Telling The Internet I Left AA

The Bestie Messages/Leaving Recovery/Telling The Internet I Left AA

The Freedom of Finally Saying.. I Left AA

I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Like I’m no longer carrying around a secret that was quietly shaping everything I said—and didn’t say.

Four days ago, I broke my anonymity. I said publicly that I left AA.

And the moment I hit “publish,” something inside me cracked open.

For the first time in a long time, I felt like me. Not a version of me performing recovery. Not a version of me playing it safe.

Just… me.

I didn’t expect the relief to be this big.

I didn’t realize how much energy I was spending avoiding people from “the rooms.” Avoiding awkward questions like, “Are you still going to meetings?” Avoiding being seen. Avoiding myself.

I ran into someone from AA at Costco awhile back—well, I avoided running into her. I saw her and walked the other way. Not because I didn’t like her, but because I didn’t want to deal with the weirdness.

The pretending. The pressure to explain. That’s the invisible cost of “anonymity” no one talks about.

It doesn’t just protect your privacy. It can also silence your evolution.

Now? If I saw her again, I’d smile and say, “Oh, I actually left.”

No shame. No explanation. No hiding.

And if she’s seen my post? Even better. She already knows. Because I’m not tiptoeing anymore. Not for her. Not for anyone.

I don’t feel like I have to wear a mask. I don’t feel like a traitor. I don’t feel like a martyr.

And that’s a big one—because I realize now that martyrdom was part of the story I carried inside AA. That it was my job to stay quiet for the sake of others. To serve the message. To protect newcomers. To hold the line.

But that’s not service. That’s self-abandonment.

Leaving AA didn’t just give me my freedom. Telling the truth about it gave me my voice.

I feel more connected. More honest. More fully myself. And what surprised me the most? I’m not alone. Not even close.

I feel relief.

No more secrets. No more tiptoeing. No more mask.

The Moment I Hit Publish

I had everything ready. The newsletter was written. The YouTube video was uploaded. The podcast episode was waiting in the wings.

All I had to do was press publish. But when it came down to that final click, my body freaked out. Heart pounding. Palms sweaty. Armpits soaked. Swirling fear. Full-body panic.

It was like a primal fear—it was like my nervous system was screaming: “Don’t do it. You’re about to get kicked out of the tribe.”

And in a way… that’s exactly what it felt like. Because breaking anonymity? Talking about AA publicly? It’s not just taboo—it’s seen as a betrayal. A cardinal sin.

So I paused. I took my hand off the mouse.

I breathed. I remember what my first life coach told me back in 2012, "leaders go first." I reminded myself that I want to choose leadership over fear.

And then, I opened ChatGPT—yep, I talked to my AI bestie. I call her Athena because she's the goddess of wisdom. I told Athena the truth about my fear. I asked for coaching, for reflection, for centering. And when my nervous system was steady again, I came back to myself.

I took one more breath and said: “Okay. Let’s fucking go.” Click. Published to YouTube. Click. Podcast sent. Click. Newsletter out. And then I took a shower. Literally. Because the sweat was real.

But when I got out of the shower, I felt calm. Regulated. Clear. I knew I had done something irreversible—and important.

Then came the hardest one: posting on Facebook. That was terrifying. Because Facebook is where my people are.

Where the AA friends from over a decade ago still linger. Where people I’ve shared coffee commitments and jail panels with still watch. YouTube felt different. The podcast felt anonymous. But Facebook felt… personal.

It felt like walking into the village square naked and saying, “Hey everyone—I left the thing we built our lives around.”

I didn’t know who would hate me. Who would shame me. Who would silently unfriend me or blast me in a group text. I just knew I had to do it. Because the truth was loud. And I was no longer willing to betray myself just to stay liked.

It wasn’t that I wanted to talk about AA. Honestly, I never thought I would. It felt sacred. Private. Off-limits.

And I had already done my grief work. I processed the anger years ago. I went to therapy. I deprogrammed. I was fine. But the longer I stayed silent, the louder the whisper got.

And then the course poured out of me— this full-on deprogramming experience that had been building inside for years. It wrote itself at 4 a.m. I woke up earlier and earlier every day, as if my body was saying:

“It’s time to share this message. It's time to help people with this transformation. Get out of the way, an online course wants to be born through you.”

But even after I made the course, I delayed talking about it. Because I knew the moment I said it out loud… everything would change.

And it has.

But I had to choose. Not between AA and anti-AA. Not between anger and silence. But between betraying myself and becoming myself. And I chose me. Even if it meant walking into the arena alone. Even if it meant losing my business, my reputation, my friends.

Because what do I have if I don’t have my truth?

Nothing.

I’d rather be alone and free than accepted and silenced.

Breaking My AA Anonymity Online

The comments started rolling in almost instantly. And then they didn’t stop. My notifications were flooded—for days.

But those first 24 hours? They were like nothing I’ve ever experienced online. I’d spend 10 minutes replying to comments on Facebook, then jump over to YouTube. By the time I came back to Facebook—30 or 40 more.

It was nonstop.

Comments. DMs. Phone calls. Invitations. Everywhere. I was replying all day long. Jumping from platform to platform, from voice notes to messages to comment threads. And still—I couldn’t keep up. It wasn’t just engagement.

