AA Posits a False Identity, Which Creates Dependence

Imagine living your life in such a manner, that you often wondered if you were doing the right thing, and you feared the consequences of failure.

Such was the life that I had led for a long time, overwhelmed by the concerns that if I chose the wrong thing, then God would be angry with me, or I would get into trouble, or "something bad would happen."

AA teaches people that they have to be dependent, that they cannot trust their own thinking, because they are "alcoholics".

They are taught not to trust their own thoughts, their own feelings, their own intuition on many things.

Consider the following statements from the AA book:

"Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest." (AA, pg 58)

The premise of this passage suggests that if you cannot work this program well, if you find that you do not get sober, the reason is that you are not rigorously honest with yourself, and those who fail and end up dying, well, they were unable to escape their lying selves.

The rest of the page and into page 59 gives more staggering informationL:

Remember that we deal with alcohol-cunning, baffling,powerful! Without help it is too much for us. But there is One who has all power-that One is God. May you find Him now!" (AA, pg 59)

Some other noteworthy passages:

"Most of us have been unwilling to admit we were real alcoholics. No person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows. Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people. The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.

 

We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed." (AA, pg 30)

 

Wow! Where do the writers of the AA Book get these arguments? "Conceded to our innner-most selves. . ." Imagine every day, waking up with the false premise of self, defined by a perversion. God has created us to be much more than a failing.

 

Then the argument that "the delusion that we are like other people" -- that very argument is itself delusional and has to be smashed. Once a person is pegged to a certain set of principles or ideas, everything else that the person thinks or feels will end up being fed through that distorted sense of self.