DefconOne

Deeply religious people and clergy believe in the mantra 'God is Good' in a literal sense even as a math equation God=Good. If you are having trouble conceptualizing the 'higher power' in the literature try substituting it with the 'higher good'; For example, turn your life over to the 'higher good'. I feel like I'm good, but there is always a higher good than me. Personally I have found religion to be a good thing in my life, but as a means to end my cravings for alcohol it didn't work for me. I've met a lot of drunks who prayed all the time. I prayed and still drank. What is the higher good? You must seek it on the good path. When you come to the fork in the road called 'truth' take it.

hokey

Big Book quote from How It Works ...

""we are willing to grow along spiritual lines."
"We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection."

These two lines make a lot of sense to me in trying to grasp my concept of a higher power. I'm actually letting it go ... not overthinking it and trying to come up with an absolute definition right away. The fact that I am willing and open to progress along spiritual lines is easier than trying to perfectly define my concept of God or a Higher Power. it's not something that is going to happen right away ... or ever perhaps. But I accept that there is SOMETHING outside of myself that is greater than I am. That's all I need I need for a start.

Don't know if that helps at all, just the way I am "coming to believe".

desypete

thanks for your kind words

i to believe in goodness and its in each one of us as people to be good or bad at any given time
i choose to try to be good and helping others is top of my list

my battle with life today is my battle with myself, the more good i can do the more happier my heart is
i am getting back to that now around the aa meetings again were i can find people in a mess and take them for a coffee and give them some time i dont preach nor do i have answers for them but i am there if there need a friend

it does me the power of good to be like this and i only wish i had started doing it years ago, as i was living in a world were it was all about me. life is unfair if it isnt about me getting what i want all of the time

i dont know why my son had to die. but i dont need a god who can only save some and not everyone
of course people are going to believe they have been saved by god and aa tries to portray this as some sort of fact. in a way of trying to make people connect to a higher power.
but it doesnt work for everyone i have had to find my own high power that i can believe in with all my heart and it fits me like a glove
its aa and living a life for good

i see a lot of unhappy people around the meetings who desperately pray on everything and they can not see the answer right under there nose

accept what is and not what you want the outcome to be

i had to accept my child was going to die we all prayed everyone i know prayed for us
my son was such a sweet kid at his funereal i was so proud to see other kids come up to me saying how much my tony had helped them in school etc he would stand up to bullies for example if they were picking on people. he would listen to kids moaning about there lives at home

he was wonderful kid with a wonderful heart
i miss him each and everyday i am only now starting to put one foot infront of the other and just getting around aa meetings and trying to help others again
i feel more spiritual now than i did a couple of months ago and i am even laughing around aa meetings again

thanks to the love and kindness i have always been shown by aa members not all of course, as many who are very much into god will not even speak to me but if thats what there god is telling them to do thats ok

but i do agree with you about the power of being good

Jupiters

so sorry for your loss desypete.
*HUGS*

but you make great points. glad I asked this question, the responses have been helpful in many ways.

SeekingGrowth

Desypete, I am so sorry for your loss. I can imagine how truly devastating this loss was - I lost someone I loved two years ago. He was 19 years old, I was his legal guardian and he was my "bonus son." He was also a heroin addict, and his addiction led him to a place where he was brutally murdered. My experience with this young man - the battle with his addiction and ultimately, his death - changed my life forever. Took me on a completely different path than I had been on before. He is the reason I joined and post on this site. He is the reason I volunteer at addiction treatment facilities and sit on the board of one such a facility. I have met some amazing people as a result of this path that he led me to. My life is richer, I am in a position to help people more than ever before, I have greater compassion and empathy than before, and I have learned so many principles and tools of recovery - the steps, the HP idea, etc. - all of which fit me like a glove, even though I don't struggle with addiction myself.

