What is AA up to and why are they pretending to involve God?

Question

Seems to me addictions don't stop and they lead loved one's to believe everyone else is to blame - family makes you drink. What? That creates paranoid behavior. The victims of this cult are telling family members this and they are also ending up on physcotic drugs and disability - drugged to live life and more addiction. How are the drug stocks doing lately?

Our loved one came into town for a funeral and got into a fender bender - turned around and drove all the way back to the other side of the state where he lives. Later he announces again that this funeral caused that accident and not only is he intoxicated during this conversation he also takes scripts. AA is making people turn away from God when they are teaching people everything is someone elses fault....in this case a deceased family member. What on earth?

My husband quit slamming down beer without AA. He has had a glass of wine about 5x over a period of 10 yrs not craved to drink the entire bottle or craved beer.

Answer 1

12 step fellowships (like AA and NA) do help people, but are very much like a cult and these programs have many drawbacks.

Answer 2

Because they can profit from it, using all the tradition, threats, appeals to emotion, and the full weight of the politics of their religion to get what they want. This is how religion works. It is the norm, not the exception. Religious adherents are divided into two essential categories: true believers, and those who prey on them. The true believers use the religion as an escape from consequence, either resulting from circumstances (believe that your dead loved ones are in heaven rather than simply in the ground) or their own actions (pray for forgiveness). True believers don't climb the ladder very far. The others know they're part of a hustle, and will say anything, do anything, and pretend to be anybody to get to the top.

Answer 3

Some people are too weak to go on without some kind of replacement addiction. Okay, most people. The lucky ones escape this like your husband, and quit on their own, or control or limit as I do.

People in AA seem obsessed with finding God to cure their ills. They turn to him and to excessive coffee to find solace. Basically, AA trades an addiction for other addictions, cashing in on people's fears and converting them into religious propaganda. "Only god will help you drink drinking" and non-sense like that.

It's baloney, but I'd rather people go off and waste money praying to God than to drive drunk on the same street as me!

Answer 4

I agree with Adam Carolla. AA should pare down the 12 step program into 10 steps.

Answer 5

Keep close to God, no pretending.

In the Beginning God created heavens and earth.
God gives you air to breathe and sunshine to enjoy.
God gives you water to drink and food to eat.
God gives you a wonderful body and sound mind, to live.
God loves you, and you are precious to Him.
Son of God died on the Cross to save us from condemnation.
Jesus’ love is boundless and everlasting.
We have the hope of Heaven through Jesus.
Life therefore has fantastic and glorious future!
(Digestion of above can even prevent depression and suicidal thoughts.)

Answer 6

From reading your question, it leads me to believe you do not know a thing about AA or Alanon, or any other of these traditional twelve step programs. Have you ever attendend an AA meeting? The obvious anser is "no". Have you ever read the "big book"? Do you know the history of AA or Alanon at all? AA doesn't teach people to blame their families and friends for their transgressions. The 12 steps are about personal accountability and righting (or attempting to) the wrongs they created in their drinking life. AA also doesn't turn people away from God. Members of AA rely on a "higher power" which can be defined in any way by each individual member of the group. For some it is God. For your family member to say what he/she did, it is obvious they have not found sobriety, and its also obvious they havent' even reached the first step.
I cannot stress enough that AA is about personal accountabilty and responsibility. Some may call it a cult, for millions of people it has and IS saving thier lives!
These are the Twelve Steps as defined by Alcoholics Anonymous. [1]

1.We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2.Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3.Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4.Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5.Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6.Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7.Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8.Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9.Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10.Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11.Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12.Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Other twelve-step groups have modified the twelve steps slightly from those of Alcoholics Anonymous to refer to problems other than alcoholism.
Go to the AA website and learn a little more about the program before jumping to conclusions. For the record, it is common to pray in AA meetings. "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

Answer 7

You have a very distorted view of what AA does and does not teach. You sound like you have some bitterness to deal with on your own.