aa-a-gogo.com

I’ve been trying to finish up the next installment of my “story in AA”. Its about� the search for jobs� in my first 5 years of sobriety. But days turned into weeks and here we are without any new posting. Its not like I spend the entire day working on this. There’s tax returns and other things that distract me from getting more posts to the blog. Anyway, since I already wrote about this topic in an email to a reader of the blog, I thought I would post it here as well.

A few weeks ago, one guy asked me in an email:

What exectly was the lie that ruined your life?
And why aren’t more people ruined by AA?
If there is an unspoken lie in AA (i.e conspiracy) whats to gain for them? Are they splitting the dollar that you put in the basket and the 6 bucks for the big book?

Well, here’s some of what I replied:

The first answer is there are two main lies
The first lie is “I MUST find a higher power and seek HIS guidance. I must do this not only to stay sober but always so I will know the new freedom and the new happiness”.
The second lie is “I must do this step (fourth step) or else the result will be to go out and drink again”

The next question’s answer is this:
More people are not RECOGNIZED as ruined by AA, because if they were affected by the same “fourth step” and “live by prayer” disasters I was, those AA people generally do one of two things:

1. They drink again
2. they leave the fellowship.

The people who do either 1 or 2 or both are IMMEDIATELY dismissed as failed AA’s.

They may return of course to AA and start over. But anything they have to say about their AA experiences prior to either 1 or 2 is dismissed as false information by all AA’s.

If I should go out and drink tonight, everything I have to say and everything I have experienced these last 16 years, will be dismissed as false information from a resentful drunk who failed to do the steps correctly. Just one drink – ALL – every single experience I ever had in my years of sobriety - will be dismissed.

And that’s why you “haven’t heard about these lies” before this blog.

I got a lot of writing ahead of me – still VERY MUCH is left unexplained. The above is part of that answer.

The other part is that people who are venomously anti-aa try to trash all of it and all its people. And while I am VERY angry, I am not doing this to destroy all of AA.

I recognize Alcoholism as a real problem.
I recognize that going to meetings is necessary for many alcoholics. Being in a group has its own power.
I recognize that most of the AA people perpetuating the lie are also deceiving themselves.

That last statement is also an answer to your third question. From day one AA’s are taught to attribute all the good things to God and the 12 steps. And attribute all the misfortune to our following “our self-will run riot” and not seeking God’s guidance.�

I hope you readers find this posting informative and more than just an emergency filler post.

Til next time (or til the tax returns are done),
Harry A.