Welcome houdini56 to the secular forum of soberrecovery.com. Thanks for sharing something about yourself.
I was born in to Christianity, but due to childhood abuse issues I never really had any chance of being indoctrinated into the faith. Too much rebellion flowing through my veins. So latter in life I had a chance to leave the church, I bolted away from that jazz in a flash and instantly became an strong atheist.
When I entered recovery for the first time some 13 yrs ago I was introduced to the faith-based recovery community. I went along with it for a wile until got situated with some housing and income. Then I began to investigate addiction and related topics. I even took some college courses in addiction studies. I came across SMART, RR, WFS and other recovery modalities like Motivational Interviewing, CBT and the like. I discovered my addiction treatment options were plentiful.
Only in the past 7 yrs did integrate my addiction recover with mental illness recovery. In the past 5 yrs have I become relativity stable with my mental illness, with good and bad days, enough so that I'm able to stay in treatment even when I have relapsed in both illness.
Today I consider myself a non-theist (big
improvement from strong atheism in my book). Have taken to Zen Buddhism and have a comprehensive secular dual-diagnosis treatment program going. The past 3 yrs have been great.
Here at SR, along with a treatment group plus faith-based meetings and my SMART/CBT/WRAP program keeps me on-track with treatments and sobriety.
Anywho, that enough out of me...must have been the sharing mood...LOL.