Mindy Shelley I hope you’re going well ❤️

She is amazing, the most powerful story I've heard on this channel.

I have been abusing drink and drugs for 30 years and these videos are helping me quit the devastation lifestyle. God is now my biggest aid 💕

You could track her down on Facebook. She is pretty active

ShaneReinert thank you for the quick reply and sharing these videos. As I'm sure you're aware they are very helpful:)

I do all that I can to help! Glad to do it!

ShaneReinert thank you for these stories ❤️❤️

I can understand feeling that way about AA and have avoided going that route myself as someone who had a drinking problem. Been sober now for nearly 2 years (this time around) without AA. BUT, I'm starting to grasp why it matter so much to some people, despite it appearing like a cult to us looking in from the outside. We say "cult" like that's automatically a bad thing, but maybe we're wrong there. Maybe a strong and all-encompassing belief system and support network is precisely what some (perhaps many) people need to resist addiction. For myself, in ways I feel like I've constructed my own little AA alternative of sorts. Listening to advice from Annie Grace and Kevin O'Hara helped a lot, plus I continue listening to people's stories on this channel to pay witness to what addictions have done to people's lives and souls. And I went out and spoke to people around me in my area, basically telling on myself back when I was trying to get sober, perhaps to create some sense of accountability but also to just shine light on the reality of the situation. They turn to God their way, and as an agnostic I turn to that which we call God my own way. And perhaps part of the difference is how far down that spiral one gets determining the degree of help needed to exit it. But over and over again, we hear people say that they couldn't do it alone and needed a higher power and better people around them to give them tools and information in order to go forward in a new way, and I don't think they're exaggerating there. I think a lot of us are lacking in coping skills (and basic living skills) in most-modern times, and our communities are disintegrating. People are trying to rediscover that, to recreate that, because it's an innate need within human beings to live in accordance with that type of setup (communities being what our species have always evolved within). I think we take for granted how life today is "normal" when it's anything but that, and that sense of alienation seems to be what's putting fuel on this addiction fire from the get-go. We're lost, and this is people's attempt to find a renewed sense of belonging and togetherness so as to better cope with life and living. Our hyper-individualistic focus in modern times comes with serious consequences that we're just beginning to realize and reckon with. So maybe it is "indoctrination," but what isn't these days? Again, we tend to take conventional programming as "normal," but that's indoctrination too, and it's proving to be very burdensome and disastrous for too many individuals out here. So...I've grown to be more open and curious about what they're trying to do, even as I personally remain uncomfortable with the AA model. Sorry for writing so much, just thinking out loud.

Mt. Zod all of us addicts have done things we are not proud of, I feel it’s part of this horrible disease we have. Forgive your self your a beautiful person and are loved! I’m a recovering addict after 20 some years of hard abuse been clean for 2 and life is good!

Even people who haven't had addiction problems have crippling regret...it's just part of life and how we learn to hopefully become better individuals. As an addict, if I had to list the things I regret I wouldn't need a notebook, I'd need half a stationary store but instead of dwelling on the crappy things we've done, we should start and continue to do things we're proud of, to help ourselves and others 👍