BungeJW

Hi,

Just some background.

I have 4.5 years and live in a very small town.

We only have 2 meetings a week and 4 regular members (28 years, 2 years and 1 year who relapsed after 8).

So my experience with 12th step stuff is quite limited. We just don't have a lot of newcomers.

My question is about super stubborn Atheists.

We had a lady come in and she's just SO against the God thing that she continually throws the baby out with the bath water when it comes to AA.

Subsequently she keeps failing.

I've read the Atheist alternate 12-steps and stuff but any real simple suggestions in how to deal with her hangups?

Anything practical that worked for anyone here that felt similarly but found a way to surrender?

Hoping someone here may have some ideas.

Thanks a lot.

fini

what might be useful to her is the "unsuspected inner resource" from the appendix on sp. experience in the BB.

what's unlikely to be helpful to her is to be called stubborn and told she has a hang-up. what she has is likely a well-reasoned opinion and her own experience.

what might be helpful to her also is to search on the net for places like this and talk with others herself.

Coldfusion

Hi Bunge!

I am an atheist with 2-1/2 years of sobriety in AA. I found that I did not need to compromise my beliefs to work the program--I just needed to be open to the existence of a power greater than myself. For me, it was an ego thing--I let go of the idea that I was the ultimate authority.

I found SoberRecovery very useful in reconciling my view of the universe with the concept of a higher power. Unlike in meetings, there is cross-talk here and one can ask questions and get a variety of answers. Send your friend here!

BungeJW

Slightly condescending but, of course, I wouldn't do this.

By stubborn, I didn't mean belief in God. I meant refusing to get over God being mentioned at AA meetings and at least trying to understand the 'as we understand him part'.

Thanks. I'll look into the "unsuspected inner resource".

BungeJW

Thanks Coldfusion.

She just seems like she's fighting the 'God' thing so much. Was there anything someone said to you that a lighting bulb that went off in your head at the very beginning to grasp the power greater than yourself with out the God concept?

Thx

biminiblue

I have no control over others' beliefs and emotions. I cannot force someone to act a certain way.

In fact, I am not God. I don't run the Universe and I don't have any power over other people.

It's a very freeing concept

I think, "Love and tolerance are our code," is a huge thing to put into practice.

She will rant, love her anyway.

Coldfusion

One thing that I do is to read the NA literature instead of AA. It still uses "God," but there is no "He" and in other ways it is not sexist and less trite. In particular, the AA "12 & 12" drives me nuts, but I find the NA step guide ("It Works--How and Why") to be very helpful.

I can understand her distaste for all the "God" stuff. We have an agnostic meeting here once a week, where we do not put up the Steps and Traditions posters, do not say the Serenity Prayer, and pass around a book with copies of different versions of the steps.

biminiblue

Here's a really good blog about Step 3 from a member here who self-identifies as agnostic, but who came to his own way to work Step 3.

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...96-step-3.html

BungeJW

Thanks.

My problem in trying to help her is I don't personally understand the approach of making your higher power the universe or electricity or whatever.

So I am leaning toward maybe helping her considering seeing her higher power as being the fellowship which I personally find VERY powerful myself.

I've printed this out for her wondering if it will help.

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to accept and to understand that we needed strengths beyond our awareness and resources to restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of the A.A. program.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to ourselves without reservation, and to another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were ready to accept help in letting go of all our defects of character.

7. Humbly sought to have our shortcomings removed.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through mindful inquiry and meditation to improve our spiritual awareness, seeking only for knowledge of our rightful path in life and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Soberpotamus

Why exactly do you feel she is in need of any help in adjusting her current worldview?

Maybe she is quite capable of handling things on her own.

BungeJW

Yeah, this is exactly what I am talking about about atheists getting their backs up.

I never once said I am trying to adjust her worldview. Never once said I want to or even care what she thinks. Never once even said what my own personal view on God/Higher power is.

Simply asked for suggestions from AA members about helping an atheist NOT walk away from AA over the God thing and some suggestions on what to say to convince her to give it a chance.

fini

Bunge,
sounds just a tad like maybe YOUR back is up now?


how could you know, and why would you assume, that people responding to you are atheists?
and you are the one who called her stubborn and called her difficulty and/or rejection of the god-thing a "hang-up".

as far as your suggested reworded steps, they just might be the thing for her. who knows? i'd help her work it out for herself, however.

there are many ways to get and stay sober; maybe steps of a spiritual program just aren't her way?

MesaMan

BungeJW ~

Starting with Post 38 by freshstart57 in the Thread linked below, have a look at 'Locus Of Control'. It's one of the better discussions I've seen here at SR identifying how we approach Recovery from fundamentally different POVs.

The approach you appear to believe is universally laudable is not necessarily the best for everyone. There is a lot of energy expended when those believing differently have to swim against the Tide of such assumptions. Thus, it appears such Persons 'have their Back up' as they strive for independence against a Recovery Program that everyone knows is best. Ummmm, except, there is no such Program.

There's a very old Cartoon showing an Old Lady smacking a Boy Scout with her Purse. He's intent on helping her cross the Street. Problem is, she didn't want to go. Perhaps you're trying to help someone who wants/needs help, but not the sort you appear to be intent on offering.

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...c-stuff-2.html
.

Ken33xx

There it is.

fini

oops;

how could you know, and why would you assume, that people responding to you are atheists?

Bunge, i apologize.
of course that would be a reasonable assumption because your title asked explicitly for help from atheists in AA.

FeenixxRising

In my opinion (and my opinion only), a true atheist cannot work the 12-Steps. If a self-identified atheist is working the Steps as written, they are either 1) not really an atheist or 2) not working the Steps as intended (to whom or what does an atheist pray? And what power greater than one's self is restoring the atheist to sanity and removing the atheist's defects of character? That power (again, as the Steps are written), can only be some type of supernatural force than intervenes in human affairs.

Now I understand there are workarounds, and that's fine, but these workarounds require compromise with either the atheist's beliefs or significant adjustments to the integrity of the 12-Steps.

If this person is truly "super-atheist", I see no reason to continue trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, and I suggest this person try a secular approach.

damselfly

Maybe you could suggest to her that she come to this forum and ask questions for herself?

It's nice of you to want to help her, but if you are not an atheist, there is probably not much you can do to help an atheist with the "god stuff" in AA. Of course, there are other ways you can help as one alcoholic talking to another alcoholic (which, in my personal opinion, is the real "power" in AA): Share your experience about how bad it was, how much better your life has been in sobriety, practical suggestions (the AA book "Living Sober" is good for this), let her talk about what's going on in her life, etc . . .