I am thinking about leaving AA...

With five years of sobriety, I am leaving AA. I am grateful for the help it has given me and many alcoholics and addicts, but I feel that it is time to move on. Bill W. himself referred to AA as a "spiritual kindergarten," and I feel it's time for me to grow up and move on to the next phase of my recovery.

I haven't really gotten anything from attending AA meetings for the last year or so, especially after my sponsor, who was also a drug and alcohol counselor, relapsed and has been a homeless meth addict ever since.

AA meetings can be very depressing, and they rarely give me inspiration to move forward in my life. The program basically teaches that your sponsor can be a butthead with a failed marriage and a failed career, but as long as he has more clean time than you, that's all that matters. I think we were put here on this world for a higher level of functioning. That's why I'm looking for an organization like Toastmasters International dedicated to personal and professional development.

To tell you the truth, I was raised in a twelve step household. My mother has been a lifelong member of Al-Anon, and has used it as an excuse to stay married to my unrecovered alcoholic father, even though she doesn't seem to practice any of the other principles of the Al-Anon program. She's been referred to mental health counseling in the past to deal with her bad marriage but she refused to take it seriously.

My father has been in and out of AA for years, but has never found long-term sobriety, because the root of his problem is likely psychiatric and needs professional help. I am thankful for the help that I received from AA during a dark time of my life, but it's overall benefit to my family has been minimal.

AA teaches that trusting in your higher power is the only way to sobriety, but what if your higher power told you to leave AA?

When AA World Headquarters trustee George Vaillant conducted a scientific study on the effectiveness of AA, he found that it has a 95% failure rate, and the highest death rate of any program for recovery. And yet we are told that only people who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves fail at the AA program! If surrendering to a higher power is the only way to achieve sobriety, what if your higher power tells you to leave AA?

The Effectiveness of the Twelve-Step Treatment

Like the Jehovah's Witnesses, AA claims to be the only true way and that everyone else is doomed, and willfully ignores any evidence to the contrary, even from its own organization.

The idea that you are powerless over alcohol ignores that you have the God-given free will and personal strength to refuse the next drink. What alcoholics and addicts need is spiritual empowerment, not to be made to feel that they are powerless.

Most AA members don't even know the real history of AA.

A movement founded by a failed stock broker who swindled his clients and then almost drank himself to death, experienced a "spiritual awakening" on a hospital bed while under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs, who cheated on his wife repeatedly and continued using hallucinogens after "getting sober," who stopped working after starting the program and mooched on his wife and AA members for income, who tried to copyright the Big Book in order to profit himself, who communicated with the dead in occult rituals, who died of emphysema after a lifetime of smoking and demanded for whiskey on his death bed... is the one and only cure for alcoholism? You can't make this stuff up.

History of Alcoholics Anonymous - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If you are so afraid that you will relapse if you don't make it to your next meeting, that itself is a kind of an addiction, and that fear might ultimately be a justification for you to drink if you figure you are going to fail anyway.

Many people in AA who take that first drink end up drinking themselves silly because they figure that there's no point in even trying to stop after the first drink if you are powerless over alcohol anyway.

I am not saying these things to discourage AA in any way. I just don't think it's right to insist that twelve step is the only way to recovery and that everyone else is either a dry drunk or doomed to relapse.

It's not good enough just to leave AA. You need people to have your back, and you need to understand the underlying reasons why you drink. Do you have a support system to replace AA? Has someone taught you the tools of how to avoid your next drink? I am reading this book right now, and it's helpful:

Breaking Addiction: A 7-Step Handbook for Ending Any Addiction: Lance M., M.D. Dodes: 9780061987397: Amazon.com: Books

I am thankful for anyone who gets clean, with or without 12 step. People in early recovery especially need a support group, and 12 step meetings are the most common, although there are lesser known alternatives like SMART Recovery. The only gripe I've ever had with AA or NA is when people claim it's the only way to recover.

My ex-sponsor, who was also a drug counselor, told me that he thought he was the reincarnation of Bill W. He was one of the most active people in AA in my town. He then relapsed and has been a homeless meth addict for the last two years. After that, I started questioning little by little whether or not continued involvement in AA was beneficial or necessary to my sobriety.

Now I am in a new town and I've been to a few meetings, but overall, they've been negative and depressing. I came to the realization a week or two ago that I need to take my recovery to the next level, and not surround myself with people at such a low level of functioning. I want to do more in life besides not drinking and using. If I go to a meeting, and I feel depressed afterwards, that's more likely to make me drink or use than if I don't go to meetings at all. I don't discourage AA or NA in any way, but I have better reasons for me to stay sober.

Why You Should Not Sit through AA or NA Meetings for the Rest of Your Life in Order to Stay Clean and Sober
Why You Should Not Sit through AA or NA Meetings for the Rest of Your Life in Order to Stay Clean and Sober - Spiritual River

Ahermit said:

Don't forget, alcoholism is a mental disorder. It is the a disorder that tells you you don't have a disorder. The reason why insane people do not believe they are insane is because they are insane.

