dk
My approach IS secular. It is not the religious secularism of believing what somebody else believes about organized religion. It is believing what I personally believe aboiut organized religion.
I think organized religion is wonderful. It has brought comfort to a lot of people. I tried it. I sincerely tried to get help there, from numerous different denominations. I failed to improve.
My approach of brutal honesty would mandate that I reject the concept of a doorknob as a higher power, I have personally never been at the point I would turn my will and life over to a doorknob. I have never personally met anyone that did(I include an ashtray worshiper and a light buld follower here) that had anything I wanted for my life. Brutal honesty dictates I must believe in something that in the last instant of an agonizing death I would want to be in contact with.
I came to the point that I KNEW I had a problem and I could not fix it. That was a devastating place. I could not break it, or think through it or otherwise impact it in a favorable way. I found some people who had been where I was and found they had recovered. I followed what they did and I too recovered.
My HP is specific to me. I not only do not have to drink, I do not have to tear stuff up and hurt people. I do not live with the fury I contained as early as I could remember. I am faithful to my wife. I do not steal anymore. I can live life on Gods terms and enjoy it completely.
I have found I can actually interact with other people and my person and views are respected and liked.
I have tools that enable me to live life while being in contact with my God.
I do not know or care what happened in the life of any supposed religious figgure in the past. Virgin birth, sacerdotalism, resurrection, tribulation, millenialism, repentance, salvation and heaven are things I frankly could care less about.
I am VITALLY interested in a couple of young kids, one a little girl that self abuses and uses druga and has been straight for five montha and a young man who has been in the drug culture for his whole life and has around 20 days and they got together and now feel guilty and may not make it. I care DEEPLYabout an old man with long term sobriety thar is in the last stages of emphysema and heart failure. A lady that just did 60 days in a locked mental ward and is fighting to stay sane(after 20+ years of sobriety).
None of this would matter if I isolate myself and worry about how they work the program. All that matters to me is how I work the program, me, personally.
I gotta go to my noon meeting. I will look around the room and realize without the support of those people I would be un-recovered.
Ray