awuh1

alaek, I see that Tom Steve must not have seen your question about where that quote was from. It's at the beginning of the personel stories for section 2.

Interesting interpretation of the first step, but it's completely wrong. The first step says. "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable". Nothing in the step about other people. Nothing there about their ability (or inability) to help us. Nada zip. The first step is just 13 words. It's about taking action, about making an admission. That's all. It's simple as can be. It's a distortion to say it says something other than what's clearly stated in those 13 words.

These things are done all the time. People are told that cravings don't last forever in all sorts of ways (e.g. this too shall pass), they are told to call their sponsor (pick up the phone before you pick up a drink) and to remember HALT (hungry angry lonely tired) as things to watch out for. Is this stuff in the program? No. But it does exist as wisdom in the rooms and there is alot wisdom there. These are things a sponsor can be quite helpful with as well.

Again it is not "the AA line...that there was nothing they could do to help someone who felt an urge to drink". What you describe does not even sound like an AA meeting. In fact I have never (in the many thousands of meetings I have attended) been to an AA meeting where anything like what you are referring to has taken place. In fact, my experience is exaxtly like tomsteve's who says: Why is your experience so consistently different from what other people experience miami? Could it be something to do with how you interpret things (step 1 for example)?