beddy3484

I am an atheist/agnostic. I don't know which one I am yet and that has been for a long time, just depends on the day. I do not hate religion by any means and understand what religion can do for some people, but I am solidly atheist/agnostic and no one can convince me otherwise. I am 23 days sober and I am working AA/NA/SMART. I really enjoy the happiness that a lot of AA/NA members exude and I also enjoy the stories they share about coming from the depths of addiction hell to recovery. But when they talk about having to find their higher power to get sober I shut that off. I try my hardest to change the words they are saying in my head to at least represent some power outside myself (just maybe not God as they see it) because I want to believe there is something out there because I fully admit I am powerless over substances. I can't have them in my life, I can't handle it. I guess the question I am getting at is, are there any atheist out there that have found a lot of continued benefit from AA/NA without accepting that there is a higher power?

JeffreyAK

I'm an atheist and I wrestled with the same questions, and found LifeRing worked better for me - power vs. powerlessness. Your mileage may vary. But if I ever feel the need for sober companionship, there are lots of AA meetings around and I have no problems just going for a couple hours for the companionship.

silentrun

The AA Agnositca has some great stuff on that.

Shamal

I am an athiest in AA, who beleives its the right place for me at the moment. I'm developing a deeper interest in Buddhist thought, and also meditation. Honestly, the paralellels between buddhist ideals and the AA steps and traditions are uncanny.

awuh1

I came into AA much where you are, atheist/agnostic. The God talk annoyed me. I went to AA because I had to admit that I was repeatedly unsuccessful quitting on my own. AA became a power greater than I was. The fellowship helped to keep me sober. I now have a power greater than myself that is not like any I have ever heard of. One of the nice things about AA is that you need not have any particular belief about what that greater or "higher" power is.

neferkamichael

Beddy3484, 23 days sober is FANTASTIC, congratulations. I'm an evolutionist. Why would a creator god, create living creatures that have to eat each other to live, just doesn't make sense. I went to AA/NA for 2 years 7 months and put out an effort to do the steps, but it wasn't for me. What I did learn from AA was to separate spirituality from religious believe and I have completely abandoned the idea that I need a higher power. I take full credit for being 4 years 7 months sober. Please don't let anyone tell you, you "have" to work some kinda program to stay sober. You'll stay sober if you want too, rootin for ya.

anattaboy

Welcome Beddy! This one is tough. 5 years ago I found a few who shared our saneness but lately I've found it alienating and way too time consuming to sift through the BS to get the human message. Bigger metro areas have secular groups and of course there is SR and other online groups/forums. Any Buddhist practice can work as addiction is just one of the myriad of attachments we all have. I sit at home and am gravitating to more interaction with regular folk. This has been a life-long evolution for me (shedding superstition and Magical thinking) and there is no going back. Best wishes on finding a few you can relate to. We're out there but not so many in the rooms anymore.

jazzfish

I tried it years ago and then again last year. Ultimately, the philosophical compromises ate away at me to much. How to reconcile the higher power and my beliefs began to become a bigger issue than staying sober. If I joined in the Lord's Prayer circle at the end, I felt like a liar and compromised. If I sat silently outside the circle, I felt like an unwanted outsider. Eventually, I realized I needed something that was 100% true to my beliefs and focused solely on my sobriety.

dwtbd

I think it is incumbent that each of us honestly assess what are true benefits and then strive to achieve them. Find good values, those worth gaining and keeping , and try to gain and keep them.
Take what is valuable to you and leave the rest, that works in the "rooms"., yes? Perhaps when you hear higher power substitute higher self. Maybe don't give over power or your resolve to undefinable or fanciful credo, but instead trust that which is in you, the potential higher self and strive to realize your potential. We all have it in us, we have to , that's where 'it' comes from, we are beings of self made soul.
Don't set up a roadblock to your success by creating the ghost of a unrealizable credo, take part of it , the valuable part, tweak it and use it for your success. You got this.

Boleo

Same here. However, I post in this forum for a different reason than most here.

I started out believing in a Good-Old-Deity type GOD but failed to get any results with that belief.

However, I was headed towards wining a Darwin Award with that not-so-higher-power so I had to kick that GOD to the curb.

I ended up with "a power greater than myself that is not like any I have ever heard of."

Guider Of Decisions

Hawks

It's a weird thing to be so bothered by talk of something that an atheist fundamentally believes does not exist.

Kinda like being bothered by talk of a tyranasaurus Rex that destroyed a Japanese city

"I just saw the movie Godzilla"

"please don't talk about this, it really irritates me"

It doesn't make any sense to be bothered by things that don't exist.... Right?

Hawks

Double

silentrun

I am sure if the program stated that you had to turn it over to "the unicorn of your understanding" you would have a problem adapting. That is all he is trying to do is find a way to use the tools of the AA program in an authentic way.

jazzfish

While ultimately the whole program did not work for me, I did find a "higher power" concept that did. My "higher power" was the combined knowledge and experience of all the people in the program. The "voice" was usually the common message that rose above the single voices.

beddy3484

When did anyone say they were SO bothered? I said I respect what religion can do for some people, it just doesn't work for me. I never said it irritates me either. All I was saying is I want to stay sober and I see some good things in AA/NA but I really struggle with the emphasis that is sometimes placed on needing to find "God" in order for the program to really work. This is a scary time in my life so I was looking for advice from people with similar perspectives. That is all.

Fly N Buy

Glad you are here~! We are all searching.......

I did find on SR the power greater than myself is the ignore button
Believe I have more on ignore than friends. Either that's really healthy or very sick......not certain.

Boleo

My drinking eventually got so bad that I would have turned my will over to a Unicorn.

I would not have liked it... but I was desperate enough and had enough willingness to try anything.

mfanch

It's all about right-sizing my ego. I currently have a higher power I call "NOT ME".

silentrun

Fortunately he can do better than unicorn. There are resources for atheists. The unicorn was for Hawks to help him understand where an atheist may be coming from.

damselfly

I have been desperate enough to turn my will over to just about anything.

Unfortunately, that hasn't worked for me if my addiction is more powerful than the thing I choose as a higher power. And (I can only speak for myself, of course) my addiction happens to be more powerful than a unicorn, or a doorknob, or a god that I don't believe in.

But I do know that there are a lot of atheists/agnostics who are sober in AA. Some don't work the steps at all, some use the group as a higher power, some use the idea of "higher self." Many paths . . .