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Alcoholics Anonymous meetings are not safe havens where newcomers will find unconditional love and acceptance, expert advice on recovery, and wise, self-sacrificing helpers.
Alcoholics Anonymous meetings are ceremonies where irrational beliefs and bad advice are commonplace. Dissenting voices and criticism of the A.A. program are not appreciated or "loved." Sexual exploitation of newcomers, especially of, but not limited to, women, is also all too common.
A.A. meetings are religious rituals more than they are therapy sessions. Every meeting is begun by reciting the contents of pages 58 and 59 from the Big Book, which contain the Twelve Steps, and statements that everyone there got sober by doing the Twelve Steps, and that "RARELY HAVE we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path", except for people who are defective — people who are "constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves" — people who were born that way — and people who thought that they "could find an easier, softer way."
Actually, it is A.A. that is being dishonest with itself. Those statements are cherished religious beliefs and wishful thinking, not facts. The A.A. old-timers have seen millions of people fail while practicing the Twelve Steps, but they just play "blame the victim" with those failures.
A.A-founder Bill Wilson wrote many such dishonest and grandiose things in the Big Book, and A.A. will not admit that those statements are completely untrue, or even question or test their validity. The true believers just go on with the ritual, and proclaim that Bill Wilson was a genius and a saint.
The official A.A. manual that was published in 1940 declares that their attitude towards alcoholics is:
| The moment he wittingly drinks so much as a drop of beer, wine, spirits, or any other alcoholic drink he automatically loses all status as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous.
A.A. is not interested in sobering up drunks who are not sincere in their desire to remain completely sober for all time. |
So, you have no status and they are not interested in helping you if you slip, or if you will not follow their rules exactly. So much for the "unconditional love" that they brag about giving to newcomers.
But why do so many judges then sentence people to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings when A.A. says that it is not interested in helping them?
Also notice how that statement makes Alcoholics Anonymous a cherry-picking program — they only want the winners for members. They cannot then claim that they made the members quit drinking, or saved their lives, or helped millions to quit drinking, or that they have a great success rate. A.A. only wants those people who have already chosen to quit drinking. But that is the whole battle. Really sincerely deciding to quit drinking forever is the most important factor in gaining and keeping sobriety. A.A. contributed nothing to those people who have already arrived at that decision before coming to Alcoholics Anonymous. A.A. just takes the credit for other people's work.
The numerous A.A. horror stories show just how unsafe A.A. really is:
http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-horrors.html