From AA Agnostica – Page 12

Faye’s Story

Fifty Chosen Articles:
Number Two.

This is the first article posted on AA Agnostica which was written by a woman in recovery (posted in November 2011, the twelfth article).

Faye was the co-founder of a “We Agnostics” meeting, launched in Toronto in September 2010. It was the second secular AA meeting in all of Canada. She has also been a board member of the International Conference of Secular AA (ICSAA).

By Faye P.

My name is Faye and I am an alcoholic. Like everyone else who has made this admission, it was not supposed to be this way…

I began drinking at the age of 14 and from my first planned drink with friends, my only purpose was to get as drunk as I possibly could. I grew up with a lot of alcohol around me and it seemed like it was my birthright to continue the tradition. From my warped understanding, alcohol made you happier, stronger and prettier. It was only when people like my dad were dry, that they were miserable and sad. Aggressive, abusive behavior seemed to be flare up at any time, whether alcohol was involved or not. At least if I was drunk, stoned or caught up in a fantasy, I was less likely to get hurt.

I drank and did drugs throughout high school, skipping class whenever possible. If I thought that I already knew what the teacher was teaching or if I found the material difficult, I was “out of there.” I loved to learn, but since it didn’t seem to be cool, I pretended that it didn’t matter. Somehow, I finished high school and got accepted at a university music program, studying piano.

The day that I arrived at university, I realized that I didn’t belong and that I was not like everyone else. They were talented and could play instruments because they had practiced. I had to keep my inability to perform to myself and the only way that I could look and act normal, was to secretly binge drink whenever possible. No one, except me, knew how I craved alcohol. It was the only thing that I needed to keep going. I had absolutely no self confidence.

Fast forward to a family and career life which on the outside seemed pretty wonderful. I had a remarkable career, a beautiful son and a successful husband. From all outside appearances, life was great. It wasn’t enough for me so I continued to drink whenever possible. Since the time that I was eighteen, I was a daily drinker. I drank to get drunk at least two days of seven. Looking back, I realize that I was pretty miserable, but I had stopped feeling since I was about sixteen.

During my forties and leading into what seems to be the longest mid-life crisis on record, things started to fall apart. My marriage broke up and I was going through an incredibly stressful time at work. I started to run marathons because I figured that no marathon runner could be an alcoholic. I also needed a way to burn the excess calories. After about three weeks of training, I created my ‘run and drink’ schedule, which now proves to me that alcoholics can be marathon runners. We can do anything.

At the end of my forties I lost my job and I crumbled. I wanted to kill myself because I did not want to go through the pain of getting to know myself. For someone who had blocked all feeling, the desire to die was pretty compelling. The only purpose for me to go outside was to look for a bridge from which to jump. I figured that I would keep drinking until I had the courage to end it all. My greatest fear was waking up in a hospital where someone might try to help me. I had to do it without fail.

As I was preparing my finances for my son and preparing lists for him, I kept thinking that these thoughts and actions were ridiculous. How could this happen to me? I kept trying to drink it away, but nothing was working. The only person who I was talking to on the outside was my landlord and he was starting to ask about all the bottles.

The morning when it seemed like it was time to take action, I decided that I would check out AA. I walked into a meeting that night and I felt like I was home. There was a 21 year old kid who was telling my story. I somehow managed to keep the facade going for a much longer time than him. My only hope was that he would find happiness before I did.

At first, I didn’t care about all the references to God in the program because in Brooklyn we were a very diverse mix of religions and cultures. Then I moved to Fort Erie, where the references to God were much more traditional and pronounced. AA was still the only thing that I could count on so I tried to let the God references slide. With my strong Unitarian Universalist beliefs, this was a great challenge. While I seek worship and ritual ceremonies, I do not believe in praying to God or to a Higher Power. I don’t feel like I am a chosen one and I don’t believe that any power sends me anywhere. While I love the lessons from my Christian faith and Christian friends, being open to nature and meditating works better for me at this point in my recovery. I like the idea of being connected to nature without something in between.

I am now the town agnostic and I try to learn from my Christian friends. Some are becoming interested in a non-theist approach and it is not negatively affecting their sobriety. I am trying to stay true to myself by sharing what is working for me in an honest and compassionate way. I have to remember that I go to AA meetings to stay sober and to live a more meaningful life. It doesn’t matter what I or anyone else believes. It is how one is humbled and practices the steps, which is important.

AA is extremely important to me and sharing the gift with others is crucial. It’s not easy. I am grateful to my sponsors and my fellow members for showing me how to live a life that I never thought was possible. I don’t know as much now as I did when I was drinking, but now the journey is actually interesting and for the most part it is fun. After a period of not wanting to face all of those who I assumed were more capable than me, I am back working in the industry that I love. I used to hate many of them, but now I like almost everyone, even those who are more successful than me. I am passionate about what I do and I can show that I care. Learning new things and accepting that I do not know everything has brought me incredible joy. I used to think that sobriety would be horrible and that it was only for losers. I now know differently and I am glad that I have come out an isolated shell which made me miserable and nearly killed me. I want to share this gift with everyone, without barriers and rules.

For a PDF of this article, click here: Faye’s Story.

The post Faye’s Story first appeared on AA Agnostica.

A Proposal To Eliminate The Lord’s Prayer From AA Meetings

Fifty Chosen Articles:
Number One.

This article, posted in November 2011, was the eleventh on AA Agnostica. It was originally written on an Olympia manual typewriter and circulated in New York City in 1976.

Sadly, forty-five years later, there is nothing at all in this article that has changed.

By John Lauritsen

All too many AA meetings end with a group recitation of the “Lord’s Prayer” (also known as the “Our Father”), a prayer peculiar to the Christian religion. This practice is wrong – contrary to the spirit of AA unity, and in obvious violation of the Third Tradition and the AA Preamble.

AA members can believe in anything they wish, including the fables of the Christian religion, but they have no right to exclude freethinkers from full membership in the AA fellowship. And we atheists and agnostics are not the only ones involved. There are also Jews, Moslems, Buddhists, Hindus, and many others who are recovering alcoholics.

The AA Preamble

The AA Preamble states: “AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution.” This is clear enough. If anyone claims that the habitual recitation of the so-called Lord’s Prayer does not violate the AA Preamble, then he has the obligation to explain what the Preamble secretly means, as opposed to what it so clearly says.

The Third Tradition

The Third Tradition says: “The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking.” It does not say, “first-class membership for Christians, second-class membership for everyone else.” It is true that no one is “forced” to say the “Lord’s Prayer”. The fact remains that someone who is not a Christian is forced into either dishonestly saying something he doesn’t believe, or feeling left out as everyone else in the room participates in a Christian prayer ritual. This is unfair and unnecessary.

The Honesty Part of the Program

Many AA members are not Christians, and their sobriety compares favorably with that of the Christian religionists. Nevertheless, the pressure towards conformity is sufficiently great that most of these non-Christian members stand up during the “Lord’s Prayer” (though many of them don’t say anything, or just mumble, or keep their eyes open). They are afraid of “standing out,” and probably – with reason – of being ostracized.

