lillyknitting

Thank you sapling for your message. I have immediately gone and got my big book out of the cupboard to read it as you have suggested. There is no harm in giving it a go, there must be something worth trying than continuing with a life of pain, suffering and constant obsession, which is what alcoholism is all about. Your post has given me hope, faith and a feeling of joy that there is something that does work and which I have tried denying for years. After all, it must work because it has for so many people. Thanks

Sapling

You're welcome....I was helpless and hopeless....I really had nothing left to try. All I can say is....It can't hurt.....

Sapling

It may seem incredible that these men are to become happy, respected, and useful once more. How can they rise out of such misery, bad repute and hopelessness? The practical answer is that since these things have happened among us, they can happen with you. Should you wish them above all else, and be willing to make use of our experience, we are sure they will come. The age of miracles is still with us. Our own recovery proves that! Page 153 BB

SoberRightNow

I personally know several people in AA who are still athiests. They treat God as an acronym for Group Of Drunks or Good Orderly Direction and seem to benefit from the program exactly the same way that the more religious members do.

I'm somewhere in the middle for what that's worth. For me personally, the biggest benefits of AA are being able to spend regular time with other people who understand my problem and do not judge me.

Culture has changed a lot since the BB was written, but alcoholism is much the same thing. I too fail to relate to the parts of the book that display 1930's attitudes to religion and gender issues, but I relate to every word about the desperate horror of being a powerless alcoholic and I've not found another book that describes it as well.

I don't believe it's true that AA cannot work unless you believe in a spiritual higher power. I just think some individual members think that. But AA does not have the monopoly on recovery, nor does it claim to have so find something that works for you as an individual. That's all any of us do.

Sapling

It's not a religious book...It's spiritual...Having faith in a power greater than yourself. Mine happens to be God....Some people use The group of AA....It's a force greater than yourself that you can have faith in..

I listened to a guy in a meeting one time. Didn't believe in God. He had about 10 years sober. He had a terrible history with his father...So he came up with his conception of God that he believed was a father to him. Didn't look like his father....All loving..All caring...All knowing...The perfect Dad that he never had. He had all the things he didn't get from his father. He prayed to this father morning and night...during the day...Thanked him for a great day...Asked direction..Had complete faith in him. It worked for him. He had contented sobriety based on faith. That's all this program is. If he puts his will and life into the hands of this father that is his "God"...And asks for direction from that Father...He starts to change the way he lives....Doing the next right thing...Treating people better...Being honest...Helping people...And guess what...When you do that...Good things start to happen to you. Your self willed life run riot takes a seat. And a new life starts to emerge..Not real complicated.....Easier than drinking for me. The more faith you have...The better it works. And those 12 steps just take you closer to whatever your Higher Power is. And mine happens to be God.

Pigtails

Hi FlamingRedHair. I am an agnostic. I grew up in church though. And to me, AA and "religion"/church are two totally different things. Many people who believe in God are alcoholics. Many recovering alcoholics who do not believe in "God" as that term is understood/promoted by Judeo-Christian religions are in AA.

To me the Higher Power concept means: I am not the center of the universe. That was really hard for me to wrap my head around. There are other people out there besides me, and their actions or inaction don't depend--nor should they--on what I would like them to do. I have no control over them. In fact, I truly have no control over what happens in my own life-- because I could be hit by a bus today and either lose my life or my ability to live life as I know it, etc. Something out there is keeping me alive. Whether you want to call it the Universe, fate, destiny, etc... it is deciding the extent and quality of my life.

For me this was important because I needed to get in tune with other human beings and the spinning planet called Earth and to realize that I am not very important in the grand scheme of things, but, I am all I have in my own life; I need to care for myself and love myself and do good and right things for myself and others, while realizing that I have little to no control over what other people do, and sometimes I have no control over my own life, but I must keep living it to the best of my ability.

I am creating my very own spirituality as part of my recovery and through what I've learned in AA. It mainly has concepts from secular humanism and Buddhism... but it touches on concepts that are central to all major religions, including Christianity. Love my neighbor as myself. Live humbly and honestly. Do onto others what I want them to do to me. What goes around comes around. I will reap what I sow. Etc. etc. etc.

I am grateful to AA for showing me that I can have a spiritual existence without believing in a supernatural diety, or a "relationship" with my "creator" etc. I look at it as a relationship with myself, with the goddess within me if you will. The woman who wants to live a good, happy, healthy, peaceful, calm life. My Conscience. AA has shown me that to be true to myself, I have to develop my own values, principles, and "beliefs," and make a conscious effort to live accordingly.

