Category: From AA Agnostica

By Andy F.

I came to AA in 1984 after many years of very self-destructive drinking. My first thirteen years in the program were a disaster. I was going to meetings every day, frequently, twice a day. I was still incapable of staying sober. There were several reasons for my continuous relapses. Firstly, I was in complete denial of my powerlessness over alcohol. Secondly, I could not embrace any notion of a power greater than myself. Six of the twelve steps mention God and a higher power. As a newcomer and an agnostic, AA’s twelve steps were an insurmountable obstacle.

A higher power; a bewildering idea for an agnostic

The traditional view of AA is that alcoholics are powerless over alcohol. They need a higher power to stay sober and recreate their lives. I convinced myself that I couldn’t use any conception of a higher power; I felt defeated before I even started. In my ignorance of the alcoholic illness, I decided not to bother doing the steps. This decision almost cost me my life. What followed was thirteen years of relapse. I almost died on several occasions. Eventually, I admitted that I was not a very effective higher power for my own life. If I wanted to save myself, I would need a greater power to overcome my powerlessness.

I made some limited progress with the other steps. Amazingly, I managed to get twelve years of abstinence from alcohol. I cannot say that my sobriety was a happy experience. It became increasingly clear that I would have to find a way of dealing with my resentments. I was angry and undoubtedly a tortured soul as a dry alcoholic. My survival depended on finding a way to resolve my conflicted inner world. It was when I was twelve years away from my last relapse that I had the experience that I am about to share with you.

After twenty-five years in the program, I was invited to a social gathering of Polish AA members in London. Despite being born in England, I could speak and understand the language. My parents came to England from Poland after the war. A well-known Polish psychiatrist named Dr Bohdan Woronowicz attended this gathering of AA members. He is a pioneer in the treatment of alcoholism and drug addiction in Poland. This clinician favors the twelve-step approach to recovery. The meeting to which Dr Woronowicz was invited was not an AA meeting but a talk. People asked questions, and he offered answers regarding the successful treatment of alcoholics.

I remember that day like it was yesterday. It turned out that what Dr Woronowicz said that evening was the turning point in my recovery. He gave me a new understanding of AA’s idea of a higher power. It may well have saved my life! After so many years of relapse in AA, I came to believe that I would have to find some kind of power greater than myself.

I sensed that this was the only way forward. A young and belligerent audience member asked the doctor: “What’s all this higher power nonsense about anyway?” The good doctor turned to him and, with a half-smile, told the following story:

The doctor’s interpretation of a higher power

A housewife walks into her kitchen one morning, shocked to find the entire kitchen floor flooded with water. The water is rising fast. It’s only a matter of time before it spills out into the rest of the house. It is sure to ruin the carpets and all the furniture. Understandably, she goes into total panic and despair. She acknowledges her powerlessness over the situation. Realizing that her home life will become unmanageable, she reaches for the phone and calls a plumber.

The plumber arrives quickly, finds the leak, and stops the water flow. He has saved a potentially disastrous situation. The psychiatrist then turns to the newcomer. “Is not the plumber, in her desperation, a power greater than the housewife”? His experience, knowledge, and skill were able to avert the crisis she found herself in. Authentically and practically, the plumber was, for the housewife, a power greater than herself. I was stunned!

A concept that made sense

The psychiatrist said, “Was it the plumber that was her higher power? Well, “no,” he said. “His knowledge, skill, and experience were all powers greater than the housewife.” I immediately wondered if Doctor Woronowicz was alluding to making an AA sponsor my higher power. He didn’t elaborate anymore. I had to figure the rest out for myself. He said that the twelve-step program gets alcoholics sober when they are unable to do the job alone.

There and then, my understanding of what a higher power could mean changed forever. As an agnostic, a higher power could be the experience, strength, and hope of a member who had worked the steps and transformed their lives.

The message and not the messenger; a greater power

I was always warned in AA never to turn another alcoholic into a higher power, but what about the message they carried? Their knowledge and experience of the AA program were a greater power. I was never the same again after that evening. I realized I didn’t need to believe in God or depend on some mysterious, invisible higher power to get well.

With the doctor’s practical analogy, I sailed through the rest of the steps using the AA group, the program, and the suggestions of a sponsor as powers greater than me! I have not found it necessary to pick up a drink for the last twenty-seven years. I came to AA in 1984 and was a serial relapser for more than a decade. If I wasn’t drinking, I was running my life on self-will, which resulted in a painful, dry drunk.

There was no surrender or acceptance of steps one, two, and three.

I finally went through the program using the guidance offered by an agnostic-friendly sponsor. Much to my surprise and great joy, I began to recover from this “hopeless condition of mind and body.” (BB p. 20). I am very grateful that I never allowed the “God” word to push me out of AA. I am now finally enjoying sobriety, happiness, and serenity as the result of going through AA’s suggested program as an agnostic.

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Andy F. went to his first meeting on May 15th, 1984. Having had negative experiences with religion and religious people in childhood, he found it impossible to embrace the twelve steps. Frequent references to God and a higher power put him off completely. He decided to pursue his recovery through therapy. Unfortunately, it didn’t keep him sober. He became a serial relapser and, several times, came close to losing his life. Eventually, he was lucky to find an experienced oldtimer happy to work with an agnostic. Andy was able to stay sober and recreate his life. It’s now been twenty-seven years since his last relapse. He is committed to sponsorship and has become an avid blogger. Andy’s blogs are about his experiences in recovery as an agnostic alcoholic.

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For more information about Andy and the books that he has written and published, click here: https://aaforagnostics.com/.

For a PDF of this article, click here: https://aaagnostica.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Getting-to-Grips-with-a-Higher-Power.pdf

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The post Getting to Grips With a Higher Power first appeared on AA Agnostica.

By Andy F

A vulnerable newcomer

As an agnostic newcomer, step three of Alcoholics Anonymous was an insurmountable obstacle. Before I describe my experience with the third step, it feels important to tell you how unstable I was in early sobriety. Moreover, the negative conditioning of my early life had deeply distorted my perception of reality. I will demonstrate why I could not embrace any notion of God or a higher power.

An angry agnostic

When I put down the alcohol at the age of thirty, I was an angry young man. Why was I unable to believe in God or a higher power?

