I am going to be using some questions that a subscriber commented on my video as a basis for this week's topic. I'm going to be refuting the assertion that ,"AA works".
After I left AA, I had a feeling of freedom. To be honest, I am still deprogramming from feelings of guilt and fear of relapse. These are things I learned in AA. Trust the feeling of freedom! I no longer have to feel pressure to attend at least three meetings a week, get a sponsor, write and read the steps, do service. (Which was not appreciated by other members anyway) Sit in meetings for years and have difficulty with the people in meetings who are cliquey, judgemental, dogmatic, and make lousy friends.
I'm glad you mentioned the fact that no one's sober time can be proven. Just like I could easily walk into a meeting in a foreign city and claim I have 40 years sobriety. Next time I run into a stepper claiming many years sobriety I am going to say "I don't believe you, prove it." That should shut them up.
It is funny, they openly admit in meetings, "ALCOHOLICS CAN'T BE HONEST ! ALCOHOLICS ARE INCAPABLE OF HONESTY!" they brag about what major liars they can be.....and then they expect you to believe all their made up stories, and all their testimony about sober time.
AA and NA worked for me. And then they stopped working for me. I started coming away from meetings feeling worse than better. Dogma and repetition no longer do it for me.
I experienced similar. I also remember hearing at AA meetings yet another platitude engineered into the dogma that I still find cringeworthy. It's the one about: "If you're feeling downhearted go to an AA meeting. Nobody ever comes away from an AA meeting without feeling better!" Which is utter bilge. Even in my early days of AA I heard people 'come away from an AA meeting' and constantly put absolute shit on certain people at the meeting and/or certain things that happened there. I used to think *is that dude serene?* As it turned out, practically all the claims made on behalf of AA are not only false, but deliberate lies, though some of them lies only by implication (the most effective kind, not only because they can be disavowed when exposed, but because the implicit is always more effective than the explicit).
37 years of my life I squandered in AA. Seriously.. What a waste of time! Now I tack on nearly 3 more and so I’m sober for 40 years whoop de doo. I have not gained an ounce of spirituality. In fact I lost any of the woo woo I had prior. Thank nothing in particular but I’m just happy from information I got from guys like you and Richard Dawkins, and all the information I’ve gotten from Christopher Hitchens and all the historical info from the Orange Papers. Wow it’s so great to be free from the baseless evidenceless assertions in AA, “dismissed without need for evidence” again as you quoted Hitchens. I was thinking when you were paraphrasing about how aa told us to look at our part in every tragedy like we had something to do with it. Like it was our fault my wife had an affair with my friend. I wasn’t supposed to get mad . Well I had this shrink that started yelling at me and basically all aa people who wouldn’t allow themselves to get mad or angry by some back stabbing family member or an unfaithful wife. It cracked me up laughing because sadly when I was indoctrinated that’s how I behaved. I blamed myself for everything being a humble ,spiritual AA soldier. It was enough to make me sick but my new life is too extraordinary to let aa thinking control my thinking. Freedom from that scum and being a human with no cult “work” that goes nowhere, is something I wish for any one that’s had exposure and indoctrination time in AA.
Since I've left AA I have run into several people I knew in the rooms and they either tell me I'm a dry drunk or I never really was an alcoholic at all. I just smile and walk away. I am definitely not a dry drunk because I am completely happy and satisfied with my life and I was a complete fall down drunk at one time proving both of their arguments wrong.
AA members have nothing to look forward to but that horrible cycle of meetings forever, and they think we are somehow miserable and lost without them. The exact opposite seems to be true for the marjority of us. I'd tell them they were hopelessly powerless over going to meetings and not even trying to manage their own lives.
