When I first got to AA, I was sick! sick mentally and physically. There really wasn't option for me at that point as AA seems to have a monopoly on "alcohol recovery". I believed what I was told in AA, that I was powerless and my life was doomed forever unless I kept going to meetings and got a sponser and completed the steps.

Every time I went to question the 12steps I was told that I was going into denial. That I needed to shut up and sit down and put take the cotton wool out of my ears.

I see people being "used" by sponsers, I saw very unwell people sponsering other vunrable people. I saw people that "needed" to believe that they were at last safe, they weren't!

ANy personal growth was stamped out! infact one cannot evolve within the atmosphere of AA, one had to twist who they really were to become who they were expected to be! It got in the end that I couldnt trust my own judgements!

Until the day I dared to "escape", I can say my personal growth really took of from that day. People think they are being helped but are being "used" by egocentrics! Its so sad to see this happening!

But people are sober I hear! at what cost? All one needs to do is not pick up a drink and find out their true path, this is sadly not possible within the clutches of AA.