One doctor, Genita Petralli, disabused many of the urban myths, in fact "urban lies" of Alcoholics Anonymous.
97% -- 97%!!! -- Do not get sober in AA. This statistic was stunning and unprecedented in my life. Then again, for all the time that I spent in meeting, I can testify that most people came and went just as soon as they entered. Very few people actually stayed around to collect their chips. Then there were those individuals who loved to collect their chips every month, only to get drunk again, then collect another chip.
How does this whole macadam program demonstrate life and that more abundantly?
The three percent who manage to stay sober in the program are heavily medicated.
What kind of life is that?
She suggests a healthy, nutritious approach to breaking free of alcoholism without entering into the deeper bondage of Twelve Steps, which take people down lower and lower into nothing.
I can identify more clearly why AA does not work, why it ends up creating the very problems which the "program" claims to address.
If we walk around with a sense of guilt, we cannot get better,
The majority of people are under anti-anxiety and anti-depression medication -- people want their life back, but you cannot get your life back if you are suffering daily depression and anxiety and frustration.
The program creates this problem because anyone who walks around convinced that they may say, do, or think something that will cause a resentment is just setting themselves up for a life of self-centered preoccupation.
When Jesus died on the Cross, he put away our sins forever:
"11And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: 12But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; 13From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. 14For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." (Hebrews 10: 11-14)
"One sacrifice for sins forever" -- no more needing to make sacrifices, to take one's inventory, to go through the motions of atoning for our sins. Man has a greater need. We are not just people who sin, we are sinners who are dead in our trespasses (Ephesians 2: 1). We need more than atonement. We need life, and that more abundantly (John 10: 10), and we receive this new life in Christ (John 3: 16; 14: 6)
If we insist on continuing to take our inventories, if we insist on believing that the work is not done, then we have only this to look forward to:
"26For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, 27But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries." (Hebrews 10: 26-27)
A life of "fearful looking after" is not fun. That sense of dread, shame, and frustration just makes life not worth living, and the only way that most people can get through the day is with self-medicating of a different sort.
AA is full of urban lies. Most people do not get sober in meetings, and those who manage to "keep coming back" do so only because they are taking medications and living off of someone else.
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