[ananda]

mmmm...well i'll give it a go....


I came to AA in 85...lost my belief in god in 87 or 88....so i was already doing steps...

but i drank for 8 years and returned in 2007. So this will be sorta a mishmash...

i've always seen steps one as a step that almost everyone takes prior to coming to aa and that people often fully understand step 1 and never go on to anything more.

I'm not sure, but i suspect that i could never have gotten sober if i had not recoginzed that I was an alchoholic and my life was going crazy..on the inside more importantly than the outside. Wouldn't have to use the word alchoholic or crazy..just the expereicne that i'm talking about regardless of the label....(i'm on lunch for 15 so won't do details at the momnet)

the steps are ONE way of getting sober...i went to meetings drunk for a year and drank for 8 years after i had step one....step 2 was absolutely necessary for me to get sober...believing that I could be sober that it was possible for me. And I was solid on one and shakely getting there on step 2 when i put down the alchohl.

I guess the steps aren't the "cure" for me, they are a way to find an answer to not drinking that will work for me. And it isn't so much about getting sober after step one and two, but about how to stay sober...i mean staying sober was the problem after I quit.

Lots of people at SR who don't do steps or AA go through the same process that I did by doing the steps...or at least that is how it appears on the outside watching.

anyhow...working the steps didn't keep me sober always, but it gave me a fighting chance and still helps me today. It taught me what i do and don't believe and helped me learn to live by that. Actually it was only by very dedicatedly working the steps and living by my beliefs that i found out i didn't believe in god anymore. Was a toughy, but i have worked through that.

In answer to a quetion posed in the secular area...you know i don't know that it's posible to find a non=christian AA group really that is what i have come to know AA to be...cause for me an aa group can't say who can and can't come to a meeting...so all sorts are gonna show up....actually that is one way it helps me learn to STAY sober...i mean it's life...i have to learn to deal.

In my town buddhist are practically satan to many lol and the schools and everything are set up based on christian beliefs even if the people don't think they are christian....I learn how to deal with it...it is simply the culture to which I have been born. It isn't like i lie down like a doormat..I don't at all...but close the world out cause it isn't how I want it and believe it should be.

I'm not a doormat in AA either and for the most part my particular expereinces are accepted and respected. Wednesday the reading was "to the agnostic" ... i shared it was the most offensive (for me) chapter in the book... I shared how I deal with it, I shared how the program works for agnostics and the book reflects one groups expereince and the whole point of the program is to allow everyones expereince to benifit others...we got a lot more experince these days.

Some in the group have completely different expereinces with me..pretty much we don't argue it or do the one upmanship on it...we just share and move on and i learn and i work on changing me on the inside or maybe accepting me not sure which just know thet steps are a form that can get me there quite nicely and h*ll right now i am again reminded if i don't do something proactive about change....I'll end up drunk cause sober isn't worth it if you are miserable even 90 % of the time..well it is cause it gives you a chance, but i don't think i could do it.

anyways just some geneiric sharing....

Is there anyone else out there that actually is agnostic atheist and works the steps in some form? Sure would be nice to hear from others.