Why do people feel the need to accuse NA or AA of being a religion, or say it’s not successful at saving lives?

Question by Terrance Z: Why do people feel the need to accuse NA or AA of being a religion, or say it’s not successful at saving lives?
Having recently been brought to my attention, I see lots on here and elsewhere about NA or AA, discouraging addicts from attending meetings. I do not speak for any fellowship, I speak only for myself. I do not promote anyone should attend a meeting. NA is a secular spiritual (not religious) program. In “It Works, How and Why,” an NA book, it states the fundamental principles that no one can tell you what your higher power is (could be a chair, holds me up longer than I can hold it up), and no one can tell you how to communicate with your higher power.

My understanding of all this bashing of NA as religion is because religions hold precisely the opposite principle of dictating spirituality. I’m not big on the “g” word (god), but its simple, 3 letters, one syllable, never really meant the same thing to any two people; most members use it, its not remotely mandatory. This allows focus on how a higher power (any higher power) can save my life.

Oh, yes, omitted in all the ranting, and I don’t mind the information, just the crusade mentality and propaganda, is any reference to the fact we are talking about people destroying their lives desperately seeking to stop. Frankly, the statistic that NA has only a 5% recovery rate is misleading. If you can quit on your own, good, then you’ve done it already and are not part of the equation here. It is probably more honest, if you truly know anything about this, to say that the disease of addiction has a near 100% success rate, for those of us who were not able to quit on our own.

The “disease” is obsessive compulsive disorder, which when when mixed with alcohol, crack, heroin, etc. can break out in jails, institutions, and death, and enjoy the despair, destitution and misery in the meantime while your chasing that next hit. The disease is not the drug, it does not matter what the drug is, and it does not have to be a drug, if it makes my life unmanageable.

Any addict who fortifies themselves against NA because of what they read on the web is doing what an addict does: finding an excuse to take that next hit. While it may harm others, if someone needs to rant and vilify and propagandize against AA or NA on the web to keep a spike out of their arm, AA or NA would not kick you out for it, so what kind of religion does that make them?

Best answer:

Answer by The Odd Man
Because it is not effective and psychological counseling where someone deals with their issues instead of getting another addiction is 1,000,000% more effective.

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