They want us to get defensive and feel as though we have to qualify and justify ourselves to them; that way they feel like they have power. Not engaging by smiling and walking away denies them that feeling 😌
A really enjoyable video, mate. One thing that stood out immediately is when you referred to the way AA people go straight for the personal insult rather than reasonable debate. I've been involved in many, many online verbal altercations with AA members. I confess to this being a slightly perverse pleasure for me. I don't do it as often these days (in cult speak I must be some type of "recovering internet sicko!"). However, AA members always seem to go directly for the insult. More often than not the insult is an immature sexual reference, which I would point out after they loosed it off. It often caused them to bid a hasty retreat from any further interaction. Also, reading comments on this particular video from those who spent more time at AA than myself only helps confirm my decision to leave AA. The freedom I have nowadays to live my own life and make my own mistakes without the finger pointing from AA members who both didn't know me from Adam or, give a rat's arse whether I live or die is priceless.
No one's sober time can be proven, people lie and compete for attention for the best story when sharing. It,s a comic show, everytime I go to a meeting am reminded of the bullies, and circus they create to manipulate vulnerable people. Thank you I love your videos❤
During the COVID quarantine, after I left AA, I read a lot of books on rhetoric, Socratic method, influence etc and began to see how AA was able to manipulate members
The whole thing is riddled with logical fallacies and assertions. I have yet to see anything remotely convincing about how it works. I just encountered a bunch of self proclaimed gurus that were claiming it was just a miracle from above....all evidence seemed to point to the contrary.
The ones that have been for decades "regurgitating" the same thing over and over seem to be unhappy with life and still searching for something. That's what blew my mind in the first week I was in AA was "why are you still here after 15 or 25 years?" The response for the most part (And I do believe it to be true for a few of them, But they are the exception not the norm) is " I'm here to help others and give back"🙄🙄
I had a sponsor that would insist he was there to "just help others and give back" He liked to buy food stamps from drug addicts and max out their cards, he would call sponsees families on the phone behind their backs and repeat all the fifth steps to them to stir up strife, he was regularly preying on newcomers, borrowing money off the guys, exploiting the girls and stole from multiple people. The best part? His share always began with, "What is spirituality? Me standing flat footed and telling the truth when I wished I could lie, being a father to my kids (he never paid child support and never saw his kids) doing the right thing for people today" When I heard that he was killed in a reckless driving accident, I was not filled with sorrow about it.
@@quackaholicsanonymous7210 Yeah, narcissist don't react with emotion, it's just what they can get out of it. So if they lie to achieve their agenda, they don't see it as a lie they see it as being smarter than everyone else. My first sponsor would literally rush through steps one through four to get to five where he could find out some dirt on you, to try and control you... Just pure evil in my opinion
Been watching your videos for a long time now.i also spent decades in as.and I never understood why they would say ,24 hrs just this 24 hours . person who got up earlier was the longer one sober.so why the chips tokens.if it's only 24 hrs.the Insanity thing doing the same thing over trying to get different results.yet .if you relapse they say redo 4th fifth step.but that is just what they call insanity and it never occurred to me till resuntly 25 years glad I'm not going anymore and I'm sober and did it without aa
Yep, they say it is one day at a time, but then people with supposed decades behave as if they are some sort of idol to be worshipped and praised forever because of it.
And you would think if it worked as well as they claim, they would not have to parrot that line at every opportunity. It is almost like they don't even believe it.
I totally agree. Interesting fact, AA was on its deathbed, until Marty Mann made it an institution in the 1970s and effectively an arm of the government. While this article is TOTALLY biased in favor of AA, it is interesting to note how the treatment center/AA racket took over this country. Link below: www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/01/29/marty-mann-aa-alcoholism-disease/
I don't know if this is common with other AA groups, but I can't tell you how many times I was told to "Fake it till you make it". This was a major red flag for me. Probably why I didn't stick around. I ain't faking nothing. How is that little rhyme/catch phrase supposed to inspire people?
Yeah, and it is supposed to be a program of "rigorous honesty" where people "DO RECOVER if they have the capacity to be honest" but you are supposed to lie? Fake it til you make it? Act as if ?
