Recovery and (lack of) spirituality
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Join Date: Mar 2011
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Recovery and (lack of) spirituality
I know that the concept of a higher power is central to many recovery programs, but I'm wondering how important you feel it is to recovery in general.
For a number of reasons over the past few years, I have found myself in the midst of a spiritual crisis and am moving steadily toward atheism. The events influencing this thought process have been relatively unremarkable, but are undeniably leading me away from belief in a higher power. Finally admitting my alcoholism and moving toward recovery may be the last straw for me.
Is there anyone else here who has been successful without an abiding belief in a higher power?
For a number of reasons over the past few years, I have found myself in the midst of a spiritual crisis and am moving steadily toward atheism. The events influencing this thought process have been relatively unremarkable, but are undeniably leading me away from belief in a higher power. Finally admitting my alcoholism and moving toward recovery may be the last straw for me.
Is there anyone else here who has been successful without an abiding belief in a higher power?
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Join Date: Mar 2008
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I don't know anyone in real life who has gotten a good level of sobriety without a belief in a higher power...that said the higher power only has to be anything other than the alcoholic/addict themselves, this is why we joke at our homegroup that your higher power can be a can of coke as long as you don't believe that you are your own higher power as clearly the direction and "help" we have given ourselves got us into this mess in the first place...
It is ridiculous (now as a sober guy) to beliave that i thought that i could effect a substantial enough change in myself to recover from alcoholism as i tried to moderate, control, quit my drinking thousand times at least...
Like i said the higher power can be anything, can you levitate? Nope then gravity is a power greater than you, you can't control it but it definitely controls you...its the first step to the realisation that we are not in control of the universe nor the centre of it either:-)
It is ridiculous (now as a sober guy) to beliave that i thought that i could effect a substantial enough change in myself to recover from alcoholism as i tried to moderate, control, quit my drinking thousand times at least...
Like i said the higher power can be anything, can you levitate? Nope then gravity is a power greater than you, you can't control it but it definitely controls you...its the first step to the realisation that we are not in control of the universe nor the centre of it either:-)
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I can just tell you what worked for me.
I had lost connection with my spiritual self, completely when I began drinking.
I knew instinctively that I needed to reconnect spiritually in order to recover. I was so very low I knew that I needed to find a purpose in my life that was bigger than me. I had to learn to listen to my soul, the quiet part of myself, the part of me that connected with the Universe.
I would be lost without spirituality.
I had lost connection with my spiritual self, completely when I began drinking.
I knew instinctively that I needed to reconnect spiritually in order to recover. I was so very low I knew that I needed to find a purpose in my life that was bigger than me. I had to learn to listen to my soul, the quiet part of myself, the part of me that connected with the Universe.
I would be lost without spirituality.
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Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: New England
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I believe there are a number of people on SR who are sober without a conventional higher power...many use Buddhism. Is it a God concept you have difficulty with or all spirituality?
Oddly I have a deep belief in God and I feel He helped me to get sober initially and placed tools in my path but that staying sober I feel is up to me.
Oddly I have a deep belief in God and I feel He helped me to get sober initially and placed tools in my path but that staying sober I feel is up to me.
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Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Montreal
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I'm am atheist. I tried for years to believe in some kind of "higher power" as that concept is used in AA/NA. It never worked for me, and AA never worked for me. I kept relapsing and never truly felt sober.
Last year I joined SOS (Secular Organization for Sobriety, aka Save Our Selves) which meets weekly in my city. I also found lots of resources and support on this site. I firmly believe that we have the power within ourselves to achieve and maintain sobriety and I am now happily sober (as opposed to white knuckle abstinence) for the first time in my life. Other sobriety organizations that do not require belief in a "higher power" include LifeRing Secular Recovery and SMART. There is also a Secular Connections forum on this site. Keep researching, reading and working on it my friend.
Last year I joined SOS (Secular Organization for Sobriety, aka Save Our Selves) which meets weekly in my city. I also found lots of resources and support on this site. I firmly believe that we have the power within ourselves to achieve and maintain sobriety and I am now happily sober (as opposed to white knuckle abstinence) for the first time in my life. Other sobriety organizations that do not require belief in a "higher power" include LifeRing Secular Recovery and SMART. There is also a Secular Connections forum on this site. Keep researching, reading and working on it my friend.
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Join Date: Aug 2009
Posts: 270
Originally Posted by yeahgr8 
...the higher power only has to be anything other than the alcoholic/addict themselves, this is why we joke at our homegroup that your higher power can be a can of coke as long as you don't believe that you are your own higher power as clearly the direction and "help" we have given ourselves got us into this mess in the first place...
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that A CAN OF COKE could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of A CAN OF COKE.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to A CAN OF COKE, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have A CAN OF COKE remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked A CAN OF COKE to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made 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 A CAN OF COKE, praying only for knowledge of THE COKE CAN'S will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
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Join Date: Mar 2008
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@JohnBarleycorn that is brilliant...
