An athiest in sobriety.......

[soberinnyc]

When I started AA, the constant references to God almost drove me out of the program. But fortunately enough people said I could use anything as a higher power. So, for 15 l/2 years I've been praying to a tree and hey, it works just fine for me.

I'm saying this for newcomers who may be freaked out by all the references to God. AA is wide enough for all of us.

I like to keep it simple: "The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking." That's it! Everything else is a suggestion.

[Ngokpa]

Don't know if you know anything about Jungian psychology, but it talks about the collective unconscious. That's a grab-bag of collective memory going back eons. Some of it is just a lot of loose ends and leftovers from failed experiments, but some of it is collected wisdom that has helped us make it this far. That includes being concerned about others at least as much as we're concerned about ourselves.

I follow Buddhism. God doesn't enter into it. I started by just meditating, which just means working with my mind. After a while I found out some folks has some intelligent things to say about it. So for me the third step is about being open to intelligence, no matter where it comes from. Better than just being open to whatever I think is going to fix me, make me a big shot, or make me feel good.

[LeftBehind]

That's funny the A.A. concept of God (God is anything you want God to be including a rock or a thought or God can be the 12 step program) is what keeps me away because it is so subjectively illogical/irrational/not true.