A Sub Culture of 12 step groups mentality have undermined our society and weakened our integrity. Powerless or empowered.
I seriously doubt that AA founders really wanted everyone to think they were powerless over everything.
This is absurd. Although I know that Tom Powers from All Addicts Anonymous dealt with Sex in a way that he and Bill Wilson , Mr AA disagreed on. Bill W went on to be a massive 13 stepper. (sexual Harassment specialist)
I want to discuss this crazy ideoligy that is an AA Religion, but that has sadly seeped into our current culture.
Maybe this is why the Agape church got so big. Maybe this is why “The Secret” sold millions. The people who are still lost but sober are looking for some sort of way to deal with the fact that AA and its punitive philosophy and powerless, negative labeling keeps one’s self esteem low forever.
Unless you see it, achknowledge it and do massive other work to change your core belief system one is stuck in a spinning rat wheel.
It’s unfortunate when I see really smart women come into the rooms nowadays and cock there heads to the side like a puppy. Saying I just don’t get this powerless sh*&^%T.
Guess what ladies! It’s bullshit. SO run like the wind…to Smart Recovery or Women for Sobriety or Secular for Sobriety, Hams Harm Reduction or Hank Hayes’ new On track & Beyond.
I have just left AA after three years. When I was broken people reached out their hands. Now that I have my wits the same people have given me the cold shoulder. Luckily my husband was part of AA and tells me that they are jerks and he is leaving too. I am very sad and actually confused. My experience with it has been the bully mentality takes over and positive thinking goes out the window. I am sure it is not this way in every place but it has been my experience in my town. I have tried for way to long now. I was not going to let them get to me but it is not worth the fight right now. Maybe the bully’s will be gone one day in the town but kinda doubt it.
Nobody should be forced into AA. I almost wanted to take a bottle of pills because of these bullies. I have depression as well as alcoholism. What if the judge made someone go and they were like me. Nobody should be forced into this way of thinking.
Mary- Welcome here. How are you doing with your leaving AA. I just started a new blog directed at that. http://www.leavingaa.com.
I was very sad too when I discovered the truth about Bill, the monies people are paid in Ny in it’s huge Headquarters and the more I educated myself the more I felt the 12 steps and traditions were lies. Especially the traditions.
Chapter 5 became unbearable to listen to. I’m glad your husband fels the same way. My husband hasnt gone in 3 months after listening to my radio show.
I agree no one should be forced and we can all make a difference by educating our Dr’s, Lawyers, Therapists and such, telling them the truth about AA and what really goes on there.
Im sorry I didnt reply till now. I was so busy this summer I am just now combing through my blog to see what people have been saying.
Again welcome and maybe check out http://www.orange-papers.org there is a forum there but beware of trolls there.
I wont tolerate them on leaving AA blog. Its a safer place.
Mary,
This is how AA members/sponsors work.
One of the first things AA wants you to do is get rid of your instincts, beliefs, convictions and questions. That is how they get you powerless and follow them around like a puppy or yes man. The above traits are a determent to their program. They can’t have someone in rehab or the rooms with convictions or knowledge of right and wrong. You will be a spoiler to the program. This is why they tell you “self will run riot” to shake you up and get you back in “line”. Otherwise, your will (knowledge, intuition etc.) will cause an uprising/questioning by others. They have to shame you back in line right off the bat before your “will/knowledge” reaches other members. That is how AA works. Anyone that questions the program or doesn’t buy into it fully at the beginning has to be broken down. Psychology states that emotional abuse is far more harmful and longer lasting than physical abuse. That can’t legally harm you physically, but they can get many key members to degrade you with slogans, threats etc. to get you to desire the nicer side of AA where they love bomb you. Listen to your gut and your heart. Only listen to your head when you are away from any influence of AA and researching alternative programs and member’s horror stories. It is very difficult to change a mindset that has been indoctrinated by AA, they play on all the needs humans desire: acceptance, love, value, praise, healthy relationships etc. When not in total compliance of the program they (AA members/sponsor) replace the positive things we crave (especially when very vulnerable) with negative treatment like shunning, degrading slogans (keep it simple stupid, you are as sick as your secrets, what’s your part in it etc.-too many to quote). So, by love bombing us and then punishing/shunning us or witnessing that of others-we want the love (it is natural to withdrawl from pain and go towards the pleasant if it makes sense or not). That is the way AA brainwashes its members and why it is so difficult to leave without questioning yourself. Questions are great and encouraged in so many areas in life, like work, school, church anywhere. Questions=the desire to think independently, problem solve, wonder is there a better way or simply how does this work etc. All extremely dangerous for AA and keeping the many members mindlessly, disempowered robots. Even if you believe everything I just stated, I won’t be easy to deprogram. If it were we wouldn’t have these blogs, the Orange Papers and AA wouldn’t be so enormous. Good Luck. “THIS TO SHALL PASS” =)
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Carolyn- you say it so well. I remember years ago when my first sponsor called me sick, sick ,sick and i turned to her In Co’Co’s COffee Shop on Kalakaua one night after our meeting and said, Don’t you ever call me sick ever again! I was 19 she was 41. Respect is what I got from being who I was yet I know what you are saying happens more often now and over the past 20 years.
