spiritual/religious yet AA hasn't worked for me
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Join Date: May 2010
Location: East Coast
Posts: 1,906
this shouldn't turn into a pissing contest on the fundimentals of AA or why it didn't work for him. it didn't work for whatever reason.
Some areas just don't have great groups and that ought not be blamed on the newcomer not being "teachable or openminded"...some places just plain suck.
i agree that the SMART program is a good tool. this place is a good tool. i use only this place now as my mainline to the world of addiction recovery after years around AA.
therapy is also a good tool. i think whatever you can do to take positive steps towards a healthy life is a good idea.
Some areas just don't have great groups and that ought not be blamed on the newcomer not being "teachable or openminded"...some places just plain suck.
i agree that the SMART program is a good tool. this place is a good tool. i use only this place now as my mainline to the world of addiction recovery after years around AA.
therapy is also a good tool. i think whatever you can do to take positive steps towards a healthy life is a good idea.
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Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Ireland
Posts: 46
Unfortunately, the real principles of AA are of powerlessness and unmanageability of one's entire life. Though the book talks of 'suggestions',
Bill W goes on to state many times that if you don't do the program, the way he has set it out, you will die etc.
The concept of powerlessness is used to persuade the member that they cannot even live properly themselves, they need AA. Every time I would feel bad, I would be told 'you need to surrender', 'you haven't realised your life is unmanageable' and things similar to this. As if feeling bad is somehow a disease symptom.
To me personally, the 12 steps are about guilt induction, indoctrination into needing AA forever, and a sidestepping of the issue of the morality of drinking for an alcoholic. Nowhere are there instructions on how to quit an addiction.
Bill W goes on to state many times that if you don't do the program, the way he has set it out, you will die etc.
The concept of powerlessness is used to persuade the member that they cannot even live properly themselves, they need AA. Every time I would feel bad, I would be told 'you need to surrender', 'you haven't realised your life is unmanageable' and things similar to this. As if feeling bad is somehow a disease symptom.
To me personally, the 12 steps are about guilt induction, indoctrination into needing AA forever, and a sidestepping of the issue of the morality of drinking for an alcoholic. Nowhere are there instructions on how to quit an addiction.
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Join Date: Jan 2009
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Originally Posted by Isaiah 
WakeUp, I know that and you know that, but I fear not everyone in AA knows that. 
Unfortunately, I have found a lot of people in AA and on SR who simultaneously claim that AA is open to all and has no creed, and then make statements that are extremely creedal and exclusionary. It might not be good AA but it happens and the offenders often refuse to accept that they are pushing religious dogmatism through AA. It concerns me some because I don't wish for people who's spiritual ideas are heterodox to the AA mainstream to feel unwelcome.
Unfortunately, I have found a lot of people in AA and on SR who simultaneously claim that AA is open to all and has no creed, and then make statements that are extremely creedal and exclusionary. It might not be good AA but it happens and the offenders often refuse to accept that they are pushing religious dogmatism through AA. It concerns me some because I don't wish for people who's spiritual ideas are heterodox to the AA mainstream to feel unwelcome.
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Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Hull, England.
Posts: 169
We need AA? Our real reliance is upon God. Sidestepping the morality? Selfishness, self centredness....the root. Instructions on how to quit? God does for us what we could not do for ourselves. Feel bad? Lookt at my part in it, ask God to remove the feeling and turn thoughts to what we can do for others. But......whatever mate.
Adventures In SpaceTime
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Ottawa, Canada
Posts: 5,827
My first AA meeting was back in July of 1981. My last meeting was in Oct 2010. I've been continously sober since 1981. Attending AA did not in itself get me sober. I detoxed in a residential rehab and stayed for three months because I really needed that face-2-face drunk-on-drunk personal experience of sharing ESH to get past my own drinking. I could not do it alone, and for that I'm a grateful AA member. Without AA there would have not been any rehab for me to get sober in, and there would have not been any meetings to attend and there would have been very few sober alcoholics for me to share with, if any. AA has changed the world already and there is no way things would be as they are without AA being what it was, and what it is today, and for that matter what it will be tomorrow.
Somewhere around 11 months of sobriety I knew that I was not the same man I was when first starting my sober journey. As I changed so changed my life. As my living a sober spiritual life became more and more my daily experience my reasons for being in AA changed as well. I became more of a giver than a taker, more a member to offer ESH first than to require it first, more a person to have a life outside of AA then my entire life was inside of AA. So for me, my AA experience was always getting better and finally I just slowed down on my attendance and eventually did not go to AA for years at a time. I would attend a meeting here and there, but for the most part I did very well with just having private fellowship with other recovered alcoholics. We did not need "meetings" to experience our common sobriety, and so we simply didn't attend. It just wasn't "required. These people I'm talking about are still sober today, and they all have over 25 years of sobriety today. They also originally got sober in the rehab same as me.