No one’s sobriety is helped if he is forced to pretend to be something he’s not, forced to say something he doesn’t believe, and forced to do something he believes is wrong. AA should encourage honesty, not hypocrisy.

But Isn’t It Traditional?

Reciting the “Lord’s Prayer” after meetings is indeed a habit, and if it is a bad habit, then it ought to be broken. Every sober AA member has broken a dangerous and insidious habit, and it should not be too hard to stay away from the “Lord’s Prayer,” one meeting at a time.

What Makes AA Work?

Probably all sober alcoholics would agree that a requirement for sobriety is not picking up the first drink. Aside from that, alcoholics would give a variety of answers, for AA is an individual program.

I would say that for me, AA consists of the realization that I am powerless over alcohol; that total abstinence is required on a 24-hour basis; that alcoholics can provide practical help and moral support for each other; that life is worth living and things can get better; that honesty is the basis for lasting sobriety; and so on.

There is no evidence that religious belief is necessary for good sobriety. Thousands of alcoholics have stayed sober and helped others to sobriety without having the slightest belief in the supernatural, let alone the Christian version. In the Scandinavian countries, the steps have been reduced to seven, eliminating all references to “God”, and AA seems to work just fine without “Him.”

What Harm Does It Do?

The “Lord’s Prayer” recitation is offensive to non-Christians. It makes it harder for us to feel comfortable in the AA fellowship and it undoubtedly prevents many non-Christian alcoholics from coming to AA in the first place. Who knows how many thousands of alcoholics never made AA because they were afraid it was a religious organization. And their fears will hardly be dispelled when they hear a Christian Prayer at their first meeting.

What If The Group Conscience Wants The Lord’s Prayer?

If so, then the group should officially designate itself a Christian group, whose meetings would be terminated with a Christian prayer. It would be a special purpose group, and should be so listed in the meeting book. Just as there are special purpose groups for young people, or men, or women, or gay people, this would be a special group for Christians.

If a group is open to all who have a desire to stop drinking, then its meetings should not feature a sectarian religious practice that excludes those who are not Christian religionists.

Conclusion

The “Lord’s Prayer” should no longer be recited at the end of AA meetings.

John Lauritsen was born and raised in Nebraska. He attended Harvard College (AB 1963), majoring in Social Relations (Sociology, Anthropology, and Psychology). In New York City he worked as a market research executive, while engaged in activism and writing on the side. He was in the antiwar movement since 1965 and the gay liberation movement since July 1969. He founded Pagan Press in 1982. For a decade, beginning in 1985, Lauritsen was a leading writer for the New York Native, which was then the world’s foremost gay newspaper.

He has fifteen books to his credit, including A Freethinker in Alcoholics Anonymous. The six most recent are about the great English poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley – his life, his works, and the circle of men around him. Lauritsen dates his alcoholism from his first bender in 1958 to his last drink in 1968. He considers himself a loyal, but by no means uncritical, member of AA. He now lives in Dorchester, Massachusetts.

Lauritsen has a section, Alcoholism: Recovery Without Religiosity, on his personal website and he has written many a fine piece on AA Agnostica. Here they are:

My AA, Right or Wrong (September 13, 2015)
Group Conscience Follies (May 31, 2015)
Sober & Out (October 8, 2014). A review of a book by the AA Grapevine for gays, lesbians and the trans gendered in AA.
Sophrosune: A Higher Power for Freethinkers (August 10, 2014).
Perry Street Workshop (February 16, 2014). This is where John attended his first AA meeting in 1968 and he still considers it his “home base”.
Physical Recovery (February 17, 2013).
Washington Forebears of Alcoholics Anonymous (July 15, 2012).
The Program (February 28, 2012). John writes about the importance in his recovery of the 24 Hour Plan.
A Proposal to Eliminate the Lord’s Prayer from AA Meetings (November 17, 2011).

For a PDF of this article, click here: A Proposal To Eliminate The Lord’s Prayer From AA Meetings.

The post A Proposal To Eliminate The Lord’s Prayer From AA Meetings first appeared on AA Agnostica.

A Proposal To Eliminate The Lord’s Prayer From AA Meetings

Fifty Chosen Articles:
Number One.

This article, posted in November 2011, was the eleventh on AA Agnostica. It was originally written on an Olympia manual typewriter and circulated in New York City in 1976.

Sadly, forty-five years later, there is nothing at all in this article that has changed.

By John Lauritsen

The AA Preamble

The Third Tradition

The Honesty Part of the Program

But Isn’t It Traditional?

What Makes AA Work?

What Harm Does It Do?

What If The Group Conscience Wants The Lord’s Prayer?

If a group is open to all who have a desire to stop drinking, then its meetings should not feature a sectarian religious practice that excludes those who are not Christian religionists.

Conclusion

The “Lord’s Prayer” should no longer be recited at the end of AA meetings.

Lauritsen has a section, Alcoholism: Recovery Without Religiosity, on his personal website and he has written many a fine piece on AA Agnostica. Here they are:

My AA, Right or Wrong (September 13, 2015)
Group Conscience Follies (May 31, 2015)
Sober & Out (October 8, 2014). A review of a book by the AA Grapevine for gays, lesbians and the trans gendered in AA.
Sophrosune: A Higher Power for Freethinkers (August 10, 2014).
Perry Street Workshop (February 16, 2014). This is where John attended his first AA meeting in 1968 and he still considers it his “home base”.
Physical Recovery (February 17, 2013).
Washington Forebears of Alcoholics Anonymous (July 15, 2012).
The Program (February 28, 2012). John writes about the importance in his recovery of the 24 Hour Plan.
A Proposal to Eliminate the Lord’s Prayer from AA Meetings (November 17, 2011).

For a PDF of this article, click here: A Proposal To Eliminate The Lord’s Prayer From AA Meetings.

The post A Proposal To Eliminate The Lord’s Prayer From AA Meetings first appeared on AA Agnostica.

Ten Years Old!

The Growth of Secular AA

By Roger C.

Early History

AA Agnostica was launched a decade ago!

The website was created by me and another person on June 15, 2011. It was initially called AA Toronto Agnostics and it was created simply to let people know about the times and locations of two agnostic meetings, Beyond Belief and We Agnostics, after the groups had been booted out of the Greater Toronto Area Intergroup (GTAI).

At the time these were the only two secular AA groups in all of Canada. Beyond Belief was my homegroup. The groups were expelled from the GTAI for one simple reason: we used a secular version of the 12 Steps.

Traditional AA can be rather dogmatic, and in Toronto it certainly was way back then. In the conference-approved Big Book, published a million years ago, God is an essential part of recovery. With a “God” – or a “Him” (this deity is both Christian and male) – in six of the 12 steps, a secular version of these steps was not allowed by the GTAI. Thus, the expulsion of the two groups. After a legal challenge that lasted roughly six years, we were allowed back in in early 2017.

In the early months of the website, there was plenty of pressure to remove a secular version of the 12 Steps that I had added to the menu.

The Steps were never removed. The Alternative 12 Steps (there are six different versions on the website these days) is the most popular menu item for people visiting AA Agnostica: roughly 150,000 viewers over the past decade, and that’s forty or so each and every day.

