ask if AA itself might fail some people because AA is the wrong approach for those people, and a danger of developing an obsession over the 12 steps that can become as addicting and psychotic as drinking itself can.

If I go to any more AA meetings, it will be in the hopes of finding people I can talk to who can give me good advice on how to beat this monkey I have on my back, to get cravings and urges under control, to think straight.

I don't need to hear about how I'm powerless, how only a higher power can fix me, about how I owe amends to the world, and so on. This is absurd. Other programs that do none of that have been proven to work. I've talked to people they've worked for.

I've even talked to people who only got WORSE under AA, but who then found OTHER programs and got better and healthier. Repeat: QUIT AA, and found things that worked BETTER for them.

AA needs to lose its aura, its mystique, its holy-of-holies status. And we need to stop pushing it on everybody, forcing it on everybody. It's like telling everyone in the world that's overwieght that they MUST go to Jenny Craig, Jenny Craig is the answer, Jenny Craig will fix everything if you just do everything Jenny Craig tells you!

As I say, I don't think I'll be going back. If I do, it will be with a very jaundiced, very cautious eye.

Dean, no matter what else you do keep this one thing in mind, no more alcoholic beverages. The urge comes on you, find something else to do. But first make sure Rosemary's in the mood.

More seriously, go for walks. Schedule a time every day for you, Rosemary, and anybody else human or canine in the immediate vicinity to go ambling about, see things, and meet people. Bring a camera along and take pictures. You'll get exercised, pleasantly fatigued, settle your dinner, and regulate bowel movements. And you'll wear yourself out, thus eliminating the need for a night cap to get to sleep.

Good luck, Dean. My dad smoked. A pack of unfiltered Pall Malls a day. Died of lung cancer. So I know summat of what you're going through.

Dean,

I'm so sorry that you had a bad time at the meeting. Pits. I can identify as a woman with being made to feel worthless. When I got to the rooms of AA, I sure didn't need any help--already had the worthless thing down really well.

There are other 12 step programs that work for some of us that didn't find what they needed in the rooms of AA. However, AA is our founding father and we do look up to them. Bill W. did say that the thing that makes the program work is one alcoholic sharing with another.

You said that was what you needed. I think that is what we all need. That is what worked for me, as well. How do I do this damn thing? Why do I do it? I found someone who could help me.

There are a gazillion (I know it's not a word) meetings. Just like people, they all have personalities--alcoholic/addict ones at that.

There is a tradition that most 12 step programs follow that encourages us to place "Principles before personalities." That's exactly what I read from your comments. I hear you looking for principles that you can get behind.

I encourage you to do just that and keep doing that for yourself, for your life. Sometimes when I go to a meeting, I may not hear but ONE thing that I can use--but for that hour and a half--I haven't 'used' and I have been safe.

It's worked for 19+ years along with a lot of other hard work. Keep at it. And yes, at just a few days, passions run high and sometimes judgement should be suspended. You can do it. We believe in you.

Katherine could not have said it any better and I am sure she has seen many people come and go into the program for a variety of reasons. It does take a lot of work and determination to go through with these steps.

When the words are said, Rarely do we see someone fail that follow these steps, they do not mean that in any easy sense at all. Those steps are taken at that persons own pace and in their own recovery. That very first step in even admitting there really and truly is a problem to the individual may take months.

My ex husband had a friend that drank terribly and he went to AA. He was not comfortable there but went anyway because so many people had sobered up through AA. He realized the first step was to admit he was powerless over alcohol, but That his life had become unmanagable was the hardest part to accept.

Gil was my ex's best friend and the marriage was a good one but inside it too was strained so Shelia started attending the AL-Anon. She realised she was contributing to the problem in her controlling behavior and dictacting him in all that he did and Gil was a real easy going guy. He worked himself to death trying to get ahead and he loved Shelia immensely.

