The Dark Side of AA? Responding to a Fierce Defense. This Commenter Shows What is Wrong With AA.

A week ago I received a comment for my article, Alcoholics Anonymous is Broken. Here’s the Cure. The Real Reason AA Doesn’t Work. It was from a one Charles Stromme, who is an active member of Alcoholics Anonymous. He states he has been sober for thirty-eight years as a member of AA. I’ll just post his comment below and thanks for the article idea as I am going to respond to his points, which are the same points every proponent of AA gives.

Pure clickbait. You are why I once wrote Alcoholism as Clickbait on Medium.

How unconvincingly arrogant. "Be like me!" Or, in your own words, "This is the program I created for myself. And now I have a holistically healthy life as I follow that program today. Everyone, former alcoholic or not, should follow this program to gain the best version of themselves as possible."

But that's not the way life works, is it? Telling others to just change and be like you and hoping for the best? It's harder than that to quit an addiction. Mine was to alcohol. I couldn't stop drinking. I didn't know there was anyone else as bad off as I was until I was taken to my first AA meeting. That was over thirty-eight years ago. AA is where millions of alcoholics all over the world go to learn how to live a sober life. Not just to quit drinking. We all did that hundreds of times, only to quit again the next night. But that is just the first part of the solution. You called it a cure. OK, fine. I'm cured for today and if I don't drink again I'll probably be cured for tomorrow if I get there. That's why we call it, "One day at a time."

Trashing AA is going to bring in clicks for you. I don't doubt it. But at what cost? At delaying treatment for those addicted to alcohol? "Nah, not for me. I read somewhere that AA doesn't work." Some of those people may die of this disease just because "The Anti-AA Concept" said that AA didn't work for him.

In the unlikely event that some desperate alcoholic has read this far, please remember that Charles Stromme sees this in an entirely different way:

AA works. Please contact me if you need help in finding a meeting, in person or online. If you live within fifty miles of Cottage Grove, Oregon, I'll come pick you up for a meeting and take you home. I promise.

I think I'll convert this to my next post.

OK, Stromme isn’t a fan of The Anti AA Concept. And what is sad about this is he is a Vietnam vet. I am also a vet but do not compare a few grains of sand in Kuwait for a short period anywhere near what those veterans went through. So let’s not go to his blog and trash him. He doesn’t deserve it, but brother, Charles, you are on the wrong side of the fence here—coming from not only a fellow veteran but a former alcoholic.

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

First, he states my title is clickbait. Well, Charles, we aren’t writing articles not trying to get people to read them, are we? We use the best titles we can to draw attention to our subject. Clickbait is just putting a title out or picture that may have nothing to do with the content. I formulate the best titles I can to get people to read my stuff. Every writer does. And second, you posted your own writing on my article. And that’s fine, I’m not that petty and will keep the comment. And he’s probably already written the response article, which he said would follow his comment. Way to use someone else to try to funnel people to your own work. But, not a big deal. I’ll let it stand.

Now we decipher if what he is actually stating in the comment is true? I equate die-hard AA members to fundamentalist Christians. It is the same snarl and responses, once challenged, about why the world is only four to six thousand years old and that Noah’s Ark is real. Those responses are cult based and never formulated from actual facts. Just like the verbiage from senior members who sit in the rooms night after night. And I’ll show you one by one in his response why what he is saying simply isn’t true.

He calls me arrogant for a program I created for myself in which I was cured from alcoholism. I have stated that every person, whether alcoholic or not, should exercise. Every person should have a clean diet. Everyone should work to calm their mind. Stromme would like to portray me as if I am just pulling some wild buy my program spiel. My information is free. I have stated that, yes, I have several books and, yes, those links are in my articles and my YouTube. But I also say that one can get all of the same information for free if he collects enough articles or video episodes.

But who else agrees in my proclamation that every person should engage in a healthy, holistic program? Every medical doctor. Every doctor in the mental health field. I didn’t create this brainstorm idea that exercise and proper diet with meditative work is good for you. It is a well-known medical fact these activities and clean diet are good for you. I’m just promoting that fact to also help in recovery from alcoholism. Your AA does not, Charles. Your members sit in the circle, smoke at the breaks and ingest caffeine and sugar through the meetings. Did you know, Charles, this actually induces cravings? Do you ever wonder why most of the members in the rooms fight the want for friendship with John Barleycorn, even after years of abstinence, and I don’t? It is because I follow this holistic program. You better believe I’m telling others about it.