My life wasn't the only one changed by my "bonus son's" death. He had enormous impact on many lives despite his youth. I guess I conclude that life is a school. We are here to learn and grow, and we do so by the tough stuff probably more than the good stuff. I don't believe that this life is all there is - deaths and loss are here to teach us, test us, and help us grow, and as devastating as our losses have been for us in the here and now, our love ones are somewhere else right now, in some other form, learning and growing too. I can't explain the why's and how's any more than anyone else, but I have faith that even in the bad stuff there is purpose, and that it all leads to a positive end.

anattaboy

Many HP's in my life; Cops, Courts, Alcohol (if I drink),and sometimes my wife. I am a devout atheist who attends meetings for the human communion. I no longer ascribe to the Idea that if I could not find an HP that I could not stay sober. I got that impression early on and it was wrong. I still get that patronizing vibe of "keep coming back and we'll pray for you to finally get it" but I feel the same about my stance sooo....I talk about the weather or volunteer to help clean up--just interact on a human level. When I last "did" the steps with militant sponsor I told him I could not say the word "god" but would replace it with "common sense". This works very well for me. What I admire most about him and many others is their willingness to go to great lengths to help others who are suffering. This realization allowed me to not only connect in AA but the whole world outside of meself. The search IS still ongoing tho--we won't stop till we're worm food. For 3 yrs. I have been a practicing Buddhist and have a friend who just walks...a lot and it works for him. Keep looking and you will keep finding..........

wpainterw

Jupiters: I've had problems also with the conventional AA "Higher Power" issue but have "come to believe" that all that is needed is the realization that it's very risky to try to get sober without help from others (Note that I don't rule out the possibility that it can't be done alone, only that it's very risky to try to do that). In other words, most people need help and that often comes best from some kind of group. In a way it's a little like rock climbing. Some experts can do it alone, even without a rope, but for most folks it's very dangerous if you try to do that. And the end results of failure are horrendous. So my "Higher Power" is merely the conviction that I needed help- from others. And so far it seems to have worked.

W.

MandalayVA

I'm an agnostic (best described as "I don't know and you don't either!") and back in the day when I was in AA it was a real issue, since it was the American South where Higher Power automatically equaled God or Jesus. I was told flat out that if I didn't accept God as my Higher Power that I was doomed to drink again. God or a lack thereof has never had anything to do with my drinking. That's all on me.

With that being said, coming here and reading others' stories--some which are very similar to mine--helps me. E.B White wrote a great passage in, of all books, "Charlotte's Web," that really describes it:

“You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that.”

Jupiters

one of my old time fave books! thanks for that.

Gottalife

I had no conception or belief in God at the start, but I new it was important and I was willing to believe. The Big Book goes to some considerable trouble to explain that this is what the AA program is all about. How to find a power greater than ourselves that will solve our problem. "That's exactly what this book is about"

My faith developed through the steps pretty much as described in the Big Book.

Step 2, I was willing to believe in , but had no feeling for, a Power that I could not define and had no understanding of. Willingness is the key. For a time I thought of the AA group as a sort of higher power which worked ok in spite of its obvious limitations i.e feet of clay.

Step 3. When taken sincerely an effect, sometimes a very great one, is felt. I didn't feel any great effect that I was aware of at the time, but in hindsight I can see it was a turning point.

The next few steps are about removing the blocks between me and my higher power.

At step 5 there are a number of promises, which I experienced. For the first time I felt the presence of my creator. " we can look the world in the eye. We. An be alone at perfect peace and ease. Our fears fall from us, we begin to feel the nearness of our creator.I began to have a spiritual experience. the feeling that the drink problem has disappeared will often come strongly. We feel we are on the broad highway walking hand in hand with the spirit of the universe"

I read this in the book after taking the fifth step. My eyes almost popped out of my head. It described exactly how I was feeling.

Further experiences came from step 7

Then those step nine promises, not least of which was the realisation that God was doing for me what I could not do for myself.

