Is AA really as horrible as some like to say it is?

AA, rehab, and God all were and are the ingredients in saving my life.  In AA I have done the 12 step work many times and at many levels.  Demonizing rehab or AA as a whole would be drastically inaccurate.  I got sober at a $2 a day rehab called Bridgehouse at Meridian in Gainesville, Fl in 2006.  My therapists were nothing short of brilliant.  Not all the counselors were savvy.  The government paid for my stay even before Obama care.  http://mbhci.org/treatment-services/residential-inpatient-services/

I went to the AA bashing sites

https://aarmedwithfacts.wordpress.com/official-aarmed-blog-roll/comment-page-1/#comment-567

Recently I have done an extensive study on Alcoholics Anonymous.  Also I have been an active member for ten years.  I refuse to white-wash AA by pretending its processes and members are either ALL GOOD or ALL BAD.  I myself admit an annoyance of Club level sobriety which participates in much dysfunction in the name of AA.

That being said in my study, I have found several websites (listed at the link above) and people of reputation and high education who claim Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous are ALL BAD and literally killing people.  In some cases sick sponsors have been responsible for just that.  Because of my own open minded and sometimes  critical views on some widespread AA misconceptions, and bringing those into light I have been mistaken as an AA hater which I am not.  I have been badgered to say the least by some less mature new members.  I understand these members are in deep pain and need someone to blame.  For some newcomers if their perceptions of AA and all it’s members are not ‘perfect’ and whitewashed they delude that it reflects on them.  For their benefit I have curbed my critical articles.  In the beginning of sobriety it’s not uncommon for a member to attach their identity to AA.  Similar to my own search early-on for the perfect sponsor who in my mind had to be perfect AA to sponsor me.  Lol  I learned early on the ingredient of perfect-program requires imperfect people.  All my sponsor needs to be good at is staying sober.

THE CONCLUSION OF MY STUDY

We should go into our recovery with eyes wide open knowing that in any human arena things can go bad and people prey on weakness and vulnerability.  Desperation by family members to save their loved one’s life is being exploited full force.  We must be aware of that and not automatically trust these organizations.  At the same time we need to give both rehab and AA a chance as if we were shopping for a car from used car lots.  Pic and choose our meetings and rehab with prudence.   As you can see by my own financial rehab experience ($2 a day)  money doesn’t necessarily buy sobriety.

WILLINGNESS, OPEN-MINDEDNESS, AND HONESTY are the keys to sobriety.

A new documentary by a former rehab insider shines a skeptical light on the business of high-priced addiction centers.  However demonizing all of rehabs could be fatal.  Just as demonizing all of AA could be fatal.

It seems that some Insurance companies, big business, rehab centers will do anything to get the money of suffering addicts families, as shown in the following article:  http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/02/the-million-dollar-rehab-racket-that-drains-family-savings.html

The centers “paint this picture that they’re going to fix everything. These families in crisis are so vulnerable, and they want to believe what they hear.”

But in truth, Horvath says, the biggest motive of rehab facilities, some of which charged upwards of $50,000 a month, was simpler still: profit. One rehab he worked with, he said, had an employee whose job was to guide families through the process of refinancing their home to pay the tens of thousands of dollars charged for treatment.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/catferguson/the-rehab-scam

I believe big money is trying it’s best to sabotage and discredit AA so they can profit from our pain per-say.  And that they are behind many of these negative websites and are using disgruntled AAers to their advantage.  Granted these disgruntled often have truly been wronged by members.  However like addicts do they have gone to an extreme about AA.  And if it is big business behind many of these sites since Obama care agreed to pay for rehab, they are not doing a very good job of discrediting AA.   God is the author and finisher of AA in my opinion.