Join us for a fun Holiday inspired episode as Carrie (Carrie's Substack) and I share the gifts of leaving AA from our perspective.

Timestamps:

00:00 Gifts of Leaving AA Intro

01:13 The Gifts When Starting AA or Love Bombing?

01:55 Gift Newcomer Conversation

06:50 Growing Up in AA Cult + Leaving

11:40 Deprogramming AA is The Gift That Keeps Giving

16:27 Gift When First Leaving AA

19:30 Gift Months After Leaving AA

23:16 GIft One Year After Leaving AA

25:40 Gifts of Current Deprogramming Journey

👉 Deprogram Lounge (community, Zooms, Book Club, Escape Kit + more)

📚 Deprogram Book List (my fave deprogram, cult recovery and critical thinking books)

Let’s get f*cking free.

Today we are exploring the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of 12 step rehab treatment centers.

Resources for deconstructing AA:

👉 Deprogram Lounge (community, Zooms, book club, Escape Kit + more)

🧰 Escape Kit (resources to Deprogram AA)

📚 Deprogram Book List (my fave deprogram, cult recovery and critical thinking books)

Let’s get f*cking free

Today we're unpacking spiritual bypassing, the use of spirituality or spiritual practices to override our feelings. We'll cover what spiritual bypassing can look like inside 12 step, how our brains are often trained to spiritual bypass via our sponsors, the meetings and the literature and what spiritual bypassing can be like on our deprogramming AA journey.

This audio is from today's livestream on Sobriety Bestie YouTube from our weekly show "Tea With Bestie." Feel free to join us live on Thursdays at 9am Pacific / 5 pm UK.

Resources for deconstructing AA:

👉 Deprogram Lounge (community, Zooms, book club, Escape Kit + more)

📚 Deprogram Book List (my fave deprogram, cult recovery and critical thinking books)

🌀 Deprogram AA Course (free your mind at your own pace)

Let’s get f*cking free

I've received a lot of DM's after yesterday's episode on Rob Reiner and Nick Reiner so am coming back today to answer the top questions. You wanted to know is Nick Reiner mentally ill and was he sober at the time of the murders. So we'll dive into that in today's episode.

Also I have a clip with Rob Reiner and Nick Reiner's thoughts on Alcoholics Anonymous (thanks to the person who DM'd it to me!) so we'll roll that clip as well.

Timestamps

00:00 Nick Reiner charged with murder

01:34 Was Nick Reiner Under The Influence?

01:47 Is Nick Reiner Mentally Ill?

02:41 Does Rehab Work?

03:56 Rob Reiner + Nick Reiner on "Does AA work?"

06:14 Nick + Rob Reiner addiction message

06:44 Nick Reiner's Thoughts on 12 Step Not Working

Resources for deconstructing AA:

👉 Deprogram Lounge (community, Zooms, book club, Escape Kit + more)

📚 Deprogram Book List (my fave deprogram, cult recovery and critical thinking books)

🌀 Deprogram AA Course (free your mind at your own pace)

Let’s get f*cking free

Today's episode is a bit heavy, heartbreaking and also a deep dive into the addiction movie the now late iconic director Rob Reiner made in 2015 with his son Nick Reiner called "Being Charlie."

We'll look at the addiction recovery movie through a deconstruction lens, examine the 12 step loaded language, and follow Charlie through his addiction recovery journey - a character based upon Nick Reiner.

In real life, Nick Reiner went to 17+ rehabs in 7 years before being inspired to create this movie with his father. This is an invitation to think about why non effective "treatment" is continually pushed and pursued via medical professionals, treatment centers and 12 step meetings.

Timestamps:

00:00 Rob Reiner, Nick Reiner + Addiction Recovery Intro

02:32 Nick Reiner 17+ Rehabs

03:46 Deconstructing Being Charlie Movie

04:17 12 Step Loaded Language

07:58 How Nick Reiner Got Sober

08:58 12 Step Treatment is Ineffective

10:47 RIP Rob + Michele Reiner

11:48 Rob Reiner + Nick Reiner Interview

Resources for deconstructing AA:

👉 Deprogram Lounge (community, Zooms, book club, Escape Kit + more)

📚 Deprogram Book List (my fave deprogram, cult recovery and critical thinking books)

🌀 Deprogram AA Course (free your mind at your own pace)

Let’s get f*cking free

It's the 91 year anniversary of BIll W.'s "White Light Spiritual Experience" so we're going to unpack it all in this episode. We'll cover what drugs Bill was on, some of Towns history (the founder of the rehab Bill was in), Carl Jung's work on the numinous or spiritual / religious experiences and we'll hear from the livestream audience about their thoughts on spiritual experience.

I timestamped it below in case you want to skip around.