Oh yes, our top man guru, David Gentry (that's right asshole I just busted your anonymity), would whip that one out constantly, and often in the same long winded share, drop in a "If we don't do all the steps to the best of our ability, we are sure to sign our own death warranty." His favorite, though, was "For us, to drink is to die!" This geriatric old blowhard prick was one of the primary reasons for my exit.
There’s evidence based treatment and then there’s AA. Unfortunately 12 step is what we have in most treatment centers but they have in most treatment centers because it doesn’t work.
@@Burnthestigma420 Unfortunately this is very true. The treatment center racket does not want people to get better, otherwise they wouldn't be able to keep themselves in business. Much like AA. In order to keep itself alive, it must keep people hopelessly sick and dependent upon it
Evidence is "what people say", .It figures that so many of the cult members actually think and believe that.Ancedotal evidence is as valuable as a 3 dollar bill.
"ALL I KNOW IS AA SAVED MY LIFE!" All I know is mountains of evidence says that for a large majority of people, it harms. It is really bad when one of AA staunchest defenders, George Valiant, set out to prove that AA works. At the end of his years long study, he found a trend with increased binging behavior, an uptick in suicides, and found that people with no treatment had success rates. What did he do ? Swore that AA was still a good thing, because it lead people to "GOD". I didn't go there to get lead to God, I went there to quit drinking.
@@quackaholicsanonymous7210 exactly 💯 Also,the published research indicates that there is really no effective treatment for addiction.Also, addiction is not a disease, that is a fact.
Yep. The only thing twelve step has proven to me is I can be brainwashed and lead astray . I struggle in life but I am very grateful I escaped the bullshit I was involved in. That shit really set me up for nasty mind fuckery! As if sobriety is the most important thing?.. what a ludicrous suggestion!?... If anything AA proves else wise. The amount of character attacks by sober people are something I never encountered on my drunkest wiles
And it was glaringly obvious to me, that you were not allowed to "believe whatever you want" like so many AA defenders claimed. It becomes very obvious that you have to pray, that you have to do steps with a Higher Power (that they flat out tell you is God) you are told when to pray, what to pray for, and you are told that you have to have a spiritual experience. AA members and true believers have never been able to effectively demonstrate to me what AA does, that can not be done without the faith healing angle. At least, they have never been able to do so without resorting to logical fallacies, ad hominems, and just just making excuses. Something that would not be required if it was as effective as they make it out to be
I think modern science is saying that alcohol addiction is just another kind of drug addiction. AAs explanation for alcoholism is not parsimonious as it rejects a simple explanation in favour of a complex one.
What I think is funny, they claim to be practicing "humility" and about "being of service" while they bully and intimidate everyone around them and have a temper tantrum when they are called out.
At the end of the day, there is no treatment program or support group organization that can definitively prove it helped anybody. So that brings us right back to the individual. God gave us free agency, and AA wants us to give that up and rely solely on them and their idea of the 'greater power'. You must find the power within yourself to control your substance abuse or other self-destructive actions (gambling, sex addiction, etc). Nobody else can do it for you, not even God, although he is there to help those who help themselves, as the old saying goes.
But there is a measure of success rates that can occur with alternative methods, Naltrexone, MAT, SMART etc. It is not proven that it is the sole reason for someone changing, but if the numbers show more promise it is somewhat plausible to assume that it has a measure to it. George Valiant set out to prove that AA works, and after years found horrible results. Increases in binge drinking, suicides, and other horror stories. Instead of looking at the evidence presented to him, he just said, "AA was a good thing because it leads people to God" Just like there is a growing body of work that supports some chemicals for treatment of PTSD. Success is not a guaranteed outcome, but if the results are more favorable than say, AA, it would hint there is some conclusion that we can draw from that. AA is relying on a book of assertions, that has no empirical data to back it up. AA had practically died out until Marty Mann helped it become an arm of the government that we know of today. While it is true that it is up to each individual to find the power within themselves, if something can be demonstrated to be more helpful, then that should be a consideration and an option, rather than sending people to AA, which has no track record of success.
