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Top 5 AA Sayings That Are Total BS (Pt.3)

Dave Tieff
5 min readJan 11, 2024

Since there’s already been a Part 1 and Part 2 of this list — with an explanation of why I bothered to list them in the first place — I will jump right in…..

5. Maybe they’re not a real alcoholic?

When AA members hear about someone who has gotten sober without AA and has done well in the process, they like to say “Maybe they weren’t a real alcoholic.”

Many don’t like to believe that someone chose a different path and found sobriety another way.

First, there’s no such thing as a “real alcoholic.” No one, given the right set of circumstances and/or trauma is immune to abusing alcohol. It’s not something you are born to be — or not to be.

Alcohol use and abuse exist on a spectrum, which we now refer to as Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD). No defined threshold makes someone an “alcoholic.”

There is only mild, moderate, and severe AUD — with a potentially unlimited amount of levels that may exist in between.

Some may say that being an “alcoholic” is the same as having severe AUD — but what about someone mild to moderate?

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Dave Tieff
Dave Tieff

Written by Dave Tieff

Alcohol-Free singer-songwriter & AI-proof cyber journalist. Here to discuss everything sex, drugs, rock, and culture🤘🍄🎙💋 www.davetieff.com

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