Have you ever attended an AA meeting, and what did you think?

Question

I've been to hundreds...and I still drink.

Answer 1

Interesting experience. I sat in the back of the room and didn't say boo. I learned a lot, not just from the stories, but from the way they were told to the rest of us in the room. I am certain A.A. meetings help people, but I found myself feeling isolated. When I got home, I also discovered I had a sore throat from inhaling all that passive cigarette smoke. This is not a criticism. It is just an observation, and influenced why I did not go back again. For me to stop drinking eighteen years ago, I had to be scared into giving it up. I could feel it killing me, and I sat down on the upstairs landing in my home and humbly asked God to help me quit. I have been sober ever since. Going to that single A.A. meeting taught me one thing very strongly: I was not the only human being with the problem. Those meetings are clearly "not for everyone," but that meeting did help me stop drinking forever, because it was one more step to sobriety. Thanks for letting me have my say here. Sent with good energies from Chris in South Portland, Maine, U.S.A. (I am 63 years old, and I do not miss the hangovers.)

Answer 2

I attended AA for a little over 4 months in 1991. I went expecting a support group, but what I found was a controlling religious cult. I found out that everything AA claims is a lie. I tried to take what I could use and reject the rest, but I could not for peer pressure. I was told I must work the program right or die drunk. I was told that in AA only you can decide if you are an alcoholic, but I found out that if you deny being an alcoholic, you are bombarded with no one is here by accident and they would then try to convince me I was an alcoholic. I was forced to throw away my medication being told that if I took medication then I was not really sober. I could not accept the powerless doctrine and would try to comply to AA by saying I was powerless only after I drank that first drink and I caught many problems for that. I was a Christian at the time and my sponser forced me to deny Christ and accept the group as my higher power. I attended 9 meetings a week and that still was not good enough. I was told I must work the spiritual side of AA or die drunk. After I decided to go back to church so that I could work the spiritual side according to my own beliefs, my sponser went beserk and told me to hit the door to forget the church and work AA all they way or not come back. That was 15 years ago and I have not gone back and I have not had a drink since Feb 29, 1992. First they told me I was an alcoholic because no one is there by accident, but when I proved I could stay sober without AA I was told I was never an alcoholic because I got and stayed sober without AA.

Answer 3

I've gone to the meetings, and they will usually parrot the line about this being "spiritual, not religious," and the only requirement being a desire to stop drinking. Then they'll get into the fact that, even though alcoholism is a "disease", it is merely a symptom of a "spiritual disease" (read sin), and if you don't work the steps, and work them right, you'll end up drinking again. They don't mention the fact that, more than nine times out of ten, if you do work the steps you'll still drink according to their own studies.
You also encounter the same types, the "wise old man", read the person with the most seniority leaning back in his rocker, dipping his cigarette (funny how you find that the same higher power that has relieved them of their alcoholism has refused to relieve them of another disease that will kill them), spouting the same old cliches "let go and let god," and "there's no problem that a meeting won't solve." Funny, I've never found that many programmers in an AA meeting.
You'll also encounter the battle axe that insists you do "90 in 90" sounds like an endoctrination order, get a sponsor to bully you around, become somebody's pigeon. For me, I don't crap on statues and I don't have a diaper on, so I'm not going to become anybody's baby or pigeon.
And you'll encounter the "friendly" guy, the one that wants to pal around with you, saying that the "suggestions" are merely steps, pointing out the straw man who is really foaming at the mouth for jesus, and saying "we're not all like that." No, that'd be honest, they're subversive. It's like a church without the crosses.
And you see the same people forming their cliques and sniping at each other. Smokers vs non-smokers, groups of the women, and the same catcalls ("she must be harboring a resentment", "she's on a pink cloud", and the famous "dry drunk" slam). Go to meetings when you can and just watch the groups. Watch who sits with who, who hangs out, and who ostrasizes. It's facinating.
I've gone through AA inside and out, and found several great people in spite of the AA bullshit. Two things you have to find out is if you are tired of your drinking and if you want to stop but can't. If either of those are true, go out and find the program for you. There's so much more than 12 steps. There's AVRT, SOS, Smart Recovery, even Moderation Management. This world has evolved past the 40s, so why should we leave our addiction behavior modification there.

Answer 4

If you've been to meetings you know it works IF YOU WORK IT. Do you have a sponsor? Read your big book? Have you ever tried detox or a rehab program? Are you working your steps? Have you talked to anyone at meetings about your problems?

Unlike most people in AA, I don't think the steps are the only answer, and I don't think a person HAS to use AA to quit drinking. There's A LOT wrong with AA, and if it's not helping you get sober, then maybe you're barking up the wrong tree. Have you ever been to an NA meeting? They're completely different from AA, and they aren't going to kick you out for not being on drugs.

Good luck.

Answer 5

AA's abstinence only method is not the most effective. In studying psychology I learned that your highest odds of success are with behavior modification therapy. Odds around 30% whereas AA is less than 10%! Seriously, most people relapse.

