I have an addiction and am trying to get my life back in order. So I have tried one of the 12 step anonymous groups (it's not AA, but for arguments sake, let's say it is).
However, they preach the 12 steps to recovery:
1. We admitted that we were powerless over our addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. We made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
I get lost on #1. Are we REALLY powerless? I'm listening to people say that admitting to #1 is such a relief. You lose the guilt and frustration of not having the will power to beat the addiction. I think I simply need to work on my inner strength to beat this thing and not give up and say that I am powerless over this addiction.
But #2 and #3 just take me right off the rails. I really don't believe in a higher power. Never have. Probably never will. But this is where it all seems more like a cult than an organization. "Oh, when I joined, I thought a lot like you... but now I owe my life to God and thank Him every day. When I pray, I am so full of thanks for delivering me from my addiction." Oi.
I could keep on going, but I think you get the general drift. And it appears that I'm not the only one that has found the 12 step programs to be akin to a cult than a recovery program:
http://www.positiveatheism.org/rw/ofcourse.htm
On the flip side, I have heard from so many people who claim that these 12 step programs have turned their life around and have beaten their addiction to being able to love and cherish life where they were before there was only depression. So they seem to work... at least for some people. But the chapters I attended... I just seemed like I was so out of place the whole time, as I didn't fit in.