Hey, AA members, define clean and sober.

I would rather be around a pothead than a drunk, ANY day.

There are groups within AA who frown on psychiatric medication and consider you to be "using" if you take anti-depressants. The Pacific Group in L.A. and its offshoots across the country.

That sounds dangerous, R2. Almost like the $cienos.

My drugs of choice were alcohol and pot, so I consider sobriety abstaining from both. R2: I've heard individuals "frown on" antidepressants or painkillers, etc., but never an AA group taking a position on that -- it's not how AA works. What's the Pacific Group?

Almost all people in recover smoke cigs from what I've seen/heard, they actually tend to increase the amount they smoke.

Cigarettes and coffee are ok, pot is not, to be clean and sober, as far as I know. Medication is ok, but if you abuse it, take it not as prescribed, then that's not sober.

I don't know how prescribed pot stands with AA.

As far as I know, anti-depressants are ok. That must be one f'd-up AA group if they're against anti-depressants. In the end, I personally think it's up to the individual to figure it out for themselves. It's their life and health, after all.

Pot is no worse than cigarettes imo - tobacco in fact may be more harmful to health.

AA is specifically about alcohol so sober is abstaining from alcohol. However, it's common for people to replace one addiction with another, thus there is danger there.

OP are you the fink who tells on bosses, coworkers, children, and neighbors?

You work in a library, right?

You buy a lot of coffee cakes and don't like to share?

AA isn't supposed to take positions, but "gurus" within AA like Clancy from the Pacific Group and its offshoots do take positions very stridently and dangerously.

I've only skimmed this article. (I just did a "Pacific Group Clancy" search.) It says they "discourage" anti-depressants, which might be the outward "PR" position, but there are sponsors who will tell their sponsees that they are not sober if taking anti-depressants. Or they will drop them as sponsees if they do start taking them.

Yes, it's very much like Scientology. I don't consider AA to be a cult, but these hardcore idiots like Clancy wish to elevate and deify themselves in the eyes of others just like L. Ron Hubbard. They are the substitutes for drugs and alcohol. L. Ron forbade any psychiatric medication and set out a bizarre regimen/blueprint for others to follow and line his pockets with cash. Only difference is that AA gurus don't get rich off of it. (Although they may have sponsees come to their home and perform yardwork, home improvement tasks, etc. to their benefit like Clancy does).

Another thing that L. Ron and AA share in common is prolific smoking. L. Ron was a huge smoker so it's OK in Scientology and many Scienos drop dead of lung cancer. Many years ago I read a stat that people in AA are more likely to die of lung cancer than drinking- related illnesses. Interesting, no?

R8 - Former criminal defense attorney. I've never bought a coffee cake in my life. But I have dealt with alcohol and drug addicts my entire career.

So your assumption was basically spot on. You're really good at this.

Than take your inventory and leave your drunky friend alone!

In AA, sobriety is very black-and-white. To all other reasonable people, sobriety is subjective.

If you can smoke a joint now and then and not have it dominate your life, do it. No need to share this information in your AA meetings. You'll open the door to judgement, shunning, and open criticism.

So many people in AA (perhaps even the majority of members), while abstaining from alcohol, engage in any number of other, equally self-destructive behaviors but refuse to acknowledge it. But if you smoke pot a few times a year - CHANGE YOUR SOBRIETY DATE!!

Do what works for you and don't give it another thought.

OP, bring it up for discussion at your next Women's Closed Step Meeting and see what they say.

You'll want to go stoned, of course, and wear yoga pants, of course.

Stay away from Clancy and his Nuts and Bolts groups. That is EXTREME AA. VERY JUDGMENTAL, not like traditional AA groups

What R9 said. Clancy and his Pacific group are crazy. They even separate the men from the women at their meetings.

R12 is the voice of reason. Addicts cannot control their use of whatever substance it may be ruling their life. Vodka was my drug of choice and there came a point where I could not control it.

Drugs were never a big part of my life. I could take a joint or leave it. This is how a non-alcoholic can drink, I cannot. I occasionally have a few hits on a joint to unwind, but it is rare.

AA helped me put a distance between me and alcohol. It gave me sober time to develop reasons and responsibilities to stay sober for. Most people in AA are non-judgemental when it comes to relapses but chronic/low level use is not acceptable to most, and I agree with them.

I got sober in AA in New York so I have no idea who this guy Clancy is but he sounds fucked up. And if a sponsor or anyone in AA tries to give you advice or tell you what to do in regard to antidepressants: run!

And not everyone in AA smokes -- I've been going to meetings since 1983 and a lot fewer AA people smoke today than 30 years ago, just like with the general population.

No alcohol OR drugs. No gray area here. I did gain weight from overeating, but that's another 12-step program...

[quote]No alcohol OR drugs. No gray area here.

This is AA's biggest flaw. You're celebrated for not having had a drink for a year or ten, but often times the same people still shoplift, troll the web for bareback sex, or smoke cigarettes.

Be reasonable - if you can do something without it ruining your life, then do it. A non-alcoholic doesn't need to stop drinking, so why should a someone who's not/never has been/never will be addicted to pot be expected to abstain from it?

If you are really clean and sober you won't take or use any mind altering substances (pot, Ambien, benzodiazepines, even benadryl)

Sober = alcohol-free

Clean = recreational drug-free

You CAN'T be "sober", and "high" at the same time.

It's a spiritual program of abstinence.

it's an abstinence program of spirituality.

[quote]Another thing that L. Ron and AA share in common is prolific smoking.

Oh that's bullshit!

For one thing it's Alcoholics Anonymous, not Cigarettes Anonymous, and I would peg the ratio of cig smokers lower in AA than in society at large. People in AA reason not to try to do too much at once vis a vis moving, work, smoking, relationships, etc., but many if not most sober smokers I have known try to work the steps on the smoking thing, and are relatively successful.

On the other hand, who cares, that's hardly a comparable issue. I don't know a soul who smoked some cigarettes, then crashed his car into a school bus full of kids! You're just a crazed AA hater.

Oh, and the Clancy/Pacific Group cult is highly regarded as INSANE by most other people in AA. You'd think he invented AA, which of course he didn't. Weirdos think he's great, of course.

Many people are looking for a father figure, someone who will tell them what to do and how to do it. Clancy is that person for some while others go to churches with ministers who do the same thing. All of the sober people I know and respect question the need for that kind of control on the part of both the controller and the controllee. I know someone in Clancy's family who refuses to be around him. He's as judgmental with his own family as he is with everyone else. I've always given him a very wide berth because I think he's an asshole who considers himself a holy man.

No sane person would ever tell anyone they should not use antidepressants. A close AA friend who thought he shouldn't take meds (because then he wouldn't be sober) killed himself by running out onto an interstate in front of an 18-wheeler. The only good thing that came of it is that the people who preached against using psychiatric meds shut up after that.

I have had to take a couple of courses of narcotics since I've been sober. I've relied on friends who are active in both NA and AA during those times. NA has well established common sense guidelines for how to get through the times when we have to use drugs.

As for pot, that's a purely individual decision. Seems to me medicinal pot is the same as any other drug and probably safer than most. A neighbor who has a pot prescription has been able to function better with chronic pain since she began using pot. She's cut way back on the oxycodone and she's not out of it like she was.

Clean = no drugs.

Sober = no booze.

r24 thinks you can be sober and high at the same time.

Nertz to that. It doesn't work that way.

Supposedly from what I have heard AA frowns on any pills that can be used for "recreation"

Anti-depressants don't really make you high so they are ok. They only bring depressed people back to normal. It wouldn't make you happier if you took a whole bunch of them.

[quote]If you are really clean and sober you won't take or use any mind altering substances (pot, Ambien, benzodiazepines, even benadryl)

Benadryl?

In what sense is an antihistamine a mind-altering drug? It's for allergies (with an off-label use as a sleep aid). So, Tylenol PM is a mind-altering substance.

Well, I just went to the doctor for a spider bite, and she told me to take a Benadryl tonight. I expect a mind-altering experience (or a really sound sleep).

You're not "clean and sober" if you're smoking pot; you're getting high, and that is definitely NOT being sober. It's like an alcoholic saying "I'm clean and sober now; I only drink beer or wine." It's bullshit.

I've been to a lot of AA meetings. Cigarettes and coffee aren't considered the equivalent of drugs or booze, so they're not prohibited. Boy, are they not! Recovering addicts and alcoholics tend to smoke a lot and drink a lot of coffee. They need to have something, as long as it's not drugs or booze.

what r1 said. fuck drunks

I have met many people who are in AA. Many are fine but most are judgemental, rigid and dogmatic. They are often humorless and seem to resent anyone who is having more fun than they are. Plus the whole "I am helpless against the drug" stuff seems to imply helplessness.

[quote]Be reasonable - if you can do something without it ruining your life, then do it. A non-alcoholic doesn't need to stop drinking, so why should a someone who's not/never has been/never will be addicted to pot be expected to abstain from it?

No one will tell you you "can't" have pot. Anything you do is your own choice. But it is strongly discouraged in both AA and NA to take ANY mind altering substance because overwhelmingly it leads true addicts right back to their DOC.

You may not really like pot, but if you indulge and you are an alcoholic, you are highly likely to begin drinking again as well. It's just the facts. Talk to addicts who relapse. They always point to "cheat" behaviors such as using an alternate means of getting high as their downfall.

[quote]You may not really like pot, but if you indulge and you are an alcoholic, you are highly likely to begin drinking again as well. It's just the facts.

Hogwash. I am a hard-core alcoholic. I have not had a drink in 19 years but I do smoke pot. Pot never ever makes me crave a drink. The horror of what alcohol did to my life keeps me off the booze. I enjoy marijuana and it doesn't destroy my life the way alcohol did.

Clancy and his group are I N S A N E. And very homophobic give A.A. a bad name. Nuts to his Nuts and Bolts.

Well, R33, maybe pot won't bring you back to alcohol as easily, but there is a strong correlation with relapse the other way around. Drug addicts who say they never liked to drink much often say a few drinks is all it took to lead them right back to their drug of choice. It's a fairly common relapse story.

What I think many of you don't realize is that AA has changed over the years, and that AA differs from group to group, from one geographic area to another, from men's groups to women's groups. Some groups preach complete abstinence from everything BUT cigarettes and coffee. Some groups will chastise you for an Advil.

I sat through an entire AA meeting where everyone shamed a woman who had just been prescribed lithium (back in the early 80s). This was a gay meeting, BTW, and I'm sure you can imagine the way the men treated her.

