POWERLESS OR POWERFULL??

Apparently, telling people they might have power over their own lives is now considered dangerous!

I’ve been called dangerous for questioning powerlessness!!

I’ve been told that encouraging people to question what they’ve been taught about addiction could cost lives

And I find the irony comical

I spent 22 years in 12-step recovery

I believed I was powerless. I believed I had a lifelong condition. I believed I needed the programme to survive

I heard people say that if you leave, you’ll drink or use again. And if you do, you’ll probably die

I believed much of it myself

Then I started questioning what I’d been taught

Eventually, I left

I’m still clean, 32 years later

And something fascinating happened

People who knew me, who knew I’d left, could still claim they’d never known anyone who left the rooms and remained well

What happens when someone standing right in front of you contradicts something you’ve believed for decades??

Now here’s where it gets interesting

The Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book says, on page 164:

“Our book is meant to be suggestive only”

And immediately afterwards:

“We realize we know only a little”

The Foreword to the Second Edition acknowledges that AA has no monopoly on therapy for alcoholism

And on page 95:

“We have no monopoly on God”

So how did a fellowship whose literature acknowledges the limits of its understanding become, for some members, the only legitimate way to recover? So much so they will be abusive trash others, fight with people even over being right

How did suggestions become rules?

How did personal experience become universal truth?

How did questioning a belief become evidence of denial?

And how did leaving become something people were taught to fear?

I know how powerful these beliefs can become because I lived inside them

You arrive frightened, desperate, perhaps convinced there’s something fundamentally wrong with you

You meet people who seem to have found an answer

You listen
You trust
You begin repeating what you’ve heard

Eventually, the explanation becomes part of who you believe you are

And questioning it can feel like questioning your survival

I’ve witnessed genuine kindness and connection in those rooms. I know AA has helped many people

I also know people who recovered through entirely different approaches

Why is it acceptable to tell someone they’re powerless for life, yet dangerous to suggest they might have more power than they’ve ever realised?

Why do we celebrate freedom from addiction while treating freedom from the programme as a threat?

I’m not asking anyone to leave AA

I’m asking why someone who leaves, and remains well, can become such an uncomfortable challenge to other people’s beliefs

Perhaps the most important words in the Big Book are the ones we don’t hear repeated nearly enough

WE REALIZE WE KNOW ONLY A LITTLE!

Imagine what recovery conversations might become if we actually lived by that!