HOW SAD. What went wrong. Was no one aware of how he looked that night. Sober 9 years.
Remember, at every meeting someone will leave and go drink. Some will never return…for many reasons.
AA is not for everyone. But we can be kinder. We can reach out our hand. We can talk about alternatives. We can speak up when some AA’s say stupid stuff about medication for those that need it for depression.
My prayers go out to you. I know you can hear me. I’m continuing with this outreach work.
No one should be sexually or financially harassed in any way. What about those who were abused as kids
and some stupid AA member asks them what was their part in it. They HAD NO PART IN IT> This is ridiculous talk! This is a travesty.
Criminal Minds just had an episode about this insanity. So My prayers are with you.
Stop13stepinaa's Blog 
Hello Massive, we are all alive and doing well. We were blessed with the birth of my first grandchild, a happy and glorious boy named Dustin who just turned 1. My EX has never met him, yet he holds the grandchildren of his AA wife in many pictures online. It boggles my mind, but doesn’t consume me like it used to. How are you?
On a side note, I have noticed that many AA groups have aligned themselves with cultish churches…kind of like a cult inside a cult, very disturbing…is this something I am just noticing regionally, or is it something that you have noticed is a trend?
LikeLike
sugomom- HI! Nice to see you here. I found your old email as I was searching for another one. How sad is that…:(
They have no idea how much a cult AA is…
LikeLike
Sugo mom hi, where have you been? miss your posts.
LikeLike
sugomom,
this is so very sad. I myself was once an AA nutcase sorry to admit.
thank God I have seen the truth and the light about culty AA. And Yes I will always try to chime in where I can relate.
LikeLike
Massive Attack, I am not an AA member or an Ex AA member. By I am an ex-wife of an AA member that tried to commit suicide not once but twice in his first 18 months in AA. The first time was shortly after he received his first year chip…and they day after he received the divorce he so wanted from me. The second time was three months after that. I truly believe (and telling text messages from him did reveal) that his involvement in AA had irretrievably damaged his relationship with his children, me, extended family and lifelong friends. In his moment of clarity and utter desperation, he felt he had nowhere to turn but to suicide. I will be talking about this and the broader topic of the AA mandated separation of family on March 6th on Gunthar’s STOP blog talk radio. I would appreciate any participation you and your group would like to offer.
LikeLike
sugomom – How are you and your family !
LikeLike
Alcoholic Children? Does that mean that if a child is an alcoholic it’s ok for them to either smoke or be around smoke?
LikeLike
There is one of the last smoking meetings in east Tennessee in order to be exempt from the smoking ban have to exclude all people 21 and under.
Posted is a sign declaring “NO CHILDREN ALLOWED UNLESS ALCOHOLIC CHILDREN”.
How is this compliance?
WTF
LikeLike
Hi Ela, welcome to the site and thanks for your post. I was wondering if you could explain more what you meant by the court ordered peeps slipping in a bill with the court card. What other insight do you have for court mandated antendees?
Good for you for speaking up and looking out for newbies !
LikeLike
Hello, What I meant about court ordered peeps. People that are obligated to go by the courts. For example when you get pulled over get a DUI they send you to Alcohol classes and A.A. some of those people come in wanting to buy signatures. They even have steal the seal and sign their own court cards.or they send a “friend” cause they don’t want to go themselves and these people might have issues. We just don’t know. Some of those people are angry and their either drunk or using drugs. Several times in my old group guys would come in late and if they cards wouldn’t get signed they would send a “msg” like I’ll be back with my friends? Sometimes we expose our own safety and yes we’re told no harm will come to us cause we’re “safe” in A.A.??? I personally think our society as a whole is confused? About 4yrs ago we started getting kids from junior high!!???
to write a report re; Alcohol abuse? We got them by the droves. What were the schools thinking??
Sometimes the parents would come in with them other times not. Young girls 13, 14 yrs olds to write an essay or reports. Finally after something happened and some responsible person complained to the school district that stopped! Thank Goodness. That happened in the Los Angeles area. I wouldn’t make them stay I’d give them phamplets and got them on their merry way. So I say again i the meantime it’s all about Speaking Out, making people aware, giving out literature, whatever it takes. I believe the 12 steps have helped but yes it’s not for everybody. It says so in the Literature. I’m all for people finding what works individually. This is not the stepford wives. I’ve read other literature as well that has helped me along the way. So let’s keep moving forward.