Katherine points out the traditions of AA and that is also very important. You may have gone to a meeting and it did not go well for you but the next one will. Gil always enjoyed the early ones in the morning because he met a lot of business men and women, doctors, lawyers and such because they had to attend before heading into the office. I don't know your schedule or if you might have a Club 12 so to speak where they have speakers come in from time to time.

Dean, I was a little concerned that AA might not be right for you, but like dowingba I would have thought the "higher power" business would have been the problem.

But wow. That "if you fail it's because you're born a failure" business makes my blood boil.

I've said it on my blog, I don't think God makes mistakes. It appears AA believes He does.

Dean I think you are doing the best that you can and one thing is for sure is you are keeping and open mind to different sources. A.A. does not work for everybody but it has helped millions of people who would have not recovered otherwise.

I think Mary was referring to service centers where guest speakers come in and maybe there are meetings that do not have the God reference.

Katherine really is right about the personalities, and a good sponsor that has a lot of sobriety could just be the key.

Actually, it sounds like Dean was predisposed to disagree with AA to begin with. You don't get that much bile and accusatory anger (or that many words) after attending one meeting.

A somewhat less jaded take on an AA meeting that I read several months ago:

http://www.resurrectionsong.com/archives/001163.html

I had said a week ago that if I found a certain essay I would email it to you. I found it, and it turned out to be mostly too specific to the thread in which it was posted, so I didn't. Some of it, however, is relevant here.

Eric Flint, the science fiction author, has been clean for 15 years, and he credits having been told that he was born an alcoholic. Not born a failure, as discussed above, not born with an "addictive personality" (topic of his essay), simply born with a hereditary inability to metabolize alcohol the majority of the population can.

That semi-random difference is all that is "wrong" with you. There are actually people who would say that my metabolic ability to have crawled back out of the bottle when I saw that my drinking was a problem, and to resume drinking moderately later without returning to my old ways, amounts to something "wrong" with me. From everything I have read about you, you are a winner, a strong person, and as long as you understand that thru no fault of your own alcohol is one thing you are not stronger than, you should have no problem getting on with your live, clean, sober, happy and succesful. You have a support group every bit as caring and supportive as AA, even if we aren't a bunch of failures.

Dean, anything outside of yourself, which you choose to pick up to assist you in this challenge, are simply tools to empower YOU. Choose your tools wisely, but remember, YOU decide how they are used. Keep going. Each day you're dry is a victory for YOU.

Dean, as I pointed out in an E-mail to you, the concept of "powerlessness" is one of the most misunderstood concepts of the Twelve Step Programs.
Another of those misunderstood concepts is that preamble to the meetings, especially the 'rarely have we seen a person fail' part. Due to my own issues in the early part of my own recovery, thus far successful, I was terrified of relapse. Since I've always known that I'm not Superman I took to quizzing people coming back from relapse. They shared a commonallity that pushed the vast majority into one of two camps, some had one foot in each camp. One group simply stopped doing the things that kept them sober. Usually weeks or months before that first drink.
The other group were simply unwilling or unable to face the problems in themselves that drove them to drink in the first place. Those latter are the folks that Bill W. was writing about. No problem, of any kind, can be solved without first finding that there IS a problem and then identifying it. I could, if my car stopped completely rebuild the engine, electrical system and electronics, do a brake job while I'm at it and it wouldn't do a damned thing if the real problem was that I'd run out of gas.
The rest of your qualms have a fairly simple answer, get a large enough sample of people in any group and it's going to include some with major problems. It will also include those who misuse it. Any group or movement. Religious? Hey, look, there's Jim Jones! Politics? There's Joe Stalin!
AA is simply the first systemised way to recover from alcoholism. It may well not even be the best way, I don't know. It's the way that worked for me. Seeing as how the only way for me to test the other methods would be to start drinking again I hope y'all will forgive me for my unwillingmess to try them.
Expect, Dean, another E-mail.
I'm surprised, here. I expected a shitstorm of the adherents and detractors fighting each other over this subject. Oh, well, it's early yet.

Dean, I don't blame you for being a mite peeved at the "if you fail, it's because you're a born failure" issue, although, like other commenters, I would have thought the higher power issue would have been the one to get you -- it got me when I was going through this.