Timestamps:

00:00 91 Years Later: Deconstructing Bill Wilson’s White Light Experience

02:32 Bill Made His Experience Institutional "Proof"

05:14 The Spiritual Experience Requirement

11:05 The Drugs Bill Was On

25:08 The Jung Letter and Chain-Style Transmission

29:22 Personal Psychedelic Experiences vs Universal Prescription

49:23 Leaving AA and the Psychological Devastation

51:57 Deconstructing ‘AA Worked For Me’ or 'Didn't Work'

55:32 Bill's Hallucination Still Shapes Recovery Today

1:03:44 The Cognitive Dissonance Around Bill’s LSD Use

1:09:18 AA as Mythology, Not Medicine

01:14:42 Carl Jung vs. Bill Wilson

01:25:08 Towns Hospital

1:33:42 Healing Trauma + Exit Costs

1:41:03 Jung Was Opposite of Bill in Thinking

Resources for deconstructing AA:

👉 Deprogram Lounge (community, Zooms, book club, Escape Kit + more)

🧰 Escape Kit (resources to Deprogram AA)

📚 Deprogram Book List (my fave deprogram, cult recovery and critical thinking books)

🌀 Deprogram AA Course (free your mind at your own pace)

Let’s get f*cking free

December 11th 1934 is Bill W, the Founder of AA's, last day drinking and the day he went into Town's Hospital for alcohol addiction treatment.

Today on Sobriety Bestie pod we're diving into how Bill was preyed upon when he was incredibly vulnerable (by the Oxford Group). Then how Bill turned around and built this methodology, of AA preying on the vulnerable, into his 12 step system.

Resources for deconstructing AA:

👉 Deprogram Lounge (community, Zooms, book club, Escape Kit + more)

🧰 Escape Kit (resources to Deprogram AA)

📚 Deprogram Book List (my fave deprogram, cult recovery and critical thinking books)

🌀 Deprogram AA Course (free your mind at your own pace)

Let’s get f*cking free

Ostracized for leaving AA. Told she’d die if she walked away. Came back anyway. Left again. And is still here, and finally free.

In this raw, funny, and brutally honest conversation, Lilly and I talk about what it’s really like to be "AA-famous," get shunned when you “go out,” and slowly realize the thing you thought saved you is also harming you.

We get into informed consent, harmful sponsorship, Al-Anon culty offshoots, drinking again without going back to meetings, ADHD/dopamine, and why so many of us feel more broken after years in 12-step than we did going in.

If you’ve ever:

• Been terrified to leave AA because “you’ll die”
• Been shunned or quietly dropped when you stopped going
• Wondered if it’s ethical for traumatized non-professionals to hear 4th-step confessions
• Tried to “work on yourself” to death
• Or are just sitting in that after-recovery void thinking, “What now?”

…this one’s for you. You are not crazy, you are not alone, and you’re allowed to change your mind.

Timestamps:

00:00 Shunned After AA Intro

02:08 Leaving AA

07:46 Taking What She Wanted, Leaving The Rest

08:30 It's Unethical To Sponsor

10:01 We Met In AA

15:49 What The "Daily Reprieve" Actually Is

22:40 What Helped Lilly Leave AA

26:26 "Informed Consent" in AA

33:46 Harmful Alanon + Amends

45:36 AA Breaks You Down

48:19 Half Measures AA

50:02 Full Blown Cult Alanon

53:30 Connecting With AA Escapees

56:20 Drinking Moderately

1:05:36 ADHD, Dopamine, Addiction + Hobbies

1:14:39 Feeling Angry After Leaving AA

1:23:32 Cult Within A Cult + Sponsoring Yourself

1:31:18 When Your Sponsor Leaves 12 Step

👉 Deprogram Lounge (Deprogram community, courses, LIVE Q+As, Zooms, book club + more)

🧰 Escape Kit (resources to Deprogram AA)

📚 Deprogram Book List (my fave deprogram, cult recovery and critical thinking books)

🌀 Deprogram AA Course (free your mind at your own pace)

Let’s get f*cking free.

Today we're reading a book review for AA's Big Book or the book "Alcoholics Anonymous" that was featured in JAMA, the Journal of American Medical Association back in 1939, 6 months after the Big Book was published.

Here's the source.

👉 Deprogram Lounge (community, Zooms, book club, Escape Kit + more)

📚 Deprogram Book List (my fave deprogram, cult recovery and critical thinking books)

🌀 Deprogram AA Course (free your mind at your own pace)

Let’s get f*cking free.

In today’s episode of the Sobriety Bestie Podcast, Tara Grace (Burn The Stigma) and I break down AA's "we're spiritual not religious" gaslight.

This episode comes from today's Bernie & Bestie LIVE, where we just unpacked what a religion is, how AA maps to a religion, some of the God language inside the Big Book and taking the third step (in public!). Then we crowd sourced everyone's perspectives on the AA spiritual not religious indoctrination to add to the conversation.

👉 Deprogram Lounge (community, Zooms, book club, Escape Kit + more)

📚 Deprogram Book List (my fave deprogram, cult recovery and critical thinking books)

🌀 Deprogram AA Course (free your mind at your own pace)

Let’s get f*cking free.