There it is the solution to recover from alcoholism and if any active alcoholic thinks its insane to use a can of coke as a higher power i can assure them that it is infinitely less insane than drinking whilst not really wanting to...the perfect 12 step program for any athiest:-)
There it is the solution to recover from alcoholism and if any active alcoholic thinks its insane to use a can of coke as a higher power i can assure them that it is infinitely less insane than drinking whilst not really wanting to...the perfect 12 step program for any athiest:-)
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Hi elfgirl
I'm a christian now but I was an agnostic when I began my recovery - for a long time it was this group of people who gave me the connection, the faith, the support, the accountability and self belief to stay in recovery....and they still do
D
I'm a christian now but I was an agnostic when I began my recovery - for a long time it was this group of people who gave me the connection, the faith, the support, the accountability and self belief to stay in recovery....and they still do
D
Laozi Old Man
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Detroit, MI
Posts: 6,665
Originally Posted by DayTrader
I suppose it depends upon to what degree you lost the power of choice and will NEED a power greater than you to stop.
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Join Date: Mar 2011
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Not great at quoting yet- but a couple things:
LaFemme, I was disillusioned with major organized religions quite early and for most of my life identified myself as Pagan, primarily because of the emphasis on balance between male/female, dark/light, youth/age, etc. Over the past few years I've started to think my beliefs about a higher power and the afterlife are more consistent with what science is discovering about how the universe itself works. That brings me to consider that a "higher power" in the conventional sense probably doesn't exist, and I'm essentially okay with that but still working through how it affects my spirituality.
JoeStrummer and hightara, thanks for your replies! I appreciate the support and knowing there are groups that don't rely on a higher power.
JohnBarleycorn- love it!!!
Dee74, thanks. I'm finding tremendous support here as well, and am REALLY glad I found this site!!!
In general, I feel like the drive to change has to come from within me. I don't want to leave this up to anyone else- higher power or coke can. Listening to everyone around me say I don't have a problem had enabled me to drink far longer than I should have. If there IS a higher power, s/he is the one who set me up with the right genetics and background to be an alcoholic in the first place. (bitter? probably a bit- I'm still ticked off that I will never be normal) I've been looking around for people to blame for decades, and it's only now that I'm looking at myself and accepting my own responsibility for the situation that I think I am actually going to be able to make this change. I just hope it's enough.
LaFemme, I was disillusioned with major organized religions quite early and for most of my life identified myself as Pagan, primarily because of the emphasis on balance between male/female, dark/light, youth/age, etc. Over the past few years I've started to think my beliefs about a higher power and the afterlife are more consistent with what science is discovering about how the universe itself works. That brings me to consider that a "higher power" in the conventional sense probably doesn't exist, and I'm essentially okay with that but still working through how it affects my spirituality.
JoeStrummer and hightara, thanks for your replies! I appreciate the support and knowing there are groups that don't rely on a higher power.
JohnBarleycorn- love it!!!
Dee74, thanks. I'm finding tremendous support here as well, and am REALLY glad I found this site!!!
In general, I feel like the drive to change has to come from within me. I don't want to leave this up to anyone else- higher power or coke can. Listening to everyone around me say I don't have a problem had enabled me to drink far longer than I should have. If there IS a higher power, s/he is the one who set me up with the right genetics and background to be an alcoholic in the first place. (bitter? probably a bit- I'm still ticked off that I will never be normal) I've been looking around for people to blame for decades, and it's only now that I'm looking at myself and accepting my own responsibility for the situation that I think I am actually going to be able to make this change. I just hope it's enough.
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Join Date: Aug 2009
Posts: 270
Originally Posted by elfgirl
In general, I feel like the drive to change has to come from within me. I don't want to leave this up to anyone else- higher power or coke can.
The book "Rational Recovery: The New Cure for Substance Addiction" by Jack Trimpey outlines the AVRT approach and is self-contained. You can easily read it in a weekend.
The book is available on Amazon.com new for under $12, used for less than half that. It is also available at most "chain" book stores like Barnes & Noble.
Trimpey has a newer book out on AVRT called "The Art of AVRT," but it is only available on Rational's web site. It might be a worthy update, but I have not read it.
- JBC
Last edited by Dee74; 03-17-2011 at 04:12 PM. Reason: removed commerical link
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I think it is not so much a higher power that is needed as much as a sense of belonging to something larger than oneself. It could be art, service to others, community, family or whatever. It just has to be that you are a part of something greater.
rode hard and put away wet
Join Date: Sep 2010
Posts: 999
I am agnostic and struggled so mightily with the concept of a HP until I was too desperate to struggle any longer. I was losing the battle on my own and kept drinking. I finally realized that if I can't recover by myself then I need a power greater than myself to help me.