At a very young age, I was placed in foster care by my Mother. This abandonment affected me deeply. My foster Mother was a deeply religious woman. She saw it as her duty to instill in her foster children the values of the Catholic Church. Emotionally, she was cold and indifferent and frequently put me down. I was made the scapegoat of the family. Rather than God’s love, all I learned from my foster Mother was guilt and shame.

As a young boy, I wondered where God’s love was in all this rejection and abandonment. Not only did I resent my Mother for putting me in care, I blamed God for allowing this to happen. I began to view the world through the distorted lens of resentment. I projected her hypocrisy onto the church and resented going to Mass on Sundays.

At the age of eight, my Mother took me out of foster care. She sent me to a Catholic Boarding School run by a Polish order of priests. Here again, we pupils had to go to Mass daily. By the time I was ten years old, I wanted nothing to do with either God or religion.

Steps three – First Exposure

I almost got up and left the meeting when I saw that the “God” word is mentioned in five of the twelve steps. “Why was God or a higher power involved in getting over addiction to alcohol?” I only stayed in AA because I didn’t want to drink again and had nowhere else to go. As a newly sober alcoholic, I was too vulnerable to fit into normal society.

In hindsight, I couldn’t think of a less appropriate intervention to treat my alcoholism than the idea that some supernatural power was going to keep me sober. I was so angry and full of prejudice to God that I made a conscious decision not to get a sponsor and work the steps.

At the time, I didn’t know that AA was a spiritual and not religious program. To me, it was all the same nonsense. I was determined to prove to myself that I could succeed. The Good Orderly Direction (GOD) offered in AA was not for me. This attitude resulted in several close brushes with death.

David B

Eventually, after thirteen years of relapse in AA, I went down to Chelsea to find David B. He had a reputation for being a rigid sponsor but someone who helped many alcoholics. Like me, many of them were “last gaspers.”

“Even these last gaspers* often had difficulty in realizing how hopeless they actually were” (12&12 Step one p.22)

Thank God for David! Even though he was a practicing Catholic, he never tried to shove God down my throat. David was about carrying the AA message to the alcoholic who still suffers. He never allowed his religion to interfere with his AA service work.

In my last blog, I explained how easy step two was with David using AA or the Group Of Drunks (God) as a higher power. Step three with David was also so simple that it was almost too good to be true.

An agnostic takes the third step

David invited me to his flat to take step three. The second step was so simple that I felt hopeful that David was the right man for me; I wasn’t wrong. He suggested we get on our knees together and say the third step prayer.

I immediately felt crestfallen. “Don’t worry,” said David. “You confirm your surrender to step one by getting on your knees. Since the dawn of history, kneeling has demonstrated complete defeat; in your case, the enemy that has beaten you is alcohol. By getting on your knees, you are also humbly acknowledging that, drunk or sober, your life remains unmanageable. We both know that “running the show” (BB p.87) of your life since you came into AA has ended in one relapse after another.

The third step decision

David asked if I had the “willingness”* to go to any lengths.

*” When he acquires willingness, he is the only one who can make the decision to exert himself.” (12&12 “Step three” p.40)

“At this stage of your recovery,” he said, “step three is merely a decision to work through the first nine steps.”

“We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God (Good Orderly Direction), as we understood him.”

Wow! David didn’t disappoint! Next, I received another gem.

“You are exactly where you are supposed to be. There is no promise of a God awakening when you get to step twelve. Relax; you are just at step three. There is still much work to do until you get to step twelve and the promise of a spiritual awakening.”

Having had a spiritual awakening* (not necessarily a God awakening) as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

The step three decision in action

Next, David tested the sincerity of my step three “decision.” He showed me how to tackle step four and suggested I proceed immediately.

“Though our decision (Step Three) was a vital and crucial step, it could have little permanent effect unless at once followed by a strenuous effort to face, and be rid of, the things in ourselves which had been blocking us.” (BB “How it works,” p. 64)

I wish that, as an agnostic, I had received this type of guidance at the beginning of my AA journey. I will always be grateful for David. He told me not to get too hung up on the “God” word and to get on with the rest of the steps.

Looking back, before I met David, I would have been better off dealing with my resentments to God in step four before tackling the implications of step three, which David made so simple.

What are your thoughts? Isn’t it high time that more AA conference-approved literature be made available to atheists, agnostics, and freethinkers? Should not AA make provision for every alcoholic coming into recovery, regardless of their spiritual beliefs*?

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*Spiritual awakening for AA members who don’t believe in the God of religion:

Secular spirituality is the adherence to a spiritual philosophy without adherence to a religion. Secular spirituality emphasizes the inner peace of the individual, rather than a relationship with the divine. Secular spirituality is made up of the search for meaning outside of a religious institution; it considers one’s relationship with the self, others, nature, and whatever else one considers to be the ultimate. Often, the goal of secular spirituality is living happily and/or helping others.
Wikipedia

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Andy F arrived in AA on May 15th, 1984, at the age of 30. He struggled for many years with poor mental health and relapsed back into drinking for over a decade in AA. He avoided getting a sponsor and working on the steps. As an agnostic, he rejected the steps because of reference to God and a higher power. He tried therapy to reduce his anger and inner turmoil. Nothing worked to keep him sober. Eventually, he met David B, an old-timer with a wealth of experience as a sponsor. He was happy to take Andy through the steps as an Agnostic. The results were spectacular! Andy underwent the “entire psychic change” mentioned in the Big Book. He still doesn’t believe in the traditional idea of a monotheistic God. Since then, Andy has written “The Twelve Steps for Agnostics“, hoping it may help other atheists and agnostics struggling to get well in AA. Recently, Andy wrote another book called “You can’t be a real alcoholic if you don’t believe in God“. It’s an account of his negative experiences with religious fundamentalism in AA. It is available for free PDF download on his website:

 https://aaforagnostics.com/

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For a PDF of today’s article, click here: Step Three – An Agnostic Interpretation.

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The post Step Three – An Agnostic Interpretation first appeared on AA Agnostica.

by bob k.

