Originally Posted by novips

You write: "I tried AA for months and worked the steps and that didn't seem to help it was always listening to the same old stories from the same old people." I have heard this a lot and whenever I sit down with someone making a statement like this and review the steps in reverse it turns out they are lying to themselves about actually having worked the steps. You can try this yourself. Start with the 12th Step: How many guys have you sponsored and taken through the Steps? Then perhaps jump to the 9th Step: How many amends did you have on your list after completing your 4th and 5th Step? How many of those amends have you made? And so on. I have a high degree of confidence that if your experience of A.A. is that it's "always listening to the same old stories from the same old people" -- then you probably haven't truly worked the Steps. I could obviously be wrong about that -- but that's what my experience strongly suggests. As the Big Book says: "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." Feel free to PM me if you want to chat more about any of that.