Originally Posted by paulmh

I keep saying, as long as it's "not you", you're in possession of a HP!

What I like about the AA philosophy is that it's cogent. It has internal consistency. The philosophy says - an alcoholic is a self-centred egotist. This is their condition. It is an ontological condition. To address this the alcoholic has to become able to look - to live beyond themselves. They first have to learn that this is possible, and then they have to live this way daily or they can go back to the way they were. I couldn't possibly have decided to make this change, and then undertaken it. The only way for me to undertake the change was through alcoholic crisis. I only have some comprehension of what I went through by looking back on it. I don't expect anyone else to do it because of what I say. But it works, for this alcoholic, in ways that other programmes couldn't have worked - because I couldn't have stopped based upon a rational assessment of my situation. For all the people who can - good on you! Without reservation I am happy that people get sober using SMART or RR or any other programme that encourages a volitional change! AA is, for me, the place where those of us incapable of volitional change end up. I don't doubt that other programmes are cogent too. But they're not - nor do they have to be - cogent to me.

I still don't know if there's a huge cultural thing going on, but here in the UK I don't recognise the portrait of AA that includes things like "slippery sayings" which are there until we can "turn" the newcomer. It's not cogent. It's not consistent with my experience at all.