@@quackaholicsanonymous7210 Yes and the government authorities continue to push AA and its offspring. I recently completed a 20 week outpatient treatment program for substance abuse, and there were a bunch of people in there who were in a drug court program. They were forced, as a requirement of this drug court program, to attend no less than two 12 step meetings a week and also having a sponsor was mandatory. I suppose the court can get away with this because those poor people always have the choice of going to prison instead...... I may have overstated my opinion that only the individual can help themself. Yes proper modern psychology based treatment can be a big help.
I was bullied chronic, because I turned down sponsoring from 1 woman, I later found out she has bullied so many other women, I had no one to turned, an individual can dominate a meeting and if women don't like you they will run you and intimidate you out of the room. Croydon is the worst.!!!
There are several actually. One, to make people aware that AA, (which has been treated as the go to solution by society, government and the monopoly of treatment centers) does not have a proven success rate, is not based in any real evidence, and to support my claim that it is a religion. Two, to reach the people that were like myself. People who kept relapsing, blaming themselves, and being told "they were not willing, did not do the Steps right, etc" and let them know that one can drinking freely, without the need of a group, Higher Power/Spiritual Experience, or reading the same book over and over forever. Three, to help people come to the realization that they can take control of their own lives (instead of constantly debasing themselves and calling it self-will run riot) Four, to make people aware that many of the practices and behaviors in AA can be harmful to mental health or even downright dangerous (Karla Brada murder case, 13th Step the Film, 12 Step Horror Stories Volume 1, 2 and 3) and literally no one is held accountable for these actions, due to AA insistence on the traditions. There are more but I think that is a good enough summary.
@@quackaholicsanonymous7210 Thank you for your response, I have another question if I may? You have said only 5% of people that come in to AA stay sober, do you think your videos could be keeping any of them out?
The failure rate of AA stretches all the way back to long before I ever made a video about AA. It has never had a proven track record of success. At the time the program was founded, it did not have 100 members with successful longevity and much of it was ripped from the Oxford Group. Are you seriously attempting to create a case that I am somehow keeping people out of AA by pointing out the logicial inconsistencies and the reality of what actual studies have revealed ? Perhaps, with the behavior of individuals outlined in the documentary, 13th Step the Film, it would be best if more people STAYED out of AA. I would say that if I am keeping people out by telling them the truth and letting them realize they do not need a program, a spiritual experience, or AA to get sober, then I would partly accomplishing my goal here.
@quackaholicsanonymous7210 can you go deep into the principles of the Oxford group I really wanna understand what they where all about. Who where the main people of the group. Was it actually a Christian group, I think AA completely anti religion. Do more videos on this please. I would also like to see you get into politics or do a spin off of other things, like investigations of other subjects, cult leaders, have you looked it to cia cover ups. This would be very interesting. I think you covered everything now ON AA. I went to a meeting just to laugh silently at the fools and I was watching them they are so misfortunes. Go to a meeting and film the lunacy!!!!! Undercover it's so entertaining
After I left AA, I had a feeling of freedom. To be honest, I am still deprogramming from feelings of guilt and fear of relapse. These are things I learned in AA. Trust the feeling of freedom! I no longer have to feel pressure to attend at least three meetings a week, get a sponsor, write and read the steps, do service. (Which was not appreciated by other members anyway) Sit in meetings for years and have difficulty with the people in meetings who are cliquey, judgemental, dogmatic, and make lousy friends.
I'm glad you mentioned the fact that no one's sober time can be proven. Just like I could easily walk into a meeting in a foreign city and claim I have 40 years sobriety. Next time I run into a stepper claiming many years sobriety I am going to say "I don't believe you, prove it." That should shut them up.
