My sister and others (in the UK) would love AA fanatics to engage with them on the community pages. Apparently they only get nutters usually so it would be great if Miflaw could get in and fight the AA corner with some facts. It might be good for AA to have a rational voice there.
FACT - AA has worked for me.
FACT - it has done so without doing any of the things that "cults" usually do, for example obliging me to stay.
FACT - I am far happier now than when I drank.
FACT - I had zero success with other approaches to my drink problem.
FACT - I have seen it work for many other people - though I have seen many failures too. I attribute this to my observation that, whatever the technicalities of the matter, alcoholism exhibits many of the traits of a mental illness. Without constant reminders of what drinking was like, I personally tend to forget.
FACT - when non-alcoholics gave me excellent advice, I was too arrogant to listen to them. It was only when other people who had drunk like me told me how they had got well that I started listening.
FACT - though you may see us as a homogenous mass, we in AA also ridicule and disdain those roggue members and meetings who put conditions on other people's sobriety or tell them, "my way or the highway." There is even a website run by AA members called "Cultwatch." Its express goal is to name and shame a certain type of such groups, namely the "Primary Purpose" groups. The vast majority of sane AAs want nothing to do with telling others how they should live their lives. All we do is tell others what worked for us - exactly as I am doing now.
Are these the facts you were after?