dSober

Oops, forgot about this. While in my last rehab, I attended AA, NA and CA meetings. I have milestone tokens from all three. While meetings differ, my experience is that even within one "sect" they differ substantially sometimes. To me, they're all basically the same. They all evolved from the 1939 Big Book. As an recovering alcoholic, I go mostly to AA meetings. There are also a more of them, at least around me. However, I feel perfectly comfortable at all of them.

Gilmer

I'm a believer and I just do SR.

adams

Ditto

dblightstream

Well, my input is first to mix and match. Lifering, SOS, Hams, SMART, AVERT, etc all believe in us going to other sources if we need to fit that approach into our recovery plan. Mine has been stitched together for decades from borrowing from various sources. It is about us recovering, not what organization we want to represent. If you do choose one program to follow eventually, good! If you dont, also good! If you stay sober, live live sober and Happy, and help others with similiar experiences, Great!!

dSober

Yep, that's the bottom line.

Nuudawn

I have been trying to add AA to my recovery plan...and I'm not sure it's working. Although I am open to the wisdom of others faiths, I take great counsel from the story of Jesus. I really wanted to find a place in AA as I love the concept of sober community and spiritual pursuit. There the biggest, most well organized truck on the block.
But something just isn't ringing right. I do not feel uplifted in those rooms. I usually leave in a heavier more frustrated mood than when I arrived.
Saddens me.
Perhaps I need to start looking at the church communities again.

NoelleR

Hey Nuudawn.....

Have you checked out Celebrate Recovery--A Christ-Centered Recovery Program? There aren't as many in Canada as in the US, but you might want to check their site (for there).

Celebrate Recovery - A Christ Centred Recovery Program |

(o:
NoelleR

Nuudawn

Thanks for the link Noelle. There is actually a group that meets in a city about 25 minutes from me Thursday night. I may check it out

dSober

I take great counsel from what I feel as the spirit of Jesus. Not necessarily the story of Jesus as it evolved through the ages to the current printed bible(s). I also take great counsel from what I feel as the spirit of others. Muhammad, Buddha, ... I feel they were all talking about more or less the same thing although I must confess some ignorance as I never heard them speak directly.

Nuudawn

I actually subscribe to an idea of many prophets sharing the good word of love, good works, tolerance and the brotherhood of man.

SparkyMcSparky

Hi Nuudawn,

As a Christian who doesn't subscribe to AA teachings, I think a lot of this may depend on your views of theology.

See, I'm a big believer in free-will. However, the concept of a omnipotent, omnipresent, all-knowing God flies in the face of free-will. If God knows how your life starts and ends, and every moment in between, can we truly have free will?

Good read for anyone who is interested:

Free Will and Determinism: A Dialog by Clifford Williams.

As per the OP, as a Christian, I would like to explain why I did not look to AA as my first choice when getting sober.

Being that I believe in free will in spite of my theism, steps 2, 3, 7, 11, and 12 of AA simply don't work for me. As I said in my secular recovery thread, it wasn't God who put the drink in my hand - it sure won't be God who takes it out either.

The free-will versus deterministic views are as follows:

Step 2: A higher power will restore us to sanity.....so did the higher power make us insane also? Either the higher power chooses to make us drink then not drink (determinism) or it gives us the choice to determine which path we want (free-will).

Step 3: Turn our lives and will over to this higher power (or God if you will).....either the higher power is in control or it is not. If I am deterministic, then I have no control - my life and will already belongs to this higher power. If I believe in free-will, then the higher power never decides if I do or don't drink. That is up to me.

Step 7: Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. Are my shortcomings something I choose, or are they inherently part of who I am? If my shortcoming is pride that makes it difficult for me to acknowledge I have a drinking problem, is it something I'm supposed to have, put there by my Creator, and to be removed at my request? Or, is the shortcoming due to me making a bad choice that I now need to own and correct?

Step 11: Praying for contact to know God's will for us and the power to carry it out. Again, we either have free will, and know the type of life we should lead as Christians. Or, we are deterministic, and accept that God will have us live our lives according to his plan, regardless of the individual's will.