I was taught in AA that a drug is a drug is a drug, and I refused to take anti-depressants I desperately needed for 10+ years. I dreamed daily of killing myself; I was literally suicidal every single day. Frankly, I don't know how I survived. All because of the tenets of AA, back before they decided anti-depressants were OK.

I outgrew AA, and no longer believe anything they teach there. I believe it to be a cult, most evidenced by the vehemence with which its members defend it and "go by the Big Book."

I consider myself clean and sober, however -- thirty three years this year. I take two kinds of anti-depressants, and I had morphine and pain meds after I had a horrible car accident. No worries stopping the meds when the pain was gone.

I'd say I am a success story. But not because of AA.

I've been attending AA meetings for about five years now. Half the people I know in AA are on antidepressants or other psychiatric meds. They are open about it, talk about it in meetings, and no one gives them shit about it. The view in the meetings I attend is that so long as you take meds as prescribed, it's fine.

There may have been stigma and disapproval of psychiatric meds in AA in the past, but that's not the way it is anymore. R36, I am sorry about your experience -- it must have been awful. But I wouldn't want anyone to be dissuaded from checking out AA because they think they'd have to give up antidepressants. That's not the prevalent attitude these days.

It's also not the prevalent attitude in any of the meetings I have attended to "shame" people. I can't even conceive of that. In fact, it is a stated rule in all the meetings i have ever attended that you are not permitted to give advice or state opinions, only to share your OWN experience.

With AA & NA, what I struggle with is the idea of calling addiction a "disease" and then insisting that the only cure is spiritual. If it is a disease then the cure should be found in science and medicine.

If you smoke you are a drug addict. You can pretend that you are not and talk about your recovery, but you are still a pathetic drug addict.

R39: I think the disease concept came about for a practical purpose: to get the medical profession to take alcoholism seriously as a physical addiction that sometimes required in-patient medical care. Then it was useful for insurance purposes. There is a science of addiction but given the complexities of the human brain it could be decades before a "cure" is found -- if one ever is.

What about poppers?

Drugs, R42.

I have to concur with R33. My husband was a hardcore alcoholic. Things came to a head and I demanded he choose. He quit cold turkey. Never touched a drop. He went to one AA meeting and completely dissagreed with the dogma. He is still sober after 30 years. We both use cannabis for anxiety. Alcohol was destroying our lives and relationship. Cannabis has only enhanced it.

Drugs were so much worse than alcohol for me. Ruined my life at a time when there was no sense of drugs other than heroin, which I never used, being addictive.

Alcohol, by comparison, was baby food. But I quit doing both. 30 years ago.

Marijuana only made me thirsty, hungry, and paranoid. I've never understood its popularity.

R45...depends on the strain and you personal chemistry.

Stay away from Big Book meetings...they're boring, and you'll find judgemental old timers there.

Only go to open topic meetings... when people bring Big Books to meetings and start reading from them, I want to jump out of the window. So stay away from BIG BOOK meetings.

The Big Book is the most boring, dated book--I don't know how anyone could be helped by it. It is almost 100 years old and not relevant to our lives.

No alcohol & no drugs that are not prescribed (& no abusing those).

If you go to a Big Book meeting and listen to how other people identify with what is in the stories, you may find that there are truths in the stories about human nature that are eternal and useful for your sobriety. Millions of people attend Big Book meetings regularly for those reasons, and more. If you're interested in AA, I'd suggest you try out all the various types of meetings that you can, and decide for yourself what you find of interest.

r36 you're fat, aren't you? And I mean really fat, right?

R29, you're right. The other thing that doesn't seem to be limited is sugar. Lots of donuts, cookies etc. to go with the coffee.

Unless you get behind the wheel, cigs will kill 99 percent of the populace faster then alcohol, even for those who have a bit of a "problem" (except for THE most extreme cases). That's stupid as shit that AA not only allows but seems to encourage that. Trading in one harmful addiction for an even more harmful one.

And I not even one of these anti-cig nazis, but wtf is the point of going to what is supposedly a recovery center only to develop an even worse habit?

Obviously, the experts are AA members. They are in your location. Call up their office, and ask to talk to someone who knows AA.

AA is not designed to solve every problem a person has. It deals with alcohol only, though depending on the group, it may also deal with illicit drugs. Not legal drugs like nicotine or caffeine; or with gambling; or shopping addiction; or debt; or anything else. It isn't a panacea for all one's problems. Don't throw stones because it only helps with one deadly problem.

R17 the Atlantic Group in NY is an offshoot of Clancy's Pacific Group in LA with the same ideas and problems.

Bump for outdated and damaging "program"

I got sober in AA. I quit going to meetings years ago but the basic tenets I learned from some wise people I met there are still part of my belief system.

Maybe I was one of the lucky ones, but I had been exposed to cults years before I got sober so it was easy to avoid cults that have formed within AA.

I quit smoking when I had a year of sobriety because I couldn't justify the addiction. I watched many people through the years use cigarettes and fiddling around with their coffee to avoid unpleasant topics. It was easier to sit and listen when I didn't have anything in front of me.

I know this thread is 3 years old, but I agree with the poster above about the Big Book. I could never get into it or anything else written by Bill Wilson.

What about popcorn?

How about a stinky pussy?

I gave up booze 25 years ago this month and cigs 10 years ago, also this month.

If I live to age 80, I will allow myself to take up both habits again, should I so choose.

I stopped smoking pot about 8 or 9 years before I got sober. Started to get very paranoid when I got stoned.

Gave up smoking cigarettes 5 months before I got sober. Realized even then that I smoked for emotional reasons; learned since then that nicotine inhibits emotional response.

Stopped doing poppers about 2 months before getting sober. They gave me terrible headaches, and I kept losing my hardon.

Officially came out of the closet and got struck sober on New Year's Eve, 1985. Went with an AA guy I thought would be an LTR, which more or less ended that night, when he told me he didn't have relationships with men in the program.

I had done Xanax, Dramamine, Percocet, Darvocet, other painkillers, but stopped all of them. Loved NyQuil back in those days, used to knock me out because it was 25% alcohol. Now it's 10%. (I checked.)

I don't use mouth wash with alcohol. I don't do poppers. I don't drink "near-beer," though I've seen many who do. I have no problem being with drinkers, but if they start to get out of hand, I usually have a Plan B, and leave.

As for psychotropic medications, read the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, page 133, second paragraph up from the bottom, where it's discussed that professional help is sometimes needed, when working a program isn't enough.

As for smoking pot in sobriety, where I got sober, in New York City, we used to call that practice, "Switching seats on the 'Titanic.'"

And, yes, I have been called a hardass by other members of AA. But, on the other hand, I have been able to live without any kind of drink or drug now for over 31 years. And I am also a firm believer in ongoing work with the Twelve Steps, which I tend to regard more like the spokes of a wheel, which continually need strengthening.

How other people work their programs is up to them. This is how I work mine.

To [R49]: If you don't like the AA Big Book, write your own God knows, a lot of other people have.

I went to the International AA Conference in San Diego, in 1995, where a man from Kaua'i had his own tent, where he was preaching, and selling his own version of the Big Book. I'm glad he was afforded the opportunity to set up in the area.

But I had no interest in reading his book. The AA Big Book is good enough for me.

And Clancy is a perfect example of personality over principles. All ego. I saw him speak at a big AA dinner in Honolulu, back in 1990. He was the after-banquet entertainment. That man was all over the place; even going to the extent of doing one-arm pushups, a la Jack Palance's recent performance after winning the Oscar. But, when he finally reached the point where he started talking about finally getting sober, he stopped all the 4th rate theatrics, and simply told his story, which was very moving.

Sad to say, his organization is out of control. He has his AA sponsees doing his yard work, for God's sake! And his acolytes treat others the same way. Got all showy sponsoring celebrities. Clancy's probably a frustrated actor. All ego.

But, as they say, in AA, take what you like and leave the rest. If the Pacific Group isn't your style, go elsewhere. There are hundreds of AA meetings all over the place. You'll find what works for you. I did.

"Sober" means not doing illicit, recreational drugs. Prescription drugs are ok, as long as you take them as directed, and are honest with yourself as to your need for them.

Cigarettes are ok, as is abusing food, sex, gambling, and so forth.

That's the definition of "sober". You may not like it, or you may, but that's what it means.

R63, YOU SOUND LIKE YOU HAVE NO JOY!!

r39, exactly! can you imagine a doctor telling a diabetic or skizo to practice the 12 steps?

Pacific group is right up there with scientology as far as I am concerned.

bump

Personally, although I am perfectly fine with acknowledging that addiction is a disease, I also think we can refer to it as a "thing" completely by itself.

R65, my ex and broke up once he started attending PG (as we here, in Los Angeles, refer to the Pacific Group).

This guy was a dead ringer for a young and hot Colin Farrell. Gorgeous. Smart, too, but very codependent and needy.

Anyhow, he started going to PG after being invited by one of the guys from his men's stag meeting. I was very supportive at first, I even attended that huge Wednesday night meeting with him several times.

Soon after, he started going to Clancy's house on Saturday mornings for games of volleyball, yard work, Hot dogs, and burgers. When I asked why Clancy didn't hire his own crew of gardeners and landscapers, my ex got very upset, saying that this was the problem with our original home group. We just didn't have "unity".

Eventually, he got himself a PG sponsor, and it became mandatory for him to attend the Wednesday night meeting, as well as pretty much every fucking meeting his sponsor went to.

I tried to go along, attending meetings and a plethora of social events with my then boyfriend. I became friendly with other members, and soon found myself being bossed around and being told to pick up newcomers and other members for meetings, or being volunteered for sponsorship of people I had never even met. The fact that I had strong boundaries, and said "no" to many of these requests, did not go over well.

I also made the troubling discovery that the PG was filled with hardcore Republicans, who loathed gays, lesbians, non-Christians, & non-Jews. (specifically Muslims). The Jews were "tolerated". Blacks and Hispanics were also tolerated as long as they had "adapted" and had well paying jobs, or spent Saturday mornings cleaning Clancy's yard and doing handyman projects on or in Clancy's home.

My ex had told his sponsor that I was on Wellbutrin at the time, which I was, and his sponsor told him that I was not sober as a result. My ex even suggested that I take a newcomer chip. At that time I had 8 years clean and sober, with no near beer, cigarettes, sustaining a very clean diet, and going to the gym 6 days a week.

After a year of this bullshit, I broke up with my ex, and gave him 30 days to find a new place to live. He moved out within 2 weeks, and relapsed shorty thereafter.

