I am not alone. How do you feel?

Go and check out the a-SS site (e-AA really - my little bit of fun...lol). I think that site is SOOOO dangerous - it kills people. They get bored to death.

Excellent massive..It's like what BB Kate wrote and I feel the EXACT same way:

"I have never felt more free!".

In the rooms I lost contact with my soul. I also lost contact with my real friends and family. What turned out to be a good thing, only I didn't it at the time, was that I never felt in place in "there". I didn't want to "fake it" and I spotted the phony love but tried to make that real too. I actually prayed for powerlessness and the one thing that I regret the most was that I tried to believe in their god.

Meetings made my depression worst but you know what they say:

"Don't leave before the miracle happens".

Is that why some people stick around so long?

If there was such a thing as miracles then it would be the people that got sober without AA and a HP.

I dont know why the steppers choose to read and comment on this site (and similar sites). I dont blog on pro AA sites disrespecting their crazy cult and trying to lure them away from AA but they are unprepared to extend the same basic courtesy. Im an ex drug addict and many sites, with no overt affiliation with AA/NA, still have a dominant and vocal pro stepper community. It seems there is no escaping them and their incessant intrusions. Many people here have also had traumatic experiences in 12 step groups and are desperate to find a support network which isnt polluted with the unholy and dogmatic 12 step ideaology. Still, they come and disrupt our sanctuary. In the end the 12 step trolls only serve to remind me why I left in the first place.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tczU6OWoUkI

Oy, what trashy music.

I don’t think I’m a loner but would say an introvert of sorts, my hobbies and interest require that people not be bugging the shit out of me every 10 minutes lol. Of course in the rooms this would be a character defect and I’d be warned about spending too much time alone and that “on my own by myself I’m fcked” as my sponsor used to say. I then would have to drop everything I am currently doing and attend a meeting and confess about how crappy I feel and say something like “My sponsor says” and repeat some silly self-defeating cliché . After the meeting I might get some love bombing or some old timer giving me a lecture on self centeredness or some other silly nonsense. I remember one of the last meetings I ever attended experiencing this and after the meeting thinking it is all such bullshit and I shouldn’t have to do this anymore so I didn’t.

“Come on, there’s a good tail wind blowing
A fast walking man is hard to beat”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OORsz2d1H7s

I felt stupid that I had gone along with the AA bullshit etc after I left. I could not believe that I had been taken in that way. I had been out some time before II went on any blogs and I found that it helped me to write about some of things I had experienced in the rooms. It was comforting to see others had been manipulated as well and had the strength to walk away. It all got a bit much with the trolls on other sites so I left blogging for about a year and gently forgot about AA. I think having a break did me good but I have become interested in the last couple of months again as I have been at home looking after my partner and have extra time to be on the web. You can spend months away from any AA related site and yet when you return the steppers are saying the same old stuff and quoting the same old quotes with the same sense of self righteousness. It is the same as many behave in the meetings. They are stuck in an inflexible mindset and will never be able to develop independence.
As you know, I was not in the rooms for anything like the time that you were and was much older when I joined so changing my ways may be easier for me, but you seem to be doing well.One of the great things that happens to me from time to time is bumping in to others at random social events who have also left the rooms and are really living a great new life. As you know, people rarely contact you when you leave the rooms (that is a good thing! in some cases I wish it was never!) so it easy to loose contact. I find the people I know with many years away from the rooms and who have sorted out underlying problems are so much more relaxed and happy than those that are still full on AA members. The bridge to normal living is something that so few manage in the rooms. They are stuck in a 12 step world with higher powers and other quaint rituals convincing themselves they are right by giving out their warped advice to newcomers which helps reinforce the existing member's ideas on recovery rather than aid the newcomer. That is all the trolls manage on these sites. They have no real life, just working the steps etc. they have not been able to go out and comfortably blend in with the rest of society and interact in a normal way. All they can do is sit behind a computer endlessly reinforcing their own point of view to themselves in an environment where everyone else has moved on and rejected the ignorant superstitions and snake oil offered by BW and other 12 step gurus who also never crossed that bridge into the real world where they would be viewed as mental. The frequency of their responses amazes me.They seem to think that writing about 50 responses a day on site where the majority ignore their comments and they are engaged by so few is a good way to live life.
My life is very different, I have a wide range of interests and activities and surround myself with people from all areas of life not just recovery people. Some people have religion, some are scientists and many are from the arts. I have watched them over the years and see how they react in situations. They do not speak in stepper slogans or need some crazy 12 step lifestyle. They accept the challenges in life and move forward. I am not a loner but maybee I was when I went to meetings. I would fit in in AA but the rest of the world was a challenge in those days and that limited my horizons to a an insular, recovery type lifestyle. Much of what was shared in AA when I was there was by the dysfunctional who could not deal with the rest of society after spending years surrounding themselves by surrounding themselves with other people with problems. They are lonely .