Posted by akc on December 1, 2001, at 16:58:15
In reply to Addictionology AA -- Science? Cult? Religion?, posted by Simcha on November 29, 2001, at 15:27:23
I was reminded once again this morning why AA works. I've recently started attending a different meeting. The group I was attending -- well, it might come close to KK's cult status. The long term members were really full of themselves, they were very preachy to the newcomers -- much more promotion than attraction. While I have not maintained my sobriety over the past 3 1/2 years, I would sit in those meetings sad for some of these people with long time "dry time" -- I didn't see recovery -- I saw a fixation on the program without understanding the principles.
Because of another meeting I had been attending, I decided to switch to a different location. Talk about a world of difference. And again I will say -- this is why this program works. The Oxford groups, out of which AA sprang, still exists here and there -- but never with the success of AA. Because there is only one way in the Oxford way. AA allows for such variety, people like myself have a chance.
There is this gentleman in my new group, Charlie -- I just knew he had long time sobriety. I'm thinking 20+ years. Well it turns out his is in his 7th year. And he talked a little about going to AA way back in he 70s -- and being turned off because the group he went to was very dogmatic.
AA is so hard to put into some pigeonhole -- one group will seem cult-like, the next will seem so open and free. And they change. That first group I mentioned? When I first moved to KC -- I thought it was very open -- it has evolved over the past 2 years (and the people I admired have moved on to other groups -- especially to the group I am now at).
I would be unwelcome, I am uncertain, at some groups for my week after week after week of God-bashing. But I guess my experience with that in AA is so different than the experience I had with a very fundamentalistic church. When I think cult, I think of the guilt and shame that is laid on you if you don't believe a certain way. I've never had that placed on me in AA (or alanon). I've had some looks of -- someday, you'll get this, or you'll surrender. But it is different. I don't feel I am being condemned.
Maybe that is why I have such a strong reaction to this -- the church I was in would not technically be classified as a cult -- but it is pretty close to it. So I have been in that atmosphere. And AA is different. True -- members can be pushy as hell, and a lot of us do see it as the only way to solve the drinking and drugging problem. But that may be just over-excitement, not religion.
Just some thoughts.
akc
poster:akc
thread:14538
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20011130/msgs/14683.html