Thoughts on the 12 steps?
Member
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: UK
Posts: 6,902
Lots of good advice above.
I'd also add (as I know it's been thought in the past), just because an AA meeting happens in a church, that doesn't mean it's run BY the church, or that it's any more likely to have religious overtones than any other meeting. It's just that churches (esp Catholic ones) tend to give a much better rate for hiring out rooms than any other facility does. Plus they usually let us have a cupboard to store things there rather than having to keep lugging thing back and forth.
BB
I'd also add (as I know it's been thought in the past), just because an AA meeting happens in a church, that doesn't mean it's run BY the church, or that it's any more likely to have religious overtones than any other meeting. It's just that churches (esp Catholic ones) tend to give a much better rate for hiring out rooms than any other facility does. Plus they usually let us have a cupboard to store things there rather than having to keep lugging thing back and forth.
BB
Member
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: North Yorkshire UK
Posts: 765
"Hmm, a bit religious, a bit pious, a bit ambitious. There was the 'Christianity' feel. Look at the third step, 'turn our will and our lives over to the care of God' - steady on old boy, that sounds like a cosy version of ISIS. But now i know that you could be a devout Muslim with a sugar problem, an atheist Jew who watches too much porn, a Hindu who cant stay faithful, or a Humanist who shops more than they can afford to and this program will effortlessly form around your flaws and attributes, placing you on a path you were always intended to walk, making you, quite simply the best version of yourself it is possible to be." Russell Brand. Freedom from our addictions. Bluebird Books for Life.
No Dogma Please
Join Date: Jul 2017
Location: SoCal
Posts: 2,562
Originally Posted by AAPJ 
FYI - My AA sponsor is an Atheist. That said I do see a lot of God/religion type sharing in some AA meetings.
I can't say if AA will work best for an particular individual but I do believe most of us need to make some permanent behavior changes in order to get alcohol out of our lives. So if AA isn't for you then I suggest that you search for a solution/program that works for you. Many folks I have met just seem to give up on a using any program if AA does not work for them and IMO that's a recipe for failure. I hope you find what you are looking for.
I can't say if AA will work best for an particular individual but I do believe most of us need to make some permanent behavior changes in order to get alcohol out of our lives. So if AA isn't for you then I suggest that you search for a solution/program that works for you. Many folks I have met just seem to give up on a using any program if AA does not work for them and IMO that's a recipe for failure. I hope you find what you are looking for.
I absolutely agree that it was too religious for me. I gave it a shot, it simply doesn't work, and the meetings I went to were pretty secular. I agree with the first part of Brand's quote above. But not the rest of it.
Trying to work the steps for me was like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. It didn't work. It wasn't ever going to work. It felt wrong. AND it was stressing me out BECAUSE it was wrong and I wasn't sure about anything else working either.
I stopped trying when I went into my IOP, which did not use 12 Step. That and my therapist was my sobriety method. It worked.
There is a lot of "AA or nothing" groupthink in the recovery movement. It's mostly limited on SR, but I feel it still exists even here to a small degree. I've seen so many threads where people say that 12 Step isn't for them and the solutions given are all 12 Step based.
I think that this mindset can be dangerous. If I'd really thought that there wasn't anything else out there, any other paths given, that 12 Step wasn't the ONLY legitimate recovery tool, I'd probably have relapsed by now. I have also known a few people who didn't like religion and faith and for whom the Steps didn't really ring true, but they gritted their teeth and got through them as quickly as possible...then gradually drifted away from the program because it was never right in the first place...ending up in a not-very-happy place, neither fully recovered nor with a continuing program.
I needed SOMETHING, white knuckling rarely cuts it. It really takes effort to find another path. My hope is that anyone for whom 12 Step doesn't click who is really hurting and newly sober can easily find there way into a method of recovery.
12 Step absolutely works for many people, but not everyone. I'm one of the ones for which it wasn't a viable solution to take me all the way through recovery. May others in the same boat find a safe harbor.
Member
Join Date: Jun 2016
Location: Seattle
Posts: 107
I think the spirit of the program is basically the idea that you have to get outside of your head. The longer I go without getting feedback the wilder my thoughts can get. Group process or listening to the universe or reading the teachings of Buddha alaccomplish the same end, in my mind. AA and programs like SMART have some of the same underlying principles, if you look as well as many differences. AA is worked by for me but I have friends that prefer other paths. As long as you are getting what you need I would say you are doing great!
Member
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: North Yorkshire UK
Posts: 765
Originally Posted by MindfulMan
Bingo.