Indeed, I was inspired by the interest in the secular 12 steps to write a book on the topic. Published in early 2013 it is called The Little Book – A Collection of Alternative 12 Steps (with a second edition and a French version, Le petit livre jaune, published earlier this year).

Okay, back to the first days of AA Agnostica. Early on I decided to invite people to post articles on the website. I don’t remember why I did that. There are very few sites that invite people to share their experience, strength and hope and at the time I didn’t know of a single such website. Certainly, none that invited recovering alcoholics and addicts to write articles. Nevertheless, in the first year, forty-six articles were published on AA Agnostica. These were written by twenty-two people from three countries: Great Britain, Canada and the United States.

The growth of the website was on its way.

Middle History

Over the next few years, we became rather busy. For instance, in the period between mid-June 2014 and mid-June 2015 a total of 94 articles were published, written by 50 different people. And all of this is compared to 62 articles the previous year and 46 in each of the first two years of AA Agnostica.

Moreover, two important things were launched in April 2013.

First, AA Agnostica decided to help nonbelievers start their own agnostic AA meetings.

On the Home Page we added a message that read, “Want an agnostic AA group in your town or city? Click here”. And literally thousands of people did just that.

They filled out a form with their location, email address, and an optional phone number and comment. Others nearby that did the same would be connected, filled in on what needed to be done (How to Start an AA Meeting), and often a new meeting would be launched.

This was all managed by Chris G who estimates that this project helped start approximately eighty meetings throughout North America. More about that here: My Brain Goes Fuzzy When They Talk About God.

The project was ended in June of 2016. It was simply felt the goal had been achieved.

Okay, more numbers. When AA Agnostica was first launched there was a grand total of 87 secular AA groups in the entire world. In 2012 there were 99. When the conference in Santa Monica was held in 2014 (more about this coming up) there was a total of 181 agnostic AA meetings. In the next year, growth spiked to 288 meetings. When the 2016 conference was held in Austin there were now 320 secular AA meetings worldwide. (These numbers were shared on a website launched in 2002, Agnostic AA New York City).

Okay, now on to an event launched in April 2013.

At the time it was known as the WAFT (We Agnostics and Free Thinkers) IAAC (International AA Convention). Two women, Dorothy H and Pam W, who had met at the We Agnostics meeting in Hollywood, were the main planners of the convention. They chose to hold this first ever secular AA event in Santa Monica, California in November 2014.

What a plan that was! And it was so very well executed. Dorothy travelled across the United States and into Canada to attend as many of the 150 secular AA meetings as possible and encourage people to attend this upcoming convention.

And AA Agnostica also did whatever it could to help. Our first topic about the convention was an interview with Pam, posted in mid-June 2013: An AA Convention for We Agnostics. Overall, five articles were posted prior to the convention, one on each day of the convention, and two after and about the convention.

It was an historical event, to say the least, held at a Unitarian Universalist Church which turned out to be so much better than a conference held in a hotel! Here is a quote about the conference: “The convention lasted three very busy days. Consistent with its theme of Many Paths to Recovery, it was stunningly rich and diverse with fifteen panels, twenty-three workshops (and) ten speakers.” That is from an article I wrote at the very end of 2014, The Impossible Becomes Possible.

Two other conventions – now called conferences – were held after that, one in Austin, Texas (2016) and one in Toronto, Ontario (2018). Of course, articles were published before and after both of those here on AA Agnostica. And the next in-person International Conference of Secular AA (ICSAA) is now expected to be held in Bethesda, Maryland at the end of October.

A final topic in this section of today’s article: Books!

Over the years, AA Agnostica has published a total of 10 books. Except for the second edition of The Little Book and its French version, Le petit livre jaune, all of them were published in the middle years of the website: between 2013 and 2017. One of my favorites has always been The Alternative 12 Steps – A Secular Guide to Recovery. Written by two women, and first published in 1991 – amazing! – we published its second edition in 2014.

Let me explain why these books were published. When I got sober in 2010, I couldn’t find any books that helped me with my recovery. None. Nada. And I couldn’t stand the Big Book. Too much God, too outdated and ancient…

So, we published these ten books. And two of them were by friends who had written a number of articles for AA Agnostica. One was by Thomas B, who wrote 21 articles, and his book is called Each Breath a Gift – A Story of Continuing Sobriety. The other was by bob k, the author of Key Players in AA History. bob has written a total of 54 articles shared on AA Agnostica and I am now helping him produce a second edition of Key Players (this one will be personally published by bob).

Overall, 93 books – each and every one of them about secular recovery – were reviewed on AA Agnostica! An average of 9.3 a year, I guess.

In fact, the fifth article posted on AA Agnostica on July 27, 2011 was a review of Marya Hornbacher’s book Waiting: A Nonbeliever’s Higher Power. The review was written by my friend John M (who now lives on Vancouver Island). A few years later I had the pleasure of being on a panel with Marya at the WAFT International AA Convention.

Another one of my all-time favorite books was written by Jeffrey Munn, Staying Sober Without God. The review was written by another friend, Heather C, and I was delighted to meet Jeffrey Munn at the Secular Ontario AA Roundup (SOAAR) held in Hamilton in 2019.

Now, why am I telling you these book reviewers were friends and I met the authors? Simply because that has been the result of creating AA Agnostica: I have met many people and participated in many events. It’s all about connection.

And not just connection for me. The goal of AA Agnostica has always been to connect people with the reality of recovery without a God. And this happens – more and more these days – in Alcoholics Anonymous, despite the million-year-old Big Book. There is no need for an anthropomorphic, interventionist and male deity. The website connects people with people who’s recovery is all about their wonderful and non-godly experience, strength, and hope. That – from day one – has been AA Agnostica. I could go on and on with this topic but, well, I’ll stop here.

Alright, that’s our middle history. Secular AA groups worldwide. Three conferences, the first being in Santa Monica. And books! And now…

Today’s History

Over the past twelve months, ninety articles have been posted on AA Agnostica. Twenty of them were chapters of the book Do Tell, which had already been shared on the website when the book was published in 2015. Another twenty articles had been posted on other websites and were reposted here because they were well-written and useful, for example: Atheists and Agnostics: The Meaning of Life.

The fifty original articles were written by people from several different continents and countries: Canada, the USA, Latin America, Australia, Poland, England, Thailand and South Africa. Over the last decade, and counting today’s article, a total of 695 articles have been posted and the vast majority have been originals.

More numbers. There have been 3,500,000 views on AA Agnostica over the decade. These views are people who visit the website once, and never come back. And readers who regularly read our articles – a bunch of the viewers! Now, I know that total is not very many compared to, say, the Walmart website. But remember, these are recovery people, and mostly secular recovery people. That total over the years amounts to roughly 1,000 people every day – the first two years the number was not nearly that high – and these days roughly 200 different articles are viewed each and every day.

For the record, the most popular article is An Atheists Guide to 12-Step Recovery. Posted in 2012, to date it has had a total of 200,000 viewers.

