Left AA?
Hi,
I am a recovering alcoholic/drug addict who took his last drink or drug on March 25,2006. I quit smoking cigarettes about a month later, joined a Zen Buddhist sangha, and began to meditate daily. In the Summer of 2006 I went vegetarian, and have been so ever since. I also started running, and have kept that up at least 5 days a week for some time.
In addition, especially in the beginning, I went to AA meetings, a great many. I am a Buddhist, and do my best to practice Theravada now, the oldest tradition, though I like the other schools a great deal as well. So I meditate each morning, and read the Dhamapadda or the Sutta Nipata, and sometimes I do a loving-kindness meditation at night, as well, if I am not too tired. My Buddhist practice, including visiting a local monastery with Theravadan and Mahayana monks, has changed my life for the better.
Buddha taught his followers to think for themselves, and to rely on themselves, and to work out their own salvations with diligence, which goes against the entire AA grain of depending on a HIgher Power or God to save one from one's self.
I constantly hear people debating out loud whether or not what they want to do is "their will" or "God's will". I hear people who drove to themselves to meetings that night say "Left to my own devices, I get drunk", and think to myself, "Then why aren't you drunk right now? Why did you drive here? Did God drive you?" It is as if all these people are caught in a war with demons within themselves at all times, as if Satan (my disease) is perched on one shoulder, and God on the other.
I guess I am asking if anyone on this board has left AA, and what other options for non-theistic types are out there? I stopped going to meetings for two weeks, and I did not want to drink, but I went back a week or so ago. I am seriously debating whether or not to leave the group, not because I want to drink, but because there are so many unhealthy, crazy, egoistic people who use the meetings as a grand stage for their "recovery". There is a great deal of talking about spiritual values, but very few genuine examples of these values, other than a lot of rhetoric. There are some wonderful people I have met, too, including my sponsor, who is a very good man, but I grow weary of the fear and repetition of sacred ideology I find in most meetings. Free thinking is discouraged, as is excellence of any kind. The old "crabs in a barrel" metaphor always come to mind. Fit in at all costs, I tell myself, and then hate myself for lying.
The Buddha taught that not by words, debate, logic, disputation, consideration or tradition can a view be held to be healthy and wholesome, until one knows FOR ONE'S SELF, that "this view leads to happiness, to peace, to dispassion". I agree with the Buddha, but if I said this in a meeting, that philosophical opinions are meaningless expressions of subjectivity, I would be attacked as an unbeliever, I think, though it is true.
AA seems like one big battle over views and opinions, sometimes, like a ritualistic tradition where the tribe comes together and affirms its belief in its core principles. Many, such as acceptance, tolerance, patience, kindness, and honesty, as expressed in the Big Book and 12 and 12, are wonderful. But interspersed with all of Bill Wilson's wonderful insights is the notion that a "Tsar of the Heavens", a "Creative Intelligence" is "running the show", and that we must rely on God, and not ourselves, to save us from ourselves. "(No human power could have relieved our alcoholism/God could and would, if he were sought)"
Essentially, the vision is that of a time bomb that must be defused on a nightly basis by attendance at meetings, lest it detonate in an orgy of booze. This is insane, to me, at least.
Could you please share your own thoughts on recovery, the 12 Steps, and your own beliefs, whatever they may be? I would like to learn what other people have done in similar situations. I have read some of your posts, and they have been very helpful. I will continue to visit.
Thank you. Be Well.
-Angulimala