It is funny, they openly admit in meetings, "ALCOHOLICS CAN'T BE HONEST ! ALCOHOLICS ARE INCAPABLE OF HONESTY!" they brag about what major liars they can be.....and then they expect you to believe all their made up stories, and all their testimony about sober time.
AA and NA worked for me. And then they stopped working for me. I started coming away from meetings feeling worse than better. Dogma and repetition no longer do it for me.
I experienced similar. I also remember hearing at AA meetings yet another platitude engineered into the dogma that I still find cringeworthy. It's the one about:
"If you're feeling downhearted go to an AA meeting. Nobody ever comes away from an AA meeting without feeling better!"
Which is utter bilge. Even in my early days of AA I heard people 'come away from an AA meeting' and constantly put absolute shit on certain people at the meeting and/or certain things that happened there. I used to think *is that dude serene?*
As it turned out, practically all the claims made on behalf of AA are not only false, but deliberate lies, though some of them lies only by implication (the most effective kind, not only because they can be disavowed when exposed, but because the implicit is always more effective than the explicit).
37 years of my life I squandered in AA. Seriously.. What a waste of time! Now I tack on nearly 3 more and so I’m sober for 40 years whoop de doo. I have not gained an ounce of spirituality. In fact I lost any of the woo woo I had prior. Thank nothing in particular but I’m just happy from information I got from guys like you and Richard Dawkins, and all the information I’ve gotten from Christopher Hitchens and all the historical info from the Orange Papers. Wow it’s so great to be free from the baseless evidenceless assertions in AA, “dismissed without need for evidence” again as you quoted Hitchens.
I was thinking when you were paraphrasing about how aa told us to look at our part in every tragedy like we had something to do with it. Like it was our fault my wife had an affair with my friend. I wasn’t supposed to get mad . Well I had this shrink that started yelling at me and basically all aa people who wouldn’t allow themselves to get mad or angry by some back stabbing family member or an unfaithful wife. It cracked me up laughing because sadly when I was indoctrinated that’s how I behaved. I blamed myself for everything being a humble ,spiritual AA soldier. It was enough to make me sick but my new life is too extraordinary to let aa thinking control my thinking. Freedom from that scum and being a human with no cult “work” that goes nowhere, is something I wish for any one that’s had exposure and indoctrination time in AA.
Since I've left AA I have run into several people I knew in the rooms and they either tell me I'm a dry drunk or I never really was an alcoholic at all. I just smile and walk away. I am definitely not a dry drunk because I am completely happy and satisfied with my life and I was a complete fall down drunk at one time proving both of their arguments wrong.
AA members have nothing to look forward to but that horrible cycle of meetings forever, and they think we are somehow miserable and lost without them. The exact opposite seems to be true for the marjority of us. I'd tell them they were hopelessly powerless over going to meetings and not even trying to manage their own lives.
@davidmitchell6873 Dry drunk is cult speak, isn't a real thing, and can not be logically defined.
They want us to get defensive and feel as though we have to qualify and justify ourselves to them; that way they feel like they have power. Not engaging by smiling and walking away denies them that feeling 😌
A really enjoyable video, mate. One thing that stood out immediately is when you referred to the way AA people go straight for the personal insult rather than reasonable debate. I've been involved in many, many online verbal altercations with AA members. I confess to this being a slightly perverse pleasure for me. I don't do it as often these days (in cult speak I must be some type of "recovering internet sicko!"). However, AA members always seem to go directly for the insult. More often than not the insult is an immature sexual reference, which I would point out after they loosed it off. It often caused them to bid a hasty retreat from any further interaction.
Also, reading comments on this particular video from those who spent more time at AA than myself only helps confirm my decision to leave AA. The freedom I have nowadays to live my own life and make my own mistakes without the finger pointing from AA members who both didn't know me from Adam or, give a rat's arse whether I live or die is priceless.