Step 12: Carrying the message forward to others due to our awakening. If I believe in free will, then I will be advising others struggling with the same issue to empower themselves, and show the fortitude of will to overcome their addiction. If I am deterministic, then I will share how giving control of my life to my higher power has fixed my life, and that you too surrendering can also help yours.

As can be seen from the above discussion of the statements, someone who is predisposed to a distant, powerful, temporal God will likely tend more towards a free-will model. God is there, but he lets us make our own choices and fend for ourselves. This type of person may find success in rational recovery or other self-empowerment type models, and reflects more the beliefs of a humanist despite their faith.

However, someone who believes in a personal, engaged, active, and omnipresent God will likely find much comfort and success in the AA model. The act of surrender, the admission of powerlessness, the request for repair, and the dedication of one's life spiritually to help oneself and others is very similar to an act engaged in by a "born-again" Christian. This sort of individual is much more deterministic, and is very compatible with a "typical" theistic approach.

As I've advocated in my other thread, the type of recovery that works best for the individual is the one that works best for them. This likely comes from my past career in and managing sales; I know that no-one can sell a product they don't believe in. Recovery is the same.

For your recovery to work, you have to believe in your program. If you don't believe in your program, pull up stakes and find a program you do believe in. Regardless of the path, we all want the same thing for each other - soberness and happiness.

Boleo

Secular 12 Step Recovery - SoberRecovery : Alcoholism Drug Addiction Help and Information

dSober

I'm sorry but I just don't understand why so many want to give up on the 12 steps, as originally written. They work just as they are. They're not easy, took me 7 miserable years to get past step 3, for example, but they work. Maybe that's why... they're not easy. Licking substance abuse, and the underlying issues, is not easy. It requires work. Maybe it was easier for me. I was unemployed almost the entire 7 years, I had time to work at it, lol. Now I make time. That's easy.

SparkyMcSparky

dsober,

I don't think it is giving up on the 12 steps. These have been so successful for so many people, though I feel the peer and group accountability is the strongest part of why AA works for so many people.

In my secular recovery, I have used some of the 12 steps. But the parts with the surrender to theism just ring hollow to me. This makes AA a difficult model for me.

I've also heard from many well-meaning friends and family that "God never puts challenges in front of you that you can't handle".

So God is a sadist? He's like an older brother who gives you a noogie just because of the "challenge"? And all you have to do is ask him to stop giving you a noogie, and tell him that he's the boss, and then you get hugged and the noogie stops (aka Job, just without the stripping of the wealth and death of the family, or Lot without the whole pillar of salt thing)?

Great discussion. And as always, the sharing of my experience is only that. People should look at all recovery options available, and pick the recovery that works for them.

dSober

Rang hollow for me too... until saw God as a concept rather than an entity.

fini

Nuudawn,

i've checked out a whole bunch of different AA meetings, and found the 'uplift component' sorely lacking in some and soaring in others.
there was a meeting i attended once when i was diagnosed as depressed by my doc and off work for a month, so i had time. even though i was depressed, i was the most positive and energetic person in the room. wow. i went that one time and never again. wow, sad sad place and people.
others, the Roundhouse one, for example, are just the opposite.
and there are many in between.

just sayin': if you want to find an AA meeting that fits, it's probably out there.

dSober

That's been my experience. There are a lot around me. Several that fit nicely.

RobbyRobot

I appreciate your question.

I understand God to have knowledge of absolutely all possible resultants of my possible free-will choices. However, there is no requirement for all-knowing God to know of my actual free-will choices until after the fact of my creating my choices of same. Since God already knows every possible choice, whatever choice I make is moot. In this way, I am limited by my possible choices whilst God is not of course. I myself am incapable of having absolute knowledge of all my possible choices. I can only have knowledge of the choices I take into consideration...

So, I can have authentic free-will. God can authentically be omnipotent and omnipresent. I exist, and as such I'm different than God. This human difference gives me something God can never have dominion: my free-will to make my own choices. This difference absolutely defines our interdependent relationship with each other. What's there not to love in that?

dSober

I think God knows what He wants us to do. It's up to us to ask Him, listen carefully then do it.

Step 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

RobbyRobot

I can freely choose to not do as God may ask of me. If free-will exists, so too does my ability to say yea or nay to what God wants of me.