JohnBarleycorn

Alcoholics Anonymous is distinctly and intensely religious.

No amount of denial (or Wikipedia) can ever change that fact.

Mark75

That is your opinion John, and you are entitled to it... But it is not religious for me, it is spiritual... and that is my experience... I go to church for my religion.

Zini

Hi Kantaki -
I'm in Germany too, and there are Anonyme Alkoholiker meetings here in both English and German. I'm using them as a sort of support network, along with this forum here, to keep myself focused on recovery and sobriety and to remind myself of the dangers of relapse.
I am also uncomfortable with the whole idea of God, so I take what I can out of the meetings and try to leave out the rest. Happily, my group here never refers to religion per se, only the idea that a power higher than yourself can help you stay sober. For me, this means that you have to open up both mind and heart in order to re-engage with the world, to find something bigger than your own selfish pursuits for temporary pleasure to live for. That numbness that comes from quitting drinking - that's a result of having spent years trying to drown that restless hunger of being human with alcohol. When you stop doing that, you feel empty and lost, and that's why you have to find ways of re-engaging with life, with other people, without the buffer of alcohol. It's tough, but you slowly begin to open your eyes to what you've been missing all this time. Don't go down the spiral of guilt about what you've ruined or sabotaged due to alcohol. The minute you decide to quit, and engage actively in the process of sobriety, you've earned yourself a blank slate, and you can begin to make conscious choices about how and where you want your life to go.
Best of luck, and as long as you decide to stay sober, you can use whatever method or form of support in whatever way feels right to you. The important thing is to prioritize your recovery. How you choose to do that is up to you.

JohnBarleycorn

I should probably let this go, but too many people on here have used the "Spiritual, not Religious" line or told atheists to read "We Agnostics" without so much as a peep from anyone.

Let me ask you this:

If you walked into a room where people hold hands and pray together, and use a book describing an intense religious ("spiritual") conversion, with a separate chapter written for non-theists, and where members implore each other to surrender their lives and their will to G-d, and ask G-d to remove their personal shortcomings, and then to evangelize that program throughout society, as many repeatedly try to do on these forums, you would not find anything religious about that? Nothing at all?

Before anyone tries to say that it is not "G-d" but a "Higher Power" know that the word "G-d" appears 142 times in the Big Book, whereas "Higher Power" appears exactly twice.

I am not a stranger to religion, both Christian and Jewish, to AA, or to the AA doctrinal literature (all of it), and I can almost guarantee you that were the AA program based upon the tenets of Rabbinic Judaism and the Talmud, for instance, rather than those of Christianity, that you would certainly notice the religiosity.

For a quick, concise overview of AA's Christian influences, "Dick B." has a nice article:

A.A. Big Book and 12 Step Sources - Identifying the Roots and the References

For a more complete history of AA, I would recommend "Not God: A History of Alcoholics Anonymous" by Ernest Kurtz, considered the most complete history of AA ever written.

Mark75

Well, it's OK, the OP wanted to know what the deal with "God" was and the 12 steps. So it's fair game to have this dialog, as long as we stay civil. Perhaps the OP will get something out of this discussion and that he will then, hopefully, have his own experience with this matter.

It was Carl Jung who discussed his own opinion that a spiritual experience was probably necessary for an alcoholic to recover... at least that was his experience in actually working with alcoholics... I don't know what Jung's own religious views were, but as far as I know his opinion, and professional experience, regarding spirituality and recovery from alcoholism.... did not specify ....any particular religion...

AA grew out of this idea... founded by christians, yes,... but it was the expressed desire of these founding fathers, however, to make AA a spiritual program, not a religious one. To what degree they succeeded is open to discussion. I think they did a pretty good job, and so do a lot of others... some, like yourself, disagree. OK...

If I had one request, one wish, here on SR, is that when we have these discussions that we be clear as to what our own experience is with this question.... not what our opinion is. Opinion and experience are different. If I find that AA is a spiritual program by my own experience... that is equally valid to your experience with AA, which is different than mine.

I've thought a lot about this, it comes up a lot here on SR... and I've worked out my resentment to posts like yours above... And I realize that I resent it, for a couple of reasons, when a statement is made like...

So am I in denial if I say that what you said is untrue, from what I've seen, read and experienced, myself???.... The implication is that you know better than I do ... as to what my own experience is!!