November 24 – To the New Thought idealist, it is the world’s false definitions of health, wealth, and happiness that weigh down and sicken the soul. Devotional practice – affirmations, prayers, meditations – works to loosen the hold of those false definitions of the spirit and thus restore the “natural health” and prosperity.
Language of the Heart, Trysh Travis, p. 77

Looking back on his unhappy years as a hopelessly compulsive drinker, Bill Wilson could see that he had adopted a flawed value system. When he went to a high school attended largely by the sons and daughters of prosperous parents, he resented being the tall and gawky kid from the neighboring mining village. His grandfather was something of a big fish in that very small pond of East Dorset, but the Griffiths were almost entirely without sophistication.

In Manchester Village, there were stately homes that served as the summer residences of people like Robert Todd Lincoln and Dr. Clark Burnham, whose wife Matilda had inherited the property. Young Bill Wilson decided early on that he wanted to be a Manchester Village person rather than an East Dorset person.

The Vermonter bought into the American dream of starting with a clever idea, working hard to develop that into a profit-generating business, then enjoying the accolades and rewards. At the peak of his success, Wilson was already well on the way to killing himself with alcoholic drinking. His plan was flawed. He later came to reject his former motivations and adopt new ones. To the New Thought idealist, it is the world’s false definitions of health, wealth, and happiness that weigh down and sicken the soul.

New Thought ideas filtered into Alcoholics Anonymous from a variety of sources that included the Oxford Group, William James, and Lois Wilson, whose family religion was a New Thought forerunner.

Is there truth in the old adage that money can’t buy happiness? Does one become overly competitive in chasing the American dream?

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November 25 – Before I can live with other folks, I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.
Harper Lee 1926-2016

Writers dream of penning “The Great American Novel.” The candidates for that trophy would include Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Faulkner, Franzen and others. Any such list would almost certainly include Harper Lee who authored To Kill a Mockingbird. Lee referred to herself as a slow worker but a steady one.

In North American society, there’s a lot of “jumping on bandwagons.” A thing becomes popular and it seems like everybody wants to do it. Many of those crazes have had devastating effects. Junk food became hugely popular and has contributed to the obesity problem in general, and more particularly, to childhood obesity. There has been no wisdom in the majority’s decisions on this. We have yet to scratch the surface of the health problems that might result from “energy drinks.” Tobacco is the classic example of a bad decision made by the majority of people. Not so long ago, it seemed as if everyone smoked cigarettes. Conforming is easy, while following one’s conscience can be quite difficult, especially when it calls for taking a minority position. The person who lobbies for protecting the environment gets shouted down by all the folks not wanting to pay higher taxes.

Many with addiction problems took the earliest steps of that journey in response to peer pressure. The desire to fit in, to not be seen as fearful or different, led to many first cigarettes, first beers, and first joints. Lee points out that such decisions that run counter to the voice of conscience, come with consequences. Internal ones. Ironically, those proceeding into heavy use of booze or drugs enjoy the conscience-numbing effect.

As an addict, were many of your actions in opposition to the dictates of conscience? Did lying go from harmless to abhorrent? Does your inner voice nag you when you’ve done something wrong?

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November 26 – Heaven is not reached by a single bound. But we build a ladder by which we rise.
– J.G. Holland

AA’s slogans, and indeed adages from other sources, can sound trite. “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” Well, of course it wasn’t. First Things First “can be tossed off without much feeling or understanding. But it deserves more than that. It expresses the important principle of orderly progress. Order is so essential that Alexander Pope even called it ‘Heav’n’s first law.’” (7 Key Principles of Successful Recovery, Mel B. & Bill P., p. 2)

In the words of both Alexander Pope and J.G. Holland, “heaven” could have a variety of meanings. In recovery, it can mean the calmness of mind that comes when the voice that screams for intoxication shrinks to a whisper. Even then, it pays to stay alert to the danger of overconfidence and complacency.

“Instant gratification and dreams of overnight success both go hand in hand with alcoholism… Though we probably had many warnings that we were disorderly in our approach to life, we did not heed them… We must first face the fact that drinking and other compulsive behaviors have been false, self-defeating attempts at the kinds of feelings and success we can get only by right thinking and the right kinds of actions.” (7 Key Principles, pp. 2-3)

Alcoholics have some experience in the practice of putting first things first. Our consuming drive to drink brushed away all that got in the way of that. Now is the time to put sobriety first. A wise oldtimer told me not to be seeking balance in the early stages of recovery. Balance could become a focus later on. People with long term recovery almost always had put AA first, to the point of imbalance in the earliest months.

Do I have the patience to build a ladder? Am I expecting too much too soon? Am I a seeker of instant gratification? Do I continue to keep sobriety as a high priority?

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November 27 – When you’re not used to being confident, confidence feels like arrogance. When you’re used to being passive, assertiveness feels like aggression. When you’re not used to getting your needs met, prioritizing yourself feels selfish. Your comfort zone is not a good benchmark.
Dr Vassilia Binensztok

People of various types need to exit their comfort zones. Otherwise, if nothing changes, nothing changes. In many ways, recovery is about moving towards the middle. The meek need to develop confidence and that is going to feel very different from what they have become used to. The shy need to learn to speak up and the loquacious and the confident need to speak less. Whatever the former comfort zone was, we want to move on from there to something new.

I used to be somewhat withdrawn but, from time to time, frustration and anger would drive me to aggressiveness. If you’d have asked me if I needed assertiveness training I’d have said “Definitely not!” Nevertheless, I was wrong. Assertive people can express their wants, needs, and dissatisfaction without having a fit. Folks who’ve been doormats and dishrags feel uncomfortable when they start to speak up for themselves, even a little bit. That same discomfort comes when they raise the priority of their own needs. As Beth Aich points out in We’re Not All Egomaniacs, a great many people need something other than the ego deflation that is critical for the Bill W. type.

Many might benefit from a look into codependency, a condition far more widespread than was once thought. Transitions of almost any sort come with a certain amount of discomfort. The comfort zone is so named for good reason. It’s both comfortable and familiar. I don’t think anyone’s goal should be to have zero selfishness—I think recovery is about finding balance. In some sense we target a middle ground.

Do I need to be more or less assertive? More or less selfish? More or less confident? Do I cling to the hope that I can stay in my comfort zone and still get better?

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bob’s newest book, Daily Reflections for Practical 12 Step Recovery, will soon by published and available on Amazon.