To each his own, but the Pacific Group is not the place for me.

r72, PG has a very bad reputation. Clancy is like L. Ron Hubbard

Hey [R67]! You jump to conclusions too easily!

And what's with writing in all caps!

Afraid people can't hear you?

Or are you drunk, or on something, or both?

Lol at idiots in AA who think they're sober even when they smoke pot. Pot is a drug dear, natural or not. You can get as fucked up on pot as alcohol.

R75 Reminds me of my brother-in-law at Christmas. His sister gave him a bottle of scotch. He responded "oh, I guess you don't know I quit drinking". Meanwhile, he literally had a glass of red wine in his hand as he spoke.

I do get it, he meant he quit drinking hard liquor, but it was pretty funny to me.

AA nazi at r74, r75

R77, it matters what words mean. You can't invent definitions and then expect others to understand you. If you're drinking, you haven't quit drinking. If you're getting high, you're not sober.

When I was losing myself inside a slot machine or a shoe of cards I wasn't sober either.

It took me way longer to finally stop gambling than drinking. When it comes to alcohol and gambling, I don't have that shut-down mechanism in my brain that non-addicts have.

It is a cult, first, last and always.

Cults require a leader like David Koresh, or Charles Manson, who personally exploit their followers. Aa has no leaders. The "failed at AA" people don't understand that definitions are stubborn things. You can't make up your own meaning.

r81, AA robot

R82, I just understand that you can't just make shit up, when debating an issue.

To be "clean and sober" is no alcohol, no drugs, and that includes pot. Cigarettes are ok. So is coffee. At an AA meeting there is much smoking and guzzling of coffee.

No drinking, no drugging.

Actually, cigarette smoking is frowned upon at every AA meeting I've been to since the turn of the century.

Also, the dangers of cigarettes have been so emphasized for so long that a lot of people quit smoking when or soon after they get sober, these days.

...though cigs are not counted when defining "sober".

AA is all about condemn shame and helplessness

R89 is all about blaming others for his own failings. It's not AA's fault that you screwed up your life.

"Actually, cigarette smoking is frowned upon at every AA meeting I've been to since the turn of the century."

I've never been to ANY AA meeting where smoking if "frowned upon." Nobody there gives a shit if you smoke. It's staying off the drugs or booze that's the issue.

Where do you live, r91, the south?

R91, smoking is prohibited inside most buildings so smoking would be prohibited at most meetings these days. Maybe not in some tobacco states, but I think that's unusual these days. Perhaps that is what is meant here.

AA is about recovery from alcoholism. It is not about recovery from smoking (anything) much less ones use of over-the-counter or Doctor prescribed drugs. I go to meetings for my addiction to alcohol. Not for my addiction to working, caffeine, sunbathing, internet surfing, shopping, television, or my favorite - gossiping. So, I'm not clean. But I am sober.

I have a very good friend who is a functioning alcoholic at 29. I try to help him by talking him through his problems. On occasion he'll go to an AA meeting. So my question is...does AA really help or is it a waste of time. Doesn't do much for him.he says he finds them depressing.

R95, it does really work, but it is not effortless.

You can't go to few, or occasional meetings alone. At least, not at first. The drinker needs to relearn an entire way of living. I'd recommend daily meetings for a year. After a year, you can reassess. Sometimes, if boredom is a trigger than turns one to drink, you might want to do a couple meetings daily until you get passed that trigger. In all likelihood, three years of daily meetings is probably what is necessary.

AA Works as it does, though, because many get sober and keep coming to meetings for decades to remind themselves of why they want to remain sober, and also out of altruism. They are there to actively help newcomers, and passively to serve as examples of sobriety for the newcomer. You don't have to keep coming to meetings, but you can.

But, R95, an occasional meeting does almost nothing for a new person.

It doesn't work for everybody. The negative nellies here are probably people who wanted an effortless cure; or mentally ill people who alienated everybody in their meetings and now blame them all for their loneliness. It does work for literally millions of people today.

r96, utter shill bS!

I asked Nan about this. She said if you're taking pills, even Paxil, your not sober.

What R96 said.

And you must go to any lengths.

Like Amy Dresner. She was whoring around general meetings, and not working the program. Finally her female sponsor had had enough and directed her to attend only gay men's meetings.

AA is boring as fuck

r99, I pray is a parody. I agree r00

bump shot glasses.

I've been sober for eight and a half years...but I stopped attending AA meetings three years ago. Too cult-like and cliquish for me. And the gay meetings are worse.

Everyone has their own definition. Mine is no alcohol, pot or other recreational drugs.

If you need to take something because you are seriously mentally ill without it, that is a different story. But people with addiction problems should be really wary of pain, anxiety, sleep meds, etc.

Any timers recall smoking in meetings?

So many AA members on this thread who are so judgmental and angry it seems.

Just smokin’ hot, R105.

You really have to go through "The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous" and draw your own conclusions. It's written with language that's deliberately vague and inclusive, such as "Most of us have found..." etc.

Different individual, local groups vote on their own formats and rules (such as, is this a gay meeting, is there a main speaker, is sharing from the floor limited to 5 mins. per person etc.), but AA as a group has as few rules as possible.

I have never known someone with long term sobriety (like, over a year) who smokes pot or uses un-prescribed drugs...or maybe they just didn't disclose it. No one's going to give you a drug test, though!

I smoked pot occasionally for the first 5 months of my sobriety, because I didn't hear it mentioned, then I saw a plaque on a wall that said "You Can't Be High and Sober at the Same Time," it made sense to me, and the jig was up.

Reading here reminded me of all the chores I did for sponsors. I think the sponsorship system is just a way to get free labor.

All of my sponsors told me my career was not humble enough so I should leave it until I had a few years of clean time behind me. They said that I would not be emotionally sober until I followed their suggestions.

It was too ridiculous. It was people who had been marginalized their whole lives finally getting the chance to order other people around and going power mad.

I define clean and sober as being drug and alcohol free. They define it as letting ignorant people micromanage your life.

R109, yeah, I had a sponsor something like that, not quite as bad. There ought to be a chapter in the Big Book on that! Despite all that, I got sober, so, you take the good with the bad.

R18 No alcohol OR drugs. No gray area here.

[quote]R19 This is AA's biggest flaw. You're celebrated for not having had a drink for a year or ten, but often times the same people still shoplift, troll the web for bareback sex, or smoke cigarettes.

That is not "AA's" biggest flaw. It may be "one member's biggest flaw" (if that poster even is an AA member), but It seems harsh to pin that opinion on all of AA.

Founder Bill Wilson experimented with LSD in the 60's or something and it's not like he was kicked out or anything...so it's a rather individual choice.

[quote] R81 Cults require a leader like David Koresh, or Charles Manson, who personally exploit their followers. Aa has no leaders. The "failed at AA" people don't understand that definitions are stubborn things. You can't make up your own meaning.

AA also does not make financial demands, and it doesn't isolate you from the outside world....which are other characteristics of cults. AA also encourages members to reach their own conclusions, which isn't what cults do. And the overall vibe in the Big Book is "this is what worked for us", acknowledging there are other possibilities out there. Cults drum into members that theirs is the only way.

I researched cults for a project once, and there was specifically a chapter discussing AA. The authors opinion was that AA is not a cult.

A specific AA group could BECOME a cult, just as different church group's (such as Jim Jones') have... But AA is set up much much more flexibly than what classifies as a cult. No one will stop anyone from leaving.

[quote]R107 Reading here reminded me of all the chores I did for sponsors. I think the sponsorship system is just a way to get free labor

Ick! I've never heard of anyone doing chores or labor for a sponsor. They're supposed to guide you through the steps.

Sorry you had a f-ed up string of sponsors!

R112, I do not know if AA is a cult and while it does not make financial demands, it does have financial consequences. Sponsors have no particular expertise in financial or career counseling, so a number of sponsees get into trouble following their suggestions. When I refused to listen to my sponsor, I was directed to a passage in the Big Book that said if you really followed the program fear of financial insecurity would disappear.

And yes, some sponsors do ask sponsees to close off communication to those outside the program.

It may not be a cult. It may help some people. But a lot of us refuse to just put all our life decisions into the hands of someone whose only qualification is that they stopped drinking six months before we did.

I quit drinking in August that year, and stayed clean and sober until that December, when I did cocaine at a party. It was something I never enjoyed, so I kept my August sobriety date. However, I got a new sponsor after my first year who would not continue to sponsor me unless I kept the December date as my official AA anniversary. I have other friends who did the same thing.

However, I've had two sponsors who thought I should celebrate in August, as that's when I quit drinking. I've maintained the December date as my official anniversary, but the August date feels more like something to celebrate.

Do you feel sober when you're high, OP?

R115, why not just keep doing coke if it does not count as much?

R15 is right. Clancy and the Pacific Group in LA, and its NYC offshoot the Atlantic Group and cults within AA. There has been one suicude in the Atlantic Group because someone was pressured to go off meds. They discourage men from wearing beards atnt their meeting. They are dangerous for AA and any alkie who attends them.

R119 may not be a cult. It may help some people. But a lot of us refuse to just put all our life decisions into the hands of someone whose only qualification is that they stopped drinking six months before we did.

Well, good. I would never do that, either. I don't know what AA group encourages a member to put all their life decisions into the hands of ANYONE.

You're supposed to drop a sponsor if their style doesn't work for you. They're really just there to help you through the steps....not to take over your life.

Re: R118..... Sorry, first paragraph was intended to appear as a quote : (

Any good AA sponsor would not give career advice, beyond sharing their own experience or having you read a relevant passage in the book.

As far as prescribed drugs, I've known one person in AA who railed against that, and he's a lunatic anyway. If you're taking something under a doctor's care, and that doctor knows your history with addication, then AA takes no issue with. In fact, in my experience AA encourages antidepressants if you need them.

I do not know if you have been in the program or just read about it, R118, but in practice working the steps is supposed to be a life altering process, and there is a great emphasis on willingness as an important element in recovery. One is expected to take suggestion. To work the first step one has to admit that one cannot manage one's own life, and part of that is often related to work. But working a humble job, one shows willingness and acknowledges the limits of one's own ability to manage one's life.

I was a professional when I came into the program, so this was hard. Most of the people who join AA, are younger or less established in their careers, There are not that many professionals because it is a hard path to follow once you have a career. Like most professionals, I left it because I could not do the steps. I was older, so if I had quit my job as many advised, I would probably be working retail the rest of my life .