And now, a question: Is AA growing up? Yes, it is. Slowly, but I hope and believe, surely. When the Big Book was written, 92% of Americans self-identified as Christians. That has dropped by almost a third; today 65% of Americans identify as Christians. As Bob Dylan put it: “The times they are a changin’”.

Thus, this website and the interest in it. But it is not the only such website these days. Joe C, the author of Beyond Belief, launched Rebellion Dogs Publishing in 2011. John Sheldon has been responsible for several websites. One of them is Secular AA, which first was created – with a different name, WAAFT Central – in 2014 after the Santa Monica convention. John also created AA Beyond Belief in 2015 which has now evolved into the Beyond Belief Sobriety Podcast.

Moreover, Alcoholics Anonymous is learning to accommodate we secular people. In 2014 our friend life-j wrote an article, A Grapevine Book for Agnostics and Atheists in AA. We asked AA Grapevine to publish a book of the 40 secular stories it had posted since 1947. In 2015, they said “no”. We pushed and pushed. In 2016, they said “yes”!

Finally, in 2018, the book was published: One Big Tent – Atheist and Agnostic AA Members Share Their Experience, Strength and Hope. It isn’t the best possible book, but it is certainly a move in the right direction.

As well, the GSO now has an online list of all AA meetings in North America, and it is called the Meeting Guide. And guess what? One of the categories is “secular”.

Does the GSO need to do more. Damn right! One of the things it must do is ditch “conference-approved” as its only category of literature. Go to a traditional AA meeting and the only things on its literature table are “conference-approved” books and pamphlets. Sad, given that so many good books about recovery have been written since that million-year-old Big Book, but true.

A final thought about the growth of secular AA meetings. As mentioned earlier, the total worldwide was at 320 in 2016. By 2020 the number had grown to roughly 500. So, what happened next? Well, the pandemic hit hard in March 2020. Had you ever heard of “zoom” meetings before then? It has had a huge impact on the secular AA movement. As bob k put it in an article on AA Beyond Belief, “The pandemic has taught us some things – one being that the thirst for secular AA exceeds our most optimistic imaginings” (Pandemics, Zoom & Happy Heathens).

It will be interesting to see the new numbers, post-pandemic…

Our Last Original Article
The Eleventh Year of AA Agnostica

After a decade of sharing every Sunday and sometimes on Wednesdays, today’s post is meant to essentially be the last original article posted on AA Agnostica.

Over the next year, the eleventh year, we are considering re-posting some of the most popular articles on the website. Perhaps the top 50 of our total of 695. Frankly, we haven’t decided how many yet.

On the other hand, if there is news that really must be shared – say, for example, about this year’s ICSAA conference – and we receive an article, we would consider sharing that. But certainly, no more new articles every Sunday. None on Wednesdays. As we mentioned earlier, a couple of hundred different articles are viewed every single day. And for that very reason, we do indeed plan to keep the website up and alive for the next years.

AA Agnostica: A space for AA agnostics, atheists and freethinkers worldwide. It has been a great decade! I have enjoyed it very much and have learned a great deal. And the connections. Amazing. There is no doubt that the secular AA movement will continue to grow and expand over the next years. As it should. And as it must.

Onwards and upwards, folks.

For a PDF of this article, click here: Ten Years Old!

The founder of AA Agnostica has written and posted a total of 84 articles on the website:

Ten Years Old! (June 13, 2021)
Songs about Recovery (March 28, 2021)
Songs about Addiction (March 21, 2021)
The Little Book – Second Edition (January 13, 2021)

Questions & Answers – AA Agnostica (August 16, 2020)
Nine Years Old! (June 14, 2020)
Reshaping the AA Culture (June 7, 2020)
AA Meeting Guide (March 25, 2020)
From 0 to 20 Secular AA Groups in Ontario (March 4, 2020)
Secular AA Pamphlets (February 16, 2020)
life-j (January 12, 2020)

Celebrating Ten Years: Canada’s Oldest Secular AA Group (November 20, 2019)
The Secular Ontario AA Roundup (August 14, 2019)
The Purpose of AA Agnostica (June 23, 2019)
AA Hospital and Institution Conferences (March 13, 2019)
What is AA? (March 3, 2019)
AA and the Lord’s Prayer (February 3, 2019)

Do Tell! and One Big Tent – Two Books of Stories by AA Atheists (July 22, 2018)
Survey Results – Literature for We Agnostics (April 1, 2018)
Conclusion: Who We Are (January 11, 2018)

Chapter 16: A Growing Secular Movement (December 14, 2017)
How to Start a Secular AA Meeting – FAQ (November 30, 2017)
Chapter 14: Progress Not Perfection (October 8, 2017)
Chapter 13: Santa Monica Convention (October 5, 2017)
Chapter 12: Literature for We Agnostics (September 7, 2017)
Chapter 11: Conference-approved Literature (August 24, 2017)
Chapter 10: Conformity and Conventional AA (July 20, 2017)
Chapter 8: Accepting Special Composition Groups (June 25, 2017)
Six Years Old! (June 15, 2017)
Chapter 7: Agnostics and Human Rights (June 7, 2017)
Chapter 6: Changing the 12 Steps (May 31, 2017)
Chapter 5: More Rejection (May 25, 2017)
Chapter 4: Early History (May 18, 2017)
Chapter 3: The God Bit (May 11, 2017)
Chapter 2: Rejection (May 4, 2017)
Chapter 1: An Agnostic in AA (April 27, 2017)
Introduction: Time to Rally (April 20, 2017)
Toronto Intergroup Yields to Agnostics in AA (February 2, 2017)

Atheists in AA – How It Works (August 10, 2016)
The Last Post (June 15, 2016)
The Second Secular AA Conference (April 17, 2016)
Changing the 12 Steps of AA (February 23, 2016)
AA Atheists and Human Rights (February 21, 2016)
A History of Secularism in AA (January 26, 2016)

A Special Project: The Practical Book (December 6, 2015)
The Spirit of Rotation (September 30, 2015)
Four Years Old! (June 14, 2015)
Do Tell! Stories by Atheists & Agnostics in AA (May 24, 2015)
A Tribute to Ernie Kurtz (May 3, 2015)
No Grapevine Book for Atheists in AA (February 18, 2015)
Key Players in AA History (February 8, 2015)

The Impossible Becomes Possible (December 28, 2014)
Still No Pamphlet for Agnostics in AA (August 17, 2014)
The Alternative 12 Steps – Second Edition (Foreword) (July 30, 2014)
Buddhism and the 12 Steps (July 16, 2014)
Three Years Old! (June 15, 2014)
Agnostic Groups: An Asset for the Future of AA (May 11, 2014)
Don’t Tell – Introduction (May 7, 2014)
A True Partnership (April 9, 2014)
AA – Spiritual Not Religious (March 16, 2014)
One alcoholic judging another (January 19, 2014)
The Biology of Spirituality (January 5, 2014)

AA Started in Riots (December 8, 2013)
An AA Pamphlet for Agnostics – The 1980s (November 10, 2013)
Booting the Bastards Out (October 13, 2013)
An AA Pamphlet for Agnostics – The 1970s (August 25, 2013)
Two Years Old! (June 23, 2013)
An AA Convention for We Agnostics (June 16, 2013)
The General Service Conference Stumbles (June 9, 2013)
A Million Little Pieces (January 20, 2013)