I'm posting on this thread to say there is a vast difference in attending AA meetings not living a sober spiritual life and when actually living such a life. It really is a huge, huge difference, and I cannot say it enough what a difference the AA experience is before living such a spiritual life and after achieving the reality of spiritual living. Like night and day. I think it is important to see the differences in how people post their experiences of AA both pro and con, both spiritual and not spiritual.
AA is not the end all or be all for alcoholics getting spiritual. It is simply another path among many other paths towards sober spiritual living, and at the end of the day, each of us has to be responsible to ourselves and our own understanding of if AA is such a path for ourselves. AA is not for everybody, never was, never will be, and never should be. AA is what it is, a program of recovery that works for many alcoholics, but certainly not every alcoholic. Live and let live.
Robby
Somewhere around 11 months of sobriety I knew that I was not the same man I was when first starting my sober journey. As I changed so changed my life. As my living a sober spiritual life became more and more my daily experience my reasons for being in AA changed as well. I became more of a giver than a taker, more a member to offer ESH first than to require it first, more a person to have a life outside of AA then my entire life was inside of AA. So for me, my AA experience was always getting better and finally I just slowed down on my attendance and eventually did not go to AA for years at a time. I would attend a meeting here and there, but for the most part I did very well with just having private fellowship with other recovered alcoholics. We did not need "meetings" to experience our common sobriety, and so we simply didn't attend. It just wasn't "required. These people I'm talking about are still sober today, and they all have over 25 years of sobriety today. They also originally got sober in the rehab same as me.
I'm posting on this thread to say there is a vast difference in attending AA meetings not living a sober spiritual life and when actually living such a life. It really is a huge, huge difference, and I cannot say it enough what a difference the AA experience is before living such a spiritual life and after achieving the reality of spiritual living. Like night and day. I think it is important to see the differences in how people post their experiences of AA both pro and con, both spiritual and not spiritual.
AA is not the end all or be all for alcoholics getting spiritual. It is simply another path among many other paths towards sober spiritual living, and at the end of the day, each of us has to be responsible to ourselves and our own understanding of if AA is such a path for ourselves. AA is not for everybody, never was, never will be, and never should be. AA is what it is, a program of recovery that works for many alcoholics, but certainly not every alcoholic. Live and let live.
Robby
Adventures In SpaceTime
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Ottawa, Canada
Posts: 5,827
Originally Posted by Benowhere
In other words, don't criticise.
RR
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Join Date: Jul 2010
Posts: 144
2. No not feel pressured into revealing things about yourself or your life, especially in meetings. Your concerns about having your personal business discussed among group members or outsiders are valid. If you do decide to reveal things, pick your confidantes carefully and take your time doing so.
3. You do not need to have a sponsor. This is a tool of the AA program, not a requirement. If you do use a sponsor, take your time making the choice.
*******************************************
I think these two points are worth repeating in this discussion. Regarding "inventory," the Big Book itself is very clear about choosing the "right" person (who most certainly does not have to be a fellow AA member) and finding the appropriate time to discuss personal issues to discuss those issues.
It seems to me that it's very easy to believe that one must find, in a given room of AA, some sort of "guru" who, by his or her role of a "sponsor," must be the person to whom a "confession" is given and who must be privy to the particulars your "inventory" as opposed to someone who can "ask the right questions" and guide how you think about your past and problems ; i.e., interpretation of the BB and experience.
3. You do not need to have a sponsor. This is a tool of the AA program, not a requirement. If you do use a sponsor, take your time making the choice.
*******************************************
I think these two points are worth repeating in this discussion. Regarding "inventory," the Big Book itself is very clear about choosing the "right" person (who most certainly does not have to be a fellow AA member) and finding the appropriate time to discuss personal issues to discuss those issues.
It seems to me that it's very easy to believe that one must find, in a given room of AA, some sort of "guru" who, by his or her role of a "sponsor," must be the person to whom a "confession" is given and who must be privy to the particulars your "inventory" as opposed to someone who can "ask the right questions" and guide how you think about your past and problems ; i.e., interpretation of the BB and experience.
Last edited by tmbg; 11-29-2010 at 08:44 AM. Reason: omission
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Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: far far from home
Posts: 373
Merc,
Some of the most powerful posts on here for me are when you speak about your liver, I appreciate it since it reminds me where the booze took me and will take me again with a just a sip of the sauce.