I stuck it out for a few years, but the fact that I could not bring myself to make the changes necessary to do the steps made me realize it was pointless to stick around.

People who know the program from books, films, and TV do not have a real understanding of how it works. It is a very different experience to be in it.

Sponsors in the Clancey cult give advice on everything to their sponsees. They isolate their members to their own groups, they have a guru leader, they demand immense amount of time (in lieu of money). All those characteristics are those of cults. They also try to influence or take over other AA groups or local city wide AS organizations (Intergroups).

[quote]R120 In fact, in my experience AA encourages antidepressants if you need them.

Yes. The thing I hear in AA, and what it says in the Big Book, is "WE ARE NOT DOCTORS"

People are so litigious these days, I'd think anyone would be hesitant to give any medical advice without a license. Doctors won't even give you medical advice when you're not specifically their PATIENT. So...

R121, there is no part of AA or the 12 Steps that say you have to leave your job. If you're a bartender, I can see someone suggesting you do something else (but that's not part of the steps, just kind of common sense) but beyond that, no. Sounds like you met some bad AA-ers (and just like any group of people, there are some bad ones); sorry you had to deal with that.

R124, then what would you do for the first step?

I did just what it says: Admitted that I was powerless over alcohol (I was) and that my life had become unmanageable (it had).

No part of that says to quit your job

The longer I'm sober (and older!) the less I'm invested in other people's sobriety. I'm there for people who want to stay sober, and will do what I can for them. Anything else is entirely their business. If someone wants to drink...GO DRINK. It even says in the Big Book something like, "You may feel you are not an alcoholic. In this case, you may want to go out and try drinking some more."

If you want to stay, Stay. If you want to go, Go. It's really up to the individual. AA isn't a prison or a watchdog group.

Well said, R127.

A lot of people here seem to think there's some AA Board that decides your day count, whether you're doing everything right, etc. It's just "here's what worked for me, try it. Or don't. Whatever."

R126, but you have to do something, don't you? It is supposed to be a program of action? If you do not do anything, than anyone could claim they did the step even if they did not.

R127 says it is not a watchdog group, but honestly, that was my experience. I was tired of having my recovery evaluated by others and having to check in with people to show I was sober.

The funny thing is that once I walked away from AA, sobriety became a lot easier. For me, it was better to depend on my own judgement and integrity. Having so many people involved in my sobriety while I was in AA became a crutch.

What about cheese? No, not the drug-y kind, the stuff like cheddar and gouda?! I'm serious!

Well good for you, R129! Another thing AA is pretty clear on is that you should do whatever works for you. And AA isn't always the thing that works for all people. It happens to be the thing that worked for me though.

I'd say that admitting powerlessness is an action, but some people write out a first step (I guess that's more of a concrete action). If someone told you you had to quit your job to do Step 1, then that person was fucked up and I'm glad you didn't listen to them.

I checked in with a sponsor every day at the beginning but I never saw it as having to prove I was still sober. More of getting into the habit of reaching out to people instead of sitting around stewing.

"AA also does not make financial demands, and it doesn't isolate you from the outside world" Uh they tell you to avoid all "normies (those that drink reasonably ) and other heavy drinkers. They frown on friends outside of AA, as under the guise of "no one understands us like we do"

Haha! No, R132, that's not even close to true.

[quote]R129 The funny thing is that once I walked away from AA, sobriety became a lot easier. For me, it was better to depend on my own judgement and integrity. Having so many people involved in my sobriety while I was in AA became a crutch.

So, is there a problem? it sounds like you overcame your drinking issues. That's great : )

R130, I would avoid Jews for Cheeses. They are very cult-like.

[quote]R132 Uh they tell you... They frown on...

Who is "they"?

You can always tell "them" to fuck off.

I love all the experts about AA on DL who have never stepped foot in a meeting.

R117, why the prohibition on beards? Why do cults (usually churches) have rules about beards, or about no-beards?

R138, I don't know. They probably hold it is somehow "loose" and not sober. But it's probs just about fucking control via the humiliation of applying arbitrary rules and making members follow them.

r116, I hate cocaine. It was never a drug I did regularly. I only did it that night so I wouldn't drink. With three months of sobriety at that time, it made perfect sense.

Theoretically, someone could even go to an AA group and share from the floor while drunk. AA is about wanting to be sober. If that particular drunk person wants to be sober....okay. They can speak.

It would probably make some people present uncomfortable...but the drunk could just say "where is it written that intoxicated people are not allowed to share?" Then just go from there.

It really is a rather loosely organized organization.

AA members are rabid in their devotion

R141 doesn't sound rabid.

r143- It is a manipulative, disingenuous, so called anomaly of AA

[quote] R128: A lot of people here seem to think ...

I think there’s just one or two people who had a bad experience and can’t stop denergrating the whole org.

Her brother died of alcoholism. This is sobriety.

Yet, so many prematurely die in AA. I mean ardent followers.

Is it shocking that addicts tend to die prematurely?

AA is a mental hamster wheel. Steps 1-12, rinse repeat. Get a sponsor, become a sponsor, get a sponsor. Rinse repeat. And so on. I've seen really wise people become a little mentally slavish doing the program. But I guess it's better than being a sick addict. What would be great is if society at large took a good look at its alcohol dependency issue.

As an addict who once went to meetings, if AA wasn't clear on this issue NA (drugs) was adamant: you couldn't do either, period. Believe it or not, I actually attended meetings 25 years ago due to pot addiction and I was told that under no circumstances could I drink and if I did I wasn't following the program. Pot is a mood altering, addictive drug as is alcohol; I drank but not a lot due to the fact that pot was my drug of choice, but that would quickly change once I quit.

Anyway, I quit alcohol for 12 1/2 years and pot for 21. Took a couple of hits 4 years ago in the middle of chemotherapy and it was like I never quit. When I try to deal with this again, it will be both -- not one or the other.

Been clean and sober 35 years. Been taking anti-depressants for 20 years. First 15 years clean I wanted to die every single day. Figured I had proved to myself I could stay clean for one day many days, so started anti depressants. Saved my life.

Started recovery with AA and NA and meetings. Found it too religious and orthodox for me. If I did not do it the right way, I could never get clean they said. Bullshit I said.

Looking back, meetings etc are a tremendous resource to be able to go to a place, where the chances are you will meet more than a few people who are seriously committed to stopping...whatever it was and is that was killing them. Anything else you get out of it, good for you. Some people love it, some hate it, some get clean,some die.

For ME Clean and Sober means no drugs and no alchohol. I have had major surgeries and taken pain meds. My greatest accomplishment has been to stop biting my nails. Really. For YOU you can define it any way you want. I Guarantee you if whatever it is leads you into trouble and misery in your life, for YOU it is a problem, and that is all that really matters.

I wish everyone luck who is trying to STOP...anything......that makes them miserable. Please try every form and type of recovery help and eventually you will find what works for you. Please do not quit on yourself, you are worth it.

R151 Aw. You're a sweet soul.

[quote]R151 Been clean and sober 35 years. Been taking anti-depressants for 20 years.

Glad you've made it : ) I started antidepressants after about 10 years sober, and am very glad I did. No one in AA ever had any judgement about it that they voiced. If anything, I was the one who was most hesitant about it. I was afraid they would make me "high" in some way, but as it turns out, obviously they don't.

People who can't find AA meetings they like can always start their own. I got sober in New York, which just has a certain format. But when I moved to L.A. I was annoyed that after anyone shared from the floor, the whole room clapped afterwards. It was just...inappropriate. So some of us displaced New Yorkers started the "New York, New York" meeting which had the east coast format, and that was really good for a few years.

My point being, if someone (as in this thread) has a problem with how sponsorship works, they could start a meeting called "The Sponsorless" (or whatever) and that becomes the focus of that particular meeting. Or it could be the Tuesday Night "I Hate the Steps" meeting. Probably it wouldn't attract a huge crowd, but one could try : )

R 152. Thank you, that really struck me, I appreciate it:)

Clean and sober to me means I've taken my Xanax but no-one can tell. I save the codeine just for weekends now.

R153, it is so many things. It is not just the intrusiveness of sponsorship, but also the restrictions on what can be said to people in the program and the artificiality of anonymity. (Okay, I think social media and the internet are killing off anonymity.)

It is not a new meeting but a whole new program that was needed.

The loneliness while I was in AA was overwhelming. Now I tell my friends when I am feeling my addiction acting up, and that is such a relief after having to conceal it when I was in AA. (And I know the last names of all my friends.)

If it works for you great, but no "special meeting" was going to make a program built on social pressure to work for me.

[quote]R156 If it works for you great, but no "special meeting" was going to make a program built on social pressure to work for me.

Well, I am glad you've found a way that works for you : )

It sounds like AA wasn't your cup of tea, and you moved on. I'm glad you found a way to stay sober, whatever it was/is.

R153 sounds like the typical condescension one encounters in AA. It's worth a try but lack of awareness, true humility, or empathy on many member's parts is a turn off.

Thank you, R158. I really gave me the language to describe something that has set my teeth on edge for over a decade.

R159, I read something years ago, book, article not sure, by someone not an alcoholic but in the field. He knew about AA in its earlier decades. Wrote that at first the members were humble and desperate. They read everything, not just their own literature, seeking understanding of addiction. Sometimes it was weird stuff, like popular religious materiel, but he admired their humility. But at a certain later point in its history something started to appear which he labeled the AA smirk. It represented smugness, a belief they were spiritually superior to outsiders and that they had the answer. This from a guy who was sympathize to AA, as am I.

[quote] R156: The loneliness while I was in AA was overwhelming. Now I tell my friends when I am feeling my addiction acting up, and that is such a relief after having to conceal it when I was in AA. (And I know the last names of all my friends.)

Your experience is very unfortunate. I’ve heard people speak in meetings when their addiction is acting up. They aren’t judged for that, as far as I’ve ever known, as is common. And I know everybody’s last name, with whom we care to be that familiar. Your experience shows that there are bad people everywhere. If you encounter them again, I’d suggest you flee to another meeting!

[quote]The loneliness while I was in AA was overwhelming.

I experienced that in the gay groups more than in the straight groups. Or maybe I expected more from gay men.

R161, the sad thing is that to make the program work, it sounds like you have to throw out the program! You are saying that people (at meetings!) can speak in ways that will trigger others and you don't do anonymity.

My years in the program may not have helped much, but maybe it is because I actually tried to follow it. I thought everyone did, but so much of this thread seems to be about how people decide not to follow parts of the program and bring their own variations in. I am not judging that...I just never knew that was an option.

