"AA is Great"

I just spoke with one of my neighbors about the writing that I have been doing.

When I told him about this blog -- errorsofaa.blogspot.com -- he was surprised.

"AA is great," he told me. "I went to AA for awhile. It's a great fellowship."

I didn't mince words, telling him that the program is a cult, one which teaches people to be dependent.

I noticed that he did not keep going to the meetings. He "went" to them. He reminded me a lot of the British airline pilot visiting Southern California who told me that the National Health Service is just great, but that he has private insurance. Like my neighbor and AA, he was a praising a program that he was no longer using, no longer a member of.

I have run into many people who went to AA for a short time, then they left the meetings, claiming that hey had learned the tools and the skills that they needed for daily living.

It's a program which works best when you leave it, apparently.

Someone else I was sharing with told me that the program is great, except that they keep telling people "Keep coming back!" But that's precisely the problem with the program. The whole premise is based on a fellowship that you are expected to follow for the rest of your life. It's a lifetime of taking your inventory, or looking over your shoulder whenever you get angry or upset, the weekly meetings of telling people about the other people in your life who make you mad, who teach you never to take responsibility for your feelings.

AA is great for people who have nothing else, perhaps. But something better will inevitably rise in a world where the vast majority of individuals refuse to hide from others and live in themselves.

AA is not great. AA is not the way to life and that more abundantly. "Not drinking" is not enough.