Alot of talk about that sitting in a meeting won't get you sober. It got me sober and after doing it for 10 months led me to a guy who showed me the steps. I hear others question why doing the steps is sometimes perceived as wrong or unpopular in AA nowadays. I feel the same way about meetings, seems that people are down on meetings. I love them.
For me sitting in a room full of drunks, honest drunks, saved my freaking life. It was not the spiritual path or the smiling faces or the 12 steps that kept me coming but it was the stories of what it was like. When I heard people that were brave enough to mention that they drank in the morning, pissed themselves, stole, lied, cheated and hurt the ones they love, then I stopped feeling so damn alone. I was not some freak or mental defective anymore, I was a member of Silkworth's distinct class.
Sitting in a room and identifying with other alcoholics just brings me tremendous relief. And Merc, I learned one thing through experience, you do not have to love AA for it to love you and help you. Heck, you don't even have to like it. I at times have hated AA and cursed both it and God but they are both always there for me without fail.
But it isn't for everyone, and like the BB says we hold no monopoly on God, surely there are others ways. God is everything or he is nothing.
And I can't hold this in, yeahgr8 what's up with labeling people "crazy", pretty bold putting that label on someone you have not met. But I guess according to you anyone not doing it exactly your way is crazy. I have heard you refer to the "unrecovered crazies" in other threads I think.
Some of the most powerful posts on here for me are when you speak about your liver, I appreciate it since it reminds me where the booze took me and will take me again with a just a sip of the sauce.
Alot of talk about that sitting in a meeting won't get you sober. It got me sober and after doing it for 10 months led me to a guy who showed me the steps. I hear others question why doing the steps is sometimes perceived as wrong or unpopular in AA nowadays. I feel the same way about meetings, seems that people are down on meetings. I love them.
For me sitting in a room full of drunks, honest drunks, saved my freaking life. It was not the spiritual path or the smiling faces or the 12 steps that kept me coming but it was the stories of what it was like. When I heard people that were brave enough to mention that they drank in the morning, pissed themselves, stole, lied, cheated and hurt the ones they love, then I stopped feeling so damn alone. I was not some freak or mental defective anymore, I was a member of Silkworth's distinct class.
Sitting in a room and identifying with other alcoholics just brings me tremendous relief. And Merc, I learned one thing through experience, you do not have to love AA for it to love you and help you. Heck, you don't even have to like it. I at times have hated AA and cursed both it and God but they are both always there for me without fail.
But it isn't for everyone, and like the BB says we hold no monopoly on God, surely there are others ways. God is everything or he is nothing.
And I can't hold this in, yeahgr8 what's up with labeling people "crazy", pretty bold putting that label on someone you have not met. But I guess according to you anyone not doing it exactly your way is crazy. I have heard you refer to the "unrecovered crazies" in other threads I think.
Adventures In SpaceTime
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Ottawa, Canada
Posts: 5,827
Originally Posted by Chops
For me sitting in a room full of drunks, honest drunks, saved my freaking life. It was not the spiritual path or the smiling faces or the 12 steps that kept me coming but it was the stories of what it was like. When I heard people that were brave enough to mention that they drank in the morning, pissed themselves, stole, lied, cheated and hurt the ones they love, then I stopped feeling so damn alone. I was not some freak or mental defective anymore, I was a member of Silkworth's distinct class.
Sitting in a room and identifying with other alcoholics just brings me tremendous relief. And Merc, I learned one thing through experience, you do not have to love AA for it to love you and help you. Heck, you don't even have to like it. I at times have hated AA and cursed both it and God but they are both always there for me without fail.
Yeah, and there would be no AA if members did not do the program of the 12 steps. It would have died off many mnay years ago if all members ever did was show up at whatever meeting. Me thinks you have done more of the program of AA then you say you have Chops, even in the begining days, is my unasked for opinion. <G> Guess I'm just seeing things differently from my own ESH.
Anyways, I too shared back and forth with fellow alcoholics and I didn't know anything about the program in those first times. Looking back, I knew more than I realized. Not saying that is what you'll end up saying about yourself, its really not my business, now or later, as you know.
Just thought i wanted to say you may not be as unique in your experience with AA as you seem to be coming across as, to me anyways from the way I'm taking it. Hey, have a great day!
Robby
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Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: UK
Posts: 4,682
Originally Posted by Chops
And I can't hold this in, yeahgr8 what's up with labeling people "crazy", pretty bold putting that label on someone you have not met. But I guess according to you anyone not doing it exactly your way is crazy. I have heard you refer to the "unrecovered crazies" in other threads I think.
