Having Trouble Quitting Amway?

I’m amazed and a little concerned over the amount of people showing up at my blog after doing a Google search for “how to quit Amway”. Many hits daily using that search criteria. For me quitting seems simple enough. Stop buying Amway products. Stop buying tools. Stop going to meetings. Stop going to functions. Stop listening to tapes/CD’s. Do not renew your annual membership at year end. But apparently quitting Amway isn’t that easy for everyone because they search on the Internet for how to do it. And I really feel a lot of sympathy for these people who are trying to quit and get their lives back in order and need assistance to GET OUT.

Is the real question “how to quit Amway” or is it “how to quit the cult”?

Being an Amway Independent Business Owner is just a glorified way of titling a commissioned salesperson. Commissioned salespeople work for other people. If you work for someone else then you have a job. Quitting a job is easy enough. You either put in your two weeks notice or you say fuck you I’m outta here. And then you walk and don’t come back. What do you invest in a job? Time and effort. In return you get a paycheck. What do invest in a cult? Time, friendship, money, brain cells.... In return you get a depleted bank account, debt, destroyed relationships, and emotional distress to name a few.

Just shows what brainwashing does to a person involved in Amway.

The IBO has been conditioned by their upline to shut out people who are considered “negative”. These are family and friends who have researched the Amway cult and try to show the IBO the truth about what they’ve gotten themselves into.

Once the IBO figures out they’re not making any money at Amway and unlikely to ever do so, they know its time to quit. The IBO finds themselves in a position of fighting back against the mind control techniques that have been used on them to motivate them to stay with Amway. They might be reluctant to ask friends and family for assistance because they’ve already shut out these negative people and admitting Amway defeat might subject them to a bunch of “I told you so’s”.

The best thing for someone who wants to quit Amway is to get on the Internet and find blogs and articles written by former Amway cult members. They need to get information about Amway and the cult brainwashing techniques and the best place to understand is from someone who has already gone through this.

Depending on how deeply the IBO has been brainwashed, therapy might be a solution particularly if a therapist experienced at dealing with cults and deprogramming former cult members can be located. Not an easy task in Smalltown, USA which is why many turn to the Internet.

I remember reading Eric Scheibeler’s book Merchants of Deception when he’d figured out the truth about Amway and the tool scam and was trying to quit. He thought leaving Amway might be difficult for his wife because the two of them had devoted ten years of their lives to building their Amway business to the Emerald level not to mention tens of thousands of dollars invested in the scheme. He was surprised when his wife told him she hadn’t listened to an Amway motivational tape in months. She was deprogramming herself.

During the last 6 or 7 months my Ambot was clinging to Amway he stopped buying CD’s. I’m not so certain that he just wasn’t playing the old ones over and over but his name must have been shit with the upline when he stopped buying CD’s, though he attended one major function and paid up his WWDB Premier Membership ($49.95/month) and Communikate ($36.95/month) nearly to the end. During those last months Ambot bought Amway products totalling under $1000. Whew! What a relief when during the first few months of his involvement he would easily spend over $1000 in one month. In 2 of those last months he met the minimum 100PV to earn a check around $10. You can see how outraged his upline was because they weren’t making as much money off Ambot anymore.

Sometimes quitting Amway has to be a gradual process. Stop buying and listening to their brainwashing CD’s. Stop going to meetings or cut back. I mean how many times a week do you have to listen to the sack of shit Platinum say the same thing????  Eventually one of the leaders is going to ride the IBO’s ass about buying tools or products or attending functions so there might be some minor setbacks because the IBO is still indoctrinated enough not to disobey the cult leader’s wishes.

Amway is a trap. Getting into Amway is the easy part. Busting past the Amway exit barriers including unable to recover money invested and the psychological damage is easier said than done.

Like any other bad habit not everyone can quit cold turkey. Hang in there. Keep researching. Claw your way back to reality. Getting your life and finances back in order is the next hurdle. Been there done that. Good luck to anyone else on that journey.