A.A. didn't open up the gates of heaven and let me in, but it did open up the gates of hell and let me out.

No alcoholic is having fun.  In fact alcoholism is one of the most physically and emotionally unpleasant disorders in the diagnostic lexicon.  Its particularly the feelings: the depression, guilt, anxiety, loneliness, shame, desolation.  Its hell and the alcoholic is convinced that the only friend left to help her is the drug alcohol.  The she comes to A.A. and if she can stick it out for a little while the emotional hell is gone and she can begin to develop the tools necessary to live again.  A.A. certainly isn't heaven but it can get you out of your own personal hell.