In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts (December 9, 2012)
We Are Not Saints (December 2, 2012)
The Lord’s Prayer and the Law (November 4, 2012)
Responsibility is our Theme (October 7, 2012)
The Origins of the 12 Steps (September 16, 2012)
Mindfulness and the 12 Steps (September 2, 2012)
One Year Old! (June 10, 2012)
Another Agnostic Group Ousted (May 6, 2012)
The Varieties of Recovery Experience (January 25, 2012)
The “Don’t Tell” Policy of AA (January 5, 2012)

Let the Wood Burn (December 13, 2011)
Indy We Agnostics Relisted (November 29, 2011)
The Spirituality of Imperfection (November 2, 2011)
The Responsibility Declaration (July 3, 2011)

Roger C has been an alcoholic in recovery since March 8, 2010. Later that summer he joined the Toronto group Beyond Belief, at the time the only secular AA meeting in all of Canada. In September, a second Toronto group, We Agnostics, was launched. The two were booted out of the Greater Toronto Area Intergroup on May 31, 2011. And that’s exactly what inspired Roger to launch a website in June of that year that became AA Agnostica.

The post Ten Years Old! first appeared on AA Agnostica.

Ten Years Old!

The Growth of Secular AA

By Roger C.

Early History

AA Agnostica was launched a decade ago!

In the early months of the website, there was plenty of pressure to remove a secular version of the 12 Steps that I had added to the menu.

The growth of the website was on its way.

Middle History

Moreover, two important things were launched in April 2013.

First, AA Agnostica decided to help nonbelievers start their own agnostic AA meetings.

On the Home Page we added a message that read, “Want an agnostic AA group in your town or city? Click here”. And literally thousands of people did just that.

The project was ended in June of 2016. It was simply felt the goal had been achieved.

Okay, now on to an event launched in April 2013.

A final topic in this section of today’s article: Books!

Overall, 93 books – each and every one of them about secular recovery – were reviewed on AA Agnostica! An average of 9.3 a year, I guess.

Alright, that’s our middle history. Secular AA groups worldwide. Three conferences, the first being in Santa Monica. And books! And now…

Today’s History

For the record, the most popular article is An Atheists Guide to 12-Step Recovery. Posted in 2012, to date it has had a total of 200,000 viewers.

As well, the GSO now has an online list of all AA meetings in North America, and it is called the Meeting Guide. And guess what? One of the categories is “secular”.

It will be interesting to see the new numbers, post-pandemic…

Our Last Original Article
The Eleventh Year of AA Agnostica

After a decade of sharing every Sunday and sometimes on Wednesdays, today’s post is meant to essentially be the last original article posted on AA Agnostica.

Onwards and upwards, folks.

For a PDF of this article, click here: Ten Years Old!

The founder of AA Agnostica has written and posted a total of 84 articles on the website:

Ten Years Old! (June 13, 2021)
Songs about Recovery (March 28, 2021)
Songs about Addiction (March 21, 2021)
The Little Book – Second Edition (January 13, 2021)

Questions & Answers – AA Agnostica (August 16, 2020)
Nine Years Old! (June 14, 2020)
Reshaping the AA Culture (June 7, 2020)
AA Meeting Guide (March 25, 2020)
From 0 to 20 Secular AA Groups in Ontario (March 4, 2020)
Secular AA Pamphlets (February 16, 2020)
life-j (January 12, 2020)

Celebrating Ten Years: Canada’s Oldest Secular AA Group (November 20, 2019)
The Secular Ontario AA Roundup (August 14, 2019)
The Purpose of AA Agnostica (June 23, 2019)
AA Hospital and Institution Conferences (March 13, 2019)
What is AA? (March 3, 2019)
AA and the Lord’s Prayer (February 3, 2019)

Do Tell! and One Big Tent – Two Books of Stories by AA Atheists (July 22, 2018)
Survey Results – Literature for We Agnostics (April 1, 2018)
Conclusion: Who We Are (January 11, 2018)

Chapter 16: A Growing Secular Movement (December 14, 2017)
How to Start a Secular AA Meeting – FAQ (November 30, 2017)
Chapter 14: Progress Not Perfection (October 8, 2017)
Chapter 13: Santa Monica Convention (October 5, 2017)
Chapter 12: Literature for We Agnostics (September 7, 2017)
Chapter 11: Conference-approved Literature (August 24, 2017)
Chapter 10: Conformity and Conventional AA (July 20, 2017)
Chapter 8: Accepting Special Composition Groups (June 25, 2017)
Six Years Old! (June 15, 2017)
Chapter 7: Agnostics and Human Rights (June 7, 2017)
Chapter 6: Changing the 12 Steps (May 31, 2017)
Chapter 5: More Rejection (May 25, 2017)
Chapter 4: Early History (May 18, 2017)
Chapter 3: The God Bit (May 11, 2017)
Chapter 2: Rejection (May 4, 2017)
Chapter 1: An Agnostic in AA (April 27, 2017)
Introduction: Time to Rally (April 20, 2017)
Toronto Intergroup Yields to Agnostics in AA (February 2, 2017)

Atheists in AA – How It Works (August 10, 2016)
The Last Post (June 15, 2016)
The Second Secular AA Conference (April 17, 2016)
Changing the 12 Steps of AA (February 23, 2016)
AA Atheists and Human Rights (February 21, 2016)
A History of Secularism in AA (January 26, 2016)

A Special Project: The Practical Book (December 6, 2015)
The Spirit of Rotation (September 30, 2015)
Four Years Old! (June 14, 2015)
Do Tell! Stories by Atheists & Agnostics in AA (May 24, 2015)
A Tribute to Ernie Kurtz (May 3, 2015)
No Grapevine Book for Atheists in AA (February 18, 2015)
Key Players in AA History (February 8, 2015)

The Impossible Becomes Possible (December 28, 2014)
Still No Pamphlet for Agnostics in AA (August 17, 2014)
The Alternative 12 Steps – Second Edition (Foreword) (July 30, 2014)
Buddhism and the 12 Steps (July 16, 2014)
Three Years Old! (June 15, 2014)
Agnostic Groups: An Asset for the Future of AA (May 11, 2014)
Don’t Tell – Introduction (May 7, 2014)
A True Partnership (April 9, 2014)
AA – Spiritual Not Religious (March 16, 2014)
One alcoholic judging another (January 19, 2014)
The Biology of Spirituality (January 5, 2014)

AA Started in Riots (December 8, 2013)
An AA Pamphlet for Agnostics – The 1980s (November 10, 2013)
Booting the Bastards Out (October 13, 2013)
An AA Pamphlet for Agnostics – The 1970s (August 25, 2013)
Two Years Old! (June 23, 2013)
An AA Convention for We Agnostics (June 16, 2013)
The General Service Conference Stumbles (June 9, 2013)
A Million Little Pieces (January 20, 2013)

In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts (December 9, 2012)
We Are Not Saints (December 2, 2012)
The Lord’s Prayer and the Law (November 4, 2012)
Responsibility is our Theme (October 7, 2012)
The Origins of the 12 Steps (September 16, 2012)
Mindfulness and the 12 Steps (September 2, 2012)
One Year Old! (June 10, 2012)
Another Agnostic Group Ousted (May 6, 2012)
The Varieties of Recovery Experience (January 25, 2012)
The “Don’t Tell” Policy of AA (January 5, 2012)

Let the Wood Burn (December 13, 2011)
Indy We Agnostics Relisted (November 29, 2011)
The Spirituality of Imperfection (November 2, 2011)
The Responsibility Declaration (July 3, 2011)

The post Ten Years Old! first appeared on AA Agnostica.

