Not quite sure what the film is trying to convey, but if it is implying that you have two choices - a life without passion in AA and life of passion and desire without AA and with active alcoholism, then that is incorrect and misleading. I don't understand why it is implying that joining AA to treat alcoholism is just a grim life of saying no to everything and denying yourself things out of fear of being triggered. That is not what AA is about. The goal is to be happy and functional. To flourish in all aspects of life. Some achieve it, some don't. The suggestion is to follow the tools of the program as fully as you can to achieve the maximum results. There's a reason they say "stick around for the miracle". People's lives improve in ways they never thought possible. Their lives get bigger.
The grim life is either being an active alcoholic or gritting your teeth in abstinence but still being dysfunctional and miserable - a dry drunk. AA helps with much more than just stopping drinking. The real work begins after you stop the craving and stay sober. Then you use tools to maintain sobriety and deal with life "on life's terms".
How can someone write about AA just by having friends in it, going to a few meetings or reading about it? If you don't get it, you don't get it. But it feels like someone saying probably all psychiatric medicine makes you a zombie and it's no life. That is not true either. Medicine can change and save lives. But you have to take it.
Is this film positing that AA removes all possibilities in your life except a grim sobriety? It just isn't true. There is much joy, laughter, support and growth in AA. There is a whole syndrome behind alcoholism beyond drinking that is helped in AA: isolating, not asking for help, destructive behavior ("character defects"). Something feels very creepy in this film. As someone said elsewhere, if this film gives a suffering alcoholic a distrust of AA and causes them not to seek help, that would be an awful result.