I have been to an AA meeting, I found it to be overly religious and they required that I accept that the drinking was not my fault and that I surrender my life over to a higher power (the Christian God and Jesus) and I just couldn't do that. If quitting drinking was not in MY power, but in God's power, then I just was at a total loss since I don't believe in God.

Go to a therapist and work on behavior modification, which is just a way in which you swap certain habits or even rituals for different ones. AA does not help you with this very important aspect of kicking an addiction. You have to create new rules for yourself, new habits that conflict with the old one of drinking.

For me it was becoming a health nut and really into nutrition and exercise, something that drinking conflicted with. Alcohol is a poison, a toxin to your body as are other bad foods. Anyway... everyone has their own way. Some people become religious and that new lifestyle interferes with their drinking. I've known others who have gone to being really into weight-lifting, or music, or art... anyway, there are ways other than AA.

See a counselor about behavior modification if you can, one willing to work with you... not some goof who believes all the AA crap. Good luck!

Answer 6

I've been to that crazy making organization many times... I have what I call a morse code patern of drinking....
The last time I went in ernest I was subjected to verbal abuse from men old enough to be my father... most of the men there were either depressed or bullys with a pulpit... like the guy named BUCK who made people in the room say "HI BUCK" twice and louder the second time.

I was a church goer before my AA experiences but AA has destroyed my faith.

I befriended a woman and she gave me the title sponsor... then after she broke up with her BF he and his friends started to stalk me at meetings and taunt me. they tried to spread rumors that I was all talk and didn't walk the walk but that pig wouldn't fly... they also tried many other LIES about me....

when I complained to the district office of AA and to the Area and to NYC headquarters they all REFUSED to help me... All said I was on my own in dealing with these rotten people... By this time the harrassment had gotten so bad.... there were threats against my life....( and two women who had come to AA before me had been murdered but the killers never cought)... so I was very afraid that these men might be the killers of those women and that they wanted to kill me next....

AA is the Cult of Powerlessness.... all the members are soooooo
powerless.....do nothings

AA Will NOT RESTORE ANYONE To SANITY....WHAT it WILL DO is STEAL FROM YOU ANY SANITY YOU ONCE POSESSED

aa DRIVES PEOPLE TO SUICIDE....
people who have been to AA are four count em four times MORE likely to commit suicide that people who have not been there....
and with the 95% failure rate of the program this is BAD FAITH and BAD MEDICINE the quack therapy is worse that the alledged disease.

If you want to quit drinking for a while try reading up on rational recovery and the other programs out there like SOS and anything other than AA

AA is Absolutely Awful
bar none.

Answer 7

I thought they were nuts, but doctors, counselors, friends, and family all said that AA was the only way for a person to quit.

I drank to ease depression, it would get out of control, I'd quit and attend meetings where they'd tell me I was going to die drunk in a gutter because I didn't believe in God. I'd ask, politely, how I, as an atheist, could work the program. I'd get, "Take the cotton out of your ears and stuff it in your mouth", "Sit down, shut up, and listen!" Never did get advice on staying stopped, only put-downs because I don't believe in God.

I went looking for support, found none, and I'd get soooo depressed I'd start drinking again.

Finally, five years ago, I got some decent help for depression, turned my back on AA, and stayed sober.

Last week, on my 5 year anniversary, I attended a meeting. The subject was tolerance. I waited until near the end and told my story on how AA treated me like a leper because of my non-belief and drove me from the rooms. They all said, "It would never have happened in THIS group!" (Like I haven't heard that one in 4 other states already.) "We respect everybody!"

BS! NOW that I've got 5 years, they want me so I can be their token atheist and claim that AA works for everybody. And they want AA to grab all the credit for the 5 years I stayed sober on my own.

No dice. It's like people who only want you as a friend when you have money.

Answer 8

I have mixed feelings about the meetings. Although alanon saved my life ( alanon is for the friends and family members of someone with an addiction)
Things I don't like about AA is it can be a party to relive drinking stories. Also, I don't believe it is a disease that we have NO control over. I believe it is a chemical addiction which is hard to beat and there is a certian amount of control and more than that choices.

Why do you still drink? my 21 yr old died of alcholism.
Maybe you just want to die ro punish and hurt your family huh
So, what does drinking give you?

Answer 9

Yes. It was awful. Everyone was smoking and drinking coffee. The man next to me was clearly intoxicated. There were beer cans next to the building. And tho I had quit drinking for 7 years they informed me it did not count until I was attending AA. Several of the people were too friendly, like leaches stuck to me.
I'll never go again.

Answer 10

You have to find the right group for you. AA may not be your style. It is highly structured. You should have a support group, but not necessarily AA. I have been to a few AA meetings and I thought the people truly believed in a "higher being" and what AA was teaching them. If AA isn't going to work for you, you need to find out what will.