Alcoholics Anonymous Dangerous Mind Control Cult

It can hurt a bit too. I've had to take care of my teenage niece for the last 3 years, not because my sister was drinking, but because she has been in AA. When you get rid of your children so you have more time for the group, that's pretty damaging too, especially for a kid.

I'm not going to argue about this, it's not my job to defend AA...it's been around for almost eighty years, and it's helped a lot of people, so their record speakes for itself.

I will say this though, I've had two family members that got sober in AA and it not only saved their lives, it changed those lives into useful, loving, and productive things, it made both of them into better men...

The first time I went to an AA meeting I was taken into a back room with several others where they shared their sob stories with me and gave me their book. I tried to be open minded while reading it, but it was just so depressing, rigid, and offered no hope. The meetings were full of people either court ordered to be there or people who wanted to preach the praises of AA to everyone else. It felt very much like a cult and I never went back. I took Naltrexone and I've been sober 5 years.

The fact that people are court ordered to attend AA is a big problem. That sort of thing is not what the program was designed for, and is, in my opinion, a missuse of the program.

The person needs to want to get help, not just want to stay out of prison.

I think AA was more effective in my Dad's day, for this reason.

It truly varies. Some groups are creepy. Some groups are the best people you could ever meet. There is no leadership, so each group can and often is completely different than another group.

I went for a year and it helped me greatly, and you get to help other people too...which is awesome for a drunk/addict. That said I dont go anymore, I still drink/drug but i still learned a lot.

25 yrs sober thanks to AA.

Big Book Meetings and Step Meetings got me sober - any other meeting was not for me. It is said Carl Jung had a hand in the writing of the Steps. AA is not religious, even though many religious Christians have co-opted the program.

oneLOVEsoulJAH

I attended an AA meeting once after I got detoxed, and when I found out that they didn't have circle jerks there I never went back......

AA may not be for everyone but it saved my life. I am 17 yrs sober. Don't go to many meetings now but I did go a lot in my early years of sobriety. It is very important and much needed if someone really wants to change their lifestyle.

My suggestion is to fully support any friends that are attending AA. It is life and death for them and you are encouraging them to be a better friend, son, daughter, mother, dad, etc.

All the preceding negatives may be true, but if you want to cure an addiction without expensive rehab or counseling, the 12 Step programs are the best way to do it.

For a skeptical 12 Step group Leander's viewpoint -- and a very funny read -- see Get Up! by Bucky Sinister.

You are ignorant about alcoholism and one of the few successes in dealing with this is AA. God bless all who submit themselves to asking for help, who understand that they are NO better and will possibly at sometime end up just as those felons to whom you refer. How do you think they became that way? No alcoholic can be inured agaianst this happening to them if they do not change their ways and seek help from those who they cannot bu.. sh.. about how they live their life and how they practice deception upon deception to continue to until they find themselves in the gutter of life, having spent any coinage they may have accrued.

You are dangerous to any of your friends who seek help.

AA neither endorses nor opposing any causes...hence the AA name should never be brought into public controversy.

To those who left it and went back to drinking or stopped for five years, stopping drinking is only a step and has nothing to do with staying sober as there are a lot of dry drunks out in the world waiting for pushing of having their buttons pushed to justify going back to drinking or drugs. For everyone who negates what can come out of this program there are many times more who know it saved their lives and opened the lives of those who they had formerly hurt.

This is nonsense. They tell you to read the book on your own. It's sometimes discussed at meetings, but sometimes meetings are just someone telling their story.

There is no masonic tie that I ever saw.

I do agree some people treat it as a religion, which is why I stopped going. I already had a religion, and they were openly hostile to me because of it.

Meh, whatever...It gets people sober and saves lives.

Whatever works.

WOW!!! Feel like I'm at A Meeting Now.Thx

AA has language like dry drunk which perpetuates their wrong-headed ideology, like any cult. Reminds me of how Scientologists use the term 'squirrels' (different idea, but another example of cult language). Bill Wilson is not the final word on addiction. Addiction is not a lifelong inherent flaw, but something that can be cured. Repeating the notion that "addiction is a difficult, lifelong problem, which cannot be cured" is a method of mind control which does more harm than good, because it disempowers people.

I wonder just how many LSD trips Bill Wilson took.He was one of the early pioneers....

The Illuminati "enlightened")?


The light that they are needs to feed of them that are suffering easy pray for the vampire club

Admitting your problem is the first step. Go for it.

i can see how desperately lonely people might want to be with AA.

AA has a strict program that they want you to adhere to,
but they certainly aren't some sinister cult, or even
a cult at all.

i just don't happen to believe that "confession" and
"repentance" have any psychological therapeutic value.

Good habits are as hard to break as bad habits.

it's too easy to just put it out of your mind,
and don't look back.

here's my view..as a cult, it's not really that dangerous...

think of it this way...

would you rather an alcoholic be addicted to meetings or obsessively binge drinking?

to me the safer choice is very apparent. AA is very cult-like as is any church or religious organization.

Cult or not it's exponentionaly more safe than drinking yourself to death and ruining your family

there are no dues or fees tobe a member of AA

AA does not accept outside donations from any organizations

AA is pantheistic spiritualism at its finest.

my step-father got a lot of help from aa, and it seems like a lot of the dudes who go need a social network...

i blame the ignorance of society generally.. any organization is only as good as its members...

:)

but, then again, you can attend AA meetings without
taking part in the "program" too.

This

Both Kudzu (available from health food stores) and ibogaine (illegal drug in America) have a high success rate with alcoholics.

Kudzu takes about 2 weeks.

Ibogaine one day.

cult
Noun
-A system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object.
-A relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister.

Before anybody goes to any 12 step group, they actually tried to use their own "power" hundreds of time, and use the notion that they could stop it on their own, before they finally get to the point of admitting that they cannot stop on their own, and need a new idea or act in order to surrender their addiction.
Any 12 step group will actually tell you)(the healthy ones), that the notion of a higher power can be anything you want it to be, and that it's not your job or your place to tell anyone else who or what their notion of a higher power should be nor do you tell anyone who or what to be.
You simply take care of yourself.
But look at you here. You think it is okay to play expert and claim that it is you who think you know how your friend, AA, or anyone in there should think, be, live, and you are also here calling something you know NOTHING from real life experience about, other than from reading some articles or testimonials and at the same time feeling angry and frustrated that your "friend" is living a life that you have no control nor business in changing.
I take it that you are partly a control freak who needs to have it your way in the way things are supposed to be and that is what gives you esteem.
It's so clear that you are closed minded, because if you were open minded you would let your friend be, find his way through his life and stay away from other people's business which is what you cannot do most of your time anyway.

If any addict or alcoholic, need to find a group AA or 12 step, etc, in order to stop destroying themselves, and that is what gives them a certain power force, even if it comes as a group and that is what can help them over come an issue of Self-will that they cannot on their own overcome, the SO FUCKING BE IT.

Your just projecting your own shit on your friend and need to find a way to vilify these people to prove your own selfish controlling point.

In the end, it doesn't matter what you think, because truth will always prevail. Truth and love will always prevail and if you can actually sit through any 12 step process, you will see how much more in truth you live and then you will finally shut up and maybe take yourself on a hypnosis or NLP session and cry like a baby in fetal position when you get into your own issues.

You annoy me, but you have a place in the world. You help me remember there will always be different thought forms and allot of ignorance.