an alcoholic "must be reborn" if he or she is to successfully recover.

A.A. founder Bill W. himself called Alcoholics Anonymous "Spiritual Kindergarten" and suggested in the first 164 pages of the Big Book that we would "Be sure to see where religious people are right" and not to suffer from contempt prior to investigation, to keep an open mind regarding things of a Spiritual nature. Those instructions were compiled in his effort to show other alcoholics how they had achieved sobriety. Having had a Spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, Bill knew - and stated - that this was but a beginning of a new Spiritual way of life, and states clearly that an alcoholic "must be reborn" if he or she is to successfully recover.

Ironic, then, isn't it, that of the Spiritual Kindergartners Bill and Bob helped raise up so many generations ago, today many AAers are still stuck in Spiritual Kindergarten. AA fellowships are chock full of Spiritual Kindergartners who liked kindergarten so much they chose to ignore Bill's instructions to "be sure to see where religious people are right" and, in fact, in their arrogance and Spiritual immaturity have even chosen to pretend that somehow AA is better than Christianity as revealed in the mantra "Religion is for people who don't want to go to Hell, but Spirituality is for people who've been there and don't want to go back". Some arrogant and deluded AA's actually imagine "Spirituality" is somehow better than "Religion" which has existed for thousands of years. In fact, Alcoholics Anonymous was born from religion (Christianity) and wouldn't exist today if Bill and Bob hadn't discovered what billions of Christians had already known for thousands of years. You see, the 12 Steps wasn't any new discovery. What was discovered by Bill and Bob is that Christianity works to set the captives free when one takes it seriously and chooses to be "a doer of the word", not just a hearer of the word as Bill read in James 1:22-25.This "program of action"? Simply two men taking James 1:22-25 serously and discovering that it works. Ironically, in "Bill's Story", which is Bill's testimony about how he got sober, an old friend who was instrumental in pointing Bill to the Lord mentioned that "I've found religion". Spiritual Kindergartners look down their noses at religious people in the same way children look down their noses at their parents and their teachers, and we all know who the ignorant are in that scenario.