You've got eight days sober now, Dean, and I think all of us are very proud of you for that. The groups, therapies, and so forth that you choose to use in your recovery are secondary, although often useful -- sobriety is the main thing. You're right, though -- AA is not the only answer.

There's an answer out there for you, and whatever it may be, I hope you find it soon.

You are correct, Bryan. I attended some AA meetings as a teenager. I've attended Alanon and other 12-step programs. I have a mother who loves AA and a father who is so obsessed with it it's a distraction.

I've also heard from a few people in the last two weeks telling me about how worthless and guilty and powerless they felt over alcohol, and telling me flat-out that they couldn't go to AA anymore because of the deep sense of shame it brought them.

Yet for the last week and a half, I've had people pushing AA at me, and I've been striving to give it a chance--and there in my first meeting, I saw all the same shit I'd seen before, and all the same things others have complained about.

So, just so you know, I'm not the only one. Have a look at this list of books, for example. It may shock you.

Wish you the best Dean, I know you can do it. I think it was your story of how you quit smoking that was very impressive. I know that you will be able to get through this too.

Both of my parents were in AA. It's absolutely true: groups have distinctive personalities. We lived in a small farming community, and people would drive long distances from other communities to come to the meeting in our town, because the group in theirs were too this or too that.

Be that as it may: I read, in your words, a lot of what I saw in those who came to our home at various times, people wanting to change but looking for any reason they could find to reject the program. Many of them did just that. Some of those are dead.

I don't know that AA claims to be the only way. Due to the informal, dispersed nature of the program, I don't doubt that there are those who do make that claim. I believe, however, that AA merely claims that if you follow and practice the steps, it will work.

It worked for my parents, and probably saved my father's life (and possibly that of me and my siblings). It worked for my mother. I saw it work for a large number of people over the years, people who had sunk to the lowest depths, where death was very close.

I saw it fail. I saw people who couldn't, or wouldn't, stick with it. Many of those people lost homes, partners, businesses, careers, children, and their lives.

Alcohol destroys people. There is only one person who can do anything about whether or not you're one of them.

Dean, I sent you an e-mail.

Good to see you're going in with your eyes wide open. Hang in there, buddy.

A family member very close to me is a member of AA. As such, I used to be dragged to AlaTeen (as it is important for the ENTIRE family to get help; or so I was told). I walked away with the same impression of AA open meetings and AlaTeen/Anon that you do.

However, sometimes what some people need to heal is the sense of community and support given in the sponsee/sponsor relationship. Sometimes people do need to hear over and over again that they will die if they keep up the drinking (and as both a scientist and as a person with the alcoholic "gene" such as it is I can see how this is true). Sometimes people need to be scared straight.

But not all people. And it certaintly doesn't help to have the sleeze-balls lurking in the corners waiting to pounce on the first woman whose self esteem is just low enough to go home with them. THAT shit needs to stop.

So, do find some help if you want it. And by attending an AA meeting you obviously want it. There are, as you said, other programs. Call up a local councellor who specializes in alcoholism and have him/her recommend some other support groups, maybe.

But remember, alcohol + livers do not mix. When your liver goes, so goes your life; if something else doesn't get you first.

Dean said:

"If I go to any more AA meetings, it will be in the hopes of finding people I can talk to who can give me good advice on how to beat this monkey I have on my back, to get cravings and urges under control, to think straight."

