The Cult of Alcoholics Anonymous

Trading one addiction for another. Trading substance addiction for process addictions. For profit. The perfect marketing scheme enabled by everyone. Customers for life. The disease model of addiction rehab is a multi billion dollar business.
Try this prompt in any LLM chatbot: 'Outline and summarize the criticisms of the disease model of addiction rehabilitation programs and their very low success rates and poor outcomes.'
You can resolve any substance or process addiction. Joining a cult is not a solution. It's a business that wants customers for life.

Conspiracy theorists like flat Earthers, Chem trailers and anti COVID vaccine believers as well as modern anti Semitism come flooding out of A.A and especially N.A, I've known many people who have gone through their doors and come out believing in really nonsense 'theories', I'm glad that im not s,o weak minded, long time friends have shunned me and have even ganged up with others I didn't know to try and bully me together online (keeping in mind these people were in their 40s and up to their 50s) because I didn't want to go along with their new conspiracy beliefs.
Those places really are a cult of their own.
The idea they teach that the people who go there will always be "diseased" and so always need them are I think quite creepy and very narrow mindedly cult like.
I wouldn't ever suggest those organisations to anybody regardless of the nature of their own personal addictions..
Creepy cult groups if you ask me.

There's nothing anonymous about a.a. and n.a. here in Lancaster county

demon feeding frenzy at these places

I participated in NA for about 9 years. I was a chairperson when I got the cult revelation. One of my friends who was also a member, started talking to me about "the Secret." I then realized that not everyone attending that claimed to be a Christian was actually a Christian. Many dabbled in New Age philosophies and thought. The organization itself was a pseudo religion. I stopped going. I got out of it what I needed at the time. Once I made the decision to be substance free, that was it. I've been clean for over 20 years without a single relapse. Praise the Lord!!

Amen. I was sober in AA 8 years before I came into a Christian church. However my higher power always was Jesus and the God of the Bible. My area in Vermont is very secular. I got drummed out of AA for being a Bible thumper. Never understood that because AA originally was that way for the most part. I walked the next 25 years alone with God and stayed sober. At 33 years sober I went back to AA in a different area in Vt. Shared who my higher power was and how well it worked. This time I got called a Jesus freak. Moved again a stopped going. I no longer go. They don’t want to hear it. They pray to idols ( gods they creat themselves and wonder Why they can’t stay sober. I am now going on 39 years sober / straight and thank the Lord for my new life. Blessings. Jean

I left SA after realizing the dependence on the group was as crippling as addiction itself.

Thankfully, the gospel has been more transformative for me than Anonymous groups. There are some good concepts in the 12 steps, and telling somebody usually helps. That's it

You can see the contentless "You're a meanie, AA fixed my alcoholism" comments as least another example of cultish behavior. People see their favorite group being argued against and take it as an attack on themselves. Yet they can't bother to muster a single counterargument or even watch the video.

I knew where this was going... A new world order and a one world religion! Nothing new under the sun.

God is the same yesterday, today and forever. But also true is that Satan never changes his tactics. If something worked once, it will work again and again and again.

What's described is automatic writing which is what Sarah Young did in Jesus Calling and those before her in God Calling. Very dangerous stuff. Totally different spirit.

I was in AA/NA for years…on the speaker circuit and sponsoring many women. I had a few family tragedies in a short period of time and nobody including my sponsor was capable of walking me thru it, yet I was also persuaded not to get actual real professional help. My sponsor told me not to take the anti-depressants when I did reach out for real professional help.

Long story short…I relapsed. And only a few people stuck by me. I ended up moving 800 miles away to a very rural community where there wasn’t any meetings. I managed to pull it together and I’m clean and sober now.

Looking back I can see what a very toxic environment I was on. I’ve been away for 11 years and my whole network is still sick and brainwashed and never acquires any real clean time. If they do manage to stay clean their life choices have been horrible.

12 step programs are good for the first few years but anything after that is cultish. You’ll always find more people willing to co-sign terrible behavior and life choices.

