Why I Left Alcoholics Anonymous
“…I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” John 14:6
“Your ex-husband’s AA friends are planning a prayer meeting for him,” my ex-husband’s long-time friend said as we sat in the hospital ICU waiting room where my ex-husband lay in a medically induced coma due to a chronic lung disease compounded by a life-threatening prescription pill addiction. “We’ll join hands in a circle and pray for his healing.”
As a former long-time, zealous, sold out member of AA who lived, breathed, and preached the 12 steps before God woke me up to the truth, led me to repentance, delivered and freed me, I didn’t welcome this news.
“Who will you pray to?” I said. God had freed me from AA long ago.
“Whatever gods we believe in,” my ex-husband’s friend said.
AA, self-proclaimed to be a spiritual program falsely purported to be rooted in Christianity that helps people get sober, teaches members to pick and pray to a “higher power” – or god – of their own choosing, to follow its 12 “spiritual” steps, and as a top priority to get and stay sober, teaches nothing of the one true God, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, God’s Word, sin, heaven, hell, repentance, salvation, a life of devotedness to God through Christ, praise, worship, etc. Like any false religion the Bible warns against, it’s dangerous, seductive, deceptive, subtle, and filled with worldly promises of sobriety and happiness. I fell for it– for years.
AA’s main textbook, the so-called “Big Book”, says: “We found that God does not make too hard terms with those who seek Him. To us, the Realm of Spirit is broad, roomy, all inclusive; never exclusive or forbidding to those who earnestly seek. It is open, we believe, to all men (p. 46, Alcoholics Anonymous, AAWS).” The Bible says: “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it (Mt. 7:13-14).” There are many examples in AA’s literature of how it does not line up with the Bible and is thus false religion.
I didn’t just like AA. I LOVED it. I worshiped it. I lived by it and for it. AA was my god though I professed to believe in Jesus Christ. I was on the highway to hell – sober – living a sin-ridden life condoned by AA as long as I stayed “sober.” Today, I am free and live for Christ. AA promised me sobriety and happiness. I have chosen instead Christ and eternity with God. There is no comparison. I am nearly 24 years sober now and live for God utterly, filled with immeasurable love, peace, hope, and joy.
Help and support in getting sober can be exceedingly helpful, but only when that help is ordained by God and lines up with His Word.