LikeLike
ela,
Wow the stuff about the young kids coming is insane and not safe. I plan to go to my local HS and talk about what is going on in AA in CUlver CIty. Parents need to know how horrible places like The Marina Center and 414 Lincoln are.
I would not send my enemy there.
I agree. Move forward. Write a new text!
LikeLike
Hi All, I have been in A.A. for going on 7yrs. And all I can really share here is my experience. I’ve seen alot of things that go one that I don’t agree on. The 13 stepping, the verbal, mental, emotional abuse towards ALL types. Somewhere in the very back of my brain I always felt a notion that something was wrong with these people? Weren’t we here to help one another? To be supportive to be safe? I couldn’t speak up because I was embarrassed, ashamed and guilty. But NOW I speak up don’t care if the oldtimers don’t like it. Or the ones’s that believe their self righteous to point fingers. When they abuse their families once the door is closed. I tell the new people that come in to be aware some of us are sicker than others. Don’t share everything in the podium. But honestly some new people also come in knowing that there are lonely men or women and take advantage. I’ve seen it first hand. We call them “friends of A.A.” because by the same token we can’t literally throw them out. I’ve met women that literally prositute themselves with the men. Me being gullible thinking their “new” have tried to help. Time wasted, money wasted and sometimes mentally drained. Only to discover they were already going to groups in (example) Riverside, Long Beach, Anaheim. Within the spanish community they move like gypsies. I never try to wash down A.A. to anybody I guess because it wasn’t washed down on me.? I mean overall I had good sponsors. I was lucky Thank God! men make passes at me but I speak up now. And so I tell the young pretty vulnerable women that come here to be aware and I give my number out. Especially the court ordered peeps. But sometimes they even know what’s up. They come in with their court cards slipping in a bill.
It will be too long an entry to share all that I’ve seen but I know that the steps have given me tools to change my life if I want. Ultimately it’s up to me. It’s given me a piece of mind. And I don’t only do A.A. I go to therapy, friends, family. I guess I’ve been very lucky. But YES I do speak up now. Do those people applaud me Heck no! If daggers could kill! And that’s when I know who is who. My partner is also in A.A. and if I don’t go to mtgs he won’t leave me. he was one that didn’t miss mtgs. Come rain or shine but he’s had to change his point of view cause of work hours! How’s that for Higher Power. I value my time and I don’t waste time with stubborn people. To me their more sick than me and I say I don’t want to end up like them. I get a kick sometimes when the oldtimers get all riled up in their old ways of thinking. because when they least know it their angry, bitter, resentful souls. Especially when you don’t “go along”. So as i said in PRASSA speak up, pass along the info. and make people aware when your at the podium.
We all have the right to express how we feel. 3rd tradition right?
LikeLike
ela, thanks for talking here and speaking from your heart. Each person can make a difference to save someones life or sanity.
I have had great friends, life time ones from Hawaii and some here, that are so special to me but the writing is on the wall for me. Too much culty talk , praising sponsors like they are god, the BB I cant stand anymore. Its so old and antiquated. The language is ridiculous. The Belief system I think now is actually dangerous, demeaning and punitive. Guess Im repeating myself.
Are you going to PRAASA in Hawaii. Im going one more time and Im bringing my pamphlets.
you can contact me privately at makeaasafer@gmail.com
Thanks again for your comments and post I so agree!
LikeLike
Suppose you had a real disease and your doctor prescribed a 70 year old treatment that has about a 5% success rate. What would you do?
1.) drop to your knees an pray.
2.) keep coming back.
3.) run away as fast as you can and get a second opinion.
LikeLike
Terror stalking is done at AA meetings, targeting individuals who are innocent people and victims of either cult revenge or a wider phenomena known as multistalking.
Read more …
http://formationquay.wordpress.com/
LikeLike
ela,
thanks so much for your post are you going to PRAASA in Hawaii in March? I am.
LikeLike
Unfortunately I won’t be able to attend. Healthwise not doing too well. But Goodluck and keep us posted.
LikeLike
“Remember, at every meeting someone will leave and go drink.”