[quote] “Take what you want (or need) and leave the rest.”

Nothing fits everybody exactly.

People have different understandings of the program. The program is the steps, incidentially, not what some random person has to say about it.

Yes, you have a lot of options. Whatever works to keep you sober.

[quote]R163 the sad thing is that to make the program work, it sounds like you have to throw out the program! You are saying that people (at meetings!) can speak in ways that will trigger others and you don't do anonymity. My years in the program may not have helped much, but maybe it is because I actually tried to follow it. I thought everyone did, but so much of this thread seems to be about how people decide not to follow parts of the program and bring their own variations in. I am not judging that...I just never knew that was an option.

The literature specifically says [italic] "These steps are but suggestions only..." [/italic] OBVIOUSLY one has great freedom as to how everyone wishes to apply them.

Anonymity is about not sharing what you hear people say in a meeting with others. Also about not specifically saying you're a member of AA in press, radio and films, because then whatever happens to you is forever linked with AA in the public's eye, and can turn off people who might have otherwise sought out AA. It's not about members being forbidden to know each other's last names if they want to share them.

I have never heard of anyone being told what they could and could not share about within a meeting. What do you mean in regards to how you're told not to "trigger" others? You mentioned in another post you had to conceal feeling your addictions act up...when that is exactly what sharing is supposed to be there for, to talk about your life and your addiction.

It sounds like, unfortunately, you lived in a town with somewhat warped meetings.

I find the criticisms to be really interesting, as that has been not even close to my experience with AA. It doesn't even make sense that you wouldn't be allowed to talk about your addiction in a meeting - that is the whole reason you're there!

[quote]R166 that has been not even close to my experience with AA. It doesn't even make sense that you wouldn't be allowed to talk about your addiction in a meeting - that is the whole reason you're there!

I've never experienced that, either.

What I loved about AA when I first started out was that it IS so free and unstructured. The meetings had a format (preamble, speaker, secretary's break, sharing from the floor, closing) but what people could talk about -- or not -- was up to them. There's no alarm that goes off and you're dragged from the room if you share about the "wrong" thing; there is no wrong thing. It's about letting people find their way, in their own time.

There is a depressive darkness in the rooms of AA for the most part. I don't see real happy, joyous and free people. They seem miserable.

Are you happy, joyous, and free, R168? Maybe you should reconsider your definitions/expectations?

My folks raised me to be a realist, not a Pollyanna. I’m grateful for that. I don’t enjoy the company of the relentlessly, well, Pollyannaish. It’s very un-DataLounge-like.

R168, are you the same person who hated AA in Southern Florida? If not, you two should get together to create your own meeting.

The program is the steps. Now if we could only get two people to agree on what the steps mean. And if we could only find someone willing to explain how to do them.

I think a lot of the depression and darkness (which I also saw) in the rooms is because everyone is trying to figure out how to do the steps, but facing a succession of sponsors who say "No, that is not it." It wears you down. And it is completely arbitrary. Graduating from one step to the other has more to do with how the sponsor feels about the sponsee at that time, rather than anything the sponsee has done.

[quote] R171: Now if we could only get two people to agree on what the steps mean. And if we could only find someone willing to explain how to do them.

You can choose to make of the steps whatever you please. If it works for you, if you stay sober, then you know that you are doing “it” corrrectly. But keep your expectations grounded. You will not get the stigmata.

As far as “how to do the steps”, the Big Book explains this and there is a step book that you can read, too. It’s not as complicated as people sometimes seem to want to make it.

I personally think “progressing” through the steps is a better way to think of it, rather than “graduating”, but if that works for you, fine.

Posted elsewhere, but this week, there was a woman who complained that she was drinking every night and wanted help. But she’s got lots of dislike for AA, evidenced in lots and lots of posts. Well, getting sober isn’t easy. Not from my experience. I think it helps to know it will be a challenge.

The Big Book is pretty vague about the steps before step 4.

I thought I was "progressing" through the steps. But my sponsor disagreed.

Years of trying to figure out how to demonstrate to sponsors that I "progressed" later, I realized that this is part of how the system is rigged. You work on the steps. Tell the sponsor you did them. Get told that you did not. Try again. Again get set back. You keep trying to figure out what to do. Nothing is ever good enough. Even people who have moved on to the next step never seem to know why. You try to do what they did, but for some reason when you do it, the answer is no.

When you get sick of getting strung along, you either leave the program or get progressed to the next step to keep you from leaving.

You either play along with this power game or get called a dry drunk.

I think because I lacked "willingness," meaning I was not willing to throw away my career and move to the other side of town, there was never anything I could do for any sponsor that was going to work.

I am surprised how angry I am. It was years ago when I left AA, but it still hurts.

The program is VERY different than how the media presents it. It is really about power games inflicted on the vulnerable.

I believe that if people need help, they should be able to get it without having to undergo hazing and tests. You always hear that AA is "not a support group." But maybe it should be. Support groups do a lot of good without putting new members under the control of other members.

R175 Gay group? It was like that for me. In two cities. The "hazing and tests" stopped when I started going to my local straight meetings (which were around 1/3 gay).

Some gay groups and some straight. Also in more than one city.

I was so afraid to leave, but once I did I was finally able to get honest---which is what helped more than anything else could have.

I haven't been to more than a couple of meetings in the last four years. I went for my anniversary this year, but didn't feel inspired to return the following week.

R175, I’m not clear as to whether or not you ever got sober.

[quote] R177:...I was so afraid to leave, but once I did I was finally able to get honest---which is what helped more than anything else could have.

Don’t blame AA for your ability to be honest. Or for your feelings, or your drug and alcohol problem.

R179, I am sober. I have been since I left AA.

I understand the importance of not triggering other addicts, but I really think that being able to be honest about my struggles was what I needed to stay sober. Leaving the program meant I could be completely open and honest--even about the negative stuff. For me, it was important to share my feelings---all of them. That is why I could not have stayed sober in the program.

I understand it works for other people. Maybe the social pressure helps them more than it does me. Maybe having someone monitoring them and getting to monitor others in turn, is therapeutic for them. For me it was just painful.

R179, I have been sober since leaving AA.

For me it was important to be able to share my feelings---all of them, even the negative ones. I also needed to be able to talk about my struggles. While I understand the need to avoid triggering other addicts, that prevented me from being as honest and open as I needed to be. I do not think I could have stayed sober if I stayed in AA.

[quote]I understand the importance of not triggering other addicts

What, exactly, did you say that was "triggering"? And who told you not to talk about it, and in what context were you told this? I've heard of this happening in OA meetings, but never AA. And I've been to a hell of a lot of meetings.

[quote]R175 I believe that if people need help, they should be able to get it without having to undergo hazing and tests.

Sorry, but are you sure you were in AA, and not some bad Linda Blair TV movie from the 1970s?

When I was having urges to drink and use, a couple times I told my sponsor and other people in the program. Once I said it in a meeting. The program is pretty firm in teaching that there is no way to stop another person from drinking.

I had heard enough that it was important not to drag anyone down with you, so I knew it was wrong but did it anyway. That is on me.

But I needed to talk, so even though I admit it was wrong to talk to people in the program, I needed a kind of support that is not part of AA.

Fortunately, I had sympathetic friends.

R181/etc., it seems that AA was not for you. Honesty in AA is important, and if you didn’t feel you could be honest and attend AA, then I can understand how that wouldn’t work. And you seem to have trouble dealing with the social aspects of the meetings, especially if you feel that you’re being monitored or like you’re supposed to be monitoring others. That sounds awful to me. I hope you’ve found something that works for you and is less stressful.

Oh, there’s nothing wrong with telling people in AA that you’ve had cravings. That kind of support is at the core of AA, from my experience. Its too bad that you didn’t learn that when you were there!

R186, thank you. Although I do not think any of my sponsors would have stood for what you say about the program. What you say about cravings is exactly what I was taught would prevent you from finding a higher power.

I think I like your AA alot better then the real life AA I knew.

[quote]R187 I think I like your AA alot better then the real life AA I knew.

What town was this in? What year?

San Francisco. We’d meet at the Schubert Theatre.

[quote]R189 San Francisco. We’d meet at the Schubert Theatre.

Awww. I'm sorry it was a bad experience for you : (

When someone's starting out, it's good to go to as many different meetings as they can when starting out, so they get a real spectrum of what AA and its members can be like. Then you keep going to the one you feel most comfortable at, because that's where you're going to feel safe enough to share, and where you'll trust the advice.

For some reason I never had any trouble at all feeling "at home" in AA meetings. I found them so fascinating I would go to one and sometimes two a day for my first two years. It was just remarkable to see people realing laughing, crying, working through their stuff. But this was in NYC where people are very raw and unadorned at meetings. It was just "Let's get real and cut to the chase....SPILL!"

Just so you realize that R189 is not the same person as R181. THat is me who left AA so I could be more honest about my addiction.

I attended a number of different meetings in cities on the east coast.

I never saw anyone cry in a meeting. With exceptions it pretty much was talking about how well people were doing in recovery. You had to share experience strength and hope, so you never really heard anyone working through stuff that was negative.

r190- the epitome of an AA addict. His smug tone in his posts speak volumes.

You had to share experience strength and hope, so you never really heard anyone working through stuff that was negative.

Wouldn't something negative be classified as "experience"? I don't know where some of you got sober that felt you had to jump through all these hoops. "Experience, Strength and Hope" is often used as a guideline for the main speaker...but the phrase is open-ended enough to do anything with. You can talk about a problem you've having, and your STRENGTH is that your not drinking over it. Or your EXPERIENCE tells you you've had improvement in other areas, and HOPE this will be another of the. Or you can say, "I am here to speak about my experience strength and hope, but I'm not sure how that fits into this...maybe I will know at the end of the meeting. I want to talk about how my boss is driving me crazy...." and you're off to the races. It's not like an alarm goes off and a net drops down on you if you go "off topic" in some person's eyes : o

Re: 194

Oooops, that was supposed to start with this OP sentence quoted :

[quote]R192 You had to share experience strength and hope, so you never really heard anyone working through stuff that was negative.

R194, it is kind of hard to make those sorts of semantic strategies work.

And of course no net drops. But you will be spoken to it during the feedback in the meeting after the meeting. And if you make too many negative shares, that shows that you are not living in the solution....and you might not be allowed to share in future meetings and you might get frozen out when you try to talk to people in the meeting.

I had to stop going to one group because I was having a rough patch and was thought to be too negative.

Glad I didn't go to R196's AA. Which was where, btw?