AA Atheist

Chapter 20:
Do Tell! Stories by Atheists and Agnostics in AA

Hanje R.

Few residents are in treatment because they choose to be. Most of us are “invited” by the courts, our employers, our family or friends. I arrived in treatment May 6, 1981 via an intervention that included family, friends and my boss.

We study the disease model: “addiction is a disease with biological, neurological, and environmental origins.” We learn about cross-addiction: “if a person is dependent on one substance, he is at high risk to develop dependence on any other addicting substance.” The counselors tell us it is important to get in touch with our feelings. We learn the symptoms of alcoholism. We watch videos, hear lectures and attend classes and twelve step meetings. They tell us that if we don’t change we will continue to suffer consequences: jails, institutions and death.

Lights out and final cigarettes are at midnight and we awaken early. Naps are not allowed. Neither are cassettes or cassette players. The residents share a pay phone and there is a ten minute limit on calls. We are responsible for our own laundry and women are expected to wear bras.

We stand in a cafeteria line three times a day, we do our own dishes and listen to people assigned to stand up and say things like: “My name is Peter, and I am a worthwhile person”. “My name is Sarah, and I love myself.” By night the cafeteria becomes an AA meeting or a screening room for videos starring Leo Buscaglia aka Dr. Love, or Father Martin on a tall, boxy TV set.

It doesn’t take long to let the routine and rules guide my days. I make friends, do my work and I am on time for all my meetings. For the most part I learn to fly under the radar, and make the best of my situation. I attend group and individual therapy and AA meetings. I am a model “prisoner”. We have in-house AA meetings, and, after several days, we are “allowed” to attend required AA meetings on the outside.

I try to embrace AA, but it is a struggle. When I look at the steps or hear them this is what I see/hear: one “spiritual awakening”, one “power greater than”, one “prayer and meditation”, one “His”, three “Him”s and four “God”s. That was all I saw. That was all I heard.

I ask a staff member how I am going to do this AA thing when I don’t believe in God. She explains that “in AA a higher power can be anything at all. Some people consider their higher power to be their twelve-step group.” I figure she is trying and I listen to what she has to say: “Your higher power can be anything. Your higher power can be a bar of soap.”

Soap? She stuns me with her response. Life-long atheist that I am, even I find this appalling. How can a person who purports to believe in God be disrespectful enough to suggest that a higher power could be a bar of soap? For the time being I give up on that question. I don’t want to hear that or anything like that ever again. I need a new approach to the whole God issue.

I know that there are AA meetings at the local Unitarian Universalist Church, the church of my childhood. I am convinced that if I attend a meeting there, everything will come clear to me. Unitarian Universalism is a faith tradition that encourages each individual to develop a personal faith. It draws from many different religions, in the belief that no one religion has all the answers and that most have something to teach us. I came to my atheist beliefs while growing up in the UU Church. It was a conscious decision and I was supported in my choice by my church family.

A doctoral dissertation – “Experiences of Atheists and Agnostics in AA” – is based on the book Do Tell. For more information click on the above image.

I deduce that if I can attend the AA meeting at the UU Church, I will find a whole roomful of like-minded people. I am sure that the meeting will be different and I will meet people who have successfully dealt with the questions I am asking about how to make AA work for me.

I am surprised to find this meeting is the same as every other AA meeting I have attended. Its location in the UU Church does not solve the issue of “God language”. The words they use are the same. People’s stories are the same. The lesson I learn here is that a twelve step meeting is a twelve step meeting is a twelve step meeting. It’s about the meeting, not about where it is held.

For all my struggles with AA, I do intend to stay sober. Or at least most of the time there is a good possibility that I will try to stay sober. Part of my brain is absorbing everything. I understand addiction. I understand the disease model. I understand cross-addiction. I see that the longer you drink, the more you can drink, until you can’t any more. I get that we were all trying to achieve those early highs, and no longer able to, we consume more, we consume something different, we fail, and we have no other solutions. I understand that sobriety is probably the only way out of the cycle of drug and alcohol use. I even believe that AA is my best bet for living a sober life.

When I graduate from treatment, I move to a halfway house for 90 days and then into a house with four other sober women. I attend four meetings a week. I learn to “translate” the “God language” into something more acceptable to me. This translation is more like censorship, but it works for me. I come to terms with the idea that I can say the prayers and read the steps, because, after all, I am just quoting.

I meet wonderful, generous people in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and I aspire to be one of them, even as I struggle with speaking at meetings. When I do speak, I talk very rarely of my atheism. When I do, I am told with condescension that I “will find a higher power eventually.” I feel connected to people I meet in AA, but I always feel a distance from the words, and I always feel somewhat separate because of my understanding of the God piece, the spirituality piece, the higher power piece.

Over the years I become much more active in Alcoholics Anonymous. I work for three years as a psych tech in a treatment facility and often transport women from the house to meetings, which I often attend with them. I become more open in meetings about my atheism. I feel like I am offering the newcomer an opportunity to hear a woman who has long-term sobriety who didn’t have to change or compromise her spiritual and religious beliefs to do it. I become a member of the Unitarian Universalist Association Addictions Ministry Team. I lead AA meetings at UUA General Assembly, and am variously secretary and treasurer at some of the meetings I attend locally. I start to become one of those people I admired in my early years in the program. I speak about atheism on my sobriety birthday, and when I see another member of the fellowship struggling with the God language.

It is not until a beloved member of my own family is in treatment, struggling with the very things that I had struggled with when I was in treatment, that I try my hand at writing my own version of the 12 steps. I’m not sure if it is helpful to him, but it empowers me even further.

Hanje’s Version of the 12 Steps

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
Came to believe that we could be restored to sanity.
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over.
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Admitted to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Were entirely ready to have all these defects of character removed.
Humbly asked for our shortcomings to be removed.
Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Made direct amends to such people whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Sought to find peace and serenity and to be the best people we could be.
We tried to carry this message to other alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

I attend the first We Agnostics, Atheists, and Freethinkers (WAAFT) AA convention in Santa Monica, California, in November, 2014. I find out that there are people all over the world that have been doing their own translations of the steps, have been hiding their own atheism, who have felt shamed, just like I did. I finally have a tribe. I stay in touch with these people on social media. I attend the Agnostics and Others Group of Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in my own community and I look forward to being reunited with my tribe when WAAFT meets in Austin, Texas, in 2016.

This is a chapter from the book: Do Tell! Stories by Atheists and Agnostics in AA.