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If alcoholism is a mental disorder, why is it only cured by a spiritual program? Is schizophrenia treated with medication and counseling or by working the steps with a sponsor and attending meetings? I am not bashing AA or NA except for the idea that it's the only way to recover.

Ahermit said:

Hello Yoder777.
AA is not the only way to recovery. I am not saying that alcoholism is only cured by a spiritual program. But I will say that a spiritual program works best for alcoholism.

Why? Because alcoholism is driven by a need to avoid harbored fears such as resentments. The fearful ego, under the influence of alcohol, tries to prove differently. As a consequence, one of the primary symptoms of alcoholism is delusions of grandeur - always believing they know better than anyone else, yet they do not know what is best for them, except for another drink.
With alcoholism, a person's life totally becomes unmanageable, though they usually don't think so. Recovery is best handled when the alcoholic lets go of self-will, and lets God's will manage their life. Those that do this are less stressed in life and experience a lot of serenity.

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For some people, an overinflated ego and resentment toward others is what drives their alcoholism or addiction. For others, lacking a sense of self and feeling powerless over one's circumstances is what drives their addiction or alcoholism. Please consider the following...

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Through working intensively with people suffering with alcoholism and other addictions, psychoanalysts have learned about many psychological factors that contribute to addictive behavior. Some people use their behavior (drinking, gambling, eating, and others) as a way to "treat" or lessen feelings that seem overwhelming at the time, such as sadness, anger or shame. These feelings seem less intolerable when they are performing their addictive behavior. People also sometimes perform addictive acts to be free of self-critical feelings. They find that they can be gentler with themselves when they drink, for example. For others, taking a drug or eating or gambling substitutes for a loved person whom they have lost. They make, in effect, a new relationship with the bottle or the racing track, a relationship that they never have to lose. In other instances, people use addictive behavior to repair a feeling of deep disappointment with others, or with their image of themselves. Drinking or eating serves to create a sense that the world is as it should be, or that they are as valuable as they feel they should be.

Starting over 20 years ago, I began writing about a new way to understand addictions and their treatment, a way that encompasses previous ideas while getting to the fundamental issues that underlie all of them. I've found that addictive acts serve as a way to restore a sense of power when a person feels helpless. The drinking, gambling, cleaning, eating expresses the great anger people feel at being made powerless, and at the same time the act itself restores a sense that they can control their own feelings through their own actions.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Once people understand their addictive behavior then, as with any behavior, they are finally in a position to master it. Trying to change one's behavior without understanding it is like trying to fight a tiger while wearing a blindfold.
Lance M. Dodes, M.D. - What Is Addiction?[/FONT]

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Some people say that you need to let go of self-will, admit your are powerless over your addiction, and let God manage your life. Others say that God has given you the free will and personal strength to believe in yourself, take charge, and take personal responsibility for your recovery. Recovery doesn't have a one size fits all solution.

Addiction is all about seeking a remedy for overwhelming feelings of helplessness, and the exact form of an addiction, whether drinking or eating or watching online pornography, is no more than a focus for the addiction, not its cause. This is why people so often change the form of their addiction, moving from alcoholism to compulsive gambling tocompulsive shopping, and on and on. Wouldn’t it be strange if people really were powerless over the focus of their addiction? When a person switched from alcoholism to compulsive gambling we’d have to say he was now powerless over something new. As the focus shifted there could be no end to the things he was powerless over – his powerlessness could spread like wildfire! (“I used to be powerless over just alcohol, but now peanut butter has me in its grip.&#8221

The notion that people are powerless over the focus of their addiction is also terribly demoralizing. Addictions are neither more nor less than compulsions, psychological behaviors most people have to some degree. That fact has been a great relief to people with addictions who have been made to feel different and less than the rest of humanity. But if you buy the idea that you are powerless over the chemical in a bottle (or the peanut butter on the shelf or the offshore gambling website) then you are deprived of this honest relief. Instead, you must admit your worst fear: you are in fact different and certainly less capable than everyone around you who is able to drink with impunity.

“We admitted we were powerless over alcohol” is, of course, Step One of Alcoholics Anonymous. 12-step programs have been statistically shown to have a 5-10% success rate. Step One isn’t the only reason for this, but it is clearly a part of the problem.
http://www.lancedodes.com/lance-dodes-blog/2012/6/17/alcoholics-are-not-powerless-over-alcohol.html

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christopher morgan said:

Hi Yoder777, I had a good friend die of liver failure from alcohol after loosing his job, then marriage breakdown. He had a heart of gold and I really miss him but he was living alone and lacked support from mixing with people who have their life under control and are generally engaging in healthy enjoyable lifestyles. So having a battle with depression from pain myself I know I often can't deal with being with other people who are also suffering in some way like myself.