If AA was like it is now I would have never stayed around back then. (0 meetings in 90 days. Treatment Centers filled with AA members who were losers who couldn’t get a job doing anything else started to work in treatment. They made up this crap.
Clancy I and his Pacific Group which he spread all over the US also includes this Nazi plan.
Although I have some good friends from way back then what I see in LA is unrecognizable. I am glad to be gone and free and helping others to deal with the wreckage of AA.
I just wanted to add here, that one time when I was really traumatized by my AA Sociopath I called Central Office. A woman called me back and said to me ” What is your part in this?” The standard canned answer. I did not mean to be offensive but I was pissed off so I said ” I don’t know! Maybe I have a v@gina and my neck got in the way of his knife?”
I was elaborating to make a point..She was stumped and stoned cold silent on the other end of the phone as I don’t think anyone ever gives common sense answers to some of these canned statements that make no sense in situations where women are victimized you know? I told her that women in general who were victims of abuse NEED TO BE VALIDATED AND HEARD! Not told it is their fault and that they are powerless. I was not just referring to myself when I said that to her. I have always contested this “Powerless” thing as it seems to weaken people into believing that they cannot fight back when something bad happens to them, they should just accept it, pray about it and so on…I called the Police and did other things, I am not powerless to speak up and try and defend myself even in a weakened state, this is what they need to teach people.
I was told this by a woman in NY AA Office when I said to her, but what about the fact that sex offender and teens are going to the same meeting. I thought for sure she would agree and be shocked. She was not. She thought that in AA the two could just “get Along” . you are right Eliz they are nuts.
Massive: I told an AA member that I didn’t get along well with my relatives, who were/are extremely abusive. He said he thought that anyone could get along with anyone if they just tried hard enough. This is like saying that a black person could get along with the KKK or a Jew could have gotten along with Adolph Hitler if they just tried hard enough. Nonsense! The ironic thing is we’re told we’re powerless, but then blamed for other peoples’ behavior, which we usually really are powerless over. Though as Elizabeth says, there are things we can do about it. Elizabeth: I’m sorry about what happened to you. I was raped while drunk and blamed for it by the woman in AA with whom I did my 5th step, when I foolishly “confessed” that I had a resentment over being raped. Now I have a resentment against that AA woman as well, who basically said that it would have been different if it had happened while I was on my way to church (like a “good” woman, I guess), but since I was drunk and thus “bad” I deserved it. Plus he raped someone I knew who WASN’T drunk at the time, so I don’t know what the excuse was then. Good for you for talking back to that woman at Central Office.
liz- HI nice to see you here. Wow what a story. The things the women in AA say to women who are raped, 13 stepped or abused. They deserve AA and all the predators preying if they can’t and don’t back up the women and protect each other.
AA is a dinosaur. And it’s dying.