Of course he has written two other books which are quite popular and also available on Amazon: Key Players in AA History and The Secret Diaries of Bill W.

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For a PDF of today’s article, click here: Daily Reflections.

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The post Daily Reflections first appeared on AA Agnostica.

by bob k.

INTRODUCTION

When one searches the internet for inspirational quotes, there are thousands to be found, probably tens of thousands. To have peace of mind and more enjoyable lives, we need not change thousands of things. There’s a great deal of repetition in what adds up to the wisdom of the ages. As an example, letting go of resentment is a principal tenet of Buddhism. There are few new ideas, notwithstanding our desire to be original.

I have drawn from a wide variety of sources—psychiatrists, psychologists, psychoanalysts, philosophers, addiction researchers, and academics. You’ll hear from civil rights activists, therapists, self-help gurus, motivational speakers, presidents and other politicians. Our celebrity contingent has actors, athletes, talk show hosts, Mr. Grinch, Rocky Balboa and Taylor Swift. We have novelists, playwrights and poets; inventors, teachers, and businessmen. Artists and martial artists share their thoughts. Sociologists have looked at AA and weigh in with their conclusions.

There are snippets from the weird and wonderful world of conventional recovery literature and quotations from the wealth of (mostly recent) secular iterations of the 12-step process. Books written by women suggest some tweaking as we’re not all egomaniacs. Some critics present their objections to the disease model. We travel back many centuries for the wisdom of Buddhists, Taoists, Tibetans, Stoics and ancient Greeks. The ancient words remind us that there is very little that’s new in the world. We have some stellar quotations from some folks with tarnished reputations. The quotes from “bad boys” you may judge as you will.

We visit the science of addiction and I could not stop myself from offering some interesting bits of AA history. I also share some personal experience gained as an active AA member for the past thirty-three years. I hope you find value in the book.

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November 17 – You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, “I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.” You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
Eleanor Roosevelt 1884-1962

For most people, our instinctive reaction to fear is flight. We want to run, hide, and hope it goes away. Children literally run and hide. There’s even a game where we “hide and go seek.” There is only one seeker but many hiders. Of course, in playing the game, no one is really afraid.

Some of us are plagued with gnawing feelings of uneasiness that are constantly there. Only the level changes. The cause may be completely unknown. For others, anxiety comes in specific circumstances. I have to make a speech at school or I’m called on to answer a question. Perhaps I have the knowledge to respond correctly but my pulse rate climbs, my face flushes, and I might stammer or get short of breath. I’m afraid that the other children will laugh at me. When they do, my worst fears are confirmed. The next time, it’s worse.

When I discover the magical transformative effects of liquor, the anxiety of a stressful situation is quelled. A few more drinks and I feel a confidence that is indescribable. I like that so much that I drink as often as I can and, when the consequences mount, I discover that I am unable to stop. It’s a tremendous betrayal—my best friend, alcohol, has stabbed me in the back. In recovery, I rack up some weeks and months. There’s hope, but, in the deepest recesses of the mind there’s the faint music of an old song and a hard-wired promise that a bit of liquor will remove anxiety and other unpleasantness. Reliving the horror in my mind and remembering that it was a horror is critical. Sobriety at times means that I must look fear in the face.

Am I more anxious than most people? Did liquor or drugs remove fear, at least temporarily? Does living through a horror make the next one a little easier?

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bob’s newest book, Daily Reflections for Practical 12 Step Recovery, will soon by published and available on Amazon.

Of course he has written two other books which are quite popular and also available on Amazon: Key Players in AA History and The Secret Diaries of Bill W.

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For a PDF of today’s article, click here: November 17 – Daily Reflections.

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The post Daily Reflections for Practical Twelve Step Recovery first appeared on AA Agnostica.

By Chris N.

In Against Recovery and Self-Help, Part 1, I argued that alcoholism/addiction is not a disease, and that “treatments” for it that regard it like a disease often neglect the social context of addiction. If addiction is not a moral failing, and not a disease, then what is it? I claim that addiction is a disability, and that regarding it as a disability could be a useful starting point for positive change.

Addiction is a disability according to the Americans with Disabilities Act. According to the ADA, those with addiction, like those who have very limited or no eyesight or those with very limited or no hearing, are members of a protected class of persons. That class has legal rights to what has been called “accommodations,” especially in public places. Textured dots at intersections where there are crosswalks is an “accommodation” for those who need to feel (or hear) the difference in the surface of a sidewalk, in order to move safely as pedestrians.

The way that understanding addiction as a disability can serve as a starting point for change does not have a lot in common with that example of ADA “accommodation.” It has more to do with a critical study and social justice movement about disability. At this point, I might as well confess that I am a college educator, and have broad knowledge of an academic field called Disability Studies, that I bring to bear upon my own experience and understanding of addiction. So, before I make the case that addiction is a disability, and that this understanding of addiction is useful, I need to provide some background about Disability Studies.

Disability Studies and the Disability Movement

The Americans with Disabilities Act was passed and signed into law in the summer of 1990. This was after a long battle by disability activists for such a federal law, culminating with the “Capitol Crawl” on 13 March, 1990. On this date, disabled protesters rallied outside the Capitol in Washington, DC. Dozens of the protesters who used mobility devices set those aside and literally crawled the 365 steps from the National Mall to the doors of the Capitol. The Crawl is credited with pushing Congress and President George H. W. Bush to enact ADA.

Not long after, academic historians, sociologists, philosophers, and members of other fields began to theorize about disability. The development of this separate field of study is in some ways parallel to the development of fields like gender studies or ethnic studies. I will present some very simplified ideas from the field of Disability Studies, and in the next section examine how addiction fits in.

In Disability Studies (DS), there is virtually unanimous agreement that the wrong way to understand disability is through what is called the “Medical Model.” Under the Medical Model, a disability is an attribute of an individual person. For example, under the Medical Model, a person who has no eyesight has a disability. The individual’s own condition is, all by itself, the disability.

