How I Became a Member of Alcoholics Anonymous as a "Normie"
(yes, this is what they call non-alcoholics in AA)
This is just a rough draft to try and add some context. Hopefully I will revise it later.
In may of 2022, a little over a month from my high school graduation and my birthday, I willingly chose to go to an adolescent treatment center in Southern California. When I was 14-16, I spent 13 months incarcerated in a different treatment center, located in Utah. I add that to give a picture of what was going on in my life to lead to me willingly entering back into a system that regularly trafficks teenagers and children- a system that I had personally been victim of once before. The great lie of adolescent treatment is that with early intervention, a child may not have severe mental illness as an adult. The issue with this is that a majority of these residentials are abusive and unsafe. They are marketed as a place for a child or teen to heal from trauma, only to be the opposite. The current US mental health system is carceral and that is all the more apparent in the case of children and teens. As an adult, if I voluntarily check in to any hospital, or treatment center, or rehab, I am allowed to leave at any time as long as I am not a direct threat to anyone. As a child, I was not allowed out until the program said I was "cured." And even then, I was not allowed to leave the system. I was transferred to a "lower acuity" facility to "transition back to regular life." This is the trafficking aspect, a lesser known type of trafficking called benefits trafficking. It makes it's money by milking insurance companies and parents until they run dry, and then dumping the victim back in the same situation that caused them to seek treatment in the first place.
Back to May of 2022. I was seeking treatment because my PTSD (and what I now know as OCD) was getting to a very bad point. My school actually strongly suggested to me and my parents that I go to treatment. They let me graduate a month early for this. The trauma that was giving me the most issues during that time was something that happened in my childhood. My mother had sexually abused me for years when I was a toddler/small child. I initially came to the treatment center with the idea that I would be there for a month and then I would come home for my high school graduation. When I told the program that I didn't want to do family therapy and why, they essentially launched a full scale investigation. Into "why [I was] lying about my mom sexually abusing me." Due to this whole situation and them continually forcing me to attend family therapy sessions that were really just an excuse to grill me about "inconsistencies in my story" (I think something important to remember here is that trauma memories, especially from a young age, are not linear,) It was decided that I would not be allowed to come back home and be a teenager. I was to be sent to an Adult Facility. Except the program dropped the ball on that too and didn't try and find me placement until 3 days before my 18th birthday. They sent me to rehab partly because I had a propensity for smoking weed and I drank a little too much at the beginning of my senior year and then quit. The bigger reason though, is that they had a deal with the rehab. (Benefits trafficking in action!)
I arrived at the rehab still rightfully convinced that I wasn't an addict. I was just someone who had been through horrible things and weed genuinely reduced the frequency and length of my flashbacks and panic attacks. Yes, I had attempted suicide by overdose while tripping on shrooms which led to a psychotic episode and what seems to be lifelong low grade hallucinations, but that didn't make me an addict. I stand by the fact that it makes me someone who desperately didn't want to die but couldn't find out how to live.
As soon as I got there, people started introducing themselves and saying their drug of choice. I am not socially inept. I realized that these people had legitimate reasons for being in rehab. Heroin, research chemicals, drinking a liter of vodka a day, all responses I heard to the DOC (drug of choice) question. I quickly realized I was not supposed to be there. But I had trauma from being literally locked in a facility at 15 so I lied. I made up a whole story about my drinking and it's consequences. It was based off of my real life use patterns but I heavily embellished. Not necessarily to sound cool or impressive, but to fit in. Fitting in was very important at this rehab. I already was black and gay and trans. I didn't need to be that pussy stoner who doesn't belong as well. When I told war stories, which I didn't do often, I used actual stories from my life. It is hard to make up how something feels when you've never experienced it. It's even harder to do that and convince someone who has experienced that you're telling the truth.