And, I resent it when an individual comes on to SR and is searching for his or her own answers, and hopefully, their own experience with AA and "God"... And then authoritative statements are made about a program in which there can really be no true and universal authority, and I am guilty of this myself... there is no ultimate authority except that which each one of us finds as our own truth... our own "higher power". My own higher power is the ultimate authority, for me.

So it's not just "a line" ... it is a statement of my own experience when I say ....

"AA is a spiritual program, not a religious one".

If you'd like to refute that, well, you can't, it's my experience.... but if you'd like to offer a counterpoint, then tell us... What is your own experience?

Peace

Mark

iliveforyou

Hi and welcome Kantaki

You've found a wonderful recovery site full of support. There are people here from all over the world There are many different programs that have helped people in their recoveries other than AA.

AA is personally not for me, I am an atheist and all the groups that I have been to made me feel real uncomfortable.

But I do know others who have found great help in AA, it's really a personal decision.

Glad you are here!
-Jess

BadCompany

You should have stopped while you were ahead. Your claim to be Familiar with Christian and Jewish religions is proven thin with your example. The Jewish Talmud is the basis for the greek translation called the septuagent. That Septuagent is the basis for the Christian Old Testament. Your assertion that these two are distant in spiritual philosophy is ridiculous.

The spiritual principles of AA are principles shared by not only Christianity, but Judaism and Taoism, Buddhism, many forms of Hinduism, Zoroastarism and even native American spiritual beliefs. They are simply spiritual truths we in AA use to make our lives a place we can live without alcohol. No one has exclusive claim to these truths.

JohnBarleycorn

When I said AA, I meant the program of AA.

My own experience is the same as with any other religion.

Some members follow the program, but are not overly fundamentalist, other members follow the program and pine for the older, truer, more fundamental AA ("AA isn't what it used to be" they say), while others pick and choose what they want, even going so far as to disregard the "Big Book" and the steps entirely.

The same thing occurs in Judaism and Catholicism. There are Jews who do not follow Rabbinic Judaism, ignoring, for example, the laws of Kashrut (dietary laws), and Catholics who do not follow the Catholic religion much (I come from an officially Catholic country, and was baptized Catholic).

Does this mean that Rabbinic Judaism or Catholicism are "spiritual, not religious" ? No, it means that they are both religious AND spiritual, and that some people "take what they want and leave the rest."

I have heard on many occasions that one can substitute anything for "G-d" in the steps, such as a radiator, a light bulb, a doorknob, or a coke can.

However, neither of those items are capable of having a will, restoring people to sanity, removing character defects, listening to prayer, or accepting into their care the will and lives of others. The Steps clearly require a rescuing deity.

Telling Atheists to pick whatever they want as a higher power is like telling someone to go to a mosque for their alcoholism problem, and that whenever mention is made of Allah, to replace it with anything they want.

Islam, after all, is unique in its successful eradication of alcoholism in a people in whom excessive drinking was an established tradition, and who consumed alcohol more than in any other society of their times.

Islam works! Really! It does! It eradicated a scourge, and hundreds upon hundreds of millions of Muslims are not alcoholic thanks to the very clear prohibition of alcohol that Islam mandated more than 1400 years ago.

By numbers alone, Islam has quite possibly been more successful in dealing with alcoholism than anything else ever has been in history, but I wouldn't dream of telling alcoholic Jews, Christians, or Atheists to try Islam. It would be insulting.

I will add that I always have and continue to encourage anyone who wants to know what the program of AA is about to read the books "Alcoholics Anonymous" and "Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions" to decide for themselves if it would suit them.

Mark75

Well, I try to keep it simple. I do agree, though, that using doorknobs, light bulbs, whatever, as a higher power, misses the point completely...

Perhaps, maybe, the definition for what is religious and what is spiritual is the true underlying disagreement, I don't know.

Because if we substituted spiritual for religious...

AA is distinctly and intensely spiritual...

.... we would be in complete agreement.... because "Deity" is not how I experience my "God" ... He is not a "deity" ... I cannot describe it and I don't try... because that's religion's job... LOLOLOLOL

JohnBarleycorn

You are indeed correct.

I don't have any disagreement with that statement. :-)

JohnBarleycorn

The Talmud, although a central text of mainstream Judaism, is not the same thing as the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament, as you call it.

