Higher Powerless And Proud Of It... Now What?

[e4r5t6]

After six months of sobriety went to a new AA meeting last night. It was small, three other guys and much more of a dialogue than the usual one-way sharing. At this meeting they work through the Big Book, finding instructions, and ask everyone "Have you... or "Are you ready to...
I liked the format because it forces you to confront the key issues.
In my case, "Are you ready to turn your life over to a higher power?"
I went into my now-standard explanation that I believe there is no God and yet I accept the fact I have not been able to and cannot get sober on my own, therefore there is something outside of me that I need. I have found the strength, hope and experience bit useful, and certainly a lot of practical advice from experienced sober people.
But this "higher power" verbiage really troubled me as a conflict with my basic, considered belief.
When I got home, still thinking about this, my sponsor, a good man who is a believer, had sent me an email suggesting that I read pages 44-50.
Trying to be a good soldier, I tried to read it.
That was when I hit the wall.
I realized that section on "We agnostics" is semantic smoke and mirrors, a thinly disguised and phony attempt to entice someone into the possibility of a God and thence to conversion.
Everything that follows, the discussion of a Creator, the framing of "as we understood him" -- all that dancing around comes back to you have to believe in some spirit being.
"That power, which is God"
Bullshit
I am not a doubter. I have concluded there is no God and I'm sure of it.
I really do think that human intelligence is the last word, the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, and there is nothing vain about that.
It is simply an objective evaluation of the evidence. Just read "The God Delusion."
I used to find the wording in the Big Book quaint, sort of like reading an ancient text explaining why the earth is flat.
Now I find it sinister.
I am trying not to put the Big Book in the category of one more Christian conversion conspiracy, but it's hard.
---
OK. Deep breath.
---
I know AA works for many and has worked for me.
I now have to sift through what is going on and find the mechanism that will continue to work for me.
As I said to the guys last night, Yes, I admit there is value in the advice, experience, stories and identity I get from AA meetings. However, nothing is going to happen except through decisions and choices I make.
I can't "turn it over to God" because there is no God.
This is not ego, this is intelligence, mine and yours.
I came to believe there is no God after long study, careful thought and years of consideration.
This Big Book charade about "higher power" is just linguistic legerdemain leading to "God."
I don't "think" I'm an atheist. The Big Book authors are like those gay-deniers who want to convert gay people thinking they are just misguided, rather than innately, born, gay.
My "faith" is in my ability to learn and model behavior and, yes, take control.
I deny, therefore, the fundamental basis of the Big Book. I reject it.
But I continue to think that within the steps and within AA are a process that leads to a logical and emotional experience that can create and maintain sobriety.
Call it a spiritual awakening if you will, just not a conversion experience.
I think it may be an awakening of self understanding.
Clearly something happens and alcoholics undergo a dramatic change which allows them to sober up and stay sober.
For now, I will stick with the term "spiritual awakening," trying to define that until something better comes along.
Today I am going to contact a couple of the atheists in my usual group and have a deeper discussion. It may be that my current sponsor, good as he
is, can never give me good counsel.
Most believers are lost if you don't buy what they are selling because that's where they get all their answers.
Are there any good books like the Big Book only God-free?
Any suggestions?

[Bamboozle]

Hello, ert. Welcome to the secular side of SR.

Sorry I don't have any suggestions...but it's always good to see new people around here.

Take it easy.

[mistycshore]

Hi,

There is a thread about this in the Secular 12-step forum, one floor down.

Here's a link:

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...-step-3-a.html (What then about Step 3?)

Hope that helps.

[Zencat]

Welcome to Secular Connections e4r5t6.

[digderidoo]

Welcome to SR.

I can identify alot with what you have said. What worked for me initially is that G.O.D. = "G roup Of D runks" or in other words the AA group.

In looking for something spiritual i have read Kevin Griffin's One Breath At A Time. He's a buddhist AA'er, as Buddhists do not believe in a God, i was interested in a Buddhist perspective.

There are also humanist and secular 12 steps posted on this forum.

For me now, the beauty of the steps is that God is a god of your own understanding, rather than a God of Jewish, Christian, Muslim understanding.

When i read the Big Book, i am mindful of the fact it was written in the first half of the 20th century, edited by someone from a Christian background, living in USA. Because of that i have to read it as a Brit, living in the 21st century, as someone who rejected the Christian concept of God because i grew up in a controlling minority religion. So what tends to happen when i read it is a translation occurs, a translation of placing the words in my own unique understanding. There is a fine line however between translating the words of the Big Book to fit into my concept, to actually rewriting the words of the Big Book. The message is still there, but now i apply it me, rather than apply it to a Christian.

God and a higher power to me now is an experience that i can choose to tap into, rather than an entity.