So although I do not know much about AA I can understand you may feel like moving on. So I can only advise you make sure to join in with other groups or clubs who don't have any serious problems and slowly gain the confidence that you too can carry on with your life in a happy fulfilled way without the need for alcohol. Of course as a Christian I encourage you to trust in Our Lord's teachings and pour yourself into being a successful follower of Our lord and value that challenge. And of course any good Christian congregation that you become an active member of will always support you.

Anyway just wanted to wish you the best, keep looking forward and remember "God made water, man made wine. Man made watches, God made time." I think God knows more than us. christopher Australia

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Thank you. You've understood what I've been saying very well. I have five years of sobriety and now I want to move on to the next phase of my life.

Ahermit said:

Hello Yoder777.
Good luck on your next phase of your life.

There are a few misunderstandings from the above quotes.
Powerlessness refers to an unmanageable life while drunk, not when sober.
Self-esteem is falsely bolstered when drunk, then when sober, and on reflection, causes self-reproach and humiliation - a deflation of self-esteem. Which drives a person to drink again so as to feel better about themselves.

Please remember, alcoholism is a mental disorder caused by excessive abuse of alcohol. The brain has become altered by the addition of certain alcohol related chemicals which cannot be flushed out, but are permanently in the brain. In other words, there is no cure for the deeply affected, only daily abstinence seems to be the answer.

In regards to self-esteem. There are two ways to build up your self-esteem without chemicals altering brain chemistry:
One is a worldly approach. That is to build up self-esteem to a point of self-reliance and self-manageability. To recover back to the world and its viewpoints.
The other is a spiritual approach, regardless of where you get that from. That is to build up self-esteem to a point of self-interdependency with a Higher Power and life management under the same partner. To recover back to the world and its viewpoints plus a spiritual viewpoint to choose from.

The spiritual approach also has an added option. A person can not only rebuild their self-esteem, but can build it up to a point of no longer needing it anymore. A recovery without/minimum fear or doubt, and a life of truth and serenity.

Yoder777, I sincerely hope whatever course of action you take in your next phase in life you will experience whatever it is you are looking for. May it have lots of truth and serenity.

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I never want to give the impression to anyone of being anti-AA, but I am only trying to open doors for people who are serious about sobriety but who find that AA is unhelpful to them.

something that's really important to say about AA's idea of powerlessness is that it comes from the historical and cultural circumstances in which the program originated. bill w. and dr. bob were white male upper class people. it's not uncommon for white male upper class people to have overinflated egos, and that the only way they will let go of their ego and seek help for alcoholism is if they admit they are powerless, if they deflate their ego. so in a modern context, when abused women and poor minorities, people who've been abused and put down their whole life and never have had an ego problem, people who've never had an overinflated sense of self, their solution for alcoholism is not to admit they are powerless over alcohol.

the reason why they drink or use is because they already feel powerless over the circumstances in their life, and they drink and use because at least that gives them the ability to control how they feel about their life situation. at least over their moods, alcohol restores to them a sense of power. so in order to reach and help someone in that situation, the solution isn't to tell them that they are powerless. the solution is to show them how they are intelligent and competent and worthwhile people who are capable of taking charge of their life and who deserve to feel good about themselves. that's the opposite of telling them they are powerless.

another way the idea of powerless is unhelpful is that it teaches learned helplessness. many people who've been through the AA program, if they take that first drink, will use it as an excuse to go on an all out bender because they figure there's no point in stopping if they are powerless anyway.

if we're talking about recovery from a global perspective, taking all the evidence into consideration, then we will be appreciative for what aa has done to help many people, while also recognizing that it plainly doesn't work for many other people, and that reasonable alternatives are available to them if they are only given the chance to seek them out.

One of the benefits of leaving AA is that I no longer have to take it seriously when people say their higher power is a door knob, or the moon, or a Group of Drunks. Genuinely non-religious people should not be told that a spiritual program is the only solution to stop drinking, and that they must surrender to a higher power, even if their higher power is the coffee pot. It's also insulting to genuinely religious people who believe there actually is a God who exists outside the alcoholic's diseased mind.

If you learn the tools on how to avoid your first drink, or how to logically think through the cravings so they will not have power over you, you will not be powerless over alcohol. The problem with AA is that it doesn't teach you why you drank in the first place or give you logical tools for relapse prevention other than working the steps and attending meetings.

I just saw this movie and it's definitely worth watching:
http://www.addiction.com/expert-blogs/movie-review-finding-wild/

Some twelve steppers might not like it since the film is based on the true story of a woman who beat her heroin addiction without rehab and twelve step. Instead, she literally charted her own path, hiking from Mexico to Canada, and found herself along the way.

The idea that a person can quit using heroin, considered the most addictive of all drugs, without rehab and twelve step, is foreign to Hollywood in almost all cases. While I certainly wouldn't have hiked up the West Coast, good for her if that's what saved her life from the path she was already on. If only Lindsay Lohan watched this movie.

Instead of just saying that I am anti-AA, could someone please cite where I said anything that is disproved by documented evidence? I am thankful for anyone who gets sober, without or without AA. My only issue is that it's irresponsible to insist that AA is the only way to recover.