The paperback version of Do Tell! is available at Amazon. It is also available via Amazon in Canada and the United Kingdom.

It can be purchased online in all eBook formats, including Kindle, Kobo and Nook and as an iBook for Macs and iPads.

The post AA Atheist first appeared on AA Agnostica.

AA Atheist

Chapter 20:
Do Tell! Stories by Atheists and Agnostics in AA

Hanje R.

A doctoral dissertation – “Experiences of Atheists and Agnostics in AA” – is based on the book Do Tell. For more information click on the above image.

Hanje’s Version of the 12 Steps

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
Came to believe that we could be restored to sanity.
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over.
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Admitted to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Were entirely ready to have all these defects of character removed.
Humbly asked for our shortcomings to be removed.
Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Made direct amends to such people whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Sought to find peace and serenity and to be the best people we could be.
We tried to carry this message to other alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

This is a chapter from the book: Do Tell! Stories by Atheists and Agnostics in AA.

The paperback version of Do Tell! is available at Amazon. It is also available via Amazon in Canada and the United Kingdom.

It can be purchased online in all eBook formats, including Kindle, Kobo and Nook and as an iBook for Macs and iPads.

The post AA Atheist first appeared on AA Agnostica.

Websites and The Growth of Secular AA

by bob k

On May 31, 2011, Alcoholics Anonymous was dramatically altered, both in Toronto, Ontario and far beyond. In the short run, the changes produced were precisely as they had been intended to be. However, the long-term results were exactly the opposite of the goals of the crusaders seeking to purify Toronto AA.

Back in September of 2009, Beyond Belief, an agnostic AA group, had been formed in mid-town Toronto. It scooped up some members from nearby groups and garnered the enthusiastic support of many others. There was nothing surreptitious about the group’s operation. The intergroup’s listing linked to Beyond Belief’s personal page describing the prayerless meetings and posting, alongside the traditional steps, a secular interpretation of AA’s Twelve-Steps.

From the start, Beyond Belief was popular and successful. Within a few months, a larger room was needed and acquired. A second weekly meeting was added. At some point, a break-out room helped to accommodate the growing attendance. In September 2010, another nontraditional group, We Agnostics, was organized at a different location. Nonconforming newcomers were drawn to the secular format and experienced success not attained during previous forays into conventional meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Older members found a renewed passion, now freed from the unappealing options of having to “go along to get along” or staying silent.

Despite seemingly endless protestations that the organization is “spiritual not religious,” atheists, agnostics, and many others find Alcoholics Anonymous to be quite religious. Perhaps the heathens’ misunderstanding of the enormous difference between spirituality and religion comes from the unfortunate fact that the spiritual and the religious versions of the Lord’s Prayer contain precisely the same words. The broader definition of “religion” aligns closely with all that goes on in AA.

Rarely has any society been more attached to the status quo.

On May 31, 2011, the two agnostic groups were unceremoniously booted out of Toronto AA. The motion had prompted lively discussion but a separate motion to defer the vote to the following month was defeated. The anti-agnostic element was bloodthirsty and wanted their pound of flesh right then and there.

What happened in Toronto became a topic of conversation in many locales far afield from Toronto. “Experts” from Pittsburgh, Seattle, Topeka, and Jacksonville weighed in on the issue, undeterred by their complete lack of direct experience with the events: “Of course, they were delisted — they changed the steps. Delisting isn’t a big deal. A real AA group engaged in real 12-Step work doesn’t really need a listing.”

To be clear, the two Toronto agnostic groups were not simply delisted. They were disenfranchised. When a motion came in 2012 to revisit the issue, relist the groups, etc., Beyond Belief and We Agnostics could not speak for themselves nor could they vote for themselves. The Intergroupers had done all that they could within the limits of their power, but they tried to do more. They reached out to the General Service people pressing for further purging actions.

This was more than a delisting.

In the shortest of times, the website organized to advertise the meeting times and locations of the two non-religious AA groups morphed into aaagnostica.org. Seemingly nanoseconds later, the Toronto website had viewers from all over the globe. Some came to love and some came to hate. Others were merely curious. “What is agnostic AA? I’ve never heard of that.”

On June 22, webmaster Roger C. posted “Anarchy Melts,” essentially a condemnation of the delisting and disenfranchising actions of the Toronto Intergroup through the words of AA founder Bill Wilson: “Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an AA Group.” The assault on the oppressors continued. Groups facing Intergroup attacks in other regions weighed in with their stories. During the five-year period that the groups were out of Toronto AA, AA Agnostica acted as the voice of a growing movement.

When secular literature was published, AA Agnostica offered book reviews. History essays were presented, and satires ridiculed fundamentalists and their proclivity for inconsistency.

Agnostic AA was growing and there was a thirst for information about it. “How do I go about starting a secular meeting in my town?” It’s a delicious irony that the agnostic AA movement owes a debt of gratitude to Toronto Intergroup. Following the “Law of Unintended Consequences,” the intergroup crusaders’ efforts to purify AA led to the creation of the AA Agnostica website. It’s undeniable that the tremendous growth of AA’s secular movement has been significantly spurred by the material presented here.

There’s a tremendous amount of work involved in operating a busy website. When John S. of Kansas City agreed to take up the mantle, Roger C. planned to retire from active posting. Of course, the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. Activists have a hard time sitting back and viewing the action from a Lazy-Boy. The period of inactivity was brief. There followed five glorious years during which we had two marvellous websites, AA Beyond Belief and AA Agnostica.

John added podcasting and that’s his niche. He may have overloaded himself. For someone with a full-time job in the real world, it was all a bit too much, so he dropped the weekly essays, retiring AA Beyond Belief. As AA Agnostica winds down, we will soon have no such venue. Perhaps someone reading this today will be moved to take up the task.

We need a new website and webmaster.

A total of fifty-four articles by Bob K have been posted on AA Agnostica (those by Bobby Beach have a check mark – ):

