Making amends

“Hello, 

I am an ex-member of the cult in the U.S. I was a member for the better part of a decade, and I made my escape a few years ago. I feel lucky to have made it out in tolerable shape, but the first 6 months or so without my old homegroup was strange and...well, terrifying. It took quite a while to disabuse myself of the ingrained notion that I would drink and die without that group. What a ridiculous idea! I've been following your website for a long time; even when my (now) ex-sponsor told me not to, because your ideas were "dangerous to my sobriety"- another absurd notion. I've often thought about sending in a contribution, and opened up my email to do so, but I never could think of what I wanted to say. Well, here goes. I hope you'll consider posting this, please. 

To all the alcoholics I've "sponsored" over the years: I'm sorry. I am so, so sorry for speaking to you like some dictator/judge from on high. I'm sorry for turning away from you, and refusing to help you anymore, when you didn't do precisely what I said. I'm sorry for not taking your calls if you dared to call me 10 minutes late. I'm sorry for trying to discipline or train you, as though you were a dog. I'm sorry for shaming you when you failed to follow my "suggestions," and telling you that you weren't ready to be sober. Who the hell was I to judge you? I'm sorry for repeating things to you that were NOT within my own experience, but were dictates passed down from my group's guru. And I'm so very sorry for telling you that I "couldn't help you" unless you tried to get off your medication. I am not a doctor of any kind, and I should not have even insinuated that your sobriety would be impossible, or sub-par, while on prescribed medication. I never understood why I wouldn't be able to help you either; my sponsor could never properly explain the idea to me, but just told me to "trust that it was our group's experience." I knew it was wrong, it went against my conscience, but for years I said it to you anyway- because I was afraid of being cast off myself if I didn't. 

Over the last few years, I've tried to approach some of you to make amends, only to have you hang up the phone on me, or turn and walk away from me before I could say a word. Who could blame you for that? I do want you to know, though, that I understand the damage I've done, and I'm appalled by it. I hope to never treat anyone like that again. I should have been a patient and encouraging friend in sobriety to you, not a judgmental taskmaster. I'm sorry that I was the first experience with "AA" that many of you had- because it really wasn't AA at all. 

Bren L” 

Our response: 

“Dear Bren,

Thank you for your mail. We'd of course be quite happy to put your mail up on the site (if only as an illustration of how a Step Ten should be done). If it helps most of the members of the aacultwatch team are ex-cult members (so we've done our fair share of harm). The site is our way of making amends. …....

Cheers”

The Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)