Before I explain how, let me acknowledge that AA does get some things right. Namely, there is a higher power, and you need him. You cannot deliver yourself from addiction without Him. So far, so good. What is the problem?

Problem #1-- AA allows sinners to determine who the higher power is.

This is a monstrous problem. Sinners are not qualified to determine who God is. God does not allow us to guess at His nature or to make up our own ideas of Him. God has revealed Himself in great detail in His Word, the Bible. No one has a right to decide for himself and answer on his own authority the weightiest and most important questions in the universe. Specifically, who is God? What is He like? Is there a Trinity or no? Is there a Savior? Who is the Savior? What is God’s name? What is the Savior’s name? How are we saved? What is salvation like?

Thus AA starts people out at the very beginning on the wrong foundation. It tells people that they are helpless to rescue themselves from addiction, which is good, but then tells them they can have their own idea of God, which is bad. To have a wrong idea of God is idolatry. It is to make for ourselves graven images in our head (Ex.20:4-6). God does not tolerate idolatry. In our relativistic age, we like to think that everyone can make up their own idea of God and worship him (or her) as they please. But this is a lie. The truth is that God has revealed Himself in His Word and He expects us to submit to that revelation, not come up with our own preferred idea. We don’t get to vote. A poll will not be taken. God is who He is. He will never change. There is no such thing as people sincerely worshipping a false god according to their best understanding. On the contrary, everyone has a basic understanding of the nature of God, according to Romans. 1:18ff. What sinners do, however, is exchange the truth of God for a lie and serve created things instead of the Creator. Oftentimes, the created things sinners worship instead are the gods of their own making and imagination.

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, (19) because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. (20) For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. (21) For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. (22) Professing to be wise, they became fools, (23) and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. (24) Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. (25) For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.” – Rom. 1:18-25

Problem #2 -- AA secures a loyalty among its followers that transcends loyalty to Christ’s church.

AA encourages people to go to church, or other places of worship, but then schedules meetings and activities on Sundays that compete with church. In my experience with AA members, AA always takes precedence over church, when the two come in competition. AA members say, “Sorry, I can’t be in church that day. I’ve got an AA function to go to.” They do not say, “Sorry AA, I can’t come to your function. I’ve got church that day.” It seems that AA members treat AA doctrines as authoritative and only agree with the Bible when it corroborates AA doctrine. In other words, AA doctrine is the authority, not scripture. AA members do not seem to be encouraged to judge AA doctrine through the lens of scripture. Instead, they judge scripture through the lens of AA doctrine.

Problem #3 – AA treats drunkenness as a disease to be coped with, instead of a sin to be repented from.

AA has adopted psychological categories for behaviors the Bible flatly condemns as sinful. The word alcoholic never appears in scripture. The words drunkard and drunkenness, however, do appear quite frequently. Drunkenness is a sin. In fact, drunkards will not be admitted into heaven because they are unrepentant sinners.

“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, (10) nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.” – 1 Cor. 6:9-10

God is the author of all our physiology and psychology. He made us. He knows how we operate. Modern science has not progressed beyond the omniscient knowledge of God revealed in the Bible. He knows how to judge us. God knows nothing of the “disease” of alcoholism, a disease from which people are supposedly never free. God does, however, know about drunkenness. On judgment day, He will not make allowances for “alcoholics.” He will judge unrepentant drunkards.

Problem #4 – AA enslaves, rather than frees, people.

Here is what I mean. The Bible teaches that once we are saved, we are freed from the addictive nature of sin. Consider the following verses:

“So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, ‘If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; (32) and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.’" -- John 8:31-32

"So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. – John 8:36

“For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, (6) knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; (7) for he who has died is freed from sin.” – Rom. 6:5-7

“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. (3) For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, (4) so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” – Rom. 8:2-4

“For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba! Father!" – Rom. 8:15

“So also we, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world. (4) But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, (5) so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. (6) Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" (7) Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.” – Gal. 4:3-7

Over and over again the Bible teaches that true believers in Christ are free from the enslaving power of sin. It is not that true believers never sin again. It’s not that they don’t struggle with anything. But they are freed from the dominating power of it. The Bible knows nothing about “alcoholics” that will always be alcoholics until the day they die. If a person is controlled by a love of alcohol or drugs, then that person has not been saved and has not been freed from sin. We are either slaves or we are free. We are not, as AA suggests, merely sober alcoholics who will always struggle with addiction and always need to go to AA meetings just to stay sober.

When Jesus Christ saves people and frees them, He frees them from the very love of sins that used to enslave them. AA, however, never ceases to remind its members that they are alcoholics and will always be alcoholics. AA keeps people in a spirit and mentality of bondage. They are never free. AA does not encourage repentance in any kind of biblical way. It encourages life long dependency on AA. AA becomes the Savior. AA is the new addiction.