Most people in aa don't practice what they preach and look down on others and do hypocritical stuff most are there because they are lame and lonely

I despise AA. Was in it for 2 years. Ask me anything. It’s 100% a cult

I'm an ex alcoholic and the thing that keeps me sober is 🪴. I acknowledge my personality is addictive and give myself something that isn't damaging or a gateway drug like alcohol is.

I was in and out of AA for years and enjoyed every minute of it. Made many friends and never felt like a cult to me.

What if I want to give my power to Satan? Or Odin? Or Buddha? Wonder what they have to say about that

There is a program called SMART (Self Management And Recovery Training) that is cbt based and proven through scientific studies to be more effective than cold turkey or 12 step which have about the same success rate as each other. It works exclusively on the underlying mental health issues that lead to addiction

I've known people in AA, it's their religion. All 3 are narcissists, very immoral people, and see NOTHING wrong with being predators on women. That AA step about doing a "fearless moral inventory" - yeah right, with themselves getting to decide what is right and wrong. I never could figure out on what basis they did "a fearless moral inventory".

So I'm a recovering alcoholic and intravenous addict who only got addicted to alcohol because of my drug addiction. I'm 49 got 6 years clean and sober. I totally agree with this video on AA and or NA don't help. They don't. I met more connections in these rooms. But I also believe that religion is exactly the same when it comes to getting clean from drugs. The actual factual truth with all addicts that have gotten clean. THEY GOT CLEAN BECAUSE THEY DECIDED AND CHOSE TO STOP USING. THEY DID. I DID. NOT GOD NOT PEOPLE. IT'S NOT A DISEASE. YOU CANT WAKE UP AND SAY I AM GOING TO STOP HAVING CANCER AND THEN YOU STOP HAVING CANCER. YOU STOP USING THE DAY YOU STOP USING. IT IS A ONE HUNDRED PERCENT A CHOICE. REGARDLESS OF PHYSICAL WITHDRAWAL. I SHOT HEROIN AND OPIATES FOR OVER 20 YEARS AND SNIFFED FOR YEARS PRIOR TO THAT. I GOT CLEAN WHEN I STOPPED USING PERIOD!!! My life has gotten much better. But I'm still poor and go through a lot of hardships. It's just a lot easier now when I'm not high all the time penniless broke every week until Friday then broke Saturday until next Friday. Vicious cycle.

Kudos on your research - you know what you’re talking about. You ever read the Orange Papers?

Imagine being a member of a church so envious of another group's success that they would rather see people dead, than sober as a result of their membership in that group.

You can be sure your motives here are will be questioned. Hope you have a good answer, because the fate of your eternal soul depends on it.

Aa is a Christian cult. People become addicted to the meetings, and are told without god's love they will fail at sobriety.

I saw guys in A.A. who preyed on newcomer young girls. As an atheist I was ostracized. Eye rolling, dissing me. I didn't believe in all the woo woo god stories. My sponsors were using speed, dropped out before me, ran after newcomer guys, a no, no. A few made fun of me. After 12 years of sobriety I finally told them off. I said, I don't give a F*** what you think of me. I finally dropped out. Principles before personalities but some needed psych intervention and refused to get help. Don't loan money, you'll never see it again.

I'm 23 years sober, go to AA, saved in the name of Jesus Christ and work with many woman sober now too. I'm grateful and recovered but not cured 🙏 if I take another drink it would be foolish and selfish since God already removed the obsession long ago. I don't crave it and I no longer fight it. Serenity is real and meanwhile I'm still not perfect. I read my Bible every day and the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous 🥰

Matthew Perry aged shockingly, quick.

After AA meetings we would all meet up at the bar and have fun

I grew up in this cult. Went to my first meeting at 2. Still grew up to be an alcoholic. Finally got sober on my own. But I STAND BY this cult if you can't do it on your own. One day at a time!

