Originally Posted by
andisa 
I can appreciate the intent behind prayer, and the quote you provided, Zenlifter, does address it as I understand it. However, I gave up prayer a long time ago, because in doing so the only one I'm really addressing is myself (or so goes my understanding anyway.) I suppose this gets to the heart of why the NA program fails to reach me. Step 2 makes entirely no sense to me.
I sent this quote to somebody else just recently, and decided to repost it here, because I think it makes good sense. And you don't have to be a Buddhist to believe it, you could be an atheist/materialist as far as that goes. Insert "drug of choice" in place of alcohol
. Here it is:
Someone asked me once what “Higher Power” a Buddhist could choose to believe in if he or she became a member of a twelve-step program that required such a belief. I think that the fact that you can’t drink too much alcohol without becoming very ill — addiction being an illness, after all — is evidence enough that the Rule of the Universe is a * .benevolent Higher Power that wishes us not to become alcoholics. I would trust in the law of cause and effect as my Higher Power. -- Brad Warner