Anonymity On A First Name Basis

I wanted to jump, scream, throw something. Anything to avoid hearing one more person begin a speech with "Hi, my name is Nancy No Name Smith and I am an addict." The fact that this individuals life was, at somepoint prior to now, spiraling out of control and into the depths of an all consuming addiction to marijuana of all things brings forth no pity within me. Perhaps this makes me a cold person. Perhaps I should be a little more caring toward my fellow man. Fuck it.
With every repetition of the line, "fake it 'til you make it" or "one day at a time" or other similar rhetoric, I wanted to gouge the offending speaker in the eye with my Bic ball point pen. I simply find that a 12 step program based on the notion that 1) addiction is a disease 2) one is hopeless to overcome said disease until they admit to themselves that they are spiraling out of control and seek help in the most desperate of manners, is total nonsense. I am at odds with the first premise here. Addiction is not a disease. Addiction is an obsession. It begins and ends in within the mind.
I don't even think that this is the real issue that is eating at the back of your humble narrators skull here however. The issue that is bothering me is the belief that the way to overcome this addiction is to stick to a book of rhetoric as if it were the savior incarnate. It is as if simply repeating the same empty phrases ( "fake it 'til you make it" or "keep coming back") is going to magically cause something to snap inside the mind. It is not too hard to imagine waking up one day and being like "FUCK YEAH!!!......THAT STEP 4 LAST NIGHT REALLY HIT THE SPOT......HELL I DON'T EVEN WANT TO DUMP THAT JAMESONS IRISH WHISKY INTO MY AA SANCTIONED BOTTOMLESS CUP OF COFFEE AT ALL BEFORE TONIGHTS MEETING!!!!!!!!!"
AA is for weak people, not addicts. Alcoholics Anonymous, and all of its spin offs - Marijuana Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Crack and Crack Whore Anonymous, Alter-boy Anonymous - are simply a way for weak people to trade one crutch in for another, newer, shinier crutch. AA is a place to dump all of the baggage of a wasted life, blame it all on a bottle / addiction - thereby absolving the said "addict" of any personal responsibility - and to pick up an organization, rather than a bottle, to use as a support crutch. I am not saying that this organization does not do good in the world. I am saying that, regardless of the fact that they have helped many people stop drinking, they 1) prey upon the weak 2) do not actually empower the individual to live a stand up life on their own but rather enable the person to trade in one crutch for another, the bottle for the book if you will.
Predatory in its nature, Sefl-righteous in its demeanor, and EMPTY in its promises. There is no cure for the thing that these groups call a disease. This disease they chase is a ficticious beast. It is a monster that lives in the heads of those that find the reassurance of the group enticing, comforting. The group itself will admit that there is no "cure" for the disease.....there is only one thing that can ensure victory......are you ready....."keep coming back" These twelve steps fast become 20, are racing towards 50 ad-infinitum.

FOREVER TILTING AT WINDMILLS!