I believe they do prey on vulnerable. Also, they have a hidden or not so hidden agenda to make you believe in Christianity or God. In fact those words are in their twelve steps. There are many other ways for alcoholics to seek help. People should try it and see but don't be afraid to look elsewhere

Would you explain, for the benefit of those people who might be lurking on this forum, debating in their own minds if they are or aren't alcoholics, the "many other ways for alcoholics to seek help". I do not believe any AA member on this thread is claiming the AA approach is the only way. Beyond telling someone not to go to AA, what would you suggest to a person in provincial Thailand, say Nakhon Nowhere, who contacted you and said: "gk10002000, help me <deleted>, I'm desperate, I need to do something about my drinking. I remember you saying there are many ways for alcoholics to seek help. Please tell em about them? And please don't tell anyone we've had this discussion.'

I would say go seek professional advice. AAA people are not professionals, are not professionally trained, etc

It's AA and a fact that one alcoholic can help another more than any doctor or professionally trained non alcoholic.

What do you mean? Go to the local Nakhon Nowhere hospital?

Even the Bamrungrad type hospitals have no doctors that can help a real alcoholic.

I would say go seek professional advice. AAA people are not professionals, are not professionally trained, etc

It's AA and a fact that one alcoholic can help another more than any doctor or professionally trained non alcoholic.

What do you mean? Go to the local Nakhon Nowhere hospital?

Even the Bamrungrad type hospitals have no doctors that can help a real alcoholic.

I know people who suffer from alcoholism... they've talked to me about their issues and how the AA meetings have helped them.

They have identified that AA does push the 'spiritual' side of things a little too far, higher power, spiritual awakening etc... I'm sure its a little too much for many to swallow...

That said, the support programs like AA offer are multifaceted...

....they are free and open to anyone - this is excellent - it means in any town there is a meeting, a network of people who will not judge and instead listen and offer support. There is a huge range in the demographics of people who attend... poor, wealthy, educated, uneducated, different nationalities, successful people, people down on their luck...

AA may not be the perfect option, but it certainly the 'least worst' of all other options available to an alcoholic looking for on going, cost effective and sustainable support in their continued recovery....

One reads so often in the papers that this or that celebrity has gone into rehab and is now clean or sober that it makes it sound such an easy thing to do, but believe me recovery is incredibly hard work both in the primary stages and out in the real world. At Promis we were taken twice weekly to AA or NA meetings in Canterbury to get us accustomed to attending; this time i listened and I saw that that was where I belonged, that all the patterns of the illness were replicated in me. I don't understand why the medical profession refuses to recognise addiction in general and alcoholism in particular as an illness but persists in treating the damage caused or the symptoms rather than the core. I don't have a very high regard for the medical profession coming as I do from that world but in this instance there is a glaring ignorance.

When the ordinary person has a drink the alcohol flushes away and if you drink too much you will feel ill and hung over the next day. I believe, and there is increasing medical evidence to support this, that alcoholics are born not made and that at some time in their drinking career a trigger will activate an endorphinal gland which is like the appendix, not in use in other people. Once started, the alcohol will liaise with the dopamine to produce a substance closely akin to street heroin; the body clamours for more of this and so the alcoholic continues to drink even to jails, institutions and death. The substance, known as THQ, stores itself in the fatty tissues of the brain.

When I cleaned up my act I was told that I have a disease that is physical mental and spiritual.

Physically I was able to clean up the mess by not drinking any more doing some shaking and not getting around much. My body came back.

Mentally well there are those who would question that. But to make it easy to understand a treatment center would have been useless there was nothing to absorb the material with. A treatment center would just have been 3 hots and a cot nothing more. Spiritually well that is an on going thing. I have a belief in a God that has nothing to do with the one I was told about in school or by the guy on the street. It is probably wrong and I could care less. He/She/It took away the insane drive to kill myself and drive every one away from me.

Today I have friends I get along with people and I am able to help others with things that have nothing to do with alcoholism. All though I do help some people.

The long and the short of it is no doctor could have done more than help me regain my physical. For the Mental it took time and work on twelve steps.

I admit there are others who can think there way out off it or just go to the doctor and get some pills which would just have increased another addiction for me.

I would say go seek professional advice. AAA people are not professionals, are not professionally trained, etc

It's AA and a fact that one alcoholic can help another more than any doctor or professionally trained non alcoholic.

What do you mean? Go to the local Nakhon Nowhere hospital?

Even the Bamrungrad type hospitals have no doctors that can help a real alcoholic.

I know people who suffer from alcoholism... they've talked to me about their issues and how the AA meetings have helped them.

They have identified that AA does push the 'spiritual' side of things a little too far, higher power, spiritual awakening etc... I'm sure its a little too much for many to swallow...

That said, the support programs like AA offer are multifaceted...

....they are free and open to anyone - this is excellent - it means in any town there is a meeting, a network of people who will not judge and instead listen and offer support. There is a huge range in the demographics of people who attend... poor, wealthy, educated, uneducated, different nationalities, successful people, people down on their luck...

AA may not be the perfect option, but it certainly the 'least worst' of all other options available to an alcoholic looking for on going, cost effective and sustainable support in their continued recovery....

Just wanted to reply to this part.

"They have identified that AA does push the 'spiritual' side of things a little too far, higher power, spiritual awakening etc... I'm sure its a little too much for many to swallow...:

Yes I have seen that happen often. If their life is so good that they let that drive them out I sit back and watch. After all it says God as we understood him which indicates they changed their mind. All are allowed to have their own understanding or for some like me misunderstanding. I have buried some who let the word God drive them out I have seen some successfully stop drinking and I have seen a lot come back in some times 10 years after deciding they didn't have a problem that bad.

A post in which a PM had been posted has been removed as well as a reply:

20) You will not post any member's personal information including emails, personal messages, photos or web site details.

I'm trying to figure out where people get the idea that the AA 12 step program is about anything BUT taking personal responsibility for our lives, our actions and the damage done by our drinking.

The entire goal of my steps was to look at what in the world had happened to me that humbled me to darken the door of AA, look at (and admit) my part in every single episode, to make a list of all the collateral damage I did to people around me, and to make amends to all those I had harmed. And to keep doing that every day. And to help anyone else who wanted to clean up their life like they taught me.

There was no blaming my genes and no dodging responsibility because I had a disease. It was all about personal responsibility.

So I could get all caught up in the definition of alcoholism, and the disease theory, and could have died of cirrhosis or in a flaming car wreck while pondering whether I'd accept a little bit of humility in the fact that the alcohol was kicking my ass and I needed help. That's the higher power thing. It's not about religion. It's about accepting that I couldn't do it without help. My higher power was the hundreds of people on the path with me.

And for anyone worried about being converted, I'm 27 years in and I still don't go to church. And there is absolutely no pressure pushing me that way.

So, yeah. I'm sure there are other, zoomier ways to quit drinking. But I don't know any shortcuts to cleaning up the wreckage of my life, much of it related to my drinking. It took years, and lots of eating humble pie. Maybe that's another reason the success rate isn't very high. Most of us would prefer to take a pill.

Before coming to AA I went to church regular. I even asked a priest once for help. No response there. Since coming into AA over 13,000 days ago and never having a drink or drug I have been to churlish three times once to a wedding where I was the best man once to my mothers funeral and once when their was an hour break in a round up being held at a Catholic church while they prepared the hall for supper at the same time as the Saturday night Mass. Didn't hurt me a bit or help me.

Like impulse said the 12 steps sure helped me discover who I was what I had done wrong and be able to fix some of the damage I had done. I was not allowed to fix it if it would hurt some one else.