It came down to simple math. If not me then what? That for me meant AA, the program and the fellowship. My concept of a HP is not really so important to me now. Just knowing something greater than myself is there for me is enough.
Maybe don't torture yourself too much with this concept right now? I know for a lot of us our HP is an evolving thing.
Much love.
It came down to simple math. If not me then what? That for me meant AA, the program and the fellowship. My concept of a HP is not really so important to me now. Just knowing something greater than myself is there for me is enough.
Maybe don't torture yourself too much with this concept right now? I know for a lot of us our HP is an evolving thing.
Much love.
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Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: SoCal CA
Posts: 1,319
No religion, no spiritualism, no higher powers, no spiritual awakenings none of that stuff for me. Don't get me wrong, for a period of time I couldn't stop myself, but once I was able to learn more about my alcoholism and was able to stop for a couple of months with the help of SR I realized it was all in my head. I respect however anyone wants to recover, and if your programs relies on God and high powers or aliens or coke cans and you are successful then it's awesome, for me it was just some whiteknuckling, some knowledege, some will power and some common sense.
I look at it this way, if the doctor came to me and said if you eat another banana you are going to die, well even if that banana gave me a buzz you wouldn't believe, if I knew I would die if I ate one more, you couldn't get me far enough away from bananas. Well many doctor's say the same things to many alcoholics about alcohol, and many quit on the spot. The problem we run into as alcoholics and why it's progressive in my opinion, is because we all know alcohol is bad and COULD kill us, but most of us are risk takers anyways and we are willing to gamble. That's why it's hard to quit for good because it is so easy to say, well one drink PROBABLY won't kill me. Then once an alcoholic picks the drink up he doesn't want to put it down, and the cycle continues.
Many of us will always have a problem because although we have had problems with alcohol most of us still have fond memories that set off the chemicals in our brain to seek out "just one more drink", even though we know the consequences, but the chemicals are strong enough to talk us into one more especially if we are in a mood, (bad or good), where our brain starts wanting the happy chemicals. The reason why the spritualism helps people out is because it helps many people feel more complete and content as a person and thus more balanced chemically. You don't need spiritualism, you just have to find a way to stay balanced and content, and most importantly you have to stand firm on not drinking alcohol ever again. If you have a program that can do that for you you will stay successfully sober in my opinion without the help of a higher power or spiritualism. Believe it or not some hardcore alcoholics do stop on their own with no program, and they aren't special, they are just like you and me, they just decided that they were going to stop and be happy about it.
I look at it this way, if the doctor came to me and said if you eat another banana you are going to die, well even if that banana gave me a buzz you wouldn't believe, if I knew I would die if I ate one more, you couldn't get me far enough away from bananas. Well many doctor's say the same things to many alcoholics about alcohol, and many quit on the spot. The problem we run into as alcoholics and why it's progressive in my opinion, is because we all know alcohol is bad and COULD kill us, but most of us are risk takers anyways and we are willing to gamble. That's why it's hard to quit for good because it is so easy to say, well one drink PROBABLY won't kill me. Then once an alcoholic picks the drink up he doesn't want to put it down, and the cycle continues.
Many of us will always have a problem because although we have had problems with alcohol most of us still have fond memories that set off the chemicals in our brain to seek out "just one more drink", even though we know the consequences, but the chemicals are strong enough to talk us into one more especially if we are in a mood, (bad or good), where our brain starts wanting the happy chemicals. The reason why the spritualism helps people out is because it helps many people feel more complete and content as a person and thus more balanced chemically. You don't need spiritualism, you just have to find a way to stay balanced and content, and most importantly you have to stand firm on not drinking alcohol ever again. If you have a program that can do that for you you will stay successfully sober in my opinion without the help of a higher power or spiritualism. Believe it or not some hardcore alcoholics do stop on their own with no program, and they aren't special, they are just like you and me, they just decided that they were going to stop and be happy about it.
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Originally Posted by elfgirl
In general, I feel like the drive to change has to come from within me. I don't want to leave this up to anyone else- higher power or coke can.
to get me sober. Getting and staying sober is my responsibility. What has helped me is the so called "psychological tricks & tips" that has brought me back from a life of unmanageably and irresponsibility. I cannot afford to be deluded in to believing I was incapable of recovering on my own. I was deluded enough in active addiction. I don't to revisit that mess in recovery.
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Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Toronto, ON
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Elfgirl, I don't know what I believe. I don't lead a life that involves going to a place of worship (no religion) and I don't have a strong grasp of spirituality. I have talked with people here before about actually trying to pray. One person described trying to send out some kind of thought-message wrapped up in love out into the universe, and that meant something to me. I think I have felt it before, especially when I have a sudden burst of gladness or when I am hoping for something, worrying over something. (Sounds like I only care about it when I'm at risk, ie selfish, doesn't it?)