This rehab advertised a unique recovery program. It was literally just AA. Getting privileges like your phone back were connected to your progress in the 12 steps. We went to around 10 meetings a week. We would wake up at 6am to go to the 7am meeting, then the gym, then "treatment" which was just AA class. Everything in treatment tied back to the essential principles of AA. A few of those are that there is no hope for a good life without God. That you are inherently an awful person and that the 12 steps will lead you closer to God and he will make you a better person. That you will die without AA. The "only" thing God wants you to do is be a good person and to do his will. The words "love" and "loving" come up a lot in AA study sessions and philosophical/religious discussions with other members. I was being indoctrinated for a minimum of 8 hours a day. That's not including the intense social pressure to constantly be having philosophical discussions about the program (a euphemism for AA) with other patients while at the house. I want to stress just how much God was shoved down my throat. If you were being a little difficult or had a bad day it was all about "look how selfish you're being" and "go call your sponsor and pray about it," and "Are you in God's will or self will?" This was utterly inescapable from the moment I woke up to the moment I fell asleep. My dreams were not a respite, I was still dealing with pretty bad PTSD and would often have nightmares involving people from my past or I would experience an inescapable memory during my sleep.
Also my mom had disowned me and my family wasn't really talking to me. My friends back home didn't know what the hell happened to me and stopped talking to me. I had no one except the people in AA that placed themselves into the role of father figures I never needed. I was so desperate for community and friendship and love that I readily agreed to all of the shit that AA asked of me. I confessed my deepest darkest secrets to a man that is under no oath and will receive no punishment for telling them to others. AA is not allowed to punish any of it's members. AA is supposedly a self-governing democracy. AA advertises itself to newcomers as a successful anarchist society. Everyone follows the rules because they are so filled with God that they can't do anything else. (notably this is why AA hasn't done anything to address the rampant sexual predator problem, known as 13th stepping.) The infuriating thing is that AA has a power structure. It essentially functions like the US government but with more levels. Your home group (the meeting you go to every week and participate in business meetings of) votes for and elects GSR's (general service representatives.) Every few months there's a conference of all the GSR's and they vote on AA issues and amendments and vote for District Representatives, who vote for other people who vote for the main office in New York. There are also offices in most districts or cities with phones and staff and literature. All of that is volunteer work. The donations raised at meetings get distributed to the home group's bank account (mostly used to pay rent to the church where the meeting is, and to reimburse GSR travel costs, coffee for the meeting etc) the city/area/district office, and the central office in New York. Around 1% of the funds are given to the AA program that gives the literature to people in institutions or prisons and brings in outside members to speak to that population about AA.
I apologize for getting side tracked. As with most cults, AA is a complicated organization that continually deceives it's own members and those who don't know anything about it. Anyways, AA was giving me almost everything I needed and wanted, while also promising that if I did what they told me to, I would be able to have everything I needed and wanted. It's no wonder I was drawn in.
Long story short I eventually come clean about my real story but get convinced through the abstinence violation effect and also through manipulation that I am an alcoholic/addict. I spent 7 months in California total at 3 different treatment centers. I also got involved with ACA during that time which is basically an AA but for childhood trauma and it did help but it also harmed me. I got raped while sneaking out of my sober living to hook up with guys on Grindr (which my therapist cosigned under the guise of "reclaiming my sexuality,) but didn't realize that it was rape because it was coercion and yk. I was a victim of serial sexual abuse. I came home (home is relative I came back to my city but I moved into a community college dorm) the first week of December 2022. I was raped in a more traumatic and easily identifiable way the next week. People in AA repeatedly either told me it was my fault outright, or said that God made me go through it because I was gonna be able to use the experience to help someone else one day.
I stopped believing in God. I almost left AA then, but instead I had a "relapse" where every single pseudoscience bullshit AA theory played out in my life and I was brought back in. During this nearly month long binge, I was raped for a third time while drunk in my own dorm room. This one also took a while to realize because I was plastered and he kept feeding me more alcohol. I came back to AA and had this big white light moment and realized God is actually a minor Roman Goddess that cares about me personally and is also a stand in for my mother. (yes this is the real reason I came back to AA and stopped drinking for 2 years after that.)