Of myself I am nothing. I did not fix myself. AA is not a self help program. Although I have a strong faith based in experience, I am not religious. I don't try to define God, I just use the word god because I can't think of a better one. But, whatever it is I know it works, and the words in the book, that I did not understand at the start, now factually describe my experience as the result of taking the steps.

All I needed at the start was willingness and an open mind.

Jupiters

Then I am off to a good start. THIS I can do. If it's the start of something incredible, I can do that.

desypete

Of myself I am nothing. I did not fix myself. AA is not a self help program. Although I have a strong faith based in experience, I am not religious. I don't try to define God, I just use the word god because I can't think of a better one. But, whatever it is I know it works, and the words in the book, that I did not understand at the start, now factually describe my experience as the result of taking the steps.

if you didnt fix yourself then how did you get to an aa meeting ? how did you find a big book ? how did you find a sponsor ?

the answers you found were all in aa

without aa you wouldnt be here but it was you who went looking and asking and seeking

same as i did and everyone else who went along to aa and found freedom

i dont believe in god as you know simply because i see it as a made up entity, all based on a book called the bible
books are written by man, and men have clay feet as you say
the idea of going to hell was created to control people and it worked
people thought the earth was falt
they killed people for being witches all in the name of god
if i was saying this stuff back then i would be killed for speaking out about god

there is so much cruelty surrounding god that it beggars belief

so for me its right in front of my face what worked for me what changed me and what i still need in my life
aa and the people in it without them there is nothing, i would still be a drunk or dead

i need a power greater than myself i have it and its not a make believe power its something i can see feel and touch
it works if we work it
it will not work if we dont work it

^^^if that isnt self help i dont know what is but its also so
we have to work on ourselves as nothing will work if we dont

Gottalife

Desypete,

I would appreciate it if you would refrain from trying to tell me I did not have the experience that I had. I understand your experience is different. You did not take the steps as written because you could not accept the god bit in any form, so it is not surprising you got a different result.

My experience is described very well in the Book, especially as it relates to the promises.

I dont know how I survived long enough to get to AA. I don't know how the sponsor I aksed proved to be such a good choice as at the time I was a barely functioning human being with an emotional age of about 12 and an IQ not much higher than my show size. I lacked any kind of judgement.

I suffered from malnutrition and was verging on Korsakovs. Deciding which socks to wear was a big decsion, let alone working out how to change my personality enough to recover from alcoholism. I didn't even realize I might have to stop drinking.

Coming in with such a high degree of stupidity did not turn out to be a handicap. I was very gullible. I followed suggestions that came first through meetings and soon after through prayer. I was too stupid to challenge or argue.

I took the steps, then one day my sponsor told me I was three months sober. I had no idea I would last that long. At that time I had the first of many spiritual experiences, and the desire to drink was taken away. The world seemed to change, it became a better more attractive place for me. I had changed. I had naturally, without any effort on my part, begun to behave differently and people noticed, usually before I did. This was intuitive behaviour, not reactive cognitive behaviour. there was no psychology going on that I was aware of. 10th step promises.

AA does not keep me sober. Sacrilage though that will be to some, AA for me is a path to the God of my understanding, and it is God who keeps me sober and whose will I try to follow. It works very well and gives me a great deal of freedom and, having continued to perfect and enlarge my spiritual life through self sacrifice and service to others, I have survived all of the certain trials and low spots I was told I would encounter in Life, without the need to drink. I learned to turn in all things to the Father of light that presides over us all."

In the Book they have a saying "faith without works is dead". I can't find the passage where it tells us how "works without faith" turns out, so I wouldn't dream of trying to tell you that your experience isn't what it is.

desypete

sorry i wasnt trying to demean your experience, i was trying to show you were you got your help from in the first place

my brother went to aa and he got clean and sober and then he left aa to focus on church work
as he to found god and didnt feel the need for aa anymore

a lot of people put god a head of aa
i dont, as i know there the people who were there for me when i needed them
hence aa became my higher power and i love it with all my heart