Dr. Genita Petralli, The Urban Lies of AA, and the Truth that Sets You Free!

In numerous personal accounts and clinical assessments on YouTube, Dr. Genita Petralli has disabused many of the urban myths, in truth "urban lies" of Alcoholics Anonymous.

according to her research, 97% -- 97%!!! -- Do not get sober in AA. This statistic was stunning and unprecedented. I had never read such damning evidence in my life. Then again, for all the time that I spent in meetings, I can testify that most people came and went just as soon as they entered. Very few people actually stayed around to collect their chips. Then there were those individuals who loved to collect their chips every month, only to get drunk again, then collect another chip. In Celebrate Recovery, the levels of recovery are far worse. Most people cannot stay sober or clean or free from any perversion for more than six months on average, only to "go back out".

How does this whole macadam program demonstrate life and that more abundantly? The three percent who manage to stay sober in the program are heavily medicated. What kind of life is that?

Petralli then offers a healthy, nutritious approach to breaking free of alcoholism without entering into the deeper bondage of Twelve Steps, which take people down lower and lower into nothing. Still, the statistic that the three percent who stay sober stay sober because of medications simply cannot be ignored.

In addition to the contrary advice in the AA "Big Book", she condemns the program's basic tenet of teaching people to identify themselves as sick and hopeless "alcoholics". "You are a wondrous person, created by God!" she affirms for viewers. Based on her clear and convincing statement, the core aspect of identity in tandem with proper and effective recover, I can identify more clearly why AA does not work, and why it ends up creating the very problems which the "program" claims to address.

If we walk around with a sense of guilt, we cannot get better. If we have to identify ourselves with a failing, and see the world through this miasma of sin and failure, then we can never grow, we cannot live, we cannot have life and that more abundantly.

The majority of people in AA are under anti-anxiety and anti-depression medication, Petralli repeated. People want their life back from the grips of alcoholism, but they cannot get their lives back if you are suffering daily depression and anxiety and frustration.

The program creates this problem by fomenting in people shame and guilt, claiming that they are like "men who have lost their legs. They cannot grow new ones." What kind of a "recovery program" diminishes people so terribly? How can anyone expect to get sober in such straitening conditions?

When Jesus died on the Cross, he put away our sins forever, all our shame, ever sense of alienation which afflicts us:

"11And every priest [speaking of the Old Testament priests who ministered in the Temple] standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: 12But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; 13From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. 14For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." (Hebrews 10: 11-14)

"One sacrifice for sins forever" -- no more needing to make sacrifices, to take one's inventory, to go through the motions of atoning for our sins. Man has a greater need. We are not just people who sin, we are sinners who are dead in our trespasses (Ephesians 2: 1). We need more than atonement. We need life, and that more abundantly (John 10: 10), and we receive this new life in Christ (John 3: 16; 14: 6)

If we insist on continuing to take our inventories, if we insist on believing that the work is not done, then we have only this to look forward to:

"26For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, 27But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries." (Hebrews 10: 26-27)

The context bears out that "sin wilfully" refers to offering animal sacrifices, or refusing to respect or honor that Jesus' final sacrifice is enough.

A life of "fearful looking after" is not fun. That sense of dread, shame, and frustration just makes life not worth living, and the only way that most people can get through the day is with self-medicating of a different sort.

AA is full of urban lies. Most people do not get sober in meetings, and those who manage to "keep coming back" do so only because they are taking medications and living off of someone else. Instead of the guilt, people should find out the truth of what can make them great: the Truth, which sets us free! (John 8: 32)