Go to Jail

[FatAndFaithless]

But the AA is notoriously shady with its data manipulation, particularly in the sense that anyone who relapses gets put into the "they didn't work the program" category, and those who remain sober stay in the "success story" category. Hell, there's a no true scotsman built into the first page of the AA book, where it asserts (more or less) that anyone who works the program honestly won't relapse. I've spent a lot of times at AA meetings as the support for a friend of mine who was struggling mightily with alcohol, and who was still drinking occasionally while simultaneously going to AA. Eventually I got him to discuss exactly what he thought he was missing, or why he wasn't satisfied with AA, and it really came down to the "Surrender to a higher power" part of the AA 'positions' (shockingly similar to commandments) which say more or less that an the alcoholic is inherently flawed, that they won't ever recover or manage to control their addiction, and that ONLY through utter submission to their higher power and a 'spiritual awakening' will they hope to control it. AA is not about recovery, according to the book you can never be cured or recovered, it literally just replaces the addiction of alcohol with the AA meetings and the constant reaffirmation of ones forever-flawed nature as an addict. Empowering it is not.

Are there people that have overcome their addiction through AA and other similar organizations? Of course, I'm happy for them, of course I'd rather people get over addictions than not. Are there individual groups in these organizations that don't emphasize the higher power stuff and focus instead on (utterly and completely secular with no mention of a higher power) companionship and mutual support? Of course, my buddy ended up going to these more secular groups by the end, and he was far happier, until he realized that he could get this kind of companionship and support and healthy interaction without subscribing to some nutty book about being permanently flawed and how the only way to progress is submission to a higher power (sounds like another certain book, don't it?).

Are there certain individuals that need a delusion in order to control themselves? Very possibly, I don't know. What we shouldn't do is give free pass or privilege or government endorsement (in some cases with the AA) to these types of organizations just because there might be some people somewhere that might need it, while the large part of society and government attention completely ignores legitimate psychological, medical, and emotional therapies that can actually be examined and data-analyzed without the tossing in of a supernatural element.

Not to mention the fact that AA doesn't do anything at all to address the social stigma of addiction, and instead pulls the victim card and embraces it.