The AA Illusion: Progress or Stagnation? Why AA Doesn't Help Your Life

The episode discusses not just the high failure rate within Alcoholics Anonymous for alcohol addiction,  but questions if those who achieve sobriety can truly advance their lives within its framework. It suggests that the traditional aa meeting structure may keep individuals in a negative state, hindering true addiction recovery.
BOOKS FOR RECOVERY AND REINVENTION

THE SMALL BOOK: HOW I BEAT ALCOHOLISM AND WHY ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS DOESN'T WORK.

THE SHEPHERD AND THE RUNNINGWOLF: A PATH TO FORGIVENESS ON THE PACIFIC CREST TRAIL

REINVENTION OF SELF: HOW TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE AND BEING FOREVER

Transcript

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It's true that the alcoholic recovery from Alcoholics Anonymous fails most people. What about the ones who manage to stay sober? Can they even form a vision of advancing their planes of being while involved in the AA method? I say Alcoholics Anonymous keeps them forever in the abyss. Stay tuned and I'll explain why. Many have accused me of having an axe to grind with Alcoholics Anonymous Support Organization. And as a matter of fact, I do. I not only have an axe to grind, but am declaring war on its entire protocol. Its 12 steps, its mantras, its sponsors, and more importantly, its massive failure rate. It's not that I want AA to go out of existence. My contention is I want it to change its methods. Because the fact is, regardless of their reasons why, the program does not work for most people who have an alcohol addiction. And as of today, AA is where most alcoholics get sent to in effort to lose that addiction. There are a few budding philosophies that are starting to veer away from this traditional recovery program, in which so few actually recover, but they remain in the minority. And if AA can't recognize that they fail most and continue its cult-like tactics, then yes, I would have to say I do want to go out of existence forever. For continuing a program that continues to fail most is sheer madness. I've been sober for about 17 years. I did not go through the AA protocol. I do not adhere to the big book, I've never had a sponsor. I completed zero of their steps. Yet, here I am, one who is almost two decades clean. I rarely have cravings or think about alcohol at all. I can go to a party, surrounded by friends of John Barleycorn, and it largely has no effect on me. That I was surrounded by beer and cocktails for a few hours. And in those 17 years, I've greatly improved all the planes of self. I'm in top physical condition in my later 50s, still doing 13 rounds on the heavy bag, two out of every three days, as well as lifting weights. I continue a meditative program of Tai Chi, Yoga, and Zen breathing most nights. I've written five books and picked up on investing and them doing well in that endeavor as well. And I continue to explore everything the world has to offer. I live in foreign countries, learn new languages, and trail walk all over the terrain. But I've been told in the past that AA is necessary for those who are addicts so they can learn how to live. First, I'm no longer an addict. I claim cure from the addiction after two years' sobriety. But learn how to live? Please, look at my life I just described. It saddens me a great deal when I think of the members who will sit in the rooms for the rest of their lives, those who were indoctrinated in their weakest state in initial withdrawal from John Barleycorn's poison. The fact is, no one ever showed these recently sober that there was a better way, not only how to remove the addiction of alcohol from their lives, but how they could regain their lives. How they could transform from the addicted entity to a being of magnificence in all their planes, the physical, emotional, and career spheres. How the final spiritual plane could evolve to a reflection of his existence, showing his being as an important part of this functioning universe. But most of the Alcoholics Anonymous will never make it to even reinventing themselves because they go back to the addiction. And this statement is backed by the majority of addiction studies, AA. The one outlier study they keep throwing in my face from Stanford doesn't negate the consensus. Most who enter your doors will not beat the addiction, let alone regain themselves holistically. The AA members, the few who actually stay sober in their program, may be able to stay sober, but their lives will continue to exist inside of the bars of their circles and the rooms. They have condemned themselves as forever alcoholics. Their lives will consist as constantly warring with the addiction that now only exists in their minds. They will lose spouses who no longer have anything in common with them. They will cut themselves off from the normal recreational drinking society forever in fear of that relapse, which AA tells them is part of recovery. The planes of improvement I mentioned above, they will never achieve those advancements of self because their lives are sitting in constant negativity, believing that they're forever diseased and are destined to be now addicted to their new maintenance drug of Alcoholics Anonymous. AA literally steals their lives, and that is incredibly sad. Most of the motivational gurus will state that if you wish to improve yourself, you must have a vision with the belief that the future vision can be a reality. When I had a motivational channel, I said the same thing. There's a chapter in my book that states this as well. You can't improve in anything if you can't picture yourself doing it. If an athlete believes deep down that he'll never progress, he's already lost the race. His training will be lackluster for the event he already destined himself to lose. And in the Alcoholics Anonymous philosophy, they have already destined that you're a damaged being. You're an addict. You'll always be an addict. You are forever diseased. They have set the stage to forfeit a return to greatness in lieu of their rooms every night. This becomes the former addict's life. The rooms. He stays in them five and six nights a week at 10 years sober. He preps going to a normal get-together where there will be alcohol by calling a sponsor and going to a meeting before and after the event. Whenever life throws a normal stressor at him, he runs toward the doors of the cult for reassurance. He has to know where the local meeting house is when on vacation because he's tethered to the cult for life. Joe Rogan in his podcast once said, everyone loves the John Wayne character. You know, the person who always did the right thing and is everyone's hero. But then he stated that who he really admired was the person who totally screwed up his life and then came back. The one who rose from the ashes to fly over the horizon. And you know what? He's right, that is truly heroic. This is what I want the AA member to picture today, whether he's six months sober or six years. I want you to envision this transformation that AA is not letting you achieve. I don't want you to just stay sober. I want you to achieve greatness in all your planes. For if you do this, you will find the thoughts of your days of alcoholism will be placed in the storage locker forever. I want you to picture your physical transformation first. I used to give this advice as medical guidance to chronic pain patients whose