Top Ten Reasons To Run From Alcoholics Anonymous
A sad but an all too often accurate experience about the many A.A. meetings that claim to be a 12 step recovery program. What are your thoughts? Does this clip reflect some your experiences with meetings, sponsors and fellowship?
Remember, we recover by the steps we take NOT the meetings we make! It only takes a few hours to learn "how it works" and a lifetime to practice it. Download this FREE 12 Step workbook that guides the newcomer through all 12 steps in 4 hours! Looking for a Big Book Sponsor: Leave a message at: 416-533-6024. Want to get working on your program today? Listen to Joe and Charlie talk about the original 12 Step format that produced a 50% to 75% recovery rate from alcoholism/addiction during the 1940's.
The AA Fellowship success rate is not as low as 0% (ROFL), but I admit that it is nowhere near the 75% the Forward to the Second Edition claims. I won't boast a 75% success rate, but more than half of the people I have personally taken through the AA program in the Big Book are still sober today. I am on the firing line, so that is scores of people sober, not because I am their sponsor, but because they followed the program in the book.
I'm latin so I had to listen twice to be sure about the video content. I'd love to laugh at it, if it wasn't describing my experiences and acquantainces, experiences with the AA groups, sponsors and oldtimers I've worked with in my country. AND MY OWN BEHAVIORS with newbies and fellas.
There was a HUGE difference when I found messages from AA members who had been suffering in fellowship for years even when doing everything, until they were directed to the Big Book, followed the directions and experienced a total integral (psychic) change. I also found "that ain't in the Big Book!" article and both things blew my mind away.
BB directions do not say what most of my fellas say, and what the video says; and of course, it doesn't say neither things I tried to share, practice and demand from others. I became "suspicious" when I found I could do anything for a recovery fella (N/A, AA, Alanon, etc) but not for my own family, that living with them had become pretty iced polite, and it wasn't what BB Oltimers' stories said, nor the last chapters.
Since the last time I shared in this web, I came closer to the instructions than ever. Result: in less than two months, without proposing, nor reprogramming my life, anything else than BB directions, I found myself going to my brother's family and being genuinely loving, considerate, and patient, thinking on them first. It's a miracle, specially after being 4 years in step work and having done a 4th and 5 step years ago.
I HAD to quit from the AA group I was attending - I was shut up with "too much literature and BB: it's Bill's 12x12 the only one worth it", bullying, and psychological analysis of whatever I was sharing. Even my AA sponsor, a great helping guy, kept telling me not to complicate my mind by following BB, and tried to dissuade me. And I'm reluctant to come back to my own fellowship since they banned my working with BB since it was AA.
Simply I'm putting following BB's instructions first, and they are working. When I start to lose my mind, I follow the cut clear directions and the pain, the crazy ideas, the shortcomings vanish. Hope no one there had to experience pain and harm from the experiences described in the video, and God direct them to BB sponsors who are practicing program in all their affairs.
Liz in Michigan