Quote:
Originally Posted by Pagekeeper 
In a nutshell, it appears that a belief in God has little or no effect on length of sobriety, but attending 12 step meetings seems to help. The most glaring problem seems to be that those who are atheist/agnostic are less likely to continue attending meetings, for obvious reasons (obvious to me anyway). The group in the most trouble is those who are "undecided"--meaning they don't know if they're agnostic, atheist, spiritual or what. They had the highest rates of relapse and drank the most. I guess there's some merit when they say, "God is everything or nothing." Nothing is okay, but "I don't know" may get you into trouble. For myself, I attend meetings for the support of others who share my problem. It’s been important for me to set boundaries. I used to just let others go on and on about their religious convictions, but now I politely stop them and let them know I’d rather discuss something else.
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yeah, i agree... as someone who came from a very very anti religious/christian life... it hard to talk about religion. my sponsor just said that he'd rather have me use the list of spiritual terms that he had me do in step two as my concept... and that really helped. i dont like to talk about what i believe in.. because i dont even KNOW what i believe anymore. the second step did NOTHING in the way of philisopical comfort... it made me question everything i believed in... but i was told that was okay. What I believe is an old idea...
anyway, im looking forward to having my 15 posts out of the way, so i can start my own threads... got lots to talk about.