12 Step Recovery From
The Compulsive Use of All Media
MAA
We Grow Together
First of All...
YOU ARE NOT ALONE
We are glad you found us.
Like you, we had been looking for a way out of media and tech insanity. We tried one strategy after another in an attempt to cure our media/tech addiction, but we kept falling back into compulsive media-drunk behaviors.
Then we found the Solution!
Realizing media and tech addiction is just like alcohol or drug addiction, we began to apply the time-tested instructions laid out by the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, and it really worked. Welcome to MAA and our solution.
About Us
Media Addicts Anonymous (MAA) is a 12-Step recovery program for people struggling with media and technology addiction, including social media addiction, smartphone addiction, internet addiction, and digital dependency, as well as music, fantasy, and novels.
We provide support for people struggling with compulsive behaviors such as doom scrolling on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Snapchat; binge watching on YouTube and Netflix; video game addiction (including games like Fortnite); online shopping addiction; pornography use; dating app dependency; and excessive consumption of news, podcasts, movies, TV, music, novels, and digital or offline games.
MAA offers a structured Twelve-Step approach, along with practical tools such as meetings, sponsorship, media fasting, and accountability partnerships, to help individuals break free from these compulsive behaviors. We also offer committed media fasting groups that practice intentional abstinence while studying the Twelve Steps together in a supportive, accountable environment.
Through community and recovery principles, MAA empowers individuals to break free from unhealthy media behaviors, foster healthier relationships with media and technology, regain focus and presence, and restore balance in their daily lives.
MAA's Preamble
Media Addicts Anonymous is an international fellowship of individuals who, through shared experience, strength, and hope, come together to find relief and recovery from media addiction. We welcome everyone who wants to stop using media compulsively.
There are no dues or fees for membership; we are self-supporting through our own contributions, neither soliciting nor accepting outside donations. MAA as a whole is not affiliated with any public or private organization. We have no opinions on outside issues, especially those concerning media. We neither endorse nor oppose any causes, political views, ideology, or religious doctrine.
We support all forms of media sobriety, including abstinence from electronic media, films, radio, newspapers, magazines, books, and music. We use AA's 12 Steps and 12 Traditions as adapted for Media Addicts Anonymous as our program of recovery and utilize the tools of MAA to clarify compulsive, obsessive, or destructive media-related behaviors and to develop strategies to improve our general quality of life. Our primary purpose is to abstain from personal addictive media one day at a time and to carry the message of recovery to other media addicts who still suffer.
The A.A. Preamble is adapted with permission of the AA Grapevine, Inc. Permission to adapt the Preamble does not in any way imply affiliation with or endorsement of this organization.
Media Addiction 101
MAA Meetings
Daily Online Meetings
In our Zoom and phone meetings, you will meet media addicts who are successfully maintaining media sobriety. We invite you to attend and learn more about the disease of media addiction and the steps we took to find relief and recovery from this compulsive disease.
Recorded Meetings
If you can’t attend a meeting right now, you can listen to our recorded talks where members share their stories of what it was like, what happened, and how are they recovering from media addiction now.
Face-To-Face MAA Meetings
Please think about starting a Face-to Face meeting in your area. Here are the live meetings we have so far.
Symptoms, Tools, and Promises
Symptoms of Media Addiction
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Dissatisfaction with everyday life—We depend on media as a way to avoid emotional discomfort, boredom, pain, and problems. Media has become our main source of relief, reward, relaxation, recreation, and relationships.
Tools of Action for
Media Addicts
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Go to meetings—We attend MAA meetings to learn about media addiction, stop isolating, gain support, and identify with other recovering media addicts. Meetings are the platform we use to build a robust personal support network and a real sense of belonging. We encourage newcomers to attend 90 meetings in 90 days to jump-start their recovery.
The Promises of MAA
Signs and Symptoms of Media Recovery
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Satisfaction with everyday life—We turn to our Higher Power and our fellowship to share emotional discomfort, boredom, pain, and problems as well as our joys and accomplishments. Community and spiritual living have become our main sources of daily satisfaction as we have found continued relief, reward, recreation, relaxation, and fulfilling relationships in activities outside of media.
Step Studies
Closed Back to Basics Step Study Groups
These daily sessions are designed to help members get sober and stay sober from media addiction by fasting together and taking all of MAA's Twelve Steps during this media fast, thus staying ahead of the disease.
Open Big Book Step Study
These weekly meetings are Big Book Step Study meeting using the Back-to-Basics format. These are open meetings for all MAA members who want to work the steps quickly and often, originating from the early A.A. beginners meetings.
MAA AWOL
MAA AWOL (A Way of Life) is a format for working the 12 Steps of MAA slowly as part of a closed group which meets twice each week for 8 months.