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by giraffe_lady
227 days ago
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I thought it was pretty clear reading my comment but let me be explicit: I didn't go to thousands of AA meetings out of anthropological curiosity. I know what addiction is like and what AA has to offer. My point was that AA is religious, and so is not an appropriate activity for the state to compel participation in. You were saying it's not religious, and now you're saying well, it doesn't matter that it is. I think it does. I'm a (more or less) lifelong christian fwiw. I'm not speaking about my own discomfort but I have observed that people without a preexisting religious practice, or a desire to acquire one, do not have high success rates in AA. |
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My personal opinion is still that there exist meetings and chapters that aren't religious. There are also some that absolutely are. You're free to disagree that non-religious ones don't exist. More to the point though, I don't think ratholing on an HN comment thread on the exact degree of the religioslity of "turning your will over to" the god of "really neat looking leaves" vs "it's spiritual, not religious", vs no, it's actually religious, even if we were able to reach some common ground; I don't think that's going to change underlying psychology or nature of addiction.
If all someone ever gets from going to meetings is how much they hate Christianity, yeah, they're not going to get relief and aren't likely to succeed. But if someone's able to get over that hump and find the right meetings where it's not too overbearing for them, I know it's possible for people to succeed.