OK....fesss up from the start...I am an "AAer" but also do not believe in god...
I have seen some of the things that have been brought up happen be said and believed in meetings....but seen alot that is different from that.
When I got sober the first time there were no other programs out there that I had ever heard of (and I'm pretty sure there weren't or were far and few between) and no one had much computer access.....So I went to AA and it helped me tremendously.
However at 2.5 years sober I began to quesiton many things in AA, in my life, etc.
I learned how to use the tools that worked for me and to not feel like I had to fit in .... and i still got support.
Then I left the program.
When I got sober again this time I chose to go back to AA. I use it and SR. I see people get sober other ways then AA, but I find it very benificial and very doable without the god stuff.
but you know it seems to me that the thing that gets people sober is having a plan on how to deal with life sober and talking with others who struggle with the same issues.
I don't feel like a sick puppy cause I'm alchoholic and I don't see that being in AA or any other form of recovery means I need to share that all over the place. I can simply say I don't drink...no big deal.
I don't know what else to say...so much that I read here is stuff I see some in meetings and yet isn't what i mostly see.
Anyways...the main thing for me is how am I going to stay sober and work on those issues that I hid from in the bottle for so long. I love the non-aa stuff I get from these threads too. And of course the sharing from the AA people who don't believe in god as well, and the god people for whom recovery isn't a god thing I think there are a number of those people around here somewhere too!