Websites and The Growth of Secular AA (June 6, 2021)
Courtenay Baylor (April 25, 2021)
The Magical Mystery Cure (is coming to take you away) (February 7, 2021)
The Virtual 2020 Secular AA Conference (December 20, 2020)
“We’re Spiritual Not Religious.” “Oh, Please!!” (October 4, 2020)
Sleight of Hand; Slight on “Real” Inclusivity (September 20, 2020)
THUMPERTOWN THEATRE PRESENTS… Bill and Bob go to the Library (May 24, 2020)
What If We Built It And Nobody Came? (May 13, 2020)
The Underground Railroad (April 26, 2020)
The One and Only Kool-Aid (February 23, 2020)
Tales of Spiritual Experience (January 19, 2020)
The Rainbow Group (January 8, 2020)
WRITING the BIG BOOK: The Creation of AA (November 17, 2019)
Unintended Consequences (March 31, 2019)
We Are Diversity (March 20, 2019)
Freaken Big Book Fundamentalists Hate Freaken Everything (February 24, 2019)
The Sad Tale of the Founder of Moderation Management (January 6, 2019)
Bill W, LSD and AA Spirituality (November 18, 2018)
Lord’s Prayer Threatened – Fundies go Wild (June 28, 2017)
A Manual for Alcoholics Anonymous (June 4, 2017)
The Kawartha Freethinkers (May 21, 2017)
The Search for Self-Esteem (March 30, 2017)
The Watering Down of AA (March 16, 2017)
Remembering Ernie Kurtz (January 19, 2016)
Carl Gustav Jung (June 28, 2015)
Anne Smith (April 26, 2015)
Jim Burwell (March 22, 2015)
Dr. Bob – Part Two (Akron-Style AA) (January 25, 2015)
William Duncan Silkworth (October 22, 2014)
Lois Wilson (October 5, 2014)
Bill Wilson and Other Women (October 1, 2014)
Sylvia K. – First Lady of Chicago AA (September 14, 2014)
William James and AA (August 24, 2014)
Slaying the Dragon (July 2, 2014)
Alcoholism – What’s It All About? (May 25, 2014)
Twelve Steps to Psychological Good Health and Serenity (April 23, 2014)
Dr. Bob, AA Co-Founder – Part One (March 30, 2014)
Young Bill Wilson – Part Two (December 1, 2013)
Young Bill Wilson – Part One (November 24, 2013)
Frank Buchman and the Oxford Group (November 3, 2013)
Charles B. Towns (October 6, 2013)
Clarence Snyder: Almost Co-Founder (September 15, 2013)
Anonymity in the 21st Century (April 21, 2013)
Marty Mann and the Early Women of AA (April 14, 2013)
Edwin Throckmorton Thacher (Ebby) (February 3, 2013)
Christmas, Christians, Lepers, and Alcoholics (Revisited) (December 23, 2012)
Twentieth Century Influences on AA (November 18, 2012)
Short of a Game Changer – Appendix II (October 21, 2012)
God As We Understood Him (June 17, 2012)
Heathens, Spies, Websites, Water-boarding & Carrot Cake (April 1, 2012)
AA in the 1930s: God As We Understood Him (February 8, 2012)
Does AA Need Religion: Agnostics on CBC Radio (January 29, 2012)
Our Father Who Art Not in Public Schools (January 15, 2012)
Christmas, Christians, Lepers and Alcoholics (December 29, 2011)

And here are articles by Bob posted on the AA Beyond Belief website (again with a check mark – – for those by Bobby Beach):

Pandemics, Zoom and Happy Heathens (October 25, 2020)
Sam Shoemaker (September 6, 2020)
Richmond Walker (July 12, 2020)
Fundamentalism’s Foibles and Follies (May 31, 2020)
Billy Sunday (March 8, 2020)
A Heathen Looks at the Twelve Steps (January 19, 2020)
Powerlessness and Other Stuff (December 8, 2019)
AA Incorporated (November 10, 2019)
Our Perfectly Imperfect AA Founder (October 27, 2019)
Lordy! Lordy! Lordy!!! (August 11, 2019)
New Thought and AA (July 7, 2019)
Dr. Benjamin Rush (June 16, 2019)
Rowland Hazard (May 26, 2019)
Florence Rankin (March 17, 2019)
Ebby Thacher – An Unhappy Life (February 3, 2019)
Selling AA – Early Publicity (May 6, 2018)
Not Just the Washingtonians Part II (April 30, 2017)
Toronto Agnostic AA Groups Win Fight for Inclusion (February 12, 2017)
Floggings, Strychnine, Leeches, and Worse (November 13, 2016)
Not Just the Washingtonians (April 17, 2016)
Henrietta Sieberling (March 2, 2016)
THE COMMON SENSE OF DRINKING | Richard R. Peabody (1931) (February 2, 2016)
Willard Richardson and the Rockefeller People (February 3, 2016)
Remembering Ernie Kurtz (January 19, 2016)
Positive Affirmations and the Placebo Effect (January 17, 2016)
The Washingtonian Society (January 6, 2016)
The Fraud that is AA Fundamentalism (January 3, 2016)
AA’s Sister Ignatia (December 2, 2015)
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS UNIVERSAL EDITION, By Archer Voxx (November 18, 2015)
The LSD Experiments (October 21, 2015)
Jerry McCauley – The Water Street Mission (October 14, 2015)
Henry Parkhurst (October 7, 2015)

bob k is the co-founder of the Whitby Freethinkers Group just east of Toronto. He is the author of Key Players in AA History, published in 2015. A second edition will soon be published.

Two more books by bob are in the works – The Road To AA: 1620-1935 and The Secret Diaries of Bill W, a book which will be an intriguing biographical fiction of the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous.

The post Websites and The Growth of Secular AA first appeared on AA Agnostica.

Staying Sober Without God: Three Years Later

By Jeffrey Munn

I started writing Staying Sober Without God in May of 2018. My intention for writing the book was to put my interpretation of the 12 steps into an easy-to-understand, relatively brief guide. I wanted to provide atheists, agnostics and freethinkers a path to recovery that felt less dogmatic and more inclusive, while also being careful to respect the faith-based path that has helped so many. In my recovery journey, I remember countless times feeling like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. The connections I had with people were helpful, as was the occasional practical advice, but the faith-based component always left me feeling like I didn’t belong.

This feeling contributed to an eventual relapse, and I wanted to help others avoid having to experience anything like that. I wanted my book to serve as a sort of universal translator that allowed those without religious or supernatural beliefs to fully participate in 12-step programs despite being surrounded by messages that were ultimately meaningful but obscured by strange language and vague slogans.

In December of 2018, my wife held up her phone and recorded me sitting at my computer, ready to click the “publish now” button on Amazon’s self-publishing service. She insisted I would want to remember the moment. I was skeptical (as I tend to be). I told her the book, which was titled The Practical 12 Steps at the initial launch, was just an experiment. I said I would be happy if sales covered the cost of publication and the book helped just a couple people find a path to recovery that would have otherwise eluded them.

Two and a half years later, Staying Sober Without God has become more than I ever expected. I regularly receive emails from people around the world telling me that the book has helped them make sense of a process that was presented in a way they previously found confusing and inaccessible. A secular recovery group in Russia translated the book themselves and started a book study based on it. I’ve seen my book recommended in online recovery groups. I’ve even had religious/theistic members of 12-step programs contact me to express gratitude for providing an alternate path that doesn’t insult or demean the traditional approach. Some of these faith-based members have even stated that the book has become part of their repertoire so they can better work with atheist/agnostic sponsees. It’s surreal, and I am incredibly grateful.

At the time I wrote Staying Sober Without God, I had no appreciation for just how large the secular recovery community was. I realized that so much of the success of the book was thanks to the tireless work of those who were courageous enough to challenge traditional AA dogma and build a community of like-minded addicts and alcoholics who believed practical recovery was possible. My book wouldn’t be a fraction as successful as it is without the help of people like Roger C. of AA Agnostica, John S. of AA Beyond Belief, and all other secular members of 12-step groups who have contributed to the growth of such an important and necessary community, either through the creation of literature or simple participation. For all of you members of secular recovery groups around the world, thank you for all you do.

My hope is that Staying Sober Without God continues to widen the path of recovery and add to the already phenomenal foundation upