I'll Be FREE...or Die!
Tradition 10 - Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the AA name ought never be drawn into public controversy." Please follow orders from the Interchurch Center if you are an AA member and don't comment.
Why I Created This Site
I created this site because I intend to help those who may be looking into AA as I was a year and a half ago…before AA totally tore me down, dimmed my spirit and broke my heart. I am a natural Researcher, Writer and Learner. I have been this way from the time I was a very young child and despite AA's attempts to break and re-shape me, I remain me. They'll never undo what God has Created me to be.
I am still me; and so I shall be until the day I die. Programs that turn unique, creative individuals into mindless zombies will never appeal to people like me. I intuit that this is the same for you or you probably would not be reading this.
It does not matter what affliction, addiction or condition with which we must contend. The “machine of mass murder of the Mind” will never destroy real people. I want real people to know that they are not alone. We are not alone. You are not alone.
You Are Powerful. You Are Beautiful. You Are Unique. Complete. Lovable.
Still, AA came into my life at a time when I really believed I needed their help. I thought that they were "nice" because of their "love-bombing" outer shell. I can still see those smooth smiles and outstretched helping-hands. I saw little to fear. Beneath all of their "niceness" is a cold-heartedness and an agenda that they do not want so-called "newcomers," "pigeons," and/or "babies" to know about. Still, they extended a hand that was made to appear like friendship and concern to me in my initial exposure to The Program. I fell for it.
My sponsor struck me as such a kind and wise older woman. She had a maternal air about her, though she had never had any children of her own. When we were first introduced she greeted me with a warm smile and a friendly hug.
She invited me to join her to future meetings. I agreed. (Secretly, I planned only to go for as long as these "nice" people continued to offer me a ride; after that, I would stop going.) You see, I had never planned on becoming an AA member. I am a loner at heart. I do not do clubs, memberships and meetings. Perhaps I should have stuck to my Path. I don't know.
It felt comforting...safe. I had never had a pure stranger enter my life and be so utterly kind to me. I came to believe in my heart that she and her sponsor (my grand sponsor) were angels. I felt that God must have sent them into my life to help me. I was faltering. I did need help so badly.
At first she would pick me up (I had no transportation) and take me to meetings 3 times a week. I thought this was due to kindness. I did not understand the concept of "service work" wherein AA members are obliged to "give back what was so freely given to them" or die. "Or Die" "Or Die" "Or muffer-fluckin DIE!" Everything that they claim to be "suggestions" in AA is in all actuality a thinly veiled ultimatum. For instance, by AA standards and sponsor-tales, I should be dead or dying RIGHT NOW...
In AA you are to do what they tell you to do...OR DIE!
Once they have you believing that you will DIE without AA and them telling you what to do... YOU are in a WORLD of trouble! It's a LIE! AA is not God...no one in it is, was or shall ever, ever be!
My once dear sponsor struck me (by her own design) as such a kind woman in the beginning. I honestly held her in my heart as a friend. I was made to believe that this was reciprocal. I believed that she really did care about me. I loved her like family. She now strikes me as a very abusive and unkind human being. The way she has ultimately treated me is "not normal." It is not so much what she did, rather how she did it. The last time I spoke with her I swear it was the closest thing to speaking directly with a devil that I have ever experienced in my life. It makes me shudder just to recall her wicked, witchy little voice. As I cried she just said, “Oh well…”
People having power over other people corrupts people. I feel this is true. I am now very thankful that she finally chose to reveal her true nature, however. I was basically trying to fight my own ongoing inner questions and perceptions of The Program, because she spent a long time building up a dependent relationship between us and I really felt as if I needed her. It was very sick and not something that one adult would intentionally do to another adult unless she or he were very perverted and ill. I feel that AA gives people a faux sense of power and authority over other people. It is unearned. It is misplaced. It is worng and what's more is that it is very, very dangerous.
From the start I witnessed the harsh ways in which AA's with more time treated those with less time...or those who began to struggle or relapse. If someone who was a regular shared at a table that he or she was struggling or isolating; what do you think the AA member got? In the "normal world" a struggling, upset, troubled or depressed person would get help, empathy and support. AA's would call this "pity" and they will have none of it. AA's believe in what they call "tough love." And they "love" to "love" you, Baby! In the beginning they recite, "We're going to love you until you learn to love yourself!" It's just a saying...(what's more it's a lie!) It means less than nothing coming from an AA member. When a person falters in AA, they get pounced upon, verbally and emoitionally abused. AA is a haven for Adult Bullying in action. AA's can be very sadistic and many arrogantly have come to believe that their abuse is somehow helpful, healing or at least deserved. Hurting hurt people makes them feel powerfully righteous and important. It's as sick as I've ever, ever seen. If you or a loved one want to be treated with real compassion and care, do not dare step into a 12 step program unless you just like being stepped on. I hated it!
I was instructed by my sponsor and her sponsor, my so-called grand sponsor to tell her EVERYTHING I thought and did. When I failed to do this she said that I was "lying by omission." So, I slowly over time began confiding all of my thoughts and actions in her. I was instructed to cut off or greatly limit my relationship with my family and especially my own mother. This was a particular sore point for me because my mother and me have been the best of friends for years. In trying to please them I greatly limited my visits with my mother and talks on the phone. This also forced me to limit my contact with my aunt who was also very close to my mother and to me. It was awful. I found myself in the strange position of trying desperately to please my sponsor(s) while at the same time trying not to break my mother’s heart.
