CONFESSING

Confessing 'sins' or revealing ones private life to the group is a huge part of Alcoholics Anonymous. This caused me great distress and anxiety. I remember often thinking, 'how will I tell the group this' or 'I have to tell the group this'. I found this very unhealthy and a total waste of my brain power.
Now it is sometimes not good to keep things bottled up, but isn't it best to talk to a non-judgemental friend than to a group of self-righteous people, who believe that God chose them?
Often at very large meetings many of the people will be strangers to each other. Is it wise to confide your darkest secrets to strangers? I think not.

SELF-ESTEEM DESTROYED
The saddest thing for me was to see young people come in, influenced by their sponsors, talk about how horrible the are, and how bad they are, and how useless they are without AA.
"AA saved me"
"I'd be dead without AA"
"AA comes first for me"
"I am nothing without AA"
"I was a horrible person without AA"
I believe these statements come about because of a desire to fit in. It is conforming to the cult. But in time it becomes a belief, and they really do, then, believe that they are bags of useless shit. Well let me tell you something, I am no bag of shit. I give the credit for my recovery first to me and my courage and grit; and secondly I give credit to my last counsellor for guiding me and allowing me to express myself. AA gets NOTHING. ZERO! AA hindered my recovery with its idiotic, anti-intellectual, superstitious bull shit! Hehe!!
One thing I have noticed, to my great joy, since leaving the cult is how well I can relate to people. And when things fail, when I don't get what I want, the disappointment passes quickly. Why? Because I no longer need go to a meeting to regurgitate pain which has already been resolved. If you feel sick and throw up, you feel better, in AA you eat your own vomit again and again and again and again. It is totally unnecessary.