The Medical Model is rejected because it does not consider the social context. An opposed concept, the Social Model of disability, claims that disability is the result of social exclusion on the basis of an individual’s situation of condition. In short, it is not having no eyesight that is the disability. The disability is the result of social exclusion of that person from much of the exchange of information, since so much of it is visual and in written text. To give another illustration, it is not a wheelchair user’s underlying condition that is the disability. The disability occurs when the society in which that person lives fails to provide access to housing, transportation, or education on the basis of that person’s need to use a wheelchair.

To explain further: A society is built. Certainly, the institutions and the literally built environment of a society are built. These are designed, and the kind of mind and body that they are designed to fit is an idealized mind and body that is deemed “normal.” Any quick visit to a public library or a school building will reveal the ways that the social world is built so that some kinds of minds and bodies can access these spaces without undue difficulty. By means of designing things for that “normal” use, the exclusion of anyone else is produced.

A recent extension of DS called Crip Theory goes further than the Social Model in its critique of social exclusion. Crip Theory examines social norms regarding work and life. It’s one thing to criticize social arrangements for excluding individuals from places of work or education. Crip Theory questions the norms of work and education that underlie those criticisms. For instance, I have several conditions that make working on the campus of my university impossible. The university has permitted me to work from home, and thus I can work around the various conditions that I deal with: working when I am able, working without a fixed schedule, working in a quiet environment, etc. But all the university has done is provide greater access to a workload that is already excessive—indeed, the excessiveness of which has been a factor in producing the disability that I work at home to “accommodate!” So you see, Crip Theory asks not only “Can I access my work?” but also “Is my workload appropriate?”

Addiction as Disability

Addiction is not an attribute of an individual. It is a way of life that a society produces, that we adopt of fall into as a route toward some goal. For most alcoholics I have heard the stories of, that goal is release from distress that is otherwise unrelieved and unaddressed. For myself personally, it was distress related to intergenerational trauma. I drank for more than 30 years without that trauma being addressed, because there were not resources in my life to address is. There still aren’t, because despite having greater access to healthcare than many full-time employees in the U.S., I do not have access to decent trauma psychotherapy—very few people do.

The relationship between trauma I experienced from birth and blackout drinking I began at 20 is obvious to me, in retrospect. Of course, I can’t be sure I wouldn’t have been a blackout drinker for 30 years if I had had social or psychological support as a child—of if my parent had had support as a child before me, and had not reproduced their trauma in my own life. But I believe we can say that if I or my parent had received more social support, the distress in our lives would very likely have been decreased. For me, that basic motivation to seek oblivion would not have been pressing. Perhaps I would not live a life now still permanently altered by trauma.

By now, many people know about the famous Rat Park study at Simon Fraser University,^[1] in which rats in an environment that was rich in interesting things to do, and other rats to be around, gave up their addictions to morphine, while rats who did not have access to such an environment remained addicted. Parallel studies on mice and cocaine have had similar results.^[2] These have been interpreted by addiction scholars (among them Gabor Maté) to suggest that addiction is what happens when all other options for release from distress, and all other forms of social support, and virtually all other ways of life, have been barred.

Alcoholism/addiction is a disability in another way. Work policies that fire employees for drunkenness or druggedness, law and social policies that prescribe specific treatments (e.g., A.A.) under threat of more severe punishment, and general social stigma are all disabling. They are also close parallels to disparate treatment that disabled activists have fought against for generations, with some success.

This is not to condone drinking or drugging at work, or at all. The point is that alcoholism/addiction is a socially produced condition, not an individual’s condition. A society that expects, even requires the individual to “overcome” their own alcoholism, would be like a society that expects a person without use of their limbs to “overcome” the lack of wheelchair access or remote-controlled mobility devices for their use. It is too often this kind of “overcoming” that is modeled as “recovery.”

Like someone denied access to transportation or education, being denied access to forms of social support and relief of distress is a disablement that a society imposes on a person’s body and mind. Those who are disabled find ways to work around, cope, or get by—or they don’t. To use concepts developed from French philosopher Michel Foucault, a society exerts a controlling “biopower” on populations of disabled people and addicts, requiring certain forms of behaving in exchange for permitting access to the goods that they are generally denied. “Good disabled people”—those who “overcome”—are better served than “bad disabled people” and “good addicts”—those who “recover”—are better served than “bad addicts.” Another group is simply “left to die,” because they do not serve the interest of the dominating class.

Against Recovery

Recovery is an ideal. Accepted as an ideal, it names a goal for alcoholics or their condition if they consider themselves to be doing appropriate things to “treat” their addictions. Whenever a word has such wide use as a term of encomium, I suspect it of being ideological. What I mean by ideological is that the word names a belief that hides the fact that it is a belief, by making it appear to be reality.

The ideology of recovery begins with the notion that it is good to recover/be in recovery. This goes without question the way it goes without question that health is good—and with the same problem that health and recovery are not objective. Recovery suggests that something is being brought back, returned to its prior condition, or indeed overcome. What is that something?

Considered carefully, it can’t be anything. The alcoholic or addict can’t recover lost time or money or relationships. For me, sobriety has led to my facing past trauma in its raw form, and not having a lot of help dealing with it. I seem to have “recovered” the condition I was in at age 20 when I started drinking in the first place! But that’s not recovery, is it?

It seems like recovery only means something that is expected to be good that is supposed to arise as a result of sobriety. But nothing follows from sobriety but sobriety. What a person can do with sobriety very much depends on the same factors that it depended on before they were drinking or drugging. Their society admits or denies access to goods like employment and education in the same ways it did before. Only now, that person likely has a history of alcoholism/addiction, of “mental” health issues, or of various damages from their drinking and using days, that may further limit their access to those goods.

The goods that recovery promises might be gained through some individual act of overcoming. But I refer you again to the disability critique of overcoming: (a) not everything is overcome, (b) not everything should be expected to be overcome, and (c) a person’s worth is not measured by their being able to overcome.

What the alternative offers

Understanding addiction as disability reveals that alcoholism or addiction is not a disease. Alcoholism or addiction is a relationship, and a relationship that is not even primarily to a substance. It is primarily a relationship of an individual to society and environment.

What this understanding calls upon us to do involves the following, in my opinion.

1. Resistance to the disease model of alcoholism/addiction. This is resistance to the model that ignores the social and environmental factors that are at the core of addiction. It requires us to speak back to those who use the disease model, and to try to change the discourse, and change people’s thinking.