No one's sober time can be proven, people lie and compete for attention for the best story when sharing. It,s a comic show, everytime I go to a meeting am reminded of the bullies, and circus they create to manipulate vulnerable people. Thank you I love your videos❤
During the COVID quarantine, after I left AA, I read a lot of books on rhetoric, Socratic method, influence etc and began to see how AA was able to manipulate members
The whole thing is riddled with logical fallacies and assertions. I have yet to see anything remotely convincing about how it works. I just encountered a bunch of self proclaimed gurus that were claiming it was just a miracle from above....all evidence seemed to point to the contrary.
@@quackaholicsanonymous7210If someone couldn't explain something they'd simply smirk and say, "Keep coming back." then walk away
@Vizzini_ meaning.... "keep coming back until you are a completely brainwashed automaton just like the rest of us."
The ones that have been for decades "regurgitating" the same thing over and over seem to be unhappy with life and still searching for something. That's what blew my mind in the first week I was in AA was "why are you still here after 15 or 25 years?" The response for the most part (And I do believe it to be true for a few of them, But they are the exception not the norm) is " I'm here to help others and give back"🙄🙄
I had a sponsor that would insist he was there to "just help others and give back" He liked to buy food stamps from drug addicts and max out their cards, he would call sponsees families on the phone behind their backs and repeat all the fifth steps to them to stir up strife, he was regularly preying on newcomers, borrowing money off the guys, exploiting the girls and stole from multiple people.
The best part? His share always began with, "What is spirituality? Me standing flat footed and telling the truth when I wished I could lie, being a father to my kids (he never paid child support and never saw his kids) doing the right thing for people today"
When I heard that he was killed in a reckless driving accident, I was not filled with sorrow about it.
@@quackaholicsanonymous7210 Yeah, narcissist don't react with emotion, it's just what they can get out of it. So if they lie to achieve their agenda, they don't see it as a lie they see it as being smarter than everyone else. My first sponsor would literally rush through steps one through four to get to five where he could find out some dirt on you, to try and control you... Just pure evil in my opinion
@@PaulUnderdown Oh yeah, they are the worst of the worst.
Been watching your videos for a long time now.i also spent decades in as.and I never understood why they would say ,24 hrs just this 24 hours . person who got up earlier was the longer one sober.so why the chips tokens.if it's only 24 hrs.the Insanity thing doing the same thing over trying to get different results.yet .if you relapse they say redo 4th fifth step.but that is just what they call insanity and it never occurred to me till resuntly 25 years glad I'm not going anymore and I'm sober and did it without aa
Yep, they say it is one day at a time, but then people with supposed decades behave as if they are some sort of idol to be worshipped and praised forever because of it.
@@quackaholicsanonymous7210 omg yes the arrogant guru with 8 sponsee. Act better than .so much for humility right?
My favorite: "AA works.... it really does." The second part was such an encore of an infantile logical fallacy.
And you would think if it worked as well as they claim, they would not have to parrot that line at every opportunity. It is almost like they don't even believe it.
It works if you work it! Ummm, no it really doesn’t! 😂
It amazes me that this bullshiit program has flown under the radar since 1940
I totally agree.
Interesting fact, AA was on its deathbed, until Marty Mann made it an institution in the 1970s and effectively an arm of the government.
While this article is TOTALLY biased in favor of AA, it is interesting to note how the treatment center/AA racket took over this country. Link below:
www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/01/29/marty-mann-aa-alcoholism-disease/
I don't know if this is common with other AA groups, but I can't tell you how many times I was told to "Fake it till you make it". This was a major red flag for me. Probably why I didn't stick around. I ain't faking nothing. How is that little rhyme/catch phrase supposed to inspire people?
Yeah, and it is supposed to be a program of "rigorous honesty" where people "DO RECOVER if they have the capacity to be honest" but you are supposed to lie? Fake it til you make it? Act as if ?