Cigarettes, not a violation, marijuana, yes. And the places with the strict rules are usually in areas where there are plenty of meetings without the intense rules.

I know a lot of pot smokers in AA and ESPECIALLY in NA where they refer to it as " marijuana maintenance"

[quote] What town was this in? What year?

[quote] San Francisco. We’d meet at the Schubert Theatre.

“San Francisco has no Schubert Theatre. That was a stupid lie, one beneath you!”

I think I’m wasting my power here!

[quote] R196: And of course no net drops. But you will be spoken to it during the feedback in the meeting after the meeting. And if you make too many negative shares, that shows that you are not living in the solution....and you might not be allowed to share in future meetings and you might get frozen out when you try to talk to people in the meeting.

There was this homeless guy in one of my meetings. He always hogged the meeting time, thought nothing he said was interesting, to me, anyway. I used to tell myself that there might not be a single person in his life that cares to listen to him, so I didn’t complain. Over time, the meeting dropped to 4-6 regulars, plus this guy. But no one every told him to stop his yabbering.

R196, perhaps you really were living in the problem, and not the solution? Some people in AA do lose patience with others who seem intent to repeatedly hog meeting time, but seem to want the attention more than sobriety. Maybe that was it? Attendees are people, too.

How do you "hog meeting time" if you are not the speaker at a speaker meeting or step meeting?

And if you did not have a timer, why didn't the chairs stop the homeless guy?

I'm in my fifth year of sobriety. "One day at a time" is the only thing I took away with me after my brief stint in AA. There were some good looking guys in the group that meets at the old episcopal seminary in Chelsea.

R12 is right - you have some people in AA who are fundamentalist - like Christianity. They treat the AA books like the fucking Bible.

Reality is there are always some in AA that actually still drink now and again - or smoke pot. They just don't talk about it at meetings because of the insane blowback they'd get.

If the program gets you sober and helps you not go overboard - then fine.

r205- =True! In fact, in the Big Book there is a part that says if people who adhere to some of it's principles, they get 50% better.

R181 I really think that being able to be honest about my struggles was what I needed to stay sober. Leaving the program meant I could be completely open and honest--even about the negative stuff. For me, it was important to share my feelings---all of them. That is why I could not have stayed sober in the program.

Unfortunately, you didn't read the literate that stressed Scrupulous Honesty was a key factor. Why you thought you had to edit your shares as to what was going on is mystifying....and Yes, that's on you.

But it sounds like you don't miss anything about AA and that you're happily sober on your own....so good for you! It all worked out for the best!

R207 I was criticized (like many others) for sharing anything that did not demonstrate strength and hope. There is a big gap between what the literature says and how the program works.

The literature also says that you can get help if you feel yourself heading toward relapse. But you won't get it from anyone in the program, that's for sure.

I am not trying to rain on anyone's parade, but I wish I knew that the reality of 12-step programs is very different than what you are led to expect before you go in.

Where did you get sober, R208? Your experience is nothing like mine.

R209, Florida, New York, New Jersey.

Sober almost 24 hours. Almost.

I am just mystified by the not being allowed to share anything "negative" in an AA meeting. I've been to meetings all over the country and have never experienced that. I do feel a responsibility, personally, to be in the solution so if I'm sharing about something that's troubling me, I try to bring it back to the solution I've learned in the steps (and that actually helps me try to find a solution instead of wallowing).

But I have never once heard someone say "don't share your struggles" in, or after, an AA meeting.

It does make sense to me , That sharing that you feel the urge to drink or drug could be triggering to other people at a meeting. Or outside of A meeting.

Maybe in theory it is possible for Adickes and alcoholics to help each other. And that is what people say goes on at AA. But in over a decade I've never seen it happen. What you usually here is I can't handle that please talk to someone else. And even that is understandable.

But I think the program would be a lot more effective, if it were more honest about these issues. Because then they could figure out how they actually could help, Instead of having members seeking support that is rarely if ever there

This only share strength, joy, how the program works, etc. comes from the Pacific/Atlantic Group cult. It is spreading. It's a type of perfection cult. I've witnessed it in action.

[quote]R214 I am not trying to rain on anyone's parade, but I wish I knew that the reality of 12-step programs is very different than what you are led to expect before you go in.

"Lead to expect," by whom? AA isn't a secret society, but it is anonymous. And only people who have a problem usually end up there...versus the general public. (It's not like non-alcoholics say, "Hey, we've got a free hour...let's go see what AA is like!)

So....who exactly "led you to expect" anything specific about AA? I didn't know what to expect when I first went, and it took me a year of going to a lot of different meetings to get a handle on how it worked.

R215 only goes to Closed Bossy Bottoms AA meetings.

R215, I was led to expect that AA operated more like a support group because of what I read about it and how I heard people describe it. Even the AA websites and literature lead you to think you just have to walk in and say "I need help" and people will offer to help you.

I did not know that so many people come through that you have to stick around for awhile before anyone will be willing to help. Also, I thought that if I was having urges to drink or drug, that group members and sponsors could talk you though them. I did not expect that the "help" would consist of being told to pray or to find someone else that could help me through it.

And as you point out, no one is going to explain how the program works--even if you ask. The idea I guess is that if you figure it out for yourself it will mean more. But I think it just makes for confusion and mixed messages. Not everyone has a year to invest in figuring it out because some people are in very deep trouble. You and I got through it because we were not that bad off. But for others....we all know about the ones who do not make it.

Sometimes R215 goes to Open Fisting AA meetings when on the road.

And I realize I may not have fully answered R215. AA is talked about in many memoirs, interviews, and portrayed in a lot of fiction and film. I do not doubt that you went in not knowing what to expect, but I think that is not common. Most people have heard a lot about the program.

The only negative stuff I heard was from a relative whose husband started using "going to a meeting" as a cover for having sex with the women he met in AA. She felt it destroyed her marriage, which I think it did.

[quote] R205:Reality is there are always some in AA that actually still drink now and again - or smoke pot. They just don't talk about it at meetings because of the insane blowback they'd get.

My experience is that any body who has been sober, relapses, and tells on themselves in a meeting, gets a resounding round of applause for their honesty, and to offer support.

If you drink or smoke pot and don’t adjust your sobriety date, then someone might have a problem with that because every time you announce your length of sobriety, you re lying to the group, and who cares to be lied to?

R220, but would it not be better if they could "tell on themselves" before they relapse?

I don;t think anyone has to relapse, but in AA you always hear that relapse is part of recovery. Which perpetuates the problem.

It just sounds like a group of mentally-ill people encouraging each other to be mentally-ill.

[quote] R213: What you usually here is I can't handle that please talk to someone else. And even that is understandable.

R213, I’m very sorry to tell you, but your assessment of AA is not reality based. It is completely wrong in every way.

I want to comment on in the quote, above, from your post. I think this problem is unique to yourself. I’m afraid that you are very negative, passive aggressive, and combative. You misunderstand seemingly everything about the program. You refuse to learn from the multiple people who keep telling you that the experience you report is nothing that they’ve ever experienced, and so forth.

I suspect that you refused to get sober in AA, and you went to meetings solely to try to pull other members into your orbit of insanity. Eventually they figured it out, and they avoided you. They might have felt manipulated or “used” by you.

I wish you the very best, dear, I really do, [bold] but I wish you would stop posting about AA because you really don’t know anything about the 60:000+ US meetings. [/bold]

R223, I think you are doing the thing that happens alot in AA. Rather than actually hearing what is being said, you stick it into a ready made story, that does not challenge you.

You ignore the people with similar experiences to mine, because you get to write a story that supports your view of things.

But it makes no sense. Why would I "refuse to get sober in AA" only to decide to get sober when I leave it? This fantasy about wanting to influence members is equally ridiculous. I avoided the whole AA social scene and other than my sponsors, had very limited contact with group members. As my first sponsor said, you are not in AA to make friends. Even in meetings I tried to speak as little as possible, so as not to have to deal with the consequences.

It was a miserable time in my life. I felt like I was in a den of bullies. But I blamed myself because everyone said this was the best way to get sober and I did not think I could do it myself. After my first few months, I realized that it was a mistake to open up in meetings. The idea that people who barely knew me and had only heard me speak for the 2 minutes allowed to share maybe once or twice a month would feel manipulated or pulled into my web is ridiculous.

AA is a pernicious scam that, at best, has a 5 to 10 percent success rate. Nicotine and caffeine are perfectly acceptable while many groups take it upon themselves to encourage newcomers to go off their prescription psych meds. It's a recipe for disaster and has done untold damage that vastly outweighs whatever good may come out of it. Yes, I went to meetings for many years, had sponsors and sponsees, did service, and worked the steps. A few years ago I became disillusioned by the program, left, and now drink in moderation. I completely reject the notion that alcoholism is a disease. I think it's more than likely a cultural thing for which there is a growing body of research.

Did you just make up the planets on the success rate, didn’t you?

Well, [R225], if you’re so happy with your moderate drinking, why care what goes on with people who continue to attend AA? They’re never going to support your drinking; so just let it go and move on.

I’ve seen a lot of people over the years who blame AA, saying it just “doesn’t work” for them. I realized early on that I was the one who had to make it work for me. One of the most pervasive attitudes I’ve seen, both in and out of AA, is a general unwillingness of people to take responsibility for their own actions.

In sobriety, I ended up becoming an LPN nurse, working on locked, inpt. psych units. One day, when I was with the pts. who were having their smoke break, a woman asked me, “How come you people can’t give us a pill that’s going to make us all better?” To which I responded, “The medications you take help stabilize you. Now it's time to get work on your issues.” She didn’t like that.

I’ve seen too many people who come into AA act like her. They expect some kind of secret that will transform them, only to realize the secret is learning to take care of themselves. No more blaming others. I came here because of what I did to myself. No one held a gun to my head.

And I stay because I want to. People have asked me, “You’ve been sober 32 years; why do you still go to meetings?” To which I respond, “Why would you not want to go to a place where people love you?”

I’ve never found that anyplace else.

You can't be sober and high at the same time.

If AA just keeps someone from drinking...it's worth it. The people who go have drinking that was messing up their lives. Yes, it's great to reap rewards of going through the introspection and behavioral changes that are the result of living a sober life and working the steps...but the main thing is it help many people stop driving drunk, cerrhosisizing (sp?) their livers, etc. It's not a quick fix, it's a new way of living....that goes on for years. With ups and downs.

I think some people imagine they'll go to AA and all their problems will be lifted. It's not like that. But if you're not the kind of person who naturally alienates others (cough cough), at least you're dealing with those problems CLEAR EYED, and support...if you're honest.