How do you mean this, they will go drink, right then? Or, eventually.
Really, I think if someone leaves a meeting, even if they drink, they can figure it out w/out AA. If somebody drinks, dude, it is not THAT sad. Sure, they could get into a car and kill someone, or just feel like shit. That sucks, absolutely. But maybe they’ll feel shitty enough to stop. That’s right. People leave AA, figure things out on their on, and move on. I think the AA s who judge them are jealous that they are stuck in a shitty netherworld filled with the unemplyable, ugly, overweight, and underacheiving community of just bbllcceck!!! I realize that there are exceptions to this rule I have just noted, like Massive Attack, who started this blog.
Some people are able to figure out how to control their drinking. They lead happy lives and do not have to deal with the creepy insanity of AA.
I think that being kinder and discussing alternatives is great, but what is better, is to trust your gut. I may be projecting what is in AA people’s guts. (That is an awkward sentence.) That is definitly prolly what I do at times. REally though: If there is anything inside of you that says, “LEAVE AA,” Then get outta there. Even if you need to leave the vulnerable and sad behind, help yourself.
LikeLike
this post was meant to be a reply to the post dated 2/4/11 @ alternative for sobriety… oops.
LikeLike
violet,
I was just talking about the guy who left and committed suicide.
I f people wanna leave and drink, or leave and go find help somewhere else, MOre power to them.
LikeLike
and I doubt that people will get up, hold hands an say the Lords Prayer and everyone handing out their phone numbers to everyone in the bar that they don’t know, and have never met before.
That doesn’t happen in a bar. Yes it does happen in AA meetings.
LikeLike
One is generally not told in a bar that they need to “call their sponsor” or “do an inventory” if they find fault with some nasty guy moving in on some young girl either. You could at least say “what a jerk” in a bar and not suddenly be the bad guy yourself.
LikeLike
The Bar Manager doesn’t usually encourage married men to hit on a female barfly.
LikeLike
that’s right!
LikeLike
Unless he gets a cut.
LikeLike
What a load of horseshit!
AA is no more dangerous than a saloon. You meet the same people in AA as you would in a bar!. The people you are throwing stones at have not recovered, plain and simple…..and you want to use this to say the program don’t work!
LikeLike
Joel,
thanks for stopping by the blog stop13 stepinaa, cause I can see by your post you need it. That is awareness raising.
IN a bar you have a Bar owner, in charge and he has laws that are followed.
There is usually a bouncer.
There is a paid bartender.
There are other paid workers.
They are more likely to call the police if I grab your ass and I don’t know you in the bar.
When Newcomers come to AA they can sometimes be bombarded with a love fest of hugs. Lonely and scared they trust us sooner then regular strangeras. You know that. I know that. We all know that. SO don’t try to BS us here.
LikeLike
@ Joel – I met a lot of people in AA who had joined when they were in prison and others who had spent time in mental institutions. They were generally not the type of people I drank with!
Many people in the rooms are good and well meaning but there are a few who will abuse their position and this can cause tremendous problems for those who are newcomers and timid. There are good and bad in all parts of society but by the nature of what AA is trying to address it will have some members with dangerous tendencies. I have seen several members who have no regard for the traditions, it is a hotbed of gossip, and anonymity is often broken. I am very glad that I moved on from AA and have the strength to live my life without having to sit in church halls discussing my life with a bunch of strangers. I found serinity when I could stand on my own two feet and live an independent life without having to worry about mistakes from my past.
LikeLike
Hi, Joel. If people wish to quit drinking, why would they want to spend lots of time with the same people they would meet in a bar? People who have genuinely recovered don’t spend their days in a room trying to convince their co-crazies that they have attained some state of Wilsonic Nirvana.
LikeLike
Actually Joel, many times the people at AA are the same people one sees in the bar. They go back to their way of life when they get their atendence slips signed, as AA has a 95% failure rate ACCORDING TO THEIR OWN NUMBERS. The difference is after being in AA they become wrongly convinced they have an incurable brain disease, as AA strongly promotes the faulty disease model of addiction. How many people are killed in drunk driving incidents by people wrongly convinced they have this alleged incurable brain ‘disease’?