YOU
ARE
POWERFUL
Naturally during all of this I was being instructed and indoctrinated into AA in their usual fashion. I was treated like a retarded child even though I have grown children and several advanced degrees. It was demoralizing and humiliating. Of course they said that whatever awful emotion I was experiencing was "exactly what I was supposed to be feeling". This, however, is the particularly DANGEROUS part.
I am an adult survivor of childhood molestation and later the victim of rape as a teenager. I also survived a suicide attempt in my later teen years. Unfortunately, I have had to struggle with depression and a bit of suicidal ideology at different phases of my life. I have gone to counseling and therapy for these issues and have had to deal with it all to the best of my ability. One of the reasons I chose to get my graduate degree in counseling was due to a very harmful therapist I was forced to go to when I was 17. She was horrid.
I wanted to become a counselor so that I would be empowered to offer real help to young people who needed my guidance, support and therapy. Sadly, however, when I began counseling people, a theme arose. Many of my clients were survivors of molestation and/ rape. I was able to be an effective counselor, but I had not learned how to keep their experiences from reaching my core. I carried their pain with me and it just caused me to consistently recall my own.
I decided not to further my career as a counselor for people one on one. I tend to do more writing and speaking. I love to facilitate workshops and things wherein more group-work is done.
Sadly, in the past few years, prior to my Walk Through the Valley of the Shadow of AA Death, things became rather difficult for me. Alcohol seemed to be my companion more and more often. I did not desire to socialize as I once did. I just wanted to be left alone. My drinking which had always been social became a solitary, silent, solace. This is not a good place for anyone to be in; especially for anyone with a history similar to mine. I was numb. I didn't care. It was around this time that AA came into my life. I thought AA was a life saver...but it has turned out to be one of the most disheartening and painfully confusing experiences I have ever had in my life.
AA and some of its members have brought me as close to the brink of death as anyone or anything in my life ever has. (AA has had this kind of harmful effect on many, many uncounted people.) I was like a rat on a wheel, in a cage. I kept trying to "do the program" and follow their suggestions. But I am what they snidely called a "thinker." To tell me to "stop thinking" is akin to telling me to stop breathing. I can no more stop thinking at will than I can stop breathing at will. It perplexed and vexed me because I was tangled in trying to understand a bunch of utterly nonsensical bullshit. If you ask them questions about it, they answer with paradoxical non sequiturs, stupid AA slogans, lies, death-threats...and wise-ishly greasy-gremlin-grins. AA people are absolutely INCREDIBLE! (Literally lacking in all credibility.) The fact that they were so afraid of my using my brain only prompted me to use it more...which prompted them to try to DESTROY me MORE!
"What are they so afraid of?" I wondered.
"What don't they want me to know?" I asked.
Well, now I know.
I invite you to review this site and visit every link I provide and you too will KNOW.
This site is dedicated to helping anyone who is a Seeker of Truth, as I am, to find and Know the Truth. I am not saying that anyone should or should not join AA. I am simply saying that if you do, do so with your eyes open and knowing exactly what you are getting into. Because if you "want what they've got" after you get to honestly see what it is... it is all yours!
That's it, for now.
I'll Be Free...or DIE!
YOU?
"You'll be free or die!"
Harriet Tubman
It may appear as if I am being unfair or even hateful to faithful AA members. This is not my intention. I have, however, been where devout AA members and supporters are. I know how they think. I know what they believe. I have heard them speak ad nuaseum. I'm so very bored of the inane rhetoric and bullshit. Really. Enough has been quite too much for me.
Faithful AA members are not now nor have they ever been where I and others in support of The AA Awareness Movement are...YET. I will be pleased and feel quite blessed to communicate with any member of AA who is awakening, seeking truth or FINALLY ready to leave AA.
I am no longer a "member of the debating society," however. I simply REFUSE to waste my time debating with those who proudly chant: "WE THINK NOT" on a daily to regular basis. What would be the use? I'd rather talk to my cat.
So, please...if you just LOVE AA, keep on loving it. I really don't care. Trouble me not. I've heard it all before. You are like the walking talking dead to me. Tap me when you wake up, Friend. There are so many, many forums and blogs wherein anti-AA's are willing to argue with AA supporters. I do not host these. You are welcomed to hop on such a forum and argue and insult arrogantly away to your heart's delight. I don't care what AA supporters think.
But seriously, if you are "working a good program" why are you even reading sites like mine? You know it is not approved reading material. Your sponsor would not approve. And my gosh, what would Bill say? Sites like these will only upset you if you insist upon attempting to push your views on others. People who are against AA did not get here by accident. AA drove us here. Don't you understand? I'm sure you don't.
As my ex sponsor said to me, "OH WELL..."
Tradition 10 - Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the AA name ought never be drawn into public controversy." Please follow orders from the Interchurch Center if you are an AA member and don't comment.