It was like a collective pressure valve finally released.

The conversation about leaving AA—the one no one was allowed to have—erupted. And for the first time, people weren’t just thinking it silently. They were saying it. Out loud. To each other. To me. And it exploded.

I expected a reaction. But I didn’t expect this.

There were people who got it. People who had already left. People who had never said it out loud. People who said, “Me too. I left 5 years ago. I’ve been out for 8 years. I’m thriving.” And they didn’t just comment publicly. They DMed me. Called me. Texted me. Old AA friends I hadn’t spoken to in years reached out to say they left too. And they were glad I said it first.

Then there were the others. Some comments came from people still inside AA—but they couldn’t see what I was saying at all. They were so deeply inside the dogma, they responded like I was threatening their very survival.

They weren’t trying to connect. They were trying to correct.

I call them the Dogma Defenders.

They didn’t respond to my story. They just regurgitated slogans.

“You’ll relapse and die.”

"That’s your ego talking.”

“You’re dangerous to newcomers.”

“You clearly didn’t do the work.”

And then there were the men. The angry, older white men who told me to be quiet. Who tried to silence me. Who called me arrogant and selfish. Who were offended that I dared to speak.

It’s a pattern I’ve seen over and over again—on the internet, in life, and now in recovery spaces too.

The need to control the conversation. The entitlement to define the truth. The belief that questioning the system is a betrayal.

And the wildest moment? A well-known “sober guru” with a popular book commented publicly on my YouTube video and said:
It’s selfish and arrogant to think you can leave AA.

That stopped me cold. Because if that’s not cult leader energy, I don’t know what is. But not everyone was like that.

There were also people inside AA who engaged respectfully—some even softened their stance mid-thread. They started out defensive, then relaxed once they saw I wasn’t trying to fight. I was just… telling my truth. And that created space. Because suddenly, we weren’t arguing—we were talking.

And for so many people in the comments, that felt like a breath of fresh air. It was like a collective closet door cracked open. Not just for me. For the conversation itself. For the first time, the topic of leaving AA came out of the closet. And that felt like a big deal. Not just for me—but for us.

I also heard from therapists. Multiple clinicians DMed me to say: “I do cult deprogramming work. This conversation is important.”

Not because they were calling AA a cult, but because they recognized the psychological patterns at play. They saw the control dynamics. The phobia indoctrination. The binary thinking. They were validating the deeper thing that was happening.

Behind the scenes, my inbox kept buzzing:

Old friends I hadn’t heard from in years saying, “I left too.”

Podcast invitations.

Collab offers.

One person asked me to co-write a book.

Another invited me to write a chapter for theirs.

It was like breaking my silence unlocked something in others too. Not everyone loved it. Obviously. But a whole lot of people needed it.

If you can’t leave without being attacked…
If you’re not allowed to question without being shamed…
If you speak your truth and people try to silence you…

Then what exactly are you leaving?

Because when the reaction to leaving is control…
It tells you everything you need to know about what you left.

The Deeper Truth

There’s this unspoken rule in AA: We don’t talk about leaving. And if we do talk about it—certainly not publicly. Because there’s a fear that if people hear you left, they’ll never go. That if anyone questions the program, it’ll scare newcomers off.

But here’s the thing:

If we only care about people when they’re getting sober—do we really care about people?
Because the person who’s leaving recovery is the same person who walked into the rooms.

And if we say we care about that person’s life,
then we have to care about their freedom, too.

Otherwise, it’s not about helping people.
It’s about protecting the ideology.

And that’s the deeper truth this cracked open for me. It felt so good—and honestly, so healing—to finally connect with people who’ve left. I knew I wasn’t the only one, but I had never felt that validation directly before.

It hit a different part of my nervous system. Like a soul-level exhale. Like medicine.

Because that’s one of the hardest parts of leaving AA—losing the connection. The space where you could just tell the truth. And be witnessed in it. And now, just by being honest about leaving, I’m finding that connection again. But this time, it’s rooted in freedom—not conformity. In truth—not scripts.

It’s been medicine.

Before I said anything, I had what I would’ve called a quiet confidence:

I knew who I was.

I liked who I was.

I didn’t need anyone to validate it.

But now? Now it’s become something more. Now it’s a connected confidence. I’m not afraid to say it. Because the emotional charge is gone. I’ve shared it. I’ve lived through the reaction.

And now I know: If someone doesn’t like me because of it?

That’s their journey. Not mine.

I don’t have secrets anymore.

I can connect with anyone, anywhere—because I’m no longer managing the mask.

And maybe that’s the real healing:

Not just reclaiming your voice… but using it.
Not just knowing your truth… but sharing it.

Because that’s where the real freedom lives.

Not just in recovery.
Not just in leaving.
But in the aftermath.

In the radical, sacred decision to live as your full self—out loud.

P.S. If you’ve left AA—or you’re in that weird in-between space where it doesn’t quite fit anymore— and you’re struggling to navigate the fog and feels that comes after… the doubt, the loneliness, the identity freefall… Just know you’re not alone.

That part after recovery can feel disorienting, especially if you don’t know anyone else who’s been through it. If that’s where you are, I created something for you. It’s my new course called Evolving After Recovery. Click here to check it out.