Again Massive the “thinking” that they are “above the law” and have some kind of “secret in” on life that we all
Anyway…..The whole Anonymous thing..Maybe they believe they can commit crimes anonymously so to speak? I just don’t get it. And when they get caught doing it, they know that the “canned comments” that defy rational and/or legal and moral thinking will be spewed out by other sheeple to further confuse the victims. Hey it’s worked in the past for them right? That is WHY 12 Step Programs are such a haven for predators. Why else would they be there? To HELP OTHERS SURVIVE? LOL! Jesus…Look at my situation, the guy tried to kill me several different ways, still threatens violence if he is outted and couldn’t care less who else he hurts as he KEEPS DOING IT! *ugh* . This is not easy for me either, but as President Lincoln said ” …there are convictions that will bring you to your knee’s…” Meaning, standing up for what happened to you and what is right and protecting others? Not the easiset thing to do, wish it was different, it is not. The convictions that I have to have to do what I have to do AFTER being victimized repeatedly and then help others and out him? That is very, very difficult. But there is no where else to go with it, wish there was. Conscience, something I have 
“don’t get”…Uh no, your just a sexual predator breaking the law and damaging people and possibly taking their lives along the way you a$$!
I am a very grateful ex AA (male) member who left after 5 years. AA seemed like a great place when I first got there but was revealed over time to me as a dsyfunctional shambles. And a dangerous one, as history has clearly shown.
The 13th stepping scum preying on the vulnerable, and the control freaks still make me want to wander back down to “the rooms” and front these creeps. Anywhere else and they would be fired or prosecuted – in AA, they are often heroes. Disgraceful.
Ladies, if you don’t heed anything else here, please get this: be very careful about AA. For women especially, AA’s lack of regulation can end in tragedy. Best wishes with quitting drinking….and remember, many alternatives exist without the horrid abuse, and worse, that takes place in AA.
I could go on all day about the lunacy “inside the rooms”. Instead will offer this abbreviated version of a conversation I had once with an AA cultie at the end. The cultie was trying to convince me I was indeed powerless over EVERYTHING.
Feel free to use it. It works a treat. To paraphrase that dreadful Big Book of Bollocks, “there is one who has all power to think clearly and take the **** out of the culties- that one is you.” Hehehehe. Of course, just a suggestion……….and not one which ends in “of course, you’ll die if you don’t”, another common cultie mind-bending trick to strike fear into people’s hearts. However I promised to get off the soapbox and I will.
AA cultie: “You are powerless over everythiing, not just alcohol.”
Me: “I am in an AA meeting. Powerless? Hardly. How did I get there? My own free will. I drove/(walked/bussed, whatever). I made a conscious decision to come. That followed a day of conscious decisions regarding work, what I ate, wore, said and did, etc.
That sounds pretty powerful to me. Or more to the point, responsible for my own behaviour.
And I am not drinking either, so I am not even powerless in that regard. If I was, I would be drunk.
You sound pretty powerless over logic to me right now, mate.”
What I wished I had then said but didn’t could go something like this: “And there is no Higher Power that did that for me either. And before you give me your standard cultie “ego-deflation” (read ‘psychological abuse intended to destroy my capacity to trust my own judgement), no, I am not God. Mind you, if I was, a bit of Old Testament wrath on your sorry hide would be most tempting. I could not flood your town quickly enough.”
Thank you MWR for your comments
I appreciate them deeply. I will be back with more comments after I digest everything you so brilliantly said. I think there are a lot more people reading than posting, thank you for posting 
You sound like a very good man , thank God for you, x e.
More was revealed- thank you for telling us all of this. Im telling you …boy we need you guys to speak up and out to. Its very powerful to also hear a man say this stuff. I hope we can talk. If you are in my city Ill go to a meeting with you and we both can speak our truth.
liz- I know. Its it a great post. SO well put. We do have alot of viewers here but not many writers posting. Its okay. I loved what he wrote and I read it out loud to my husband who is deprogramming.
I am 56. It happened to me and I am married. I do not know what I was thinking
hi Dee. Welcome! Yup …AA is a sick sick society filled with all kinds of predators who know they have an easy time getting free…..whatever! Im sorry this happened to you
As you can see you are not alone.