It's the accumulated reality of living a sober (ie, more normal, if you'll forgive the expression) life that help you deal with problems just as much as the steps do. This may sound like I'm bashing the technical side of the program (which I'M NOT), I'm just saying a lot of help comes from simply attending meetings and living sober year after year. And someone who's a quick-fix fanatic might not grasp that right away.

As they say, "More shall be revealed."

Re: R229 To elaborate: I mean, I used to often be hung over, weak and vomiting...as of a morning. If going to meetings just eliminated THAT from my life (and it did) I'd keep going.

If you smoke cigarettes you are neither clean, ( you stink) nor sober.

You are an addict to a drug more addictive than alcohol. The fact that AA accepts this shows they are not about helping people.

[quote]You are an addict to a drug more addictive than alcohol. The fact that AA accepts this shows they are not about helping people.

Nicotine is not in their mission statement. You go somewhere else for that.

Shockingly, they also do not do your taxes for you.

[italic]Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help other to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking. [/italic]

[quote]Maybe in theory it is possible for Adickes and alcoholics to help each other. And that is what people say goes on at AA. But in over a decade I've never seen it happen. What you usually here is I can't handle that please talk to someone else. And even that is understandable.

It actually makes perfect sense. Perfect [italic]21st century [/italic] sense. "Eeeww. I [italic]can't [/italic] go to an AA meeting. Someone might talk about drinking and I'd be [italic][bold]triggerrrrrred[/italic]. Just...NO!"

[/bold]End bold

R233 is a member of Crystal Meth Anonymous. Only goes to Beginners meetings pre-lubed to pick up newcomers. (Or "newcumers" as he hilariously refers to them over "fellowship".

R235 makes no sense.

I think most people who go to AA just want help to stop drinking. They want help when they feel the urge to drink. If I had gotten that, I would have put up with anything.

I ought to hit a meeting. I haven't been to many over the past few years. I've got to see if this "you can't talk about your problems" shit has hit here.

I ought to hit a meeting. I haven't been to many over the past few years. I've got to see if this "you can't talk about your problems" shit has hit here.

Me, too!

I think what outsiders (and apparently some members who went to the same meeting for years, in this thread?) don't understand is that AA through trial and error, learned that the best way for it to existn serenely was to be as loosely organized as possible. It's not like when you go to a Safeway supermarket, and everything is branded and organized down to the last detail by policy set down by a main office.

Individual rules and format are set down by whoever establishes that particular meeting....meetings that come and go with time. Then there are layers of local traditions that will fall into place depending on what your town or state is like, but those really aren't enforceable, as there aren't many broader AA rules, per say. See link below for "Starting a New AA Group" literature.

AA meetings are made up of local people, and occassional out of towners. The flavor of the meeting is set by what the local people are like. When I got sober in NYC, there was very little talk of Higher Powers and even sponsor relations; that was a private matter you did on your own time. Sharing seemed to be more about the nuts and bolts of [italic] How Do I Survive Life as A Sober Person: This Is What My Day Was Like.... [/italic] It was more of a tougher Self-Sufficient-Let's-Cut-To-The-Chase vibe.

Then when I moved to Hollywood, the meetings IN GENERAL seemed to have much more discussion of Higher Powers, and people discussed what they were going through one-on-one with their sponsors more...which was a bit weird for me. It was more or a New-Age-Touchy-Feely vibe. (With a heavy dose of I-Have-To-Look-Good-Because-Hollywood-Is-Image-Conscious.) Not EVERY meeting in L.A. was like that, but that was the default flavor.)

So anyway...AA meetings are as different as the towns they spring up in. So it is difficult to generalize about "what AA is like." Basically it is "like" who ever set that particular meeting/group up...and its regular attendees. If one does not jibe with a particular room, you go find (or start) another. As I heard when I started out, "Go where it's warm."

R239- An AA nazi or just a troll.

[quote]R240 [R239]- An AA nazi or just a troll.

By pointing out that AA has as few beurocratic rules as possible?

[quote] R231: You are an addict to a drug more addictive than alcohol. The fact that AA accepts this (smoking) shows they are not about helping people.

I tried to quit smoking more times than I can count for years, with no success. After I attended AA for 11 months, I used a spiritual approach and 12-step method to quit smoking, and I did it the first time. I’ve been smober now for 12 years.

People in AA smoke a lot less, like the general public, than they used to.

[quote] R239: Individual rules and format are set down by whoever establishes that particular meeting.

And then, if they bother to have a yearly meeting to discuss the meeting, the group can vote to change the format. But as R239 writes, it’s completely independent of any organization’s rules. It’s very interesting how it works as well as it does, given the lack of organizational rules.

I went to a meeting once, and they were very welcoming, but they stated their boundaries at the beginning. They said, you introduce yourself as “Hi, I’m Sam (whatever), and I’m an alcoholic”, but you weren’t allowed to add to that if you were a drug addict or other.

At the end, they said the serenity prayer, but you couldn’t then say that saying about “It Works if you work it”.

I had no problem with any of that. I thought it rather funny, actually. I imagined some fussbudget ran the group conscious meeting (where meeting rules are determined) and got these rules passed.

My mother has just died that day so I didn’t care about such minutia. Still don’t.

After this thread I went to a meeting, to see if they were different now. Still not a comfortable place for a Jew. I can't feel good about saying the Our Father. And don't nobody say that AA nonsense that the our father is not a Christian prayer. I have no patience for people who don't even know their own religion

[quote]R245 After this thread I went to a meeting, to see if they were different now. Still not a comfortable place for a Jew. I can't feel good about saying the Our Father. And don't nobody say that AA nonsense that the our father is not a Christian prayer.

I share about that at meetings. I say, "That's as inappropriate as if we closed with a Hare Krishna chant!"

I just grit my teeth and let them get through it. Luckily, only about 10% of the meetings I've ever been to do that.

But You've reminded me that I have to find out when the business meeting is for that one group I go to that still does that, though. It's going DOWN!

PS: Might I suggest that next time you ask in your share where there's a meeting where they don't say that? Then you'll have a better chance of getting what you want. Don't even wait to see if that group does it or not. (though, you could ask the secretary/chairperson beforehand.) If it's on your mind and bugging you, it's worth a share. And if it's on your mind, it's probably on others' minds, as well. You'll be doing people like me who dislike that prayer a service!

The Lord’s Prayer was instructed by Jesus, so of course it’s a Christian prayer. Even though he was a Jew.

I used to be secretary and treasurer of a meeting at our local JCC. I wish you could have joined us there, r245.

R246, I doubt I will be going back. But you cannot ask for things when you share at meetings I have been to. They will shut you down and say that it is an invitation to crosstalk.

And this early in the month, the chair and secretary are not likely to know anything. Hell, even at the end of the month, I doubt they would know anything.

There were about 8 of us there, The person asked to lead us out slipped and asked us to say the serenity prayer and the others all corrected him that it was supposed to be the Lord's Prayer. Like I said, I am not likely to go back.

[quote][R246], I doubt I will be going back.

Ah. So you're not interested in addressing the issue so it might make the existing meeting(s) better for anyone else in the program, or who comes along later....it's just about you.

Cool.

I am not in the program. I left years ago because of the power games and lack of real help for people in need. There is no way I can fix the program.

Honestly, I feel if the prayer issue warns some people off, that might be a good thing.

I am sorry, but that was harsh. I know AA helps a lot of people. But I am not one of them and it would endanger my sobriety to go back.

At the meeting, I remembered how the program kept me sick and that I could not get sober until I left. It would be way too risky to get involved in that again. This one meeting was about all I could take.

Also it hits me that R246 shows the kind of thinking that is problematic. He said ask the chair or secretary about a meeting with the Lord prayer is not said. As if whatever person volunteered to chair the meeting in January is going to have special knowledge. This is the same thinking that he assumes anyone who volunteers to sponsor is going to have special knowledge about what ever area of a sponsee's life he chooses to involve himself in.

I think these assumed hierarchies, which have no basis in anything other than A roll someone volunteers for, is what is corrosive.

You always hear that AA is not a support group. And maybe that is what is needed. Imagine a bunch of addicts coming together as equals, offering mutual support. That would be a program I would want to be part of.

R253, I don’t know if there is some official definition of “support group”, but AA is certainly a group, and people do try to help, or “support” each other, so, I, personally, would call it a kind of support group.

I was a member of a very small group. It ranged from two of us, to maybe ten, depending. It was a pretty tight group, and we definitely supported each other as best we could.

The line about "AA is not a support group." is often said at meetings. And the difference is in my experience that a support group helps each other in crisis. They do not send people away to work it out with a higher power.

When I told a non-AA friend that I was afraid I was going to drink, she stayed on the phone with me until I got over it,. She said if I felt I needed to I could wake her up and she would talk to me some more. Then she went out with me for coffee the next morning. That is what a support group member would do.

My sponsor said that was enabling. But I think AA's objection to using other people's support when one is in crisis, is just wrong. Or it was for me at least.

How is enabling when her support helped you not to drink?

It sounds like AA wants all the control and credit.

R257, it kept me from reaching out to my higher power. The point of AA is not merely abstinence. It is a spiritual awakening.

AA has entered a late, corrupt, phase on its existence. It is now more hierarchical, controlling, and cult-like than it was 30 or more years ago. It has become arrogant. A second form of corruption is court mandated attendance which violates the First Amendment by mandating religious attendance. Lower courts have ruled it is sufficiently religious (Higher Power anyone) to fall under the 1st Amendment restriction so keep the "spiritual not religious " crap. Problem is no high enough court has so ruled so court mandated attendance at AA has not been completely eliminated. Sad, as a more humble AA would be OK as long as it was entirely voluntary.

That’s not AA’s fault, R260, and many meeting have none of these attendees.

[quote]The point of AA is not merely abstinence. It is a spiritual awakening.

The people I have met that are in it seem very angry and negative and very far from any kind of awakening.

R261 will never see anything wrong with AA.

cult

[quote] R523 Also it hits me that [R246] shows the kind of thinking that is problematic. He said ask the chair or secretary about a meeting with the Lord prayer is not said. As if whatever person volunteered to chair the meeting in January is going to have special knowledge.

I'm sorry I was not clearer. I meant if one were to share about it in a meeting, one could ask the secretary/chairperson (it's called different things in different areas) (the person who actually runs the meetingn and knows the format) if the meeting THAT NIGHT closes with the Lord's Prayer.