You and i are different and that is important for people to realise...i could not have managed a week sober without starting the work on the steps immediately and having focus and hope on them and my sponsor, people told me to go to meetings and, after a few, i thought what for? You were able to attend meetings and stay sober for 10 months on meetings alone...that to me was not possible...
There will maybe be other people reading this that will think yeah i could do 10 months with some group support and others who will think jeez i couldnt even do 10 days i'm screwed...so i guess we both have people out there we can help:-)
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Join Date: Oct 2008
Posts: 6,947
Originally Posted by yeahgr8
it still would be a really good idea to judge the person someone is going to listen to with regard to their sobriety though and work out pretty quick which are the still crazy ones..
I am only just now getting to a place where I recognize the crazies... and they are out there... and of course our definition of crazy may be different, and that's probably as it should be. Judging another is pretty tough and I would have to offer, respectfully, a dissenting opinion to yours... How does a newly recovering alkie know, really, who's crazy.
Can a crazy person get someone through the steps enough to get recovered enough to identify with those he needs too?
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Join Date: Sep 2010
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Posts: 1,000
Originally Posted by mercurial me
If anyone has anything to share from their experiences with AA & can relate to my concerns I would be hugely grateful. Thanks
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Join Date: Oct 2008
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Originally Posted by yeahgr8
however it still would be a really good idea to judge the person someone is going to listen to with regard to their sobriety though and work out pretty quick which are the still crazy ones...
Thankfully God did that work for me.
If you think your in control of picking who helps a drunk then good luck with that.
Adventures In SpaceTime
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Ottawa, Canada
Posts: 5,827
yeah i too couldn't figure out what to have for breakfast, but at the end of the day, sooner or later i ate something anyways. Not knowing what to do was not alwasy the thing that stopped me from doing, lol. I think we all come into AA judging this and that, including what we think of others and their sobriety or lack-there-of. I've never met an alcoholic who hasn't had to review their experiences of judging of others, and from there make changes for the better.
FWIW, my two cents, sanity and insanity is such a subjective experience to share one sober drunk to another. We all have been there none the less though, lost in crazyland through our drinking, and the way forward out from there is a process and not an event. No one of us has the only key that unlocks all the locks. That single key belongs to a higher power than any of us are personally ourselves today, ever were in the past, or will be tomorrow. We can live free today but we are not ourselves the agents of our freedom from alcoholism.
Rob
FWIW, my two cents, sanity and insanity is such a subjective experience to share one sober drunk to another. We all have been there none the less though, lost in crazyland through our drinking, and the way forward out from there is a process and not an event. No one of us has the only key that unlocks all the locks. That single key belongs to a higher power than any of us are personally ourselves today, ever were in the past, or will be tomorrow. We can live free today but we are not ourselves the agents of our freedom from alcoholism.
Rob
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Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: UK
Posts: 4,682
Love this thread!
Im trying to give some advice based on my experience to merc, i totally agree that as a newcomer we are the last people that should be deciding anything which is why ive been posting on this thread...
So to help any newcomer choose a decent sponsor here is my definition of a non (potential...happy everyone?!) crazy who can help them recover from alcoholism just like someone did for me:
1. Follows the suggestions laid out in the Big Book to the letter
2. Asks if you are ready and willing to do the work that is associated with the steps under their guidance to provoke a spiritual awakening
3. Has worked the steps themselves and got their own spiritual awakening
That's it in a nutshell, anything other than is written in the Big Book is an opinion and if you want to base your future life and sobriety on an opinion then you deserve everything you get...if however you want to recover from alcoholism like millions have in AA choose my non-crazy to help you...
Ok enough with the crazy...but being completely serious...use the 3 points i have written to find someone to help you recover and, if you really are ready and willing, anyone will recover from alcoholism...it really is that simple:-)
Im trying to give some advice based on my experience to merc, i totally agree that as a newcomer we are the last people that should be deciding anything which is why ive been posting on this thread...
So to help any newcomer choose a decent sponsor here is my definition of a non (potential...happy everyone?!) crazy who can help them recover from alcoholism just like someone did for me:
1. Follows the suggestions laid out in the Big Book to the letter
2. Asks if you are ready and willing to do the work that is associated with the steps under their guidance to provoke a spiritual awakening
3. Has worked the steps themselves and got their own spiritual awakening
That's it in a nutshell, anything other than is written in the Big Book is an opinion and if you want to base your future life and sobriety on an opinion then you deserve everything you get...if however you want to recover from alcoholism like millions have in AA choose my non-crazy to help you...
Ok enough with the crazy...but being completely serious...use the 3 points i have written to find someone to help you recover and, if you really are ready and willing, anyone will recover from alcoholism...it really is that simple:-)
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