My experience is that AA is made up of people and people are fallible. I belonged to a wonderful, women's group in CA, but have not been able to find anything like it in PA. My experience is that the culture is changing and it seems to make it hard for people to understand what "principles before personalities" means any more. I see a lot of personalities and opinions where I am at now.
AA has so much good to offer and so many people get sobriety and recovery there, so I would never disparage it. I just think if one wants to stick with it, one has to search for a group they are compatible with and then needs to take what they need and leave the rest. Sometimes we just have to pray for the one(s) exhibiting too much personality and focus on the good stuff.
I am a Christian and have strong faith and have no problem with the spiritual aspects of AA. However, in my last round of coming off relapse (I am trying to make this one for good!) I have found a great deal of help from SMART recovery. They do not have as many meetings as AA, but they do have a couple online meetings.
The behavioral principles they use have helped me immensely to change my thinking, about beliefs, goals and my drinking.
I need ALL the tools I can get my hands on, so I am quite happy to morph my own program from AA and SMART recovery principles.
That's my experience. Hope it helps! Have a great day!
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3/9/2015
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