i'm a recovering opiate addict, i did it myself starting in 2016, after i just decided i'd had enough of all the misery and struggle to afford a drug habit on top of this expensive ass life. it was Suboxone that done the trick for me, and i've been taking it off and on since 2016 and only had 1 relapse in 2018. i'd experienced several negative life consequences from my drug use, and was beginning to understand the "why" of my addiction. i never worked the steps and yet i still managed to stay clean for 8 going on 9 years now. had a friend recently who'd been indoctrinated by NA, and she asked me to go to some meetings with her. it's like an MLM where they're always wanting new members, that's how these groups sustain theirselves. i was innoculated against religious fanaticism as a younger child and i have to admit, NA meetings can be really powerful places. it's a heady mixture. the community, the fellowship and sharing of really powerful and emotionally evocative stories and experiences, it's very, very powerful to someone who's spent years, if not decades, numbing theirself from their own negative emotions as a way to cope with life. i saw another person's comment that said "build a life you don't want to escape from", and THAT was more helpful to me than any of the religious dogma culty bullshit i got from NA.
it took me a few meetings to begin to really see how cult-like it truly is. the part that bothered me the most was the hypocrisy of claiming that you could be an atheistic or agnostic person (like i am), and still be a member of NA. you just have to totally dispense with that worldview by admitting there's a "higher power of your understanding" and "give your addiction" over to that higher power, the weird insistence on "surrendering", and also the part about victimizing yourself by "admitting you are powerless" over your addiction, i didn't like ANY of that. it was a bit of a slow process, but alarm bells went off in my head when i heard that shit. and the other big one for me, that "addiction is a spiritual disease", which sounds to me like if you just believe in Jesus hard enough, and go to enough meetings or go to church enough, you can pray away the addiction, and no, LOL, you can't! any addiction specialist worth their salt will tell you, addiction is a brain disease, not a fuckin spiritual disease. people are more susceptible to addiction when they come from families of addicts, especially if both parents were addicts, and they experienced a high amount of trauma, especially in early childhood.
but as drug addicts, we are also susceptible to indoctrination by cults and groups with obscure intentions and ulterior motives. it truly seemed like the MLM version of a church to me, and the intent was to proseletize to us godless heathern drug addicts, and convert us and convince us to go to church, without outright saying that that's what their intentions are. anyone who still has a degree of critical thinking skills left, i think, will be able to detect the cultiness of the group rather quickly. AA and NA are the same, and its a very, very culty set of principles and beliefs that will become clear to you if you're still able to think logically and critically. it helps to have a period of sobriety PRIOR to going to meetings, in order to see it more clearly. like i said, it is a powerful heady mixture of community, fellowship and a sense of belonging and unconditional love, things that we all most likely didn't have when we were coming of age, and that's a big part of why we used in the first place. trauma, basically. but i do find it very insidious that they TARGET people like us, because we are vulnerable to so many things, and one of them is indoctrination into cults.
stay safe y'all. understand that it IS possible to achieve sobriety without having to resort to religious fanaticism and magical thinking, and giving your life over to a "higher power" that you might not even think exists, while simultaneously declaring you are "powerless" over your addiction, when truly we are the ONLY ONES that have any degree of power over our addiction. if we make a conscious decision to stay sober, and keep making that decision over and over, it does get slightly easier with time and making concrete positive changes in our lives, and working on addressing the ROOT CAUSE of our addiction, which is the same for all of us, it's trauma. we need therapy, not Jesus, LOL. and it is possible to achieve sobriety through chemical means, or via abstinence, without having to turn to Jesus and ask him to take the wheel, LOL. there is a real dearth of SECULAR recovery-oriented groups and i hate that, i truly do. i would almost consider starting a group like that, that aims to teach people to think critically again, and encourages EVIDENCE BASED CARE over indoctrination and cult-like thinking.

Next Video: The Cult of Drug Court

Meetings are good maybe even great when you're learning to kill time sober for the first tine in years, or when you're fresh off the psychiatric ward and the days are still long and horrible. NA, AA meetings are great for people going through those horrible days. Once you're past that, if you're still going, and making it a cornerstone of your life, congratulations 🎊 you've joined a cult and have a new ideentity wrapped around addiction and recovery and that's less desirable than achieving your own sovereign potential.

I think its great for those who find sucess with it.