The more immediate problem is the fact that vulnerable newcomers are encouraged to ‘share’ their most intimate secrets with dangerous sexual/violent predators. We continue to document stories of the murders, rapes, assaults, child molestations, and swindles that occur, daily at http://www.stinkin-thinkin.com.
LikeLike
deconstructor,
The more immediate problem is the fact that vulnerable newcomers are encouraged to ‘share’ their most intimate secrets with dangerous sexual/violent predators
this is so true. It the knarly meetings in West LA and Venice, CUlver CIty, I see the most scary men I have ever seen in AA meetings. ANd I brought meetings into Oahu Prison for 4 years. At least there those guys were honest about their crimes and they wanted to get sober.
LikeLike
What a load of horse shit!
AA is loaded with the worst people you would meet in a bar.
Not everyone in a bar is an alcoholic, and not everyone in a bar gets sentenced to attend AA meetings.
If you don’t like the people you meet in a bar they won’t insist that you will die without them. People don’t go to bars seeking help they go there to get drunk… At least bars have bouncers to kick the bad guys out.
LikeLike
The “horse shit” is people being taught that someone being an alcoholic trumps anything else that might be a problem for them, such as mental illness. The “horse shit” is people being told to “open up” in meetings and to connect with people then being take advantage of and told to find “their part”. I don’t believe all the circular blame the victim mentality in AA was intentional at first, it just got established along with an unwritten rule that nothing in AA can ever be questioned. That “nothing in God’s world happens by mistake” (which was part of one of the stories in the big book, one man’s opinion, not part of the actual program of recovery, at the end of which the authors themselves say that they “know only a little” and “more will be revealed”). But now that blame the victim and turn your head have become accepted spiritual practices people need to stand up to this. It is sick in every defective way that so many in AA are told by their controlling sponsors that they are sick, but this acceptable group sickness must never be addressed. Horse shit! It must be addressed.
People are terrified of change and love to say “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” but the inability of the fellowship of AA to make a safe place for vulnerable people has been “broke” a long time. Beyond sexual and financial abuse there is the cult of sponsor worship, where some overbearing person gets to convince someone that they are nothing and must obey them in every detain in their lives to ever recover.
LikeLike
Mary,
This whole explanation here is just spot on. I doubt it was a plan from the early days , but it has evolved into a serious cult.
And the sponsor. Is so far out there. I just can’t take it anymore.
LikeLike
Its not the people, its the concept of most of the program that forces one to go against core beliefs, surrender, ego deflation and that causes people that don’t buy the snake oil to suffer program installed guilt that is most harmful and deadly. How many 12 stepper suicides have you known? There is one common bond, GUILT.
If you don’t understand this, you will burst into flames!
There is no choice in 12 step programs.
There is no true unity in 12 step programs.
Co-Founding father Dr. Bob made that clear in his “find god or die” statement.
LikeLike
Driheaves,
If you don’t understand this, you will burst into flames!
LOL This really made me laugh ! so true. They are so fearful. I love many people I have know in the rooms, but once the veil is removed of the cultyism and BS
there is NO TURNING BACK for me. Not a bad thing either.
LikeLike
Joel, There is a reason I never got “into bars”. But at least bars dont pretend to be something they are not. They are a BAR,they have BOUNCERS,there is no secret society. AA depicts itself other than what they ARE. They are Religious! There are DANGERS! They ARE affiliated with jails,hospitals,mental health clinics,probation officers and Drug Court etc. There lies are harmful and deadly. Especially to the newcomer that is encouraged to give their phone numbers out to multiple convicted felons,sex offenders,wife beaters,child abusers and still using/abusing/drug addicts and alcoholics! Would you recommend to your daughter/son to give her number out to every Tom,Dick,Susie and Harry at a BAR-oh -and hug them all too? I didnt think so……….. You are comparing apples to oranges.
At least at a BAR-you have a choice if you want to go into one and know what the dangers could be. You can make an educated choice. AA on the other hand tells you NOT to worry and Trust your sponser and others.also in AA there is NO accountability when things go wrong.
One more thing-I dont remember ever seeing BARS being in a church,recreation Center or
childrens playground. put that in your pipe and smoke it-or that bull#%@& you mentioned:)
LikeLike
Safety first,
I agree!
LikeLike
agree with safety first…
LikeLike