12-step programs and cptsd/have you been harmed by 12 step programs?

[Tracee]

I want to ask others about their experiences with 12-step programs. Thanks for your input.

 

[Dergrosse]

Is there a particular aspect your curious about?

 

[Mach123]

I am sorry you guys who love 12 steps. I was harmed in AA and didn't get proper treatment for years at least partly because of it. If anyone wants to vent here is a place. I will talk about it if anyone wants to. There were good people, I still see people I know all the time from there and I really like some of them. I have a kind of horror about what happened to me though. The thing that really bothers me is, on the one hand, I needed a place to go. I wish there had been someplace else. It's full of people waiting for the noobs. They're so vulnerable. I know I was.

 

[Margaret Victoria]

I am sorry you guys who love 12 steps. I was harmed in AA and didn't get proper treatment for years at...

Hey Mach123. I spent about 10 years in AA, and although I was not harmed myself—I had the best support I had ever had in my life—I know there were many, many, many sickos with various problems other than alcohol. That’s actually what “13th-stepping” is all about. Usually aggressive, perverted men who take advantage of vulnerable woman. Once I just wrote that, I remembered I did have an awful experience with someone I had trusted fully. Fortunately, my support knew him well, and severely criticized him for it. So he did apologize and we remained friends. But, you should talk to a therapist. Believe me, it’s extremely common.

 

[Tracee]

I’m actually curious if there are others here who feel that they have been further traumatized and constantly triggered by attending 12-step meetings. And completely aside from being an atheist/agnostic, which 21 years after my first AA meeting, I have NEVER come to believe that there is any kind, loving, universal force of some sort which listens to individual prayers or entreaties. I think it’s absolutely counter to my personal life experience to believe that sort of delusional BS. The kind of shit that got us all here on this forum, in fact.

I don’t believe it’s any sort of “God’s will” that tens of millions of kids will go to bed hungry tonight, many of them bruised, battered, neglected, molested, raped, etc. Women (mostly) getting their asses beaten, stalked, raped, murdered by people who are supposed to love them. Veterans and a huge number of the mentally ill sleeping on the streets every night, people walking past them like they were trash bags set out for the garbage truck. I won’t go on, but I find it impossible to reconcile the nature of the reality I’ve lived for the past 49 years with all that fluffy forgiveness bullshit. One thing that also pissed me off (resentment, lol) is the fact that the apologies and amends always seem to have to originate from a trauma victim, for the benefit of horror show human being douchebags who had no business reproducing. I read once that a fairly small percentage of the human population causes all the misery in the world, psychopaths, malignant narcissists, etc. Based on some personal experiences while in “the rooms”, I absolutely believe that 12-step meetings are packed full of them. Easy pickings.

I never expected to attend an AA speaker meeting where an apparently highly-esteemed “old timer” female regaled us with a tale of having once had sex with a dog. She could have kept that one all to herself.

Anyway, just some random thoughts. I figure this topic might be contentious, but I wanted to put it out for consideration and get other people’s experience.

 

[Fadeaway]

Never been involved, but I have met people who were and the fanatical devotion to the program and desire to label everyone .and convert them was terrifying.

 

[Mach123]

I started a thread about this but it did not go anywhere. I don't like them, probably for different reasons. I thought it kept me from getting diagnosed for one thing. I had a lot of weird experiences and definitely think they did me a lot more harm than good. I wish I had the time in trauma therapy I wasted at 12 step meetings.

 

[MyWillow]

Oh my. Just the thought of being in a room with a group of people discussing this sh!t makes me want to run a mile.

 

[Mach123]

They don't discuss anything it's a joke. I'd like (I think) to try a group therapy on CSA but they always want them to be men only? I've been to ACOA meetings where they try and discuss trauma? It'd have to be in a therapeutic setting though for me (or something IDK. Not a 12 step meeting for what? They have nothing to work with no like therapy tools? You want to discuss this with other survivors with no guidelines? Are you sure? There is nothing like that in my area. If I wanted to do group it'd be in the city at night and that's a rough crowd lol.

 

[MyWillow]

And alcohol. Lots of alcohol lol

 

[Mach123]

Funny u said that I actual think of booze as just another medicine. It just has its own list of benifits and side effects like all the other drugs. Nobody talks about it much but I think there's a lot of boozing going on If we are anything like the national averages, and we are.

 

[Mach123]

I did it for about 30 years all together? Degrees of tough was one of the worst problems? Everybody glorified how much of a bad ass they were except like you said the real bad asses who didn't mention it. I had the same problems I had everywhere I suppose. Yeah I met some really good guys some I'm friends with still. Kids from the hard knock neighborhoods in the city mostly who made good and got out. Guys who can laugh at themselves, few and far between. There is a high concentration of predators and predatory behavior. Especially in the suits and the upscale neighborhoods. It was the first place I ever heard there was anything good about me. Positive thinking is not an effective treatment for cPTSD though.