i beat it on my own, but did have to go to court appointed meetings for a couple years.

yeah, it is a bit strange that they aren't about empowering one another, but about giving one's will to something else that is "more powerful".

i went to aa for a while, there are some nice folks there. in one of my regular meetings there was a guy who was agnostic and had been part of the program for quite a while. he managed to stir some shit up among the 'traditional' aa folks.