@shewolfnm,
shewolfnm wrote:
Even when I was attempting to swallow AA/NA , it always rang to me as a mindless program.
Something that teaches people to never let go of their alcoholism, their behaviors, that mindset and to belittle themselves constantly . It seems to produce victims, obsessive dry drunks ... not healthy well rounded people.
Hey girl.
That's it in a nutshell.
Teaches people to never let go of their alcoholism.
If someone wants to go to AA, that's great.
I got sober there.
I'd like to say that if AA didn't exist, I would not have stopped drinking, and that I know I would be dead.
But, I can't say that, because, if AA didn't exist, in all probability something else, maybe even something else more helpful, would be around.
Maybe something that didn't tell you that if you stopped going there you'd die.
Funny thing, once I stopped drinking, all sorts of interesting things presented themselves to me.
I had to make some choices.
Lessee, should I sit in a stinky smokey room listening to nutbag Frank one more time, or....go to the gym, take that photography class, go on a date with that really nice guy who treats me with respect, take that new job that pays more, try that new restaurant, etc. etc.
Sexual predetors?
Christ Almighty, don't get me started.
Ok, I'm already started....
These anecdotes are just 2 of the one's I clearly remember from sometime during the FIRST THREE MONTHS of going to AA...
I'm new, maybe a month in. My sponsor says "go over and talk to that girl, she's only been sober a couple of days"
Now, on a positive note I will say I very much remember what it felt like to have not had a drink for 2 whole days, and to meet someone who hasn't drunk for a month (OMG, Really!? A month? Wow)
She was very sweet, and we talked every day.
A couple of weeks later, the short of it was that she was seduced (call it rape? naw, how can you rape someone who is obviously consentual, never mind that the girl couldn't make up her mind what to eat or wear each day at that point) by some guy who'd been around for years...a real sleaze.
Just like in the first video, no one had warned her of this guy (I didn't know anything about him...yet). No one stepped up and told her, after seeing him engage her in conversation, that he'd made his rounds among other new girls.
She told me the whole story of how it happened, and I was appalled.
I only saw her a couple of times after that.
Not too many days later, this same guy called me on the phone. I don't know how he got my number, but that's another thing that happens. You give your private info to someone you trust, it's all over (that's another story)
The ************ started in with the same line of seduction that the girl told me he used on her. Would I have let him **** me if I hadn't known what he'd said/done to that girl? Probably not, he grossed me out. But, it obviously worked with others.
Right around this same time after a meeting, I was "separated from the pack" by these 2 guys who asked me if I wanted to go to some AA dance that was going on right then, down the street. "We can all go together, in Tom's car."
Again, both these guys were creepy, and I said no, I was going home, since I was working a 2nd job and had to get up in the morning (true). Here's where these 2 bastards used one of these AA cliches..."Never refused an AA request"
Fortunatly, between their creepyness factor, and the fact I didn't like dances, I said "I didn't go to dances when I drank, and I'm not going to go to them now."
I was not about to get into a car with any man, let alone these two, but how many women would? How many wouldn't have refused this "AA request"? All they needed was one.
I didn't know it at the moment, but both of these men had been in prison. Both were real freaks, and it still makes my stomach tighten when I think of them, more than 2 decades later.
I could ******* go on for pages with more of the same.