root of their pain was their poor lifestyle and obesity, the vision of seeing themselves as a highly fit person two years from my initial consult. Because it can happen. I once knew a 21-year-old student in my physical therapy curriculum who was in horrific shape, especially for her young age. She was obese, plain and simple. About a decade later, I saw her on social media. She was a half-marathon runner, a competitive bodybuilder, ripped to shreds, and in fantastic shape. Her entire demeanor had shifted to the warrior mindset. And then she opened a gym on top of her physical therapy job to bring others to do the same. So what'd she do to accomplish this? She started by altering her mindset, created a vision of a better person, and then simply followed through to achieve it. And she started from rock bottom. After years of drinking, you will have to start slow when building your fitness routine. You might last 10 minutes in a cardio workout that first day. So that's where you start. But the real entry point is picturing yourself as that future person. I have a long time practice in the art of boxing in Muay Thai. Before I quit drinking, I had largely neglected that Muay Thai or any other exercise for that matter, most of the time for the last five years of the addiction. When I quit, I envisioned regaining that fitness to a level where I would one day live and train in a Muay Thai camp for eight weeks, in Thailand. And I accomplished this at 45 years old, five years into sobriety. Maybe you've never exercised in your life, during or before your addiction. Who is to say you can't one day complete a triathlon? Or hike the 2600-mile Pacific Crest Trail, or get in the MMA octagon. Like my above example of my former classmate, I've seen it happen more than once, but you can't have this vision of physical greatness by smoking cigarettes in the rooms every night. The same mindset goes for the emotional plane. You feel agitation in the rooms, surrounded by constant reminder of the past. You aren't working out, so you're carrying all that internal stress from the normal day-to-day. What if I told you to picture a future mental being who had mostly tranquility in his brain? Someone who raged on nothing but positivity, someone who rarely had cravings any longer, or if he did, those instances were minimal and transient. This mindset is possible if you remove yourself from AA, because Alcoholics Anonymous has nothing but propagation of negativity. It begins with their initial proclamation that you are dysfunctional with a disease that has no cure. And by constantly reiterating the past with your story as well as listening to others who have the same morose tale, I can promise you that you will not envision future emotional greatness while sitting in this sort of toxic environment. And also, now that you're off the hops, it's really time to progress that career greatness that you weren't focusing on while in the bottle. It's time to be the best you can in your trade or start a new career. Have you ever pictured yourself as a multimillionaire? Why not? You can learn to invest like anyone else. Other regular people have become wealthy by their own hand, haven't they? You now have the time to do all those things that can progress your life. Because you aren't spending every night in the bottle and every morning just trying to muster the energy to push through the hangover until that bottle returns. You can now write that book if you want, or start a business on the side. Can you now picture yourself as that small business owner or creator of the next successful YouTube channel? You should be able to now that John Barleycorn is no longer your friend. But you can't do that if your focus is in the rooms. If your entire mindset is that of a forever addict, the only thing you're going to achieve is advancing in AA. This is what they do. They advance in an organization that they should be long gone from if they are years sober. But that cult is now the center of their negative progression. They become a sponsor, a committee member. They progress in the very organization that continues to restrain them from the real progression in life. I have no chips of days, months, and years sober. But I'm 80% retired in my 50s, creating this episode while living in foreign lands. And at last, can you picture your proper place in the universe? The spiritual plane? Can you see your essence of being? Can you look out of your mental window and see all the things the train has to offer you? You can't if you're in the rooms most nights. You're not living in the AA program. You're just existing. You're existing in a constant fear of relapse. Jim Rohn once said that the top five people you spend the most time with is a direct reflection of who you are. And if you're entrenched in the AA method, you are surrounded in your off time with people who also think they're damaged for life. I know I'm gonna get huge comments from the AA propaganda machine. They will tell me their lives are doing great. Really? How can your life be fulfilled if you're spending it ingesting toxins every night, physically and emotionally? How can you be advancing yourself of your master status as an AA member at 10 years sober? That mentality is a delusion, plain and simple. It's a coping mechanism for someone who is locked in a prison yet tells everyone they are free. No, I don't believe these commenters who tell me how great their lives are or how AA has helped them so much. Because I've been to their meetings. I've seen the panic induced on the long sober by simply going to a party. I watch their agitation as they suck the nicotine and caffeine to cope with the toxic environment which they have placed themselves in instead of living their lives. A lot of you I won't reach, I know, because you're too indoctrinated and you're too scared to live on your own. But the rest of you, I want you to ask yourselves a question. Have you ever actually visualized yourself greatly advancing in the planes mentioned above? Have you ever really pictured yourself in a high state of physical and emotional health? Have you ever seen yourself as largely not thinking about your former addiction, which is so reiterated in those rooms? Have you ever given to future witness of a brand new person who is in a state of spiritual connection with the world? If you are a longtime member of Alcoholics Anonymous, I guarantee this isn't your mindset. Because their program keeps all these planes at the bottom of the abyss. They don't want you to have a vision of success and reinvention. They want you to keep following their cult mantras. But there was no rule that their way is the way. In fact, most of the stats prove otherwise. You were in the abyss of these four planes when you were drinking and when you initially quit it. I remember very well. It was a slow process to pull myself out of those rock bottoms in these planes. But once you surface, your quality of life will increase tenfold, I promise. All you have to do is grab the rope I'm dropping. Now, if you want some other reasons why AA is destructive for you, check out my playlist card at the end of the video. And check out my own detailed book on the matter, The Small Book How I Beat Alcoholism and Why Alcoholics Anonymous Doesn't Work. Link is on the video description as well as the channel page banner. And remember, keep your contract, be sober at sundown, and I will see you at the next sunrise.