Oh yes, our top man guru, David Gentry (that's right asshole I just busted your anonymity), would whip that one out constantly, and often in the same long winded share, drop in a "If we don't do all the steps to the best of our ability, we are sure to sign our own death warranty." His favorite, though, was "For us, to drink is to die!" This geriatric old blowhard prick was one of the primary reasons for my exit.
Without the constant fear of relapse, and the constant threat of jails, institutions and death, AA would have no followers at all.
Exactly. Be “rigorously honest” but “fake it til you make it”. “Pick a God of your own understanding”!But it is always male but can be a door knob”. 😂
Bang on. Also fake equals lie the opposite of honest in a so called honest program !!!!
There’s evidence based treatment and then there’s AA. Unfortunately 12 step is what we have in most treatment centers but they have in most treatment centers because it doesn’t work.
@@Burnthestigma420 Unfortunately this is very true. The treatment center racket does not want people to get better, otherwise they wouldn't be able to keep themselves in business. Much like AA. In order to keep itself alive, it must keep people hopelessly sick and dependent upon it
“AA saved MY life”!!! Did it really though? 😂😂😂
Evidence is "what people say", .It figures that so many of the cult members actually think and believe that.Ancedotal evidence is as valuable as a 3 dollar bill.
"ALL I KNOW IS AA SAVED MY LIFE!"
All I know is mountains of evidence says that for a large majority of people, it harms.
It is really bad when one of AA staunchest defenders, George Valiant, set out to prove that AA works. At the end of his years long study, he found a trend with increased binging behavior, an uptick in suicides, and found that people with no treatment had success rates. What did he do ? Swore that AA was still a good thing, because it lead people to "GOD". I didn't go there to get lead to God, I went there to quit drinking.
@@quackaholicsanonymous7210 exactly 💯 Also,the published research indicates that there is really no effective treatment for addiction.Also, addiction is not a disease, that is a fact.
Yep. The only thing twelve step has proven to me is I can be brainwashed and lead astray . I struggle in life but I am very grateful I escaped the bullshit I was involved in. That shit really set me up for nasty mind fuckery! As if sobriety is the most important thing?.. what a ludicrous suggestion!?... If anything AA proves else wise. The amount of character attacks by sober people are something I never encountered on my drunkest wiles
Coming to AA from an academic philosophy background it was odd suddenly being asked to take things on faith and not apply the scientific method.
And it was glaringly obvious to me, that you were not allowed to "believe whatever you want" like so many AA defenders claimed. It becomes very obvious that you have to pray, that you have to do steps with a Higher Power (that they flat out tell you is God) you are told when to pray, what to pray for, and you are told that you have to have a spiritual experience.
AA members and true believers have never been able to effectively demonstrate to me what AA does, that can not be done without the faith healing angle. At least, they have never been able to do so without resorting to logical fallacies, ad hominems, and just just making excuses. Something that would not be required if it was as effective as they make it out to be
Great video!
I think modern science is saying that alcohol addiction is just another kind of drug addiction. AAs explanation for alcoholism is not parsimonious as it rejects a simple explanation in favour of a complex one.
Great video I call out the gurus and was kicked out of NA
What I think is funny, they claim to be practicing "humility" and about "being of service" while they bully and intimidate everyone around them and have a temper tantrum when they are called out.
At the end of the day, there is no treatment program or support group organization that can definitively prove it helped anybody. So that brings us right back to the individual. God gave us free agency, and AA wants us to give that up and rely solely on them and their idea of the 'greater power'. You must find the power within yourself to control your substance abuse or other self-destructive actions (gambling, sex addiction, etc). Nobody else can do it for you, not even God, although he is there to help those who help themselves, as the old saying goes.
But there is a measure of success rates that can occur with alternative methods, Naltrexone, MAT, SMART etc. It is not proven that it is the sole reason for someone changing, but if the numbers show more promise it is somewhat plausible to assume that it has a measure to it.
