DK, fortunately I live in the south and the religion is a palpable cloud that hangs over everything around here, so naturally alot of the addicts here are fed up with religion and have formed their own belief systems. THere are alot of agnostic people here in meetings, alot of deist, alot of "spiritual not religious folks" but there are also a ton of overtly religious people too. Some of my best friends in the program share my views, and alot of them are old old timers. My friend Pam has 25 years clean and has never once compromised her nonreligious beliefs. It is doable and in NA when ever someone brings up religion or starts bible thumping, I quote the basic text to stress that NA is a spiritual not religious program. It has nothing to do with religion for a large percentage of addicts. THe whole sticking part for alot of people tends to be the god word....which my sponsor told me can simply mean good orderly direction (suggestions heard in meetings or from a sponsor). I'm lucky that my sponsor lets me believe what I believe and as long as it works for me thats all that matters.
5,
NA does change you, but its a good change....it makes me a less sceezy person and gives me some of my humanity back. I can change as much or as little as I want to in NA. I will never compromise my spiritual beliefs though, they may evolve in the future, but they will allways be mine and I will never be a religious person....I've done way too much research on the topic to ever let that happen. 12 step programs are much more closely aligned with eastern schools of thought like buddhism and taoism than any western religion, and easten philosophy is very logic oriented.