2. Change how alcoholism/addiction is treated. Our current treatment models, based on the notion that alcoholism/addiction is a disease, and that no social or environmental change is needed, ignores the fundamental basis of alcoholism/addiction. It would be as if our society did not provide any ramps or elevators, or appropriate-width doors for wheelchair access, and told those using them to make due. We give alcoholics something like a wheelchair, but ignore the fact that our social environment remains the same.

3. Work for social change. Disability activism has achieved a great deal for disabled people, with some notable exceptions, mostly concerning “mental” and “behavioral” health. Present-day Crip and Mad activism, and activists in poor nations, have started to correct this; the self-identified Crip and Mad are speaking for themselves.^[3] There is not, to my knowledge, alcoholic activism or addict activism of a similar kind.

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^[1] An article about Rat Park and recovery is at: https://www.practicalrecovery.com/prblog/rat-park/ Accessed 30 October 2024.

^[2] For instance, see Chauvet, C., Lardeux, V., Goldberg, S. et al. Environmental Enrichment Reduces Cocaine Seeking and Reinstatement Induced by Cues and Stress but Not by Cocaine. Neuropsychopharmacology 34, 2767–2778 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/npp.2009.127

^[3] In disability circles, there is a slogan: “Nothing about us without us.” This refers to the demand to be at the table for drafting of policy, and law, or for writing academic work or medical studies. Alcoholics Anonymous practices something more like “nothing about us except to us”: avoiding the social and political like the third rail and remaining insular and unheard outside of “the rooms.”

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Chris N. is a sober non-believer. Critique of widely accepted ideas is his idea of a good time. He lives in central California.

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The post Against Recovery and Self-Help, Part 2 first appeared on AA Agnostica.

by bob k. 

We live in a boozy culture.

There is a stigma that falls upon the folks who don’t drink at all and a different prejudice against those who drink too much. How much is “too much” depends a lot on who is doing the defining. Of course, there’s a stigma in being a person who used to drink too much and now drinks no alcohol at all. Newly sober alcoholics often find that drinks are pushed at them at social events and it may be best, to the extent possible, to dodge such gatherings in the early going.

The stigma against non-drinkers is easing in recent years. Phenomena such as “Sober Curious” and “Dry January” have made the eschewal of booze in its many forms to be something “cool,” at least in some circles. In other circles, soda-only drinkers remain suspect and might find themselves branded as squares, cheapos, religious nutbars, or reformed problem drinkers. OMG! I hope Nina doesn’t start preaching! There’s some warranted ill will towards overly enthusiastic steppers wanting one and all to dance their dance.

There is definitely some prejudice against alcoholics and some suspicion even of those claiming to be sober. Celebrities have been interviewed on television about their newfound sobriety while in an obvious state of inebriation. Often they’d slur something about attending 12-step meetings and taking it all one day at a time —whatever the PR professional had coached them to say. Such public instances of hypocrisy damage the credibility of less renowned people who have genuinely stopped drinking or taking drugs.

Even without highly publicized celebrity relapses, those less than famous folks might also fall under suspicion about their professed sobriety. Did Charles miss the neighborhood bash because he was afraid to be around booze, or was he too drunk to come, just like two years ago?

Whatever the stigma in 2024, the negative feelings about alcoholic drinkers used to be much worse.

Colonial Times and Early America

Drunkards have been pilloried, mocked, fined, dragged by the heels through dust, mud and cesspools, flogged and humiliated, all to only limited effect. In some areas, strict laws were enacted prohibiting chronic inebriates from getting married and having children. The unfortunate offspring of drunkards were viewed as suffering from the double curse of bad genetics and extremely poor parenting. In many jurisdictions, the alcoholic was considered insane and subject to incarceration in asylums at any time. Many were banished from their towns and counties.

Sunday morning sermons railed against chronic alcohol abusers. Inebriates were among the worst of sinners. “Most Americans saw excessive drinking as a simple lack of will. If people wanted to stay sober, the argument went, they would.” (history.org) Drunkenness was considered to be a matter of choice – a misbehavior that fell under the purview of clergymen and legislators.

Francis J. Galton — Eugenics

Charles Darwin’s cousin dropped out of medical school to study mathematics at Cambridge. Almost one hundred years after Benjamin Rush published the pamphlet An Inquiry into the Effects of Spiritous Liquors Upon the Human Body, and Their Influence Upon the Happiness of Society, Francis Galton went to press with An Inquiry into Human Faculty and Development. Galton had begun with a kinder, gentler version of eugenics than what was to come later.

“In a flourish, Galton invented a term that would tantalize his contemporaries, inspire his disciples, obsess his later followers, and eventually slash through the twentieth century like a sword.” (War Against the Weak, Edwin Black)

In 1883, Darwin’s cousin coined the term “eugenics” to describe a social philosophy of manipulating heredity scientifically. “Later, a ‘negative eugenics’ branch of this movement sought to decrease or eliminate breeding by those judged to be the most unfit of human stock. Negative eugenics grew out of the 19th Century notion of degenerationism, the belief that most social problems, such as alcoholism, crime, feeblemindedness, insanity, laziness, and poverty, were passed on biologically in more severe forms in each new generation.”
Slaying The Dragon, William L. White, p. 120

Darwinism had spawned social Darwinism which had adherents such as Herbert Spencer of “contempt prior to investigation” fame. Spencer denounced charity and instead, extolled the purifying elimination of the unfit. Reverend Justin Edwards had said the purpose of the Temperance Movement wasn’t to reform drunkards – it was to urge the temperate to remain so. “Let the unreformed continue to drink and when they die the problem will be solved.”

Reverend Edwards ideas are echoed in eugenic theory which posited that, by taking an attitude of benign neglect, alcoholics would die off through the process of natural selection. A more radical view favored speeding things along through marriage bans, exclusion of degenerate immigrants, sexually segregated institutionalization, and state-funded sterilization for drunkards and other undesirables.

