On AA and drinking

Dean Esmay has a couple of posts on drinking and Alcoholics Anonymous. Like Dean I have had periods in my life that were impacted by drinking and as a result had an AA experience. I share Dean's feelings about AA. Go read his posts here. My wife at the time first had me sent off to "treatment" where a bunch of religiously "recovering" alcoholics tried to tell me my problem was the same as theirs. You can call it "denial" if you will, but they were dead wrong. Like Dean's experience they told me I was powerless to do anything about it. From treatment I went to AA where I met a bunch of people who's lives had been controlled by alcohol when they drank and who's lives were still controlled by alcohol as they found it necessary to attend 5--10--15 meetings a week because they were powerless. I thought to myself that in some cases they would have been better off if they had been allowed to drink themselves to death. Like Dean I reject the powerless argument that makes you dependent on what amounts to a religion. Isn't that what religion is all about after all.

My life is no longer controlled by alcohol because I realized I am not powerless and once I realized this I could choose to drink or not drink. I have a glass of wine with dinner everynight. I will still drink more than I should on rare occasions but it's because I choose to, not because I'm "powerless".
For the other side IndustrialBlog defends AA. I'm glad it worked for him but feeling powerless is not for me. I am not powerless and my life today is not controlled by alcohol inspite of "treatment" and AA not because of it.