In Reply to: Re: Rings true to me, what you said posted by jo on February 12, 2008 at 03:04:44:
Jo, i'm posting this not to argue with you, but i do have a few things i want to say about my experience ... to me it sounds like you went to a pretty lousy aa group ... i'm an aa member and i've heard some pretty off the wall things in meetings, not suprisingly since aa's are drunks (who at least don't drink anymore) so from time to time you will hear some strange things, i'm glad that so far i haven't heard anything as extreme as what you heard, and if I did and the group i was going to liked that kind of cultic thought i'd find another group ... in fact i did change groups once because there were 2 old timers who were too controlling ... it reminded me too much of the Fam., but overall i've found aa to be a place where there's freedom to be an individual, to be independent in one's thinking, this is the very thing that attracts me to aa.
as a family member and an alcoholic i managed to live in roller coaster active alcoholism for years ... eventually i left the family and right away i hit a low bottom, again, but i called aa and i've been a member since then, i've learned to live and to be happy without alcohol, i haven't had a drop to drink for years, i've learned a lot about feet-on-the ground spirituality.
at the same time ... i used the aa recovery program, the 12 steps, to recover from the dysfunctional cultic life experience i lived as a family member.
it is a drag that sometimes there are some aa groups that become cult-like ... they can do more damage than good ... from reading many of your posts you seem to have really done well without aa, i'm really glad for that ... aa doesn't work for everyone and they find something that works better for them and i thank my higher power for that ... :-)