Summary: I attended AA for 36 years. Abstinent. After I worked the steps in and out 3 times in a row ( over the years I did them over again as well) I found myself lacking and seeing "the steps" for what they were. Pretty useless and in many ways harmfull for a young teen like myself who was already good at blaming myself. At 4 years sober and 22 years old I began my quest for real help and answers. At first I read books like The Greatest Secret in the World by Og Mandino, then I began doing outside spitiual healings which did help. I excercised regularly and I searched for truth. Still I suffered with great emotional pain that no one in AA had any answers for and in fact made me feel worse at times. I will share and discuss the many paths, books, theraputic means I took that finaly got me to a place where I realized I had childhood trauma, I got help from a real PhD, I did rage work and then found out that I was NEVER BROKEN. Two shorts years after studing TM or Quantum Mediation, I left AA never to return and now know for myself that AA is a very dangerous , unhealthy, toxic, unsafe, religious type cultish thing. I am not calling it a "program or a fellowship or a support group" my expereince is proof that AA is very close to all the terms that would say it is a "cult"!