I absolutely agree that it was too religious for me. I gave it a shot, it simply doesn't work, and the meetings I went to were pretty secular. I agree with the first part of Brand's quote above. But not the rest of it.
Trying to work the steps for me was like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. It didn't work. It wasn't ever going to work. It felt wrong. AND it was stressing me out BECAUSE it was wrong and I wasn't sure about anything else working either.
I stopped trying when I went into my IOP, which did not use 12 Step. That and my therapist was my sobriety method. It worked.
There is a lot of "AA or nothing" groupthink in the recovery movement. It's mostly limited on SR, but I feel it still exists even here to a small degree. I've seen so many threads where people say that 12 Step isn't for them and the solutions given are all 12 Step based.
I think that this mindset can be dangerous. If I'd really thought that there wasn't anything else out there, any other paths given, that 12 Step wasn't the ONLY legitimate recovery tool, I'd probably have relapsed by now. I have also known a few people who didn't like religion and faith and for whom the Steps didn't really ring true, but they gritted their teeth and got through them as quickly as possible...then gradually drifted away from the program because it was never right in the first place...ending up in a not-very-happy place, neither fully recovered nor with a continuing program.
I needed SOMETHING, white knuckling rarely cuts it. It really takes effort to find another path. My hope is that anyone for whom 12 Step doesn't click who is really hurting and newly sober can easily find there way into a method of recovery.
12 Step absolutely works for many people, but not everyone. I'm one of the ones for which it wasn't a viable solution to take me all the way through recovery. May others in the same boat find a safe harbor.
I absolutely agree that it was too religious for me. I gave it a shot, it simply doesn't work, and the meetings I went to were pretty secular. I agree with the first part of Brand's quote above. But not the rest of it.
Trying to work the steps for me was like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. It didn't work. It wasn't ever going to work. It felt wrong. AND it was stressing me out BECAUSE it was wrong and I wasn't sure about anything else working either.
I stopped trying when I went into my IOP, which did not use 12 Step. That and my therapist was my sobriety method. It worked.
There is a lot of "AA or nothing" groupthink in the recovery movement. It's mostly limited on SR, but I feel it still exists even here to a small degree. I've seen so many threads where people say that 12 Step isn't for them and the solutions given are all 12 Step based.
I think that this mindset can be dangerous. If I'd really thought that there wasn't anything else out there, any other paths given, that 12 Step wasn't the ONLY legitimate recovery tool, I'd probably have relapsed by now. I have also known a few people who didn't like religion and faith and for whom the Steps didn't really ring true, but they gritted their teeth and got through them as quickly as possible...then gradually drifted away from the program because it was never right in the first place...ending up in a not-very-happy place, neither fully recovered nor with a continuing program.
I needed SOMETHING, white knuckling rarely cuts it. It really takes effort to find another path. My hope is that anyone for whom 12 Step doesn't click who is really hurting and newly sober can easily find there way into a method of recovery.
12 Step absolutely works for many people, but not everyone. I'm one of the ones for which it wasn't a viable solution to take me all the way through recovery. May others in the same boat find a safe harbor.
Member
Join Date: Nov 2017
Posts: 1,065
For me the 12 steps are very common sense and take the alcoholic or recovering person out of their own heads.
Someone knows they have a problem with alcohol, they know they can't stop on their own. Surrendering will to me is to stop plodding it alone. A thorough inventory gets you in touch with yourself and righting wrongs, well even little kids know to say sorry if they wrong someone. Service work, everyone should be helpful in life.
Alcoholics live in narcissistic vortexes of their own destruction. The 12 steps takes them out of that headspace. Alcoholics may have forgotten or never been taught them. The steps are just a recipe for living well. Some people need guidance because they were never taught these ideas, some benefit from someone helping them. For me, read them and thought quit living like an arse hole, you know better, do better.
Whether you choose AA or not, they are worth a read.
Someone knows they have a problem with alcohol, they know they can't stop on their own. Surrendering will to me is to stop plodding it alone. A thorough inventory gets you in touch with yourself and righting wrongs, well even little kids know to say sorry if they wrong someone. Service work, everyone should be helpful in life.
Alcoholics live in narcissistic vortexes of their own destruction. The 12 steps takes them out of that headspace. Alcoholics may have forgotten or never been taught them. The steps are just a recipe for living well. Some people need guidance because they were never taught these ideas, some benefit from someone helping them. For me, read them and thought quit living like an arse hole, you know better, do better.
Whether you choose AA or not, they are worth a read.
Currently Active Users Viewing this Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
