Alcoholics Anonymous is a religious organization — several of its famous Twelve Steps reference God (though a Higher Power is an acceptable alternative).

One of the rules about forming AA groups is that you just need two people who have a desire to stop drinking and *boom*… you have a group!

In Des Moines, Iowa, the AA central office has a list of all the groups’ meetings in the area, but they left off the meetings of one group: The Broad Highway.

That’s for alcoholics who want to find sobriety without necessarily having religion be part of it. The AA organization won’t list its meetings.

To be clear, there’s nothing illegal going on here. But if there’s a group for non-religious people to break their addiction, why wouldn’t AA want to include their meetings in a calendar of local groups? It seems like a disservice to the people they’re trying to help not to let them know about the alternative recovery groups out there.

There are secular recovery groups out there in case you’re curious — SMART Recovery and Secular Organizations for Sobriety are just two — but none of them have the reach or name-recognition that AA does.

(Image via Shutterstock. Thanks to Brian for the link)