George Valiant set out to prove that AA works, and after years found horrible results. Increases in binge drinking, suicides, and other horror stories. Instead of looking at the evidence presented to him, he just said, "AA was a good thing because it leads people to God"
Just like there is a growing body of work that supports some chemicals for treatment of PTSD. Success is not a guaranteed outcome, but if the results are more favorable than say, AA, it would hint there is some conclusion that we can draw from that.
AA is relying on a book of assertions, that has no empirical data to back it up. AA had practically died out until Marty Mann helped it become an arm of the government that we know of today.
While it is true that it is up to each individual to find the power within themselves, if something can be demonstrated to be more helpful, then that should be a consideration and an option, rather than sending people to AA, which has no track record of success.
@@quackaholicsanonymous7210 Yes and the government authorities continue to push AA and its offspring. I recently completed a 20 week outpatient treatment program for substance abuse, and there were a bunch of people in there who were in a drug court program. They were forced, as a requirement of this drug court program, to attend no less than two 12 step meetings a week and also having a sponsor was mandatory. I suppose the court can get away with this because those poor people always have the choice of going to prison instead...... I may have overstated my opinion that only the individual can help themself. Yes proper modern psychology based treatment can be a big help.
👏👏👏👏👏👏
I was bullied chronic, because I turned down sponsoring from 1 woman, I later found out she has bullied so many other women, I had no one to turned, an individual can dominate a meeting and if women don't like you they will run you and intimidate you out of the room. Croydon is the worst.!!!
Oh they definitely have tight bullying cliques where you have to practically kiss their ass in order to be accepted.
I have a question, what is your goal in making these videos?
There are several actually.
One, to make people aware that AA, (which has been treated as the go to solution by society, government and the monopoly of treatment centers) does not have a proven success rate, is not based in any real evidence, and to support my claim that it is a religion.
Two, to reach the people that were like myself. People who kept relapsing, blaming themselves, and being told "they were not willing, did not do the Steps right, etc" and let them know that one can drinking freely, without the need of a group, Higher Power/Spiritual Experience, or reading the same book over and over forever.
Three, to help people come to the realization that they can take control of their own lives (instead of constantly debasing themselves and calling it self-will run riot)
Four, to make people aware that many of the practices and behaviors in AA can be harmful to mental health or even downright dangerous (Karla Brada murder case, 13th Step the Film, 12 Step Horror Stories Volume 1, 2 and 3) and literally no one is held accountable for these actions, due to AA insistence on the traditions.
There are more but I think that is a good enough summary.
Feedom of speech he can say what he wants
@@quackaholicsanonymous7210 Thank you for your response, I have another question if I may? You have said only 5% of people that come in to AA stay sober, do you think your videos could be keeping any of them out?
The failure rate of AA stretches all the way back to long before I ever made a video about AA. It has never had a proven track record of success. At the time the program was founded, it did not have 100 members with successful longevity and much of it was ripped from the Oxford Group.
Are you seriously attempting to create a case that I am somehow keeping people out of AA by pointing out the logicial inconsistencies and the reality of what actual studies have revealed ? Perhaps, with the behavior of individuals outlined in the documentary, 13th Step the Film, it would be best if more people STAYED out of AA.
I would say that if I am keeping people out by telling them the truth and letting them realize they do not need a program, a spiritual experience, or AA to get sober, then I would partly accomplishing my goal here.
@quackaholicsanonymous7210 can you go deep into the principles of the Oxford group I really wanna understand what they where all about. Who where the main people of the group. Was it actually a Christian group, I think AA completely anti religion. Do more videos on this please. I would also like to see you get into politics or do a spin off of other things, like investigations of other subjects, cult leaders, have you looked it to cia cover ups. This would be very interesting. I think you covered everything now ON AA. I went to a meeting just to laugh silently at the fools and I was watching them they are so misfortunes. Go to a meeting and film the lunacy!!!!! Undercover it's so entertaining