American eugenicists believed the unfit were essentially sub-human, not worthy of developing as members of society. The unfit were diseased, something akin to a genetic infection. This infection was to be quarantined and then eliminated. Their method of choice was selective breeding – spaying and cutting away the undesirable while carefully mating and grooming the prize stock.
War Against the Weak, Chapter 3, Edwin Black

Sterilization

Throughout the first six decades of the twentieth century, hundreds of thousands of Americans and untold numbers of others were not permitted to continue their families by reproducing…

To perpetuate the campaign, widespread academic fraud combined with almost unlimited corporate philanthropy to establish the biological rationales for persecution…

Employing a hazy amalgam of questionable, falsified information and polysyllabic academic arrogance, the eugenics movement slowly constructed a national and juridical infrastructure to cleanse America of its unfit.

 …Mandatory sterilization laws were enacted in some twenty-seven states to prevent individuals from reproducing more of their kind … the goal was to immediately sterilize fourteen million people in the United States and millions more worldwide … Ultimately, some 60,000 Americans were coercively sterilized and the total is probably much higher … Eugenics wore the mantle of respectable science to mask its true character.

                  War Against the Weak, Edwin Black, Introduction

A variety of physical methods of treatment were introduced in the period 1840-1950. The most dramatic of these solutions was sterilization.

This idea developed within a broader framework of social and “expert” attitudes that filled journals and the popular press that “parents addicted to alcohol and other drugs begat children with vulnerability to inebriety, feeblemindedness, prostitution and criminality, psychic manias, and an unending list of physical infirmities. As early as 1888, Clum identified alcoholism as the primary cause of insanity, idiocy, pauperism, criminality, and disease.” (Dragon, p. 120)

One of the leading physicians of the era in the treatment of alcoholism was Dr. T.D. Crothers. His 1902 depiction of the moral corruption of the offspring of alcoholics was typical of what was to be found in the literature. “Often the higher moral faculties of the person are undeveloped, and the children of alcoholized people are born criminals without consciousness of right and wrong, and with a feeble sense of duty and obligation.” (T.D. Crothers)                     

Nazis

In alcohol, we have to recognize one of the most dreadful causes of the degeneration of mankind.
Adolf Hitler

In July 1933, Germany passed the “Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring” which called for the sterilization of human beings considered to be polluters of the gene pool. “Ernst Rudin, a psychiatrist and enthusiastic protagonist of compulsory sterilization for psychopaths and the ‘whole, great army’ of incorrigible criminals in Nazi Germany, called for the sterilization of incurable alcoholics as well.” (Criminals and Their Scientists, Becker & Wetell, p. 480)

During the Nazi regime in Germany, 20,000 to 30,000 alcoholic women were subjected to forced sterilization. A total of 400,000 “undesirables” were sterilized. That the “master race” folks were sufficiently disturbed by the enormous social costs of alcoholism to take such draconian measures is less startling than the fact that similar steps were being taken in Freedom’s Land.

In 1934, the Richmond Times-Dispatch quoted a prominent American eugenicist as saying the Germans are beating us at our own game.

At the Nuremberg Trials, many Nazis defended their actions by indicating that their inspiration had come from similar policies in the United States, “the first country to concertedly undertake compulsory sterilization programs for the purpose of eugenics.” (Eugenics And Its Relevance To Contemporary Health Care, Nursing Ethics, Rachel Iredale, 2000)

California

The sterilization of alcoholics was part of a broader program targeting the mentally ill, intellectually disabled, blind, deaf, epileptic, and in some areas, Blacks. Promiscuous women were sometimes sterilized under the guise of being “feeble-minded.” Several states passed laws allowing for this practice, but rates were low until a 1927 Supreme Court decision legitimized eugenic sterilization. The practice slowed following a second Supreme Court decision in 1942, striking down the punitive sterilization of criminals.

By 1956, 27 states still had pro-sterilization laws on their books. “California forcibly sterilized 20,000 people from 1909 to 1963… The goal was to rid society of people labeled feeble-minded or defective.” (cnn.com) In total, 65,000 individuals in 33 states were sterilized. We do not know the precise number sterilized as the result of being labelled “alcoholic.”

Part of the reason why the eugenics movement caught on so rapidly was because of the failure of the many ineffective reformatory and other programs designed to help the poor, criminals, and people with mental and physical problems.

Electroshock

Dr. Ladislas J. Meduna noted that agitation and depression lessened in the aftermath of seizures, and in 1934 the Hungarian neuropathologist began experimenting with chemically inducing grand mal seizures in schizophrenics. Some favorable results were achieved, and the psychiatric world was startled, as the disease had previously been considered incurable. The chemical treatments were abandoned after a short time owing to the “harsh collateral effects.” In its place, “convulsive therapy” moved on to electricity to generate seizures. Many alcoholics were forced to undergo electroshock therapy.

At around the same time, leucotomy, or lobotomy as it became known, became popular as a treatment for all forms of obsessional neuroses, including alcoholism. The enthusiasm for these procedures as therapy for mental illnesses is not remembered as medicine’s finest hour.

Those concerned with the stigma against alcoholics in modern society can take some consolation in the fact that in previous generations, it was much, much worse.

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bob k. is the author of Key Players in AA History and The Secret Diaries of Bill W., both published by AA Agnostica. Research into the pre-AA world of alcoholism and addiction treatment came up with this gruesome story. For more about drinkers and drinking prior to 1935, watch for Almost Hopeless: Pre-AA Efforts to Reform America’s Alcoholics coming soon to an Amazon near you.

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The post STIGMA first appeared on AA Agnostica.

By Andy F.

Atheists and Agnostics in AA

Agnosticism and religion are two contentious topics. Rarely does either truly embrace a tangible inner spirituality. It’s a personal journey in discovering who we are and what works for us. Freedom to choose one’s spiritual beliefs should be the catalyst of any organization. Sadly, so many AA members leave because of the ‘God’ word. It appears in 5 of the 12-step steps.

I struggled with the idea of a monotheistic God and relapsed many times. On several occasions, I almost lost my life to alcohol. I couldn’t handle what I saw as the religious aspect of AA, so I never attempted the steps at all.

Over the years, I have spoken to many atheists and agnostics who came to AA and, on seeing the twelve steps, walked out again. Some of them came back when their drinking got bad enough. What about those that didn’t make it back!?

