From our friends at AA

[ex-shep]

The AA Promises

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through.

We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.

We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.

We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.

No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.

That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.

We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.

Self-seeking will slip away.

Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.

Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.

We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.

We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.



Are these extravagant promises? We think not.

They are being fulfilled among us - sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.

They will always materialize if we work for them.

Alcoholics Anonymous p83-84



I have seen the same promises come true not only for my sex and love addiction but for my group involvement too.

[Anna Marta]

I think that the AA promises are basically good counseling and healing processes that "everyone" who desires to obtain and retain a richer and deeper life would be wise to assimilate them.

Anna Marta

[mary]

But we still must incorporate into everything the Alpha and the Omega, the great "I Am," the beautiful, miraculous bringing to life what was dead that only Jesus Christ can accomplish... "He must increase; but I must decrease..." "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." (John 3:14-15.)

mary

[bpico]

Nice but I don't like the ideas that goes along with it. That "I am a ____ addict", I will have to always watch triggers because I am powerless and life is unmanagable, I will have to always go to meetings and make sure I keep reading recovery material. If the program doesn't appear to work for me...well that is impossible because it is God as we understand him that will remove our defects, and since it is GOD it can't be the programs fault now can it? It must be our fault for not carrying out the steps better. It sounds to me like spiritual abuse, what do you think? Perhaps my problems are my own making and I need help to get past my ambivalence and sort out what is best for me and then following through to change that.

Sorry if I am negative about AA

[Elisabeth]

Nice but I don't like the ideas that goes along with it. That "I am a ____ addict", I will have to always watch triggers because I am powerless and life is unmanagable, I will have to always go to meetings and make sure I keep reading recovery material. If the program doesn't appear to work for me...well that is impossible because it is God as we understand him that will remove our defects, and since it is GOD it can't be the programs fault now can it? It must be our fault for not carrying out the steps better. It sounds to me like spiritual abuse, what do you think? Perhaps my problems are my own making and I need help to get past my ambivalence and sort out what is best for me and then following through to change that.

Sorry if I am negative about AA

We all have stuff we are negative about, or had stuff we are negative about, because of the abuse we have been through. One thing I have found precious about this site is we can express those negativities, even though someone else might not share the same ones. :D

[ex-shep]

Nice but I don't like the ideas that goes along with it. That "I am a ____ addict", I will have to always watch triggers because I am powerless and life is unmanagable, I will have to always go to meetings and make sure I keep reading recovery material. If the program doesn't appear to work for me...well that is impossible because it is God as we understand him that will remove our defects, and since it is GOD it can't be the programs fault now can it? It must be our fault for not carrying out the steps better. It sounds to me like spiritual abuse, what do you think? Perhaps my problems are my own making and I need help to get past my ambivalence and sort out what is best for me and then following through to change that.

Sorry if I am negative about AA


Not to worry. That why I always say take what you like and leave the rest. I have seen 12 step cults. I talked to one ex-member. I asked if these were any of thougth stopping cliches. She was OK. I played the role of the "Big Book Nazi". She I would make a good member of her former group.

I guess I never got into the performance trap. I recognized there were days I I could not get with the program. It did not mean I was not working the programme. I was out of that day and that was where I was.