Then they could tailor their share to that, as in "I'm disappointed whe have to close with the Lords Prayer tonight...etc. etc. etc. (whatever)"

That was following my suggestion that they could ask the present group in their share about where there were meetings without the Lord's prayer....or their general feelings about it, etc., without finding out if it even applied to that very group. Which would, of course, be fine, too.

What I posted was:

[quote]PS: Might I suggest that next time you ask in your share where there's a meeting where they don't say that? Then you'll have a better chance of getting what you want. Don't even wait to see if [bold] that group [/bold] does it or not. (though, you could ask the secretary/chairperson beforehand.)

Sorry for the confusion : )

In AA you cannot ask for information or "feelings" in meetings. That is called crosstalk and it is one of the more sensible ideas in the program. It keeps meetings from becoming discussions and arguments. Each share is its own independent thing--they are not responses to other shares.

You can still crosstalk only do it more subtly. You just don't refer to the other speaker directly ! Like, "I could never get by without calling my beloved sponsor everyday" after someone has just shared that they don't want or need a sponsor. Be sure to use only "I" statements! This type of crosstalk is an art form in AA. (There are 50 year old guys with 25 years sobriety still calling their sponsors everyday and not making any decisions on their own. No healthy autonomy for some AA members!)

R266 In AA you cannot ask for information or "feelings" in meetings. That is called crosstalk and it is one of the more sensible ideas in the program. It keeps meetings from becoming discussions and arguments. Each share is its own independent thing--they are not responses to other shares.

In this case, you would say, "This is how I feel about using the Lord's Prayer to close meetings...etc. etc....if anyone knows the meetings that don't do that, after the meeting, I'd appreciate hearing where they are."

I didn't say they should ask others to respond in their shares.

Dear me....let me format that correctly!!

--------------------------------------------------------------------

[quote][R266] In AA you cannot ask for information or "feelings" in meetings. That is called crosstalk and it is one of the more sensible ideas in the program. It keeps meetings from becoming discussions and arguments. Each share is its own independent thing--they are not responses to other shares.

In this case, you would say, "This is how I feel about using the Lord's Prayer to close meetings...etc. etc....if anyone knows the meetings that don't do that, after the meeting, I'd appreciate hearing where they are."

I didn't say they should ask others to respond in their shares.

R268 probably repeats himself needlessly when sharing from the floor at AA meetings. "I am R268 and I'm a repetitious alcoholic."

If someone interrupts you to say you are crosstalking, you should interrupt them back and sternly say “NO CROSSTALK PLEASE”. Then while everybody is gobsmacked you finish whatever you wanted to say in the first place.

Good point, R271. I prefer the more subtle approach but would enjoy watching that. You can also eye roll, sigh loudly, rustle newspapers, tongue click, whisper knowingly to your neighbor and in a pinch get up and "go to the bathroom " as a non-direct form of cross talk.

"Imagine a bunch of addicts coming together as equals, offering mutual support. "

That's exactly what the AA I go to is.

The bathroom door in my tiny AA meeting room squeaked. I put WD40 on it without getting permission. It was really bothersome, to me, anyway. I’m sure there would have been one person who claimed that they liked the squeak.

I would have adored you, r274, every time the door opened or closed afterwards.

[quote]R271 If someone interrupts you to say you are crosstalking, you should interrupt them back and sternly say “NO CROSSTALK PLEASE”. Then while everybody is gobsmacked you finish whatever you wanted to say in the first place.

Exactly. There are people in this thread (or one person, really) who go on and on about what one can and can't say in an AA meeting, when in reality, you can basically say whatever you want. It's not like a net drops on you and you're removed.

Crosstalk, as I understand it, is UNSOLICITED commentary on a share. But you can share, "I have such and such a problem/experience, and would appreciate if anyone else has thoughts on that", and then the crosstalk issue surrounding that topic is gone. It's something that's understood differently in different areas. It's not discussed in the Big Book (I don't think.)

There IS this letter to THE GRAPEVINE from 2011, that talks about how it was when she started out.

[quote] [bold] Considering Crosstalk: An oldtimer reflects on the changing perceptions of crosstalk over the decades [/bold]

[quote]"Back then, crosstalk meant two people talking back and forth."

[quote]When I came into AA 29 years ago, crosstalk was wisely not allowed at meetings. However, it meant something different then than it does today. Back then, crosstalk meant two people talking back and forth, instead of each person getting a turn to speak uninterrupted. No one could even interject a comment during someone else's share. "No crosstalk" also meant not criticizing what another person said, not telling someone what to do about their problems, and not analyzing anyone else's psyche or situation. All good things to avoid.

[quote]But we could directly address anyone and everyone at the meeting, as long as it was during our own turn. You could say, "Thank you for what you said in your share," and then explain why it had been helpful, or why you related to it. In that same spirit of A.A. fellowship, you could offer condolences if someone shared that a loved one had died. Nowadays, any of this is usually ruled out as crosstalk.

[quote]-- Lily J., Pennsylvania

[quote]R270 [R268] probably repeats himself needlessly when sharing from the floor at AA meetings. "I am [R268] and I'm a repetitious alcoholic."

Well, you know: Half Measures Avail Us Nothing.

I didn't want anyone to think [italic] I [/italic] was the one spreading that misinformation from R266's post.

AA and Scientology are promoted by Hollywood.

One problem with crosstalk is when someone interprets what you earlier said, even if to agree with their understanding. Because you might want to say, “hey wait, that isn’t what I said or meant at all...”, but your turn has passed, and you can’t. I hate when that happens, because the person means well, usually.

R279, that is what a burning desire is for. There was a group I attended that was pretty loose on crosstalk and there often was misinterpretation which got cleared up during "burning desire" at the end of meetings.

[quote]One problem with crosstalk is when someone interprets what you earlier said, even if to agree with their understanding. Because you might want to say, “hey wait, that isn’t what I said or meant at all...”, but your turn has passed, and you can’t. I hate when that happens, because the person means well, usually.

Right. Tho on the plus side, anyone who was really listening knows they other person is off-base, too.

Everyone just averts their eyes and looks kind of uncomfortable...

I've been sober for 21 years, no alcohol or recreational drugs. I do take pills for high blood pressure and depression, although neither has led to a desire to drink or use recreational drugs. I've never smoked. My doctors suggested I don't take in caffeine, as they stimulate the same parts of the brain alcohol does, so no caffeine in 21 years either. (If I'm served a drink with caffeine by mistake, boy do I know it! My heart races.) I was told to avoid colognes and those deodorants and mouthwash containing alcohol. I have done that with no regrets.

I think sobriety is also a mindset. I have inner peace a lot of other people in recovery don't have. I also come from stubborn stock, so if I take a stand on anything, I don't waver. But I still consider myself lucky I have remained sober for so long.

The most specific casualty of my use of alcohol was eighteen years with no professional or social success. I often feel younger than I really am (58). Clarity left at the age of eighteen and returned at the age of 36. I feel I missed the years in between.

R282 here. I forgot to mention I don't attend AA meetings. I found them unproductive for me within the first year and I ventured forth without the "support".

[quote]R283 [R282] here. I forgot to mention I don't attend AA meetings. I found them unproductive for me within the first year and I ventured forth without the "support".

Everyone's different. The Big Book says there are other ways out there, and this is just the way that worked for them. Congrats on your long term sobriety!!

I feel so lucky that I immediately snapped into LIKING a.a. meetings. I met such interesting, like-minded people. Maybe its because there were so many other theater people in New York City A.A.? But then, I feel connected to the members in other cities I've gone on to live in, too, so it's surely not all that.

AA works for very few people. It's toxic and ineffective.

The hospital where I worked was a smoke free campus except for a little fenced in area adjoining the psych and detox units. THEY got to smoke, but employees and other patients could not. I never understood why they tolerating that, but maybe it keeps them calm. Seems unhealthy to me.

AA and NA are mind control . No free thinkers allowed . There is a sign at a meeting club house that says "If you think you are unique , you are not alone" The steps all start with "We" no individuality aloud ... Check out Smart Recovery and or therapy . 12 steps are shame based and a pairing of vulnerable and control freaks bordering on Narcissistic disordered .

Allowed lol ....

Smart Recovery

Please go and enjoy Smart Recovery, R289. AA actually encourages people to go to other programs, if they want to and if they think they can get sober there, and with AA’s best wishes!

If you do, and get sober, I give AA full credit based on this recommendation. AA as an organization probably won’t, as I don’t think they take credit for anybody getting sober, but it should, in this case.

r290- Typical AA asshole who just parrots what he hears. He is miserable and needs to bully others for some sense of control.

[quote]r290 Please go and enjoy Smart Recovery, [R289]. AA actually encourages people to go to other programs, if they want to and if they think they can get sober there, and with AA’s best wishes!

AA also says that if someone thinks they're not really in need or sobriety, maybe they need to go out and drink some more to convince themselves...or not. There's literally an open door policy, both IN and OUT.

And the intro to the 12 Steps, usually read aloud at each meeting, states, [italic]"Here are the steps we took, which are SUGGESTED as a program of recovery..."[/italic]

Translation: Make Up Your Own Mind.

"If you do, and get sober, I give AA full credit based on this recommendation. "

AA has less than a 5% success rate. Lots of returning chronic relapsers. I also suspect many who claim to be sober, are not really. Lots of discontented people in AA. And I am referring to the "old timers" They seem the most jaded and cynical.

r292, Translation- It's all basic will power and when a person is DONE. People have just as much success outside of AA than inside. In fact, they are not bombarded with negativity, lack of compassion and woe is me shit stories .

We get it, you hate, hate, hate AA. It’s a free country. Never mind the millions that get sober through AA.

Millions? LOL

R296, AA has a convention every 5 years. They didn’t fit millions into the stadium, I don’t think, just tens of thousands, is my guess.

I did read somewhere that there were millions that got their lives into shape through AA.

But do what you like. Let a thousand flowers bloom.

The relapse rate is high in AA among devoted folks, it proves it's an ineffectual remedy.

R298, link? Unless you’re just making all your criticism up.

It’s no joke that any day an alcoholic goes without drinking is a success.

That's your identity r299, always an alkie. You are just a drink away from destruction and it can happen at any moment despite how long you have abstained. That is no way to live. Constantly on egg shells, doubting your self worth and abilities .

R300, first you invent some stuff about me that you imagine, then you condem it. That’s “no way to live”.

I thought you didn’t like judgmental people?

r301 is GASLIGHTING . Can you imagine an AA member doing this ? A total anomaly .

I just re-watched Gaslight last week.