Yes, the language of the Big Book is outdated. I find parts of it sexist, and biased towards religious people over agnostics. I'm with you that "We Agnostics" sounds patronizing, as if they are saying we need to just believe in God already, like they did. I am not sure if that is the true meaning of the chapter and perhaps my interpretation of it will change as I get to know more about AA. But I don't let any of this discourage me from seeking recovery and I don't let it make me bitter about AA as a program and a fellowship. The people I have encountered are well-meaning, happier, healthier people, many of whom don't believe in traditional religion/"God" at all, and who talk about praying to the universe/themselves, for Good Orderly Direction, and asking nature/fat whatever is out there that is bigger than us-- and come on, there are things that are "bigger" and more significant than us, like gravity and mountains and tornados and the ocean and oxygen, etc.--- to keep them centered, to give them wisdom and strength to live the life they want to live and are capable of living if only they stop being so darn self-centered. To me there is nothing in any of that that requires me to believe in a certain religion. I am not going to get my panties in a bunch about it, although I did before I really went to AA or knew much about it, so, I can understand where you're coming from. I don't agree with everything about AA and I don't like when people act like it's the only way or constantly quote the BB like it's a Bible and unless someone believes everything about it they're going to fail, but, I do understand it has helped them so much that they want to share it, and I have no problem with that, although it's not my cup of tea. But AA has helped me find a new way of thinking about things that feels much better than feeling empty and drinking to fill it all up... so, I am sticking with it.

I hope you will not let any of this deter you from sobriety. Find something that works for you and stick with it. Best wishes.

miamifella

There is something askew when members have to resort to resort to intellectual subterfuge (making "god" an acronym) or sitting out the Lords Prayer that ends every meeting.

I was skeptical when I started reading this thread. I am not a member anymore, but I like the BB a lot. However, reading this, I can see how it does make some people feel excluded. I had always felt excluded in meetings, but used the literature as my idea. But I wonder if the problems in meetings in part come from the BB itself.

I do not know. But I guess it is important to remember that AA like everything else in the world was created by human beings and the BB was written by human beings, so it reflects their own times and personal biases. Ask me if that means that we need to revise the BB or just stop reading it as if it were divinely inspired---and I cannot tell you.

onlythetruth

I have the same reaction to this. I do get, and respect, that others are able to interpret AA literature to mean all sorts of different things, but I couldn't do it myself. I am either too logical or insufficiently creative to be able to do this, and I found it intellectually painful to try.

RobbyRobot

It works for any of us because we have our own understanding of a higher power. The definition of that higher power is not important. Religious experiences are not the same as spiritual experiences. The differences between the two create different results, imo.


AA is a spiritual program, and working and living the program creates a spiritual sobriety. Whether the program can still work without having a spiritual higher power is not a mattter of personal choice alone. Without experiencing spirtuality, as we each come to understand spirituality for ourselves, without those personal experiences, than the full measure of sobriety as promised by AA has not yet been lived by that seeking person.

AA does not have a monopoly on recovery. AA is a spiritual recovery program and without spirituality it is not AA recovery. Its not that just some members think that. Its written into the program and the BB.

It is absolutely important that what works for an individual is what works and spirituality in recovery does not work, by choice, for some people. For some others, again by choice, spirituality works.

No problem you being somewhere in the middle. Its a journey and not a destination, you know?

miamifella

If A.A. is a spiritual rather than a religious program--maybe it is time to drop the religious stuff and stick to the spiritual?

Pete55

An Old Timer in AA once said,

"Their ain't no Atheist in the last life boat",

RobbyRobot

How do you mean drop the religious stuff? You mean like certain prayers and sayings?

If you do, well, each meeting is already able to make their own decisions on what prayers or sayings are or are not included in meetings.

To make a "rule" that no meeting can decide for themselves would be to actually make AA closer to having a religious dogma of intolerance than the present open inclusive spirituality it now enjoys.

Dee74

which is actually pretty insulting to atheists....

D

NewWay

Dee that is what I was thinking too. It reminds me of the saying that "there are no atheists in foxholes," when we now know that there are and were plenty of atheists in foxholes. There are organizations now specifically designed to support active military members and their families who are atheists. Pat Tillman is probably the best known atheist, and he was killed in Afghanistan in 2004.

Just thought I would point that out.

Terminally Unique

You mean like this?

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
   
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
   
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of a Group of Drunks.
   
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
   
5. Admitted to a Group of Drunks, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
   
6. We're entirely ready to have a Group of Drunks remove all these defects of character.
   
7. Humbly asked a Group of Drunks 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 Group of Drunks, praying only for knowledge of their 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 alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Ranger

Of course, a formal substitution of "Group of Drunks" for "God" in the 12 steps is far less clumsy when it is understood the "Group" being referenced is the AA collective rather than an assembly of winos under the 8th street bridge.

But I understand the transition from concept to application can be tricky.

Pete55

Many found it a cracker when used in line with a reality based illustration.

onlythetruth

It's even trickier when an inanimate object, such as a toaster, is used as a Higher Power, as in "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of a Toaster."

miamifella

Lets remember that you always know that an atheist does the right thing just because it is the right thing to do. There is no fear of punishment or reward coercing him.

Dee74

I didn't mean to draw this thread into a side topic about atheists quotes.
We should probably re-focus now

D