Paul

[spittake]

I googled "CBT" (cognitive-behavioral therapy) and "addiction" and this was the first result: NIDA - Publications - A Cognitive-Behavioral Approach: Treating Cocaine Addiction

If I were you, I would start at the library, and read anything that looks interesting or valid.

I liked the SMART Recovery meeting I went to because they used elements of cognitive-behavioral therapy, and there was a facilitator who was a mental health professional.

I am very optimistic about the advances that are being made in addiction science. It's about time researchers took us seriously.

[paulmh]

Six months isn't very long. Look, no-one is going to hold you down and force a drink down your neck in AA. Equally no-ones going to force G*d down your neck either. You're being invited to grow and develop in the manner most fitting and suited to yourself. This -

My "faith" is in my ability to learn and model behavior and, yes, take control.
I deny, therefore, the fundamental basis of the Big Book. I reject it.
But I continue to think that within the steps and within AA are a process that leads to a logical and emotional experience that can create and maintain sobriety.

i don't get it. Why do you think that any of those things aren't consistent with the message of recovery? The 12 step programme is about realising your lack of control in those areas of your life where, er, you don't have any control. It's then about excercising proper power and control over those parts of life over which you DO have control - primarily yourself, and your relationship with "everything else" which you can choose to call G*d as you like or don't like. And I agree wholeheartedly - the programme is about bringing about an experience - you call it logical and emotional, I would say ontological - which can create sobriety - but it can only maintain sobriety if it itself is maintained. That's waht a relapse is - to have had that experience and then to not be able to maintain it. Not drinking for a while and then picking up again - that's not a relapse. A relapse is to lose one's vital psychic change, to revert.

This sounds like old thinking. It sounds like you starting to think that somehow AA can "make" you convert, just like emotions and mental states "made" you drink. AA can't make you do anything. It can however help you to stay sober and to grow in sobriety.

[stone]

I realized that section on "We agnostics" is semantic smoke and mirrors, a thinly disguised and phony attempt to entice someone into the possibility of a God and thence to conversion.
Everything that follows, the discussion of a Creator, the framing of "as we understood him" -- all that dancing around comes back to you have to believe in some spirit being.
"That power, which is God"
Bullshit

I recently re-read "we agnostics" and decided it was sneaky for the the reason you just stated, all this stuff you hear in the rooms (and the 12&12) about picking anything...just something that is a power greater than yourself...turns out to be not what the book says at all....the book says the Higher Power is God. You can pick something else if you like but it is clear it is meant to be just a starting point...to get you to God. That chapter has totally ruined AA for me in the past, I felt deceived.

It is just a word though, I have a concept of my Higher Power and it fits the Program, I can replace the word God with my concept and it works fine apart from steps 6 and 7 because there is nothing I can "ask" to remove my defects.

Like me, you believe that the steps can lead to an experience that "can create and maintain sobriety", if we want to be in AA we have to find a way of working the steps that works for us and not let the "G" word stop us.

But yea, I think "we agnostics" totally backfires with how it comes across.

[stone]

I read something on Barefoot Bob's site (it is a step study) that helped me with step 3 recently...

The Big Book just stated that we need to let God become our Director, so we need to be doing what we think our Higher Power would have us do. In other words, we need to be staying in the moment, being directed by unselfishness and love, and doing the next right thing.

As an atheist/agnostic I can do my best to stay in the moment, be directed by unselfishness and love and do the next right thing. That part of me that knows what unselfishness and love is and what the next right thing is, I could call God-consciousness if I liked. Why not? If it is my concept, my understanding, it can be whatever I choose.

Here is Barefoot Bobs site...A.A. Way of Life - Intro to "Working the Steps"

Originally Posted by e4r5t6

Call it a spiritual awakening if you will, just not a conversion experience.

I believe it is possible to do that in AA, we just have to not get put off by some of the terminology.

I am not a Buddhist but I like Kevin Griffins book, "One Breath at a time" about Buddhism and the 12 steps, it gives another view on them, you might like it.

[FightingIrish]

When I got to A.A., I wasn't thinking about God too much. I was, however, thinking a lot about how to stay sober.

A doctor pointed out to me that A.A. is a very successful (and free) form of cognitive-behavioral therapy, which is highly effective because it does this in the form of a socialized therapeutic setting. The goal of this therapy is to re-join the brain's "executive" control center (prefrontal cortex) with the "animal spirits" center (amigdala), which runs emotional impulses. So when I left rehab, my prefrontal cortex was my higher power.

When I got to A.A. my first day out, much to my surprise I saw a room full of happy people who told the most terrible stories about the once hopelessness of their lives. I thought, this must certainly be a power greater than me.

Today my higher power encompasses the idea that my first thought is not necessarily my best one. That often I must pause (arrest the action that my first thought suggests), pray (put a thought or question out into the universe), meditate (listen for the answer, often different than what I was about to do), and talk it over with another alcoholic in recovery (the always-important outside perspective).