A clinical study published in September 2002 concluded:

“God belief appears to be relatively unimportant in deriving AA-related benefit, but atheist and agnostic clients are less likely to initiate and sustain AA attendance relative to spiritual and religious clients. This apparent reticence to affiliate with AA ought to be clinically recognized when encouraging AA participation.”
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12380849

“For the times, they are a-changin” – Bob Dylan

I want to reassure non-believers that AA has changed. The fellowship has had to adapt and change with the times. Church attendance is declining, as is belief in the traditional idea of a monotheistic God. More and more people are moving away from religion and finding meaning in modern non-theistic spirituality.

New Age, Eastern, and metaphysical spirituality have become increasingly popular with truth seekers worldwide. A belief in universal consciousness as a higher power is fast surpassing the dogmas of traditional Religion. Consciousness is seen as a creative and benevolent power that helps us transcend the limitations of the ego self.

These days, AA has had no alternative but to move away from the religiosity of a monotheistic God. It has begun to embrace something called secular spirituality. What is that?

Secular spirituality

“Secular spirituality is the adherence to a spiritual philosophy without adherence to a religion. It emphasizes the individual’s inner peace rather than a relationship with the divine. Secular spirituality is made up of the search for meaning outside of a religious institution. It considers one’s relationship with the self, others, nature, and whatever else one considers the ultimate. Often, the goal of secular spirituality is living happily and/or helping others.”
Wikipedia

More and more AA members now believe that members who don’t believe in God can interpret the twelve steps through secular spirituality. I and many others have found a way to work the twelve steps as non-believers.

The principles of AA remain the same for atheists and agnostics. We all share a commitment to spiritual growth and helping others. For instance, we’ve found that a ‘higher power’ can be interpreted as the strength and support of our AA community, a belief that unites us all.

Others say that members can get sober without believing in an unseen, God-like higher power. Moreover, some aspects of the steps, like admitting powerlessness and making amends, are also practically effective for non-believers.

A landmark event

The religious fundamentalists in AA have always believed that the AA Big Book is infallible. The idea that only God can help alcoholics recover from alcoholism was considered sacrosanct.

Several years ago, a landmark event occurred in Alcoholics Anonymous’s history. In May 2017, the AA Conference approved a new pamphlet for publication. It isn’t easy to get new literature approved by the Conference.

This new piece of AA literature, now approved by the Conference, is the result of the dedicated efforts of the Thursday Islington Agnostic, Atheist, and Freethinkers group in London, UK.

Here is the first paragraph of the pamphlet:

“A.A. is not a religious organization. Alcoholics Anonymous has only one requirement for membership, and that is the desire to stop drinking. There is room in A.A. for people of all shades of belief and non-belief.”

The pamphlet is called The “God” Word and freely available by clicking the link.

Where is AA heading spiritually?

How does the dictionary define secularism? It means “neutrality towards all religions.” (Wiktionary) That being the case, it could be argued that AA has always been secular. With the publication of The “God” word pamphlet, this seems more evident than ever before. If “AA is not a religious organization,” then by definition, it is secular.

Does this mean that AA is to exclude members that believe in the traditional God of religion; certainly not! AA warmly welcomes every alcoholic who has a “desire to stop drinking.”  (Regardless of “Belief and non-belief”  – The “God” word pamphlet.)

“The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking.”
(Tradition Three)

Excerpts from Bill’s writings

One of the greatest legacies left to AA by Bill W (AA’s co-founder) was the belief that as a spiritually based organization, AA should always be “all-inclusive.”

A short excerpt from ‘The dilemma of no faith’  by Bill Wilson:

“Consequently, the full individual liberty to practice any creed or principle or therapy whatever should be a first consideration for us all. Let us not, therefore, pressure anyone with our individual or even our collective views. Let us instead accord each other the respect and love that is due to every human being as he tries to make his way toward the light. Let us always try to be inclusive rather than exclusive; let us remember that each alcoholic among us is a member of AA, so long as he or she so declares.”
Bill W.
Copyright © AA Grapevine, Inc. (July 1965)

Here is another quote from Bill, an excerpt from ‘Responsibility is our theme’:

“Let us instead accord each other the respect and love that is due to every human being as he tries to make his way toward the light. Let us always try to be inclusive rather than exclusive; let us remember that each alcoholic among us is a member of AA, so long as he or she so declares.”
The Language of the Heart, “Responsibility Is Our Theme,”
Copyright © AA Grapevine, Inc. (July 1965)

‘All-inclusive’ – The mark of true spiritual power

As an enquiring agnostic, I have always been very suspicious of any religion or spiritual organization that insists new members accept their particular set of beliefs. This type of blind faith has never worked for me. I have always had to arrive at my own conclusions, ask questions, and seek answers. This approach to spirituality is the only thing that keeps my search honest and authentic.

Whenever I encounter any spiritual or religious doctrine that insists its way is the only way, I immediately become discouraged. My mind becomes closed to any further spiritual investigation. I have always felt that to be accepted into a religion, a new member must embrace its doctrine as the ultimate truth. In my mind, this type of rigid religious dogma made it exclusive and not inclusive.

Acceptance immediately became conditional. If I wanted to enjoy the benefits of their religious community, I would have to comply with their beliefs as being infallible. I was unable to do this as it never felt honest. When that happened, I had no alternative but to walk away.

I am so grateful that Secular AA and AA Agnostica are becoming increasingly visible in the AA landscape. It has given me the space and freedom to pursue my journey towards spiritual truth in a way that works for me.

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Andy F. went to his first meeting on May 15th, 1984. Having had negative experiences with religion and religious people in childhood, he found it impossible to embrace the twelve steps. Frequent references to God and a higher power put him off completely. He decided to pursue his recovery through therapy. Unfortunately, it didn’t keep him sober. He became a serial relapser and, several times, came close to losing his life. Eventually, he was lucky to find an experienced oldtimer happy to work with an agnostic. Andy was able to stay sober and recreate his life. It’s now been twenty-seven years since his last relapse. He is committed to sponsorship and has become an avid blogger. Andy’s blogs are about his experiences in recovery as an agnostic alcoholic.

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For more information about Andy and the books that he has written and published and are currently available, click here: https://aaforagnostics.com/.

For a PDF of this article, click here: Secular Spirituality.

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The post Secular Spirituality first appeared on AA Agnostica.