Originally Posted by
Bamboozle 
My past religion made me feel extremely uncomfortable because I am gay. Understatement, actually. I knew I was going to hell. There was no benefit to that.
Because of my personal experience with religion I stay away from anything that has, in my opinion, religiosity.
No knock on AA, here. It does work for many people. It cannot work for me...and that's okay. There are many ways to get/stay sober and have a good life.
I don't want to pull OT, but being from a Church of England background, you know Henry 8th and all that jazz, i have found that the CofE is, IMO, moving with the times and women are now actually allowed to hold ranks in the church and i'm pretty sure gay is fine too, or going to be, can't remember...living in a country with another religion i know which one you are to who would have you burning at the stake...i just think it is a shame....but the Bible still says the same things, the CofE is not rewriting it as far as i know...
On topic now wasn't the BB writtten by the first 100 (wasn't it about 84 cos some dropped out?!) who were definitely religious based at that time, and to avoid changing too much in the BB because it worked for them etc the text has been kept as close as possible to the original?
I'm in GA also and the steps are worded a little different to AA ones, started later in 1957, the word God is only mentioned twice:
1. We admitted we were powerless over gambling - that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to a normal way of thinking and living.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of this Power of our own understanding.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral and financial inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have these defects of character removed.
7. Humbly asked God (of our understanding) to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having made an effort to practice these principles in all our affairs, we tried to carry this message to other compulsive gamblers.
I know people who have a problem with the word God but i don't think it is that difficult to explain to people who come through the door...it is a spiritual program and not a religious one, i sat with a guy today who is coming into the rooms, 3 months ago he was adament that he simply would not even be happy to sit in the same room as people who were using the word God...today it didn't seem to bother him so much...even if staunt athiests refuse the simple explanation, more time drinking will maybe make them more receptive...or they will go all the way and die...i guess it's a personal choice?!