All of these things are a power greater than me. It works for me, I have been through the steps, I practice them in my life, and I carry the message to other alcoholics. Oh, and I've been sober for 22 months.

Michael

[paulmh]

Thanks Michael.

[spittake]

Originally Posted by stone

I recently re-read "we agnostics" and decided it was sneaky for the the reason you just stated, all this stuff you hear in the rooms (and the 12&12) about picking anything...just something that is a power greater than yourself...turns out to be not what the book says at all....the book says the Higher Power is God. You can pick something else if you like but it is clear it is meant to be just a starting point...to get you to God. That chapter has totally ruined AA for me in the past, I felt deceived.

The cool thing is, if we are free-thinking enough to question the very existence of God, we are free-thinking enough to transcend perceiving the Big Book as gospel.

For a very long time, I got caught up in the thumper mentality. If it strayed from the words in the Book, then it couldn't be a part of the Program. It was a classic all-or-nothing, black-and-white view. The irony was that I looked at things like a thumper, but didn't agree with them as a thumper, so I thought I had to scrap the whole thing. That gave me an excuse to say, "f uck it," and drink.

Now I see things much more realistically. If I think AA will help me get and stay clean and sober, I am perfectly free to modify it towards that end. It isn't my religion, the Big Book isn't the final revelation, the 12 Steps aren't my commandments. Others can argue that I'm not being true to the Program, that I'm not doing it right or the way it was intended to be done, the way God told Bill it should be done. But if my HP is my business, my recovery program is my business, too.

We aren't robots that have to go along with something just because someone says we do. It's my life, after all.

[stone]

Originally Posted by spittake

For a very long time, I got caught up in the thumper mentality. If it strayed from the words in the Book, then it couldn't be a part of the Program. It was a classic all-or-nothing, black-and-white view. The irony was that I looked at things like a thumper, but didn't agree with them as a thumper, so I thought I had to scrap the whole thing. That gave me an excuse to say, "f uck it," and drink.

Yep, that's me! Although I didn't always use it as an excuse to drink, I would drop AA and often have longer periods of sobriety than when I was in AA. I would still drink in the end though.

Now, while I try to stick as closely as possible to the Program I don't see things as black and white as I used to. I think once I was able to see that my HP was my HP, my concept, my understanding...no-one can tell me it is wrong, it suddenly became clear.
I can still do inventory, amends, do the next right thing, be guided by unselfishness and love, I try to turn my life and will over to "whatever it is" (I could call it "good" instead of "god" maybe).... I am on the Program.

Like the OP said, I am on-board with the spiritual awakening but not the conversion.

I had the black and white, in and out of AA thing, going on for a long time, it is a relief to be passed it.

[paulmh]

Spittake, I've often thought very much the same sort of thing. For me though, I treat the BB as if it's gospel, even though I know it's not. I treat the first 164 pages as if they are divinely inspired, even though I know that they are simply inspired by one man (and one groups of men's) suffering, hopelessness and then redemption. It isn't important that I'm right about the content of the BB, but rather that I learn how to learn new things about myself by going through the process as described, rather than trying to make the process "fit" me. Finally, the first 164 pages becomes our benchmark - it's the "solution upon which we are all agreed". That doesn't mean it's the alpha and the omega of recovery - but it is, for this alcoholic, quite definitely the "alpha".

[Zencat]

Wow, great OP and subsequent reply's. As usual it takes me some time to really read through a tread and come to some understanding...an understanding without the reactionary emotional one. When this happens I'm of a calmer mind. I'm learning to contain my emotional reactions...thank goodness.

Where I'm at today in relation to the program and my participation within AA is one of coming to terms of my prejudice against G*d concepts. And this boils down to: how legitimate is my understanding of G*d. So far I have concluded that my understanding of G*d need not be the same as the authors of the BB's understanding. And as I read from the experiences of other SR members I'm not alone in this belief. Currently I don't see that I have to reach the same conclusion that the G*d of my understanding is the same G*d that the authors of the BB have. I can now see that experiences do not have to be the same but parallel is sufficient. I'm seeing this less of a conflict and more of a contrast. A dept and richness that has different understands and yet can bring the same intentions to come together within a correlative destination.


For me the 'spiritual awaking' is tantamount to a 'transformation'. The core principle expressed in the first 164 pg's can be sufficient to bring about a transformation....at least that's what I feel for myself. As time goes by I finding it easier to move through my Buddhist practice and find how the total body of AA relates to my Buddhist understandings...HP's included. For me the point of practicing Buddhism is transformational. So there a great similarity between the two of AA and Buddhism. To be changed at a profound level. One for the better I hope...LOL.