Rainbow here!

It took me off the road. It gave me a place to breathe. It put me in the company of others with the same problems with dependence. It reintroduced me to a loving God. [Once you chastise me for believing in God, we are completely done communicating here, NoAAUK.] It gave me an understanding of alcohol that allowed for its power and its seduction. It gave me hope that I could live without depending on alcohol for camouflage. I followed the steps with my own understanding of God. I never had a negative encounter with a sponsor, an old timer, a struggling alkie, a newcomer, a chairperson - not in ten years. I heard the beginnings of the development of the recovery nomenclature and I just let it roll off my back because I had bigger challenges than fighting with people over slogans. I did not do 90 meetings in 90 days. I did not get a sponsor on someone else's timetable. I did the whole program on my own terms and never caught any flak for it. I never had a problem with the Lord's Prayer at the end of the meeting except for "the kingdom, the power, and the glory" part because I am Catholic and that's not part of the Catholic version of the prayer. Every time we said the prayer was an exercise in tolerance. But it never ruffled me. I left AA after ten years because I had heard everything I needed to hear.

I also went through an outpatient program that was 12-step based. The last drink I had was about 8 hours before my first session. I had no liver damage, surprisingly. It was informative, it was tough some days because I was in it with my husband and there was some bad shit going down there; but all in all I benefited from it on many levels. I returned to work after a couple of months and haven't had a drink since.

Of course there's more to it than this. I study religious beliefs and am generally interested in people's take on life and afterlife. There's not much of that here so I don't hammer down on it. I respect other people's right to believe as they wish, even when it comes to AA, UNTIL the sarcasm and the hyperbole and the lies and the uncorroborated anecdotes absolutely swarm the screen, and that is mostly what I see here. I've had a few interesting chats with a few interesting people here, and the rest is kill or be killed.

All this anger - in a way I get it and in a way I think it's ludicrous, as if so many people are looking to blame an outside source for their misery. I understand that there are stars and power freaks and whiners and criminals in AA. Unless you are on the Supreme Court you have little say in the matter. So what to do with the anger?

I can smell msafrany a mile away - that former AA star now wants to be the OPF bludgeoning star. Please realize that when he calls everyone "dopes" he means everyone. If ever there was a place to put a 25-pound crown it's on his head. He will read this and have plenty to say. I thought I would try to respond to you without giving you shit for once. We don't see eye to eye, we never will, because our experiences are so different. No matter. Onward and upward.

"It's easy to blame peope."

Its easy to blame AA, because it is a lying scaremongering death cult with no more success rate than no treatment at all

A scam to make a conman and sexual predator money to self induge himself at others expense.

How that for blame?

It's up to you what you read, Rainbow.

What you will find here, Rainbow, is people who are livid about having been told what to do while in AA, and yet they have no compunctions about telling you what you can and cannot read, do, think or feel. Read whatever you want. Say whatever you want. Your truth is valid.

Good for you, Rainbow. The reason I always ask that is because people will take years to leave, but then blame AA. Sure, some people wil tell you that jail, death and institutions await you, and that is true for a lot of people. For some that had never been in trouble (jail) or had to go to rehab (institutions), it sounds like overkill and might be. But after hearing a few people that have come back, there are enough real examples of it for the reminder to be valid.

Not everyone relapses after leaving SMART, AA, SOS or any other. Some do just what the programs are designed to do - get them back into society in a functioning, productive SOBER way. I never conclude simply because a person moves on that they relapse. AA did what it promised it would for me. Wen most leave, there is no big pronouncement about it. They go one. What gets me are the ones that leave, angry and blaming... Where is the joy in their life?