Photo by Terri Glanger.

One of the most frustrating and insulting parts of AA's dogma is their “All or Nothing” mentality. In AA, you either believe in what The Big Book says, or you don't.

But when have you ever known the One Size Fits All option to be better than something that’s tailored made just for you? I don't agree with half of what's in the Bible, so why would I agree to follow absolutely their big blue rewriting of it? If I could pick and choose the tenants that worked for me, and basically omit everything that's blatantly religious/cultish about the group, then I might still be involved in Alcoholics Anonymous. But, alas, that is not presented as an option. From the get-go, GOD IS IN THEIR MACHINE.

However, there is one “All or Nothing” mandate that we are in complete agreement about: a strict and total abstinence policy when it comes to drugs and alcohol. Before learning for themselves that it doesn’t work, every alcoholic and drug addict is destined to attempt a “reduction approach” first. We’ve all been there, it’s just part of the process. It is simply too appealing to think that you can HAVE YOUR CAKE and eat it too, or rather, still have the good aspects of drugs and alcohol without any of the bad. And every alcoholic/drug addict attempts to do this through a substitution/reduction approach before fully committing to sobriety:

"I’ll just drink wine but no more liquor, I’ll just smoke pot but absolutely no more coke, or—my facetious favorite, the classic— I’ll stop drinking and just smoke pot."

You learn very quickly that this substitution method rarely works, and before you know it, you’re knee deep, back in The Bad. The lesser drink or drug just weakens your resolve to avoid the stronger substance your body was craving all along. And I truly believe that there is no way to teach this, that every alcoholic and drug addict must find this out for themselves. Why wouldn’t you be the exception? You always were before, with everything else in your life, right?

So yes, you are in fact hearing me correctly, I 100% believe that AA’s “All or Nothing” approach to sobriety should only apply to a small fraction of what they teach.

Yeah. Go ahead and read that a couple more times. Lol

Basically, what I'm recommending is that a person who is serious about getting sober should be able to pick and choose what works best for them, God or no god, meetings or no meetings. But the picking and choosing can't extend to drugs and alcohol themselves. Not only is that a fool’s errand that rarely leads to success, it also quite simply can no longer be called sobriety, now can it? The sobriety part has to be 100%, all or nothing.

This is probably why my phone isn’t constantly ringing off the hook, with AA begging me to write their supplemental materials, or that my “Keep it Complicated, Crackhead” slogan never took off.

I don’t know how to end this, so you can read about more complicated things — like kissing a rock— HERE. (Not a crack rock, by the way, an actual rock).