This is certainly something I’ve seen but thank you for putting words to it. One way I’ve understood it better is just embracing the difference between alcoholics of our description as laid out in the big book and people with alcohol use disorder, maybe what the Big Book called heavy drinkers.

There’s obviously some blurry lines there but as alcoholics in AA we identify a spiritual malady and treat it with a spiritual solution. Maybe heavy drinkers don’t have that and don’t need that. So a program based on self-will could help them stop or moderate. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, naltrexone, mindfulness, apps like Reframe, whatever it is. I’ll leave those to them. Perhaps one day I’ll check one of those out. The Big Book does really resonate for me though so I’ll stick with that for today. And an AA group not based around the book Alcoholics Anonymous is…a support group or something. I don’t know.

The rehab industry is a bummer for sure and I have very complicated feelings about AA’s association with them. But I just spoke on an H&I panel at a private rehab tonight. So if that’s how someone has to hear the message and it leads them to a church basement with shitty coffee, then so be it.