Hi Dean
I have read most of what you have written on your quest for sobriety and sanity in your life so far. This particular paragraph stood out for me. What you have here is what we in AA call "a moment of clarity". You have clearly stated what is important to you right now, what you think will keep you sober. That's enough to get you started on the right path. The arguments for and against AA could go on ad nauseum and there still would not be an agreeable outcome for all involved. The key is to keep it simple, especially in the early days; take what you need and leave the rest; look and listen for what rings true for you; find someone you can identify with; look for the similarities and not the differences; stay sober, just for today; if you feel like drinking, call someone BEFORE you take that drink. In the days to follow, should you decide to maintain your sobriety, your thinking will get clearer, the urges will subside, life will become calmer. And then you might feel like you were hit by a bus! That's ok, it'll pass if you just don't drink. Just because you're not drinking doesn't mean life didn't keep happening, you'll just have better tools to deal with the garbage that life can throw our way. We're not unique, we're just drunks that don't drink. The good news is that we've been given an opportunity to see life's challenges in a way most folks don't. And BTW, I don't have any problem with men hitting on me at meetings - I go to Women's Meetings and when I do go to a mixed meeting, my wonderful husband goes with me and he is bigger that most of the other guys! But seriously, yeah, it does happen but no more often that in the average workplace. The difference here is that the newly sober woman IS very vulnerable and unfortunately there are scum at meetings, but no more than any other place in the world and that's why the women rally around the new women until they are strong enough to watch out for themselves. If you are going to meetings you don't like, go to a different meeting. People are people and we all don't like all people, you know?
At any rate, hang in there. Judy Johnsen

Thanks guys. I am hanging on, and will.

Even those of you I'm arguing with are helping me. Believe me.

Sorry I can't be one of the ones to help via argument. I am very glad to hear that you approached AA with the same critical eye you seem to cast toward everything else.

I wish you the best Dean and hope you do whatever works for you to overcome your problem.
I have to take issue with your misrepresentations of the AA message. I have not been to a meeting in 3 years, but I used to go 3 or 4 nights a week for many years and I never ever heard anyone or read any literature that included your notion of "born failures". The vast majority of people in AA meetings are supportive of the relapsing alcoholic; you imply the opposite. What they don't tolerate quietly is the alcoholic that blames his/her drinking on anyone or anything other than the one person responsible. Guess whom AA thinks that is? That is where the "constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves" etc. comes in to play. There is nothing that says if you relapse once or even a thousand times, then you are a born failure and should just give up. The mantra of AA meetings is Keep Coming Back, not Give Up. You have to apply your own pathologies to the AA message to come up with the message you did. It reminds me of the huge publicity given to a 3 month sober AA "survivor" in Baltimore who had a front and 6 page City Paper article back in '93 (my first sober year) and was outraged that 20 and 30 year sober members of his local AA group had not ceded to his demands to, I kid you not, remove the donuts (too much unhealthy sugar!!!) from his regular meeting. He synthesized such an outrage that he quit AA, wrote the article about how AA was killing people and perhaps "saved" many other alcoholics from AA sobriety. Many of us AA members at the time thought his issue had to do with ego and not with health concerns, but I know that your issue is one of misinterpretation of what you read. I hope you give AA another chance Dean. If anyone actually told you that if you relapse you are a born failure and should give up, then they lied to you and if you had gone to more than a few meetings you would learn that. When you hear someone relate that they are sad or miserable, then just try to empathize. People do get sad and miserable in their lives at times, especially when they have spent a good deal of their lives making others' miserable with their drinking. Being sober brings about a greater awareness of that reality, but that misery you saw is not the general mood of AA meetings that I attended. The vast majority of people I met in AA felt blessed and fortunate to be sober and bent over backwards to help other people. I hope you give it a good go. Try a different meeting. Try anything other than suicide. As unfathomable as it must seem to you now, there will come a day when you do not miss alcohol. The journey starts as rough as alcohol withdrawal must be, but the rest of the trip is like a new life, filled with dignity and gratitude. Just don't give up even when you fail. Very few long term recovering alcoholics are "first nighters". The vast majority had multiple relapses until they finally had enough of the misery and became willing to do anything to not feel the need to drink again. Thats what AA is about. It's not desparately not drinking, but being relieved of the obsession to drink. But that takes a little time. AA works for MILLIONS and produces a quality of life that more than replaces the desire to drink. I hope very much that you give AA a try; at worst you will be helping other alcoholics to stay sober. Best wishes to you Dean. Hang in there and keep plugging away.