So how successful am I? Well, I don't know. I haven't had anything to drink since Nov 2009. That's about as clear as I can get for an answer. It's not 10 years or 30 years, it's puny next to that length of time. But today I am at that 1 year and a bit and not my first week, which I once didn't know I could achieve - until I decided I was nervy enough that I wasn't going to buy anymore and went to bed with an insufficient intake of alcohol one night and kept it that way. I think it's good to understand the difference between sobriety and recovery, and that is discussed here a lot; but I don't know which one I have - and am kind of bored with the question, to be honest. I've got what I've got.
Sometimes the whole God question is upsetting, but it hasn't been causing me to lose sleep. I am okay right now with just leaving it at "I don't know." I used to be more atheist, but I see some "shaking of my fist" in that thinking when I look back now. There were emotions that propelled me into the atheism, not that it was stupid to arrive at the conclusions anyway (it's not exactly a happy festival all over a beautifully just earth, is it?). I'm beyond that personal tempest now.
I can't make you see things differently. I can't make you hang onto success that will last. Maybe we're similar, maybe we're very different. I suppose I wouldn't want you to place a kind of burden on yourself with this line of thinking. Maybe it's setting up additional "verdicts" you have to live by, and is that fair to yourself? Is the question about Beliefs being crucial to success that much different from "Can I make it in sobriety" without even contemplating the validity or sincerity or muscularity of your beliefs? I am conjecturing that you can be successful if you are honest with yourself and can rely on yourself to understand whether your behaviour is on track. I couldn't control either of those if I were the smartest person or strongest person on earth. Each person needs to gain their own confidence that they know what works and what will help if they need the help. If a colloquy with the otherworldly is part of that picture some day, so be it.
So how successful am I? Well, I don't know. I haven't had anything to drink since Nov 2009. That's about as clear as I can get for an answer. It's not 10 years or 30 years, it's puny next to that length of time. But today I am at that 1 year and a bit and not my first week, which I once didn't know I could achieve - until I decided I was nervy enough that I wasn't going to buy anymore and went to bed with an insufficient intake of alcohol one night and kept it that way. I think it's good to understand the difference between sobriety and recovery, and that is discussed here a lot; but I don't know which one I have - and am kind of bored with the question, to be honest. I've got what I've got.
Sometimes the whole God question is upsetting, but it hasn't been causing me to lose sleep. I am okay right now with just leaving it at "I don't know." I used to be more atheist, but I see some "shaking of my fist" in that thinking when I look back now. There were emotions that propelled me into the atheism, not that it was stupid to arrive at the conclusions anyway (it's not exactly a happy festival all over a beautifully just earth, is it?). I'm beyond that personal tempest now.
I can't make you see things differently. I can't make you hang onto success that will last. Maybe we're similar, maybe we're very different. I suppose I wouldn't want you to place a kind of burden on yourself with this line of thinking. Maybe it's setting up additional "verdicts" you have to live by, and is that fair to yourself? Is the question about Beliefs being crucial to success that much different from "Can I make it in sobriety" without even contemplating the validity or sincerity or muscularity of your beliefs? I am conjecturing that you can be successful if you are honest with yourself and can rely on yourself to understand whether your behaviour is on track. I couldn't control either of those if I were the smartest person or strongest person on earth. Each person needs to gain their own confidence that they know what works and what will help if they need the help. If a colloquy with the otherworldly is part of that picture some day, so be it.
Looking For Myself...Sober
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This is one thing I have had such a hard time with inrecovery. I was brought up to velieve in Christian God. But as I got older and formed my own opinion. I just dont see it. But one thing I do believe and have alot of experience with. That has proven itself time and time again. And thats why I believe is something likeKarma. The universe has its own workings. I dont believe in a being either. But i do believe that someTHING is at work.
So I put my trust and faith in if I put out good energy, I will get it back and so on.
I do believe in mind over matter as well. Especially with my DOC. It is all psychological. Every bit of it. So the key for me is to find a way to tap into mental diversions.
And alot of times it is simple. Like just sitting somewhere quiet and just focusing on whats around me. Sounds and smells and things like that.
I heard a girl in IOP say her HP was her future self clean and sober. That made sense to me.
Werll I hope you find what your looking for. Good luck
So I put my trust and faith in if I put out good energy, I will get it back and so on.
I do believe in mind over matter as well. Especially with my DOC. It is all psychological. Every bit of it. So the key for me is to find a way to tap into mental diversions.
And alot of times it is simple. Like just sitting somewhere quiet and just focusing on whats around me. Sounds and smells and things like that.
I heard a girl in IOP say her HP was her future self clean and sober. That made sense to me.
Werll I hope you find what your looking for. Good luck
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