This site does not represent the views of Alcoholics Anonymous, the AA General Service Office, AA World Services, The AA Grapevine, any central office, AA group or meeting.  For information about AA and AA meetings or literature, please reference the official AA (GSO) Web Site or check other resources online or in your phone book.

Welcome to AA Renewal!

This web site has been created and is supported by a bunch of long-time sober alcoholics.  We are currently located in the western portion of the US, but we've been sober in a lot of states and cities through the years.  What brings us together is our love of AA.  Unabashed.  Unequivocal.  AA saved our lives and we're very grateful.  What also brings us together is a concern that AA just ain't what it used to be, isn't attracting new members like it once did, and isn't holding on to oldtimers like us like it once did.  We're concerned the movement's spirit is drained, it's future is not assured, and that a lot of real alcoholics are no longer finding AA attractive.

Just so everyone knows up front that this is not another AA bashing site on the internet, we'll state right up front that we drank all the AA Kool-Aid when we got sober and we still attend far more meetings than the average AA member.  Among us is a past AA trustee, a past non-trustee director, a current delegate, and a host of other trusted servant types and folks who have those most exalted of AA positions: "member" and "sponsor."  Most of us have held AA's highest position in General Service: General Service Representative for an active Home Group.  Multiple times.  Part of the reason we're here is that some of us are still GSR's in our groups with multiple decades of sobriety because no one else will take the positions!

There is a lot of debate inside and outside the Fellowship today about AA's effectiveness.  It's not a new topic.  At AA's 30th anniversary in 1965, Bill W. asked "What happened to the 600,000 who approached AA and left?"  As we approach AA's 75th anniversary next year, that number must be far, far larger.  The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), an agency of the US government, reported last year that  national data from 2006 and 2007 indicate that an annual average of 5 million persons aged 12 or older (2.0 percent of the population in that age group) attended a self-help group in the past year because of their use of alcohol or illicit drugs.  About one million persons in the US are treated for alcohol and drug abuse (mainly alcohol abuse) each year, and most of them go through a treatment program based on AA's Twelve Steps.  In 1993 AA reported a membership of 2.2 million globally.  Today that number, compiled in the same fashion from group reports, is only 2 million.  So, what happened to the six million (pick a number) who approached AA and left?  And what changed to drive the membership numbers down by 200,000 over those 16 years even while the number of people being introduced to AA increased?

We don't know the answer to that question, but we want your help in finding it.  We confess at the outset that absolute numbers of members don't matter that much, except that it's perhaps the single best piece of data that we have that addresses the issue of how effectively AA is carrying the message today.  We have enough experience with the General Service Office in New York to know that no one there has the answer either.  Neither does the General Service Conference.   Four of us who are founders of this site have a collective eleven years of recent annual conferences under our belt and even more time spent in the AA offices on Riverside Drive in NYC.  It's not a good sign when an organization is in decline and does not know why.

While statistics are important gauges, spirit is more important to us.  It's important to us because we're convinced that spiritual recovery is the best recovery.  We think Dr. Jung had it right: "spirituality vs. spirits."  Yet, most recovered alcoholics today are not AA members.  Dr. George Vaillant, past Class A Trustee on AA's General Service Board, reported in a AA Grapevine interview (May, 2001) that of the total number of recovered alcoholics in the US, only 40% recovered in AA.  He went on to explain, "But it doesn't hurt at the level of GSO for AA to have humility and understand that 60 percent do it without AA. It's also true that most of those 60 percent do it with the AA toolbox: their spirituality doesn't come from AA; their support group doesn't come from AA; and what I call 'substitute dependency' doesn't come from AA. But they still use the same ingredients that AA uses."  We're looking for a good understanding of what that means for the future of AA.

We don't have any numbers to report on our concern that the "spirit" in AA is diminished.  We do have our experience, however, and what we see and hear is not very encouraging.  At the national level what we see is a general service structure that looks more and more everyday like a publishing operation that is churning out more and more publications and videos that are attracting few new members.  We don't see a spiritually inspired operation.  We are sometimes shocked to find ourselves thinking it's a very rigid political operation more concerned with maintaining the status quo than in finding new and effective ways to carry the message.  At our home groups we find less and less participation in group operations, more "psycho babble," fewer oldtimers, less sponsorship, less Step working, more people whose primary addiction is not alcohol, and a general malaise about carrying the message as the group's number one reason for existence.  As we travel the country and the world, we find more long-term sober ones like ourselves who are asking the same questions we are asking: What has happened to the AA we know and love? What is the AA message today? Can AA be renewed to ensure that it is still growing and attractive to suffering alcoholics on its 100th anniversary in 2035?

What keeps us inspired and looking for answers are the recoveries we do see.  Simply beautiful recoveries. Drunks transformed.  Evidence beyond contradiction that a loving god has entered the lives of hopeless alcoholics.  We believe it's possible for all of us to see more of that.  We invite you to join us on a journey of renewal of Alcoholics Anonymous!