There are a bunch of red flags : AA is basically an atheistic at best agnostics and at worse heathenestic brand of religion. To blindly follow the directions and or orders of another and call that sponsorship when their is no premise of that suggested in the literature but instead is a suggested program of action is very leery. The fact that you can mention any other world religion leader and everyone applaud you and or give you a thumbs up but the slightest mention of the Lord Jesus and all hell breaks loose (no pun intended) is a nother alarming red flag. No doubt there is too much exaltation of the man Bill W is exactly of that of a cult leader. The god complexity is all over this program as well as in our human affairs and that we either try to remake God into our own likeness and or image (which is to debase him into ones debased lower nature) and or to make up ones own god's which is the very definition of IDOLATRY!!

Btw, if any of you are considering quitting drinking and/or struggling with sobriety, check this book out: "How To Quit Drinking WITHOUT A.A". by Jerry Dorsman

The VERY BEST $14.00 I ever spent!!! I don't do 12 Step programs, NEVER been to rehab, was never court ordered to quit drinking, only just this book was what helped me to beat an 11 year drinking "career". Been sober since 2010, and I don't miss it, not even a little!

AA is a cult AND nothing but a big "pity-party". AA is toxic AF!!!

AA is full of Cult members that tell you you will die if you quit going

Thank you 😊❤🙏💝😇🎇

Excellent presentation. In my experience, I have definitely watched it take over people's lives and personalities. People say, "I come to hear my story." It's the same damn story over and over and over again until almost everyone's story's the same, and broken, fractured people take on parts of others' stories not because they are true, but because it seems like it fits. Some people still think the point of AA is to "just stop drinking," which is also untrue. While it might be one modality as part of a healing journey - as I learned and experience, "there are demons in those rooms."

AA just shifts alcohol addiction onto caffeine and nicotine

AA has about the same success rate as a 9 year old kid batting in the major leagues against a 100 mph fastball.. I quit drinking because I became allergic to handcuffs and concrete rooms with big metal locked doors. AA was a complete waste of time. I was forced into it by court order and very quickly realized I could sign my own court papers from AA meetings of people who did very little except for reliving their own glory days of doing really stupid stuff driving drunk.. Zero separation of powers when a judge can order you to go to nonsense meetings that have nothing to do with the problems you're there for in the first place. I tried to argue that in court and that landed me back in jail. Someone else with a real lawyer did beat the cohersion racket though.

I believe that I was kind of "13th Stepped" by an older woman in AA when I was around 20. And I'm a man.

It is what you make it. AA helped me when i needed it.

Me watching this video: I agree based on personal experience that aa is a cult.

WTF THEY WERE NAZIS

wait this is just an advertisement for Christianity

I haven’t attended AA regularly in two years. Still not drunk!

AA is definitely a cult. 13 stepping is an accepted norm; infidelity is accepted and kept within the confines of AA groups. What happens or said in AA, stays in AA. The group should be called "Predators Anonymous".

Sobriety is a choice like any other. The program itself is a cult, yes - but it's a cult built on the most altruistic ground possible. There's no tyrannical leader, no excommunication from society or loved ones... essentially, the steps are built to replace alcohol, and to tackle the idea of why you drank the way you did. Im a year and change sober, and i stopped going to so many meetings a bit ago, because i do sort of dislike the 'youre in or youre out' feel of the meetings.

It led me to God which is the most important thing that couldve happened to me. As for the institution itself... like all institutions, sure its got flaws. But it does help many people!

Gee, God forbid someone wants to quit drinking or something...

Most people get sobriety but not that many people get recovery trading one addiction only to gain another one isnt really recovery

Beware A.A.’s 13th step!

So all this was was a video to rag on AA and promote Christianity by pointing out all the flaws of the program and its creators? The program and its members ain't perfect but who is? Come man, this is pathetic. I stayed sober in AA for six years but now sober doing my own spiritual program mainly practicing stoicism, the occult, and other sources. I got news for you ignorant people, nobody who gets sober becomes a total saint after the fact. Like me for example, I'm a total impatient a-hole sometimes when out in public. I'm a work in progress. How many people who claim to be Christians are sinning on the side too!? Plenty! Twelve step programs vastly differ depending on what region of the US or the world you're in so some meetings are better than others. Best for the individual prospective sobriety seeker to see for him or herself if they like it.

It didn't keep me sober.