I am 90 days sober but am so annoyed at some of things I hear in AA meetings. Why?

I no longer attend AA, partly because of some of the things you've mentioned. Another big reason is that I'm an atheist. I'm of the opinion that faith can be a tool for sobriety, but it shouldn't be the only tool. Folks in AA told me that I couldn't get sober without belief in a Higher Power (that everyone calls God). I was never able to stay sober for more than a few months while in AA, I now have 9 years sobriety on my own.

Powerlessness and the disease theory remove the blame, but also make people helpless. If you don't believe you can do something, chances are you won't be able to do it. I had to take responsibility for my addiction so that I could take responsibility for my recovery.

A few years ago, I went to a meeting on my fifth anniversary. The chairwoman was droning on about how she would have 19 years at the end of the month IF God saw fit. It was as she had no choice in the matter, it was being worked out between her Higher Power and her disease. AA doesn't teach coping skills, it teaches powerlessness and fear. The people in that meeting for the most part seemed shaky and scared, they had nothing I wanted.

I had five years and so now it didn't matter if I was an atheist, they could always use another success story. They wanted me to join, guess they needed a token atheist, someone they could point to and tell the newcomer, "See, AA works for everyone."

I've attended hundreds of meetings in 5 different states, the differences I've found from one meeting to the next has been vast as the differences from one MacDonald's to the next.

AA seems safe because you're surrounded by others who are trying to stay sober, but if you ask them how they stay sober, all you get is slogans. Robert Jay Lifton would call these slogans “thought-terminating clichés”.

http://bestofwikipedia.tumblr.com/post/169193535/t...

The uneasiness you describe is cognitive dissonance:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance

The truth is everybody gets sober on their own and some of them happen to be in AA at the time.

The NIAAA’s 2001–2002 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions interviewed over 43,000 people. They found that people who met the criteria for alcohol dependence found in the DSM-IV:

"* About 70 percent of affected persons have a single episode of less than 4 years. The remainder experience an average of five episodes. Thus, it appears that there are two forms of alcohol dependence: time-limited, and recurrent or chronic.

* Although 22 is the average age when alcohol dependence begins, the onset varies from the mid-teens to middle age.

* Twenty years after onset of alcohol dependence, about three-fourths of individuals are in full recovery; more than half of those who have fully recovered drink at low-risk levels without symptoms of alcohol dependence.

* About 75 percent of persons who recover from alcohol dependence do so without seeking any kind of help, including specialty alcohol (rehab) programs and AA. Only 13 percent of people with alcohol dependence ever receive specialty alcohol treatment."

http://www.spectrum.niaaa.nih.gov/features/alcohol...

AA has about a 5% success rate, the same as quitting on ones own, except that AA has a higher mortality rate. George Vaillant, former Harvard professor, researcher, and AA Trustee, set out to prove that AA worked. Instead, he found, "Not only had we failed to alter the natural history of alcoholism, but our death rate of three percent a year was appalling."

http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effectiveness....

If the slogans and repetition are bothering you now, can you imagine a lifetime of them? People can and do recover from alcoholism every day, without AA.

It sounds like you have identified yourself as having a problem with alcohol and have stopped drinking? If you are currently drinking and want to stop it is best to go and see a trained alcohol professional. You might need a medical detox which you can either do at home or as an inpatient if there are complications such as fitting or other conditions. ~It can be dangerous just to stop drinking if your body is dependant on alcohol. You could fit. Have you ever had withdrawal symptoms? If so you could be dependant and need to seek medical advice. Not eveyone who has a problem with alcohol is dependant but if you cannot predict whether you can stop or what happens when you take the first drink it sounds like you need help with getting and staying sober. You ask if there are any other ways than AA. In my experinece - both as a recovering addict and healthcare professional I the most effective way of staying sober is through AA. In AA you not only get the support of others who have been there but get to learn a very effective way of managing sobriety. I wonder if you have tried AA? I would suggest you try a few different meetings and give yourself a chance. AA suggests 90 meetings in 90 days to see if it is for you. You could contact your local community alcohol team or try Alcohol Concern or Alcohol Recovery Project. All the best for the future

Mike, first up, congratulations on saving your own life.

Second, I've heard a lot of similar complaints from in-person and online friends who did the same thing. Many bristled at the group-speak and in-words, the people who seem to think they're clever or funny or deep or have the answers and feel compelled to speak their minds aloud, the religious overtones.

Some found different meetings had a different vibe--what happens at your typical meeting might be completely different from another location's typical meeting. And some found that other stay-sober programs worked better for them than AA.

In the end, even if there's a huge and grating level of AA dorkdom you cannot escape, you can still be grateful they helped you reclaim yourself. Consider them the way you do relatives--accepted despite a host of annoying traits.

90 Days Sober

Youre new - and you can be as irritated with it as you want....(and trust me, everyone is irritated with it at first - however, as you gain more time, the ones who are intolerant of it stop going, and go back out - and things get worse)

Have you "worked" the steps yet? or are you just going to meetings and still suffering?

over time, alcohol causes brain damage.... I'd have more compassion for them than you seem to show, they probably cannot help what they do. Find yourself some other meetings if you have so little compassion, but don't expect a lot of compassion directed toward you if you have so little for others.