Then he propagates another untruth. The AA helps millions quit drinking. Sure, you can get a millions number if you take every person who walked through their doors since the 1930s when AA was founded. But he doesn’t account for the tens and tens of millions who fail to stay sober in AA. Because the rooms have a two- thirds to 90% failure rate, depending on who you read, outside of a very flawed data collection study from Stanford years ago. Your program doesn’t work for most, Charles, and that’s it and that’s all. Telling me the why it doesn’t work is irrelevant. I know the rebuttal, Charles. It works 100% of the time for those who work the program. That’s like saying the NFL coach whose team is losing every game is doing so because they won’t follow his playbook. The problem is the coach isn’t reaching the players and AA is not reaching the majority of the members. You might have given a case if it was a minority using AA and not staying sober. Not when it is the vast majority who fail with AA tenets.

Then he further cements why AA fails so much. The one day at a time spiel. The idea that I know I am sober today and that’s all. That is total nonsense. We were both former alcoholics, Charles. How come I know I’ll be sober until my death and you are advocating this one day at a time nonsense. It goes back to my program that holds such disdain for you. I re-created my life and you spend it sitting in the rooms, living in a disease you don’t have because someone brainwashed you with that doctrine decades ago.

Then he accuses me of someone possibly being responsible for someone else dying because of his addiction to alcohol. Charles—no one can cause another person to drink. No one else can stop them from drinking. Not AA, not SMART Recovery, not the church nor other family members. There is one person who is responsible for his or her death from alcoholism and that is the person who kept putting the bottle to his or her lips. It is a choice, not a disease. There was a ten-year-old nephew of a friend of mine in the Philippines who just died from cancer last week. He had a disease. He didn’t have a choice. The alcoholic has the choice every day to not put that bottle to his lips. He has the choice to drink a club soda with two limes at a party when everyone else is drinking alcohol. He has the choice to not walk into the liquor store. But in terms of odds? Well, we do know that eighty percent or so chance of not staying sober exists if one chooses the AA method. It could be argued that AA is indirectly killing people right now by telling them the method to stop drinking is a method that has proven to be a failure since the program began. AA doesn’t just not work for some, Charles. It fails the vast majority. I have yet to hear a proponent of the rooms be honest with this fact. And it is a fact, not my opinion. But the sure sign of a cult member is ignorance of facts over the agenda of the cult.

Charles Stromme proves my point in the cult-like manner in which Alcoholics Anonymous operates. We were both alcoholics. The difference is Stromme still thinks he is one. He is almost four decades sober and still living in the rooms. He thinks he is living with a disease. Me? I haven’t had more than mild and transient cravings that last a few minutes since two years clean. Those cravings were even greatly reduced by six months sober. Because I reinvented my life. I don’t think about alcohol today. I know I will be sober until the end. The AA proponents react to my life with a snarl because they don’t have it. They don’t have it because they never recovered. They think their recovery is ongoing forever. Charles Stromme was brainwashed in a program that largely doesn’t work because there were no alternatives. I bet he doesn’t even know that Bill Wilson actively participated in seances and believed he channeled spirits to advise him in his created Alcoholics Anonymous. Who stated that? His own wife, Charles. This program was created by a cult leader and remains a cult today. That’s why it largely doesn’t work and keeps those in a prison the few who actually stay sober.

I would like to see a side by side study of those who gave up drinking. One group engages in holistic recovery. They begin fitness, clean diet and meditative activities. They solve their usually traumatic past with counseling or self-study. They advance every aspect of their being continuously. The other group goes to Alcoholics Anonymous. I don’t know what the results would be for the holistic group because we have never engaged in such a study. Most are immediately sent to AA. I would like to see how many would stay sober if they reinvented every aspect of their beings. But we know what the results of the AA group would be. We have witnessed these outcomes for almost a hundred years.

And those results are a catastrophic failure.

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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 

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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