Comment by 0_____0
1 day ago
Where are you? I went to a queer oriented AA group in the Northeast, which may have been why it felt considerably more secular than what you're describing.
Wishing you the best.
1 day ago
Where are you? I went to a queer oriented AA group in the Northeast, which may have been why it felt considerably more secular than what you're describing.
Wishing you the best.
>While some have members who aren't religious, the 12 steps are a religious doctrine.
I found groups that weren't religious, but if you go to an AA meeting you are participating in religious rites masquerading as addiction therapy. The placebo effect makes it work for some small number who keep going to meetings, and attributes magical healing powers to those groups and their rites, as cults do. The folks I met there were mostly really nice, and they were usually trying to downplay the fact that the 12 steps and all the structures around it are an embodiment of Protestantism.
Like Higher Powers, the Disease Model of AA is also religious doctrine, and particularly pernicious. The system (regardless of the group or their intents) pushes learned helplessness to keep people in the cult where they all see themselves as inherently deficient in a way that forms a group identity, attributing participation in the group and it's religious rites of confession (sponsor) and penance (the resentments business) to spiritual healing.
Personally I find it a repugnant organization that preys on the vulnerable to get them to join a cult rather than deal with their problems.
Anyway, I'm doing great thanks. I don't have a disease, and things are going well, I use some drugs in moderation when they're fun, and don't attribute liking the sensation with any kind of narrative about that being a spiritual disease. Liking drugs is just part of being a normal healthy human, moderation is the key.
All the best to you as well, good luck out there.