The Talmud is not the basis for the Septuagint. The Septuagint is a translation of the Hebrew Bible into Koine Greek.

Mark75

Thanx for the discussion, I enjoyed it... I hope our OP found it helpful.

BadCompany

Correct I was thinking Torah, but the laws of the new testament Jesus and the laws of the Talmud both spring form the Torah.

spryte

Kantaki, AA or Alcoholics Anonymous, does believe that spirituality, or a belief in god or spirit or something greater than ourselves, is essential to long term sobriety.

There are many other parts to sobriety, so if you don't believe in spirituality, you can still get a lot of help from AA. They are super nice people, friendly and funny, and will help you on your good days and on your bad days. It is really amazing how nice they are. You should check it out.

I would like to add that I have tried many different treatment methods and programs and AA didn't stick with me, so I'm not in AA so to speak. I still think it's a very good program. Give it a chance.

keithj

The Steps clearly do not. They require exactly what they say they require, a wilinginess to believe in some type of higher power of my own understanding.

Apparently your concept, John, requires a rescuing deity, but mine does not. I simply followed the precise, specific directions in the BB, had a spiritual awakening, and recovered.

You have done none of those things, but consistently offer your opinion on them.

FrothyJay

Very nice of you to say so, given your own experience with AA.

But.

The program of AA is not the nice people or the meetings, or my phone list or my sponsor. Believing that was the program of AA nearly got me killed, and I believe it's the reason so few people stick around AA.

The program of AA is the 12 steps. AA is completely, not partially, a spiritual program of recovery. There aren't spiritual "parts."

Why am I hammering on this? Because for decades, people have watered down AA into a fellowship of abstinence rather than a program of recovery.

It's because we want to be nice. It's human nature. Be inviting. Don't scare the newcomer. Make them a cup of coffee and say, "Keep coming back."

And alcoholics are dying in droves. 100,000 a year in the U.S.

We can either shrug our shoulders at this and say, "well, it works for me," or we can realize that as members of AA we have a responsibility to extend the hand of AA-- which means, the honest to goodness spiritual program of recovery-- wherever it is needed.

refrigerator

Wow. This is probably the best I've seen someone describe AA. Never really understood it until this.

refrigerator

But this sounds like Christians running through the middle east trying to convert the masses....Now i'm back to confused.

SwanSong

Well is might be confusing because what you are reading are the opinions of individuals - so please keep that in mind.

We've seen pages of debate going on over the use of the word religious and spiritual.

We've been told, in essence, that spiritual is the same as religious.

That a deity is required to work the program of alcoholics anonymous.

We've been told that the program of AA is the 12 steps.

And that because the word God appears more times than "higher power" it must be a religious program.

I think perhaps I have a different Big Book than the previous posters. My big book clearly states that the program of recovery is the first portion of this volume, that is pages up to and including page 164. My big book states that it's main object is to enable you to find a Power greater than yourself which will solve your problem. My big book states that when it talks of God it refers to my own conception of God - it has no caveat that my own conception must be in the form of a redeeming deity or any deity at all. Nor does it state that if my conception of a Power greater than myself is an unsuspecting inner resource as described in Appendix II that I am now religious or in a religious program.

I'm not going to muddy the waters with my what my personal experience and opinion of what AA is.

Well, I will say this much-

In believe that there is a huge difference between claiming one must become religious to recover using AA's program of recovery and saying that in order to recover one must DO the AA program of recovery. I believe the two are mutually exclusive and the latter is true while the former is not. The beauty of it all is, if you want to make your AA program a religious program you can do that too. And just because person A defines spirituality as somehow religious does not mean that person B has to and therefore my AA program can be entirely spiritual and entirely absent of religion. Ok, I guess I gave a hint of opinion but I'm out now.

franie

I do hope that the op has not simly switched off by all of this. I have tried many different meetings and have never felt comfortable there. Not just due to the "religious" stuff -mainly because I have never been a "club" sort of girl. It works for some - great, does not work for others - shame. When I read all of these posts in favour and against AA - it seems that you all want to be "right", that it is not about recovery at all but just who "knows the most". I was very nervous about posting on this - I certainly don't want people jumping on me for an opinion - but come on -recovery is recovery does it really matter how we do it. We can give advice as to what worked for us but stop the bashing - we are all in the same boat.