Originally Posted by ThatOneDude87

Maybe I'm one of those people who's constitutionally incapable, or maybe I've just built up a wall. There's just something about AA and it's culture that I find weird, strange, unsettling at times. After ******* my life up with booze and drugs last year, I had to move back in with my parents with a condition that I start doing AA. I've been attending meetings fairly regularly since last fall and am still trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

I don't understand how sitting with a group of people for an hour listening to rants and drunk-a-logues, some of which can be very self-indulgent and/or self-righteous, is imperative to my sobriety. That I must attend as many of these get togethers as possible, or else... My first sponsor seemed to be an AA robot, I'd ask about these things and the only response he had was "keep coming and you'll learn to like it with time." I have, it's not working. It just gets worse. I'm not without my own problems, obviously, I'm an alcoholic and all that comes with that, but I have a hard time with conforming to a set of dogmatic ideas and beliefs, giving lip service to an antiquated book that seems to have the same power as the bible to these people. I believe in God, no problems there, but still I struggle with this thing.

The fellowship has also been hard for me, being introverted and trying to friend other self-centered alcoholics hasn't been easy. A lot of people almost seemed brainwashed to me as well, like I can't talk to them about these type of things. Accept the program or die a slow alcoholic death seems to be the general vibe. You must do this for the rest of your life or die.

I at least now have a sponsor who I can share some of these concerns with and he seems to understand for the most part, I respect and like the guy a lot. He's been sober for about 8yrs, since he was 16, AA is just second nature to him. I don't want that to become me to be honest, I don't want to be defined or kept down by this thing, for it to become my life.

I've had one (small) relapse since first getting sober last July. I don't want to ever go back to my life before that, but I don't want to be a part of a religion or cult. I want friends, but with people who think for themselves and don't bow down to some dead guys named Bill and Dr. Bob.

Maybe this is all just contempt prior to investigation, but I was kind of excited when I first started going to meetings. That excitement died pretty fast. No, I still haven't worked the steps (yet) and I don't do service, so maybe I don't have ground to say anything. Maybe I'm just over-analyzing everything (probably), but I just can't give myself to this "simple" program.

Would love to hear others thoughts on this and AA in general, thanks for reading.