You're poor and dying because God hates you

[fomenter]

i get the impression there is a big guilt trip if you don't attend the meetings  "you missed a meeting you are falling back into your old ways and will be drinking again soon" 

[AFK]

The thing with AA, NA, and GA (the last two being Narcotics Anonymous and Gamblers Anonymous) is that they can pretty much be a crapshoot.  People come and go.  One week you'll have two people staring at each other, another week you'll have a huge, probably unmanageable group.  And then, depending on what kind of personalities you have in the room, it could end up being a huge clusterfuck that just leaves people more frustrated and hopeless.  It really depends on who's leading the group too.  Just so many variables at play.  I'd say a very good example of destructive disorder.   

[Jenne]

I got an acronym for you:

F
I
N
E

[LMNO]

Foghat's Importance Needs Explaining?

[AFK]

Oh, I thought she was talking about me.   

[BADGE OF HONOR]

Confess your sins (regularly, and repeatedly), which breaks down your ego.
Abandon your past life and relationships completely and absolutely, which puts you in emotionally vulnerable territory.
Have the cult's adherents express love and admiration at you, which builds up the new identity of "self".
Proscribe strict and unflinching rules of behavior.
Employs chants and slogans that mentally enforce the behavior.

You just described the Mormon church.   

[LMNO]

And Band Camp.

[Archduke Omni-Fap!]

And "High School Musical."

[Jenne]

Fucked Up
Insecure
Narcissistic
Egomaniac


That's the acronym AA teaches you when they ask you how you are and you reply in group session that you're "Fine." 

[fomenter]

you are joking right???

[Jenne]

Nope.  They don't let you say "Fine," and they tell you that "Fine" is a code-word for the above acronym.

It's to get people to talk, since they are in group therapy through AA to do just that.  They use it for Narcs Anon and a bunch of others, too.

[Cain]

No doubt they introduce these words as some sort of "new speak" or something....

[fomenter]

i hereby rescind any reservations i had about being to harsh in my opinion of AA

[Jenne]

I'd imagine hearing "I'm Fine" in the group therapy sessions gets old, but yeah, it's interesting they use this tactic to get people to talk.  I think the 12 steps are more annoying, however.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

My mom quit drinking when I was 12 and started going to AA, and I  had to go to Alateen. I also went to a ton of meetings with her, and also her social circle became completely revolved around AA.

For short-term help in quitting drinking, I think it's pretty helpful. For long-term support though, I think it's incredibly unhealthy and dysfunctional. They tend to be tremendously insular, cult-like, and judgmental. They look down on people getting sober without AA, and refer to most people who do so as "dry drunks" because they haven't "worked the steps". If someone has a beer, they've "relapsed" and they "lose their time" and have to turn in the chips that signify how long they've been sober, which encourages wholesale benders if someone slips and has a beer... some people even think a normal dose of cough syrup counts as a "relapse".

After 6 years of intimate experience with it, I think AA is a sick model.