The AA Illusion: Progress or Stagnation? Why AA Doesn't Help Your Life.

Many have accused me of having an ax to grind with the Alcoholics Anonymous support organization. As a matter of fact, I do. I not only have an ax to grind but am declaring war on its entire protocol. Its Twelve Steps, its mantras, its sponsors and more importantly, its massive failure rate. It’s not that I want AA to go out of existence. My contention is I want it to change its methods. Because the fact is, regardless of their reasons, the program does not work for most people who have an alcohol addiction. And as of today, AA is where most alcoholics get sent in effort to lose that addiction. There are a few budding philosophies that are starting to veer away from this traditional recovery program, in which so few actually recover, but they remain in the minority. And if AA can’t recognize that they fail most and continue its cult-like tactics then, yes, I would like to see it go extinct forever. For continuing a program that continues to fail most is sheer madness.

I have been sober for seventeen years. I did not go through the AA protocol. I do not adhere to The Big Book nor ever had a sponsor. I completed zero of their steps. Yet, here I am, one who is almost two decades clean. I rarely have cravings or think about alcohol at all. I can go to a party, surrounded by friends of John Barleycorn, and it largely has no effect on me. I don’t go home in a panic that I was surrounded by beer and cocktails for a few hours.

And in those seventeen years, I have greatly improved all the planes of Self. I am in top physical condition in my later fifties—still doing thirteen rounds on the heavy bag, two out of every three days as well as lifting weights. I continue a meditative program of Tai Chi, yoga and Zen breathing most nights. I’ve written five books and picked up on investing and am doing well in that endeavor as well. And I continue to explore everything the world has to offer. I live in foreign countries, learn new languages and trail walk all over the terrain. I’ve been told in the past that AA is necessary for those who are addicts so they can learn how to live. First, I am no longer an addict. I claimed cure from the addiction after two years sobriety. But learn how to live? Please, look at my life I just described.

THE SMALL BOOK: HOW I BEAT ALCOHOLISM AND WHY ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS DOESN'T WORK

It saddens me a great deal when I think of members who will sit in the rooms for the rest of their lives. Those who were indoctrinated in their weakest state in initial withdrawal from John Barleycorn’s poison.  The fact is, no one ever showed these recently sober that there was a better way not only how to remove the addiction of alcohol from their lives but how they could regain their lives. How they could transform from the addicted entity to a being of magnificence in all of their planes: the physical, emotional and career spheres. How the final spiritual plane could evolve to a reflection of his existence, which shows his being as an important part of this functioning universe.

Most in Alcoholics Anonymous will never make it to reinventing themselves because they go back to the addiction. This is backed by the majority of addiction studies, AA. The one outlier study they keep throwing in my face from Stanford doesn’t negate the consensus. Most who enter your doors will not beat the addiction, let alone regain themselves holistically. The AA members, the few who actually stay sober in their program, may be able to stay sober, but their lives will continue to exist inside of the bars of their circles in the rooms. They have condemned themselves as forever alcoholics. Their lives will consist as constantly warring with the addiction that only resides in their minds now. They will lose spouses who no longer have anything in common with them. They will cut themselves off from the normal recreational drinking society, forever in fear of that relapse, which AA tells them is a part of recovery. The planes of improvement I mentioned above? They will never achieve those advancements of Self. Because their lives are sitting in constant negativity, believing they are forever diseased and are destined to be now addicted to their new maintenance drug of Alcoholics Anonymous. AA literally steals their lives under the guise of the attempt to aid them.

And that is incredibly sad.

Most of the motivational gurus will state that if you wish to improve yourself, you must have a vision with the belief that the future vision can be reality. When I had a motivational channel, I said the same thing. There is a chapter in my book that states this as well. You can’t improve in anything if you can’t picture yourself doing it. If an athlete believes deep down that he will never progress, he has already lost the race. His training will be lackluster for an event he already destined himself to lose. And in the Alcoholics Anonymous philosophy, they have already destined you to be a damaged being. You’re an addict. You will always be an addict. You are forever diseased. They have set the stage to forfeit a return to greatness in lieu of their rooms every night.

This becomes the former addict’s life. The rooms. He stays in them five and six nights a week at ten years sober. He preps going to a get-together, where there will be alcohol, by calling his sponsor and going to a meeting before and after the event. Whenever life throws a stressor at him, he runs toward the doors of the cult for reassurance. He has to know where the local meeting house is when on vacation. He is tethered to the cult for life.

Joe Rogan, in his podcast, once said everyone loves the John Wayne character. The person who always did the right thing and is everyone’s hero. But he then stated who he really admired was the person who totally screwed up his life and then came back. The one who rose from the ashes to fly over the horizon. And he is right—that is truly heroic. This is what I want the AA member to picture today—whether he is at six months sober or six years. I want you to envision this transformation that AA is not letting you achieve. I don’t want you to just stay sober. I want you to achieve greatness in all of your planes. And if you do this, you will find the thoughts of your days in alcoholism will be placed in the storage locker forever.

First, I want you to picture your physical transformation. I used to give this advice as medical guidance to chronic pain patients whose root of their pain was their poor lifestyle and obesity. The vision of seeing themselves as a highly fit person two years from my initial consult. It can happen. I once knew a twenty-one-year-old student in my physical therapy curriculum who was in horrific shape, especially for her young age. She was obese, plain and simple. About a decade later, I saw her on social media. She was a competitive bodybuilder, ripped to shreds and in fantastic shape. Her entire demeanor had shifted to the warrior mindset. She opened a gym on top of her physical therapy job to bring others to do the same. What did she do to accomplish this? She altered her mindset, created a vision of a better person and then followed through to achieve it. And she started from rock bottom.

After years of drinking, you will have to start slow in building your fitness routine. You might last ten minutes in a cardio workout the first day. So that’s where you start. But the real entry point is picturing yourself as that future person. I have a long time practice in the art of boxing and Thai boxing. Before I quit drinking, I had largely neglected Muay Thai or any other exercise most of the time for the last five years. I envisioned regaining that fitness to the level where I would one day live and train in a Muay Thai camp for eight weeks—in Thailand. I accomplished this at forty-five years old.

Maybe you have never exercised in your life, during or before your addiction. Who is to say you can’t one day complete a triathlon? Or hike the 2,660 mile Pacific Crest Trail? Or get in the MMA octagon? Like my above example of my former classmate, I’ve seen it happen—more than once. But you can’t have this vision of physical greatness by smoking cigarettes in the rooms every night.

The same mindset goes for the emotional plane. You feel agitation in the rooms, surrounded by the constant reminder of the past. You aren’t working out so are carrying all that internal stress from the normal day to day. What if I told you to picture a future mental being who had mostly tranquility in his brain? Someone who raged on nothing but positivity? Someone who rarely had cravings any longer, or if he did, those instances were minimal and transient?

This mindset is possible if you remove yourself from AA. Alcoholics Anonymous has nothing but propagation of negativity. It begins with their initial proclamation that you are dysfunctional with a disease that has no cure. And by constantly reiterating the past with your story as well as listening to others who have the same morose tale. I can promise you that you can’t envision future emotional greatness while existing in this sort of toxic environment.

Now that you are off the hops, it is time to really progress the career greatness you weren’t focusing on while in the bottle. It is the time to be the best you can in your trade. Or start a new career. Have you ever pictured yourself as a millionaire? Why not? You can learn to invest just like anyone else. Other regular people have become wealthy by their own hand, haven’t they?

You now have the time to do all those things that can progress your life. You aren’t spending every night in the bottle and every morning just trying to muster the energy to push through the hangover until that bottle returns. You can write that book if you want. Or start your own business on the side. Can you now picture yourself as that small business owner or creator of the next successful YouTube channel? You should be able to now that John Barleycorn is no longer your friend.

But you can’t do that if your focus is in the rooms. If your entire mindset is that of the forever addict, the only thing you are going to achieve is advancing in AA. And this is what they do. They advance in an organization they should be long gone from if they are years sober. But that cult is now their center of negative progression. They become a sponsor. A committee member. They progress in the very organization that continues to restrain them from real progression in life. I have no chips of days, months and years sober. But I’m retired in my fifties, writing this blog while living in foreign lands.

At last, can you picture your proper place in the universe? Can you see your essence of being? Can you look out of your mental window and see all the things the terrain has to offer you? You can’t if you are in the rooms most nights. You’re not living in the AA program—you are just existing. You are existing in a constant fear of relapse. Jim Rohn once said the top five people you spend the most time with is a reflection of who you are. And if you are entrenched in the AA method, you are surrounded in your off time with people who also think they are damaged for life.

I will get huge comments from the AA propaganda machine. They will tell me their lives are going great. How can your life be fulfilled if you are spending it ingesting toxins every night—physically and emotionally? How can you be advancing yourself if your master status is an AA member at ten years sober? That mentality is a delusion, plain and simple. It’s a coping mechanism for someone who is locked in a prison, yet tells everyone he is free. I do not believe these commenters who tell me how great their lives are or how AA has helped them so much. For I’ve been to their meetings. I’ve seen the panic induced on the long sober by simple going to a party. I watched their agitation as they sucked the nicotine and caffeine to cope with the toxic environment which they have placed themselves in instead of living their lives. A lot of you I won’t reach. You are too indoctrinated. And you’re too scared to live on your own.

But the rest of you? I want you to ask yourselves a question. Have you ever actually visualized yourself greatly advancing in the planes mentioned above? Have you really ever pictured yourself in a high state of physical and emotional health? Have you ever seen yourself as largely not thinking about your former addiction, which is so reiterated in those rooms? Have you ever given to future witness of a brand new person who is in a state of spiritual connection with the world? If you are a long-time member of Alcoholics Anonymous, I guarantee this is not your mindset. Because their program keeps all of these planes at the bottom of the abyss. They don’t want you to have a vision of success and reinvention. They want you to keep following their cult mantras.

But there was no rule that their way is the way. If fact, most of the stats prove otherwise. You were in the abyss of these four planes when you were drinking and when you initially quit it. I remember very well. It was a slow process to pull myself out of that rock bottom in these planes. But once you surface, your quality of life will increase tenfold, I promise.

All you have to do is grab the rope I’m dropping. 

To journey on a tale of epic transformation on a 2,660 mile trail check out: THE SHEPHERD AND THE RUNNINGWOLF: A PATH TO FORGIVENESS ON THE PACIFIC CREST TRAIL

(Usually free on KDP)

To recreate your life on all planes for the best version of yourself as possible:REINVENTION OF SELF: HOW TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE AND BEING FOREVER 

(Usually free on KDP)

For the condensed and orderly version of how I beat the addiction of alcoholism check out: THE SMALL BOOK: HOW I BEAT ALCOHOLISM AND WHY ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS DOESN'T WORK

(Usually free on KDP)

John Barleycorn taken from Jack London's book, John Barleycorn. First published 1913