I then spent the next 2 ish years sober and in AA and wanting to kill myself all the time. I relapsed back into my original vices of self harm, addictive sex patterns, and anorexia/bulimia. I also forgot to include this but I pretty much re developed anorexia and fully developed a binge-purge pattern while in rehab in the first month or so. I don't know if a stranger would be able to identify this pattern but those are all ways I would punish myself. I knew in my heart that my God was upset with me at most times. I knew the "right" thing to do and a lot of times I didn't do it. I also felt a lot of guilt and shame over existing because AA had led me to believe that I was the scum of the earth. I didn't do all 3 behaviors at all times during the 2 years, but there was usually one active and sometimes multiple.
What Changed?
I have an ADHD Diagnosis and I went back to college this year in January. I am skipping over the part where I went back to rehab at 9 months sober because they told me they'd help me process my trauma and then added to it at the same time they were retraumatizing me through therapy but this is a really long story and I don't need to make it longer. But anyways. I had known for a while that I needed to get back on ADHD meds. Specifically stimulants since those little pussy non-stimulant meds were barely effective for me.
A core tenet of AA's beliefs is that if an Alcoholic puts any addictive substance in their body, they will immediately return to not just their previous depravity but what their life and drinking would have looked like had they continued to use. If you were sober for 20 years and "went out" (as in, relapsed or took a drink,) your body would respond as if you had been drinking all of those 20 years. It may start small and manageable, but eventually you would be at a worse rock bottom than the first time. Because of this core principle, many members will refuse prescription painkillers after a major surgery or refuse to take even an antidepressant. (There is a LOT more to this but I don't want to explain this stupid shit right now.) I told my sponsor and like 2 people that I was going back on Vyvanse, but mostly kept it a secret from the people I knew in AA. Also I try not to refer to my AA peers as friends because we weren't. It was the same situation as a coworker you like at work but never hang out with outside of job related situations. You might even have their number and call them from time to time but the calls all had to do with work. or in this case AA.
I first got prescribed the Vyvanse in November of 2024. I was given 30 pills, instructed to take them daily. I took it 4 days in a row and then only took it when I needed to do chores all day or something. I used them as needed. I used them less than prescribed. I started to think about this core principle of AA's beliefs. I didn't turn into a zombie ruled by alcohol. I just took the meds when I needed them. I could have abused my prescription. I didn't. This wasn't God, because they say you lose connection to God when you intake a substance. I called a member of AA that I would have called a friend then but now consider an ex mentor of sorts. I did this every time I was having doubts. You are supposed to do this. Cult wise, it's a great strategy because every time you start to uncover how much bullshit is in the program, someone comes and covers it again and you asked them to. I tell this member that I've been taking Vyvanse and I think that the AA stuff doesn't actually apply to me, that I'm not an alcoholic. During this conversation I actually repeat common AA phrases like "but of course no normal person would spend this much time and mental energy trying to prove they aren't an alcoholic." This man soothed my doubts and told me to just stick with it. That prescriptions are different, God knows the difference. The problem is, this aspect of "alcoholism" doesn't deal with the spiritual. They literally call it the "Allergy of the Body." It's described as a physical and chemical reaction in your body that makes you crave substances with a hunger that can only be sated when you die.
I couldn't stop thinking about it though. I started thinking of other AA absolute truths, and memories I had buried that disproved them. I actually was able to moderate when I wanted to. I never got too high at work. I never got too drunk at work. I got as fucked up as I wanted to most of the time, because I didn't have any responsibilities, but the point of the matter is that I could moderate. I wasn't powerless over alcohol/drugs. I talked to my therapist about it. In January I ruined the longest sober streak I had by taking half of a 10mg edible. I expected to ruin my life. I expected to regret it. I was terrified but I had to know, and in order to know I had to take a substance that I had a problem with at 16.
I ate it. And I was fine. And then when I sobered up, my entire life changed.
(Last Update 04-23-2025)