I agree with you wholeheartly about the AA Big Book. I simply can't stand to read it, it contains some very scary, flawed fundamentalist dogma (I'm a militant agnostic), along with too many bait-and-switch tactics & contradictions. With its threatening tone, antiquainted prose, and gloom & doom painted scenarios, I don't see how most newcomers entering into the program for the first time could possibly benefit from reading it. Many meetings have been generally fine, but when I hear the endless BB quotes being spewed in meeting after meeting (i.e. so-called "suggestions" like I MUST "hit my knees every morning", or "let go & let God", bleccchhh) I suddenly want to run away & hide. Many times I'm more depressed after I've attended a meeting than before.

After more than 2 years of sobriety, I'm finding that I'm alot more comfortable hanging out with non-alcoholic people, with whom I share other common interests in, than my fellow AA's, with whom I only share my alcohol addiction with. When AA people refer to my friends as "earth people" or "normies", I basically tell them to STFU--& realize that maybe there IS something slightly cult-like or "exclusive" about 12-step programs after all. Something definitely feels askew about it, & it makes me uncomfortable.

Great strides have been made in the medical community about addiction over the past 75 years since the BB was written, & I find the research to be very valid & helpful. I just wish some of these AA people would get their heads out of the sand, & learn to expand their minds a little.

I just happened to find out about this site from my 21 year old neice several months ago while she was recovering from a debilitating illness. After being forced to drop out of school for a nearly a year, she became very depressed & had to rely on humor to get her through the chronic pain & physical discomfort of her condition, putting up with endless trips to the hospital to find the right combo of meds...the fear of worrying about her academic future became emotionally crippling. I've logged onto it a few times since she told me about it, & I have to admit I find it hilarious, hip & refreshing. Especially in an uncertain world, a little distraction can sometimes go a long way. An occasional guilty pleasure from time to time never really hurts anyone as far as I can tell.

Let's lighten up people...it ain't the end of the world quite yet. I LIKE dem kute kittehs, & right now my neice is doing just fine.

Yup...what you said. I'm also from the 'Burgh, & I can't believe that anyone, especially anyone from out-of-state & unfamiliar with the area would be so utterly clueless as to think that she could possibly get away with this fabricated nonsense without arousing suspicions from the Pittsburgh Police. That section of Pgh. IS a very busy area during the time she said the assault occured, & I'm quite certain that the supposed attack would not have gone unnoticed.

She's either a very dim bulb, or an extremely imaginative, deeply disturbed young woman. Probably both.