Originally Posted by
Dymanic
You may be surprised to hear that I actually agree with that. It is often assumed that those chapters were written by Bill W himself, but that is just as often disputed. Whoever wrote it was clearly not very well versed in either theology or philosophy, because I find most of the arguments laughable, and always have.
I agree with that as well. What's worse is that there are still plenty of AA members who take the same approach. I find it relatively easy to overlook when it reflects the type of rigidity in thinking that typifies the newly recovering alcoholic, not the least reason being that I've so often seen it appear to work. As an alternative to the chaotic, antisocial existence of the active alcoholic, a formal, regimented approach may be just the ticket. For a while. But I feel sorry for those who never progress beyond that as the years pass by (as well as for those upon whom they attempt to inflict their rigidity). I think the take-home message is that no one person defines what AA is for anyone but himself. The door opens right out onto the street, and there's no telling what sort of maniac may wander in. I've encountered people in AA who were off on all kinds of weird trips; not just religious trips. It hardly seems reasonable to expect anything else, considering the reason for AA existing in the first place. It doesn't have to be an obstacle.
Thanks for your comments, much better than the juvenile personal attacks I typically receive (see below, for another example). On a side note, nearly
all of the first 164 pages was personally written by Bill, there is solid proof of that (for instance, the memoirs of his wife, secretary, & mistress are all in agreement he wrote all of that - AA archives (which I've personally viewed several times, including archives which have never been publically released) also confirm that.
Another interesting tidbit - out of the ordinal 100 members of AA, did you know that just about 50 (1/2) of them died either drunk (not able to stay sober for more than a few years) or from alcoholism related causes? That was the
first, last, and only time AA had a 50% or better success rate, it went downhill
fast from that original group.