Codswallop

C&E, her thinking is so black and white that she just opposes anything anyone else here advocates.

Well, I feel that some people can't see the forest for the trees when it comes to discussing whether or not xA is religious. Everyone focuses too much on comparing it to already established religions, which is a perfectly valid point and thing to do, but it ignores the fact that no matter which religion you're trying to compare the program to, it won't match up on most levels. It matches up, IMO, rather directly with the definition of religion itself. There's a central theme/something revered on the level of a godhead (sobriety), for which believers must be willing to sacrifice everything and "go to any lengths" to try and achieve. And the main point, members must put their faith in something outside of themselves, something mystical and not proven necessarily to exist. Unless, of course you pick a doorknob, which does actually exist in ways that can be measured, but can't be measured in terms of its ability to act as a person's "higher power" at all. (I'm not saying that to be offensive to anyone who does believe in the religion of their choosing, but it's just unlikely that anyone will ever be able to prove the existence of a deity.)

No counterpoint. I just liked the way AA was so easily replaced with religion.

While per the literature AAWS and GSO/GSB do not govern, they protect those beneath them and do lash out if they do not believe that they are doing the correct policies and procedures. Cases in point the German and Mexican "Big Book" lawsuits that were not conference approved. Per AA stated policy:

Step 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.

Tradition 3 - The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking.

Due to the governing actions of the German and Mexican lawsuits (they also prevented the members they were suing from ever doing AA related activities again in the lawsuits) against the fellowship members that were following Step 12 and Tradition 3 they should have at least de-listed the Toronto Intergroup that took the actions against the Atheist/Agnostic groups to protect them. They made a legal precedent with those lawsuits.

Dig Deeper before answering, are you Al-Anon, CODA or NAMI?

They were removed from the meeting list on the AA.org website because they dissproved of taking God out of the literature.

Lets here it for AA!!

puke.

They also laughed their asses off at the failures. This doesn't sound like a HARM reduction group.
It sounds like an AA group that decided to play God despite the warnings of Bill Wilson.

A.A practicing harm reduction? is that what your doing with ya soup?
6 bloody beer binge, bugger off pretender & get a real job.

A true Catholic believes in transubstantiation. That is the literal changing of the wine into the blood of Christ. To a genuine Catholic it is not symbolic. When a Catholic of this stripe partakes from the chalice, s/he is not drinking wine. S/he is drinking the blood of Christ. If you apply the placebo effect to that, and you understand that they sincerely do not believe they're drinking an alcoholic beverage, you will not see an alcoholic Catholic of this type being "triggered into a drunken frenzy". For any Catholic receiving the "blood of Christ" who is alcoholic and does not believe in transubstantiation, I feel it is a danger unnecessarily solicited.

The sharing of the chalice is way post Vatican II and, in my opinion as a Catholic, it is unsanitary and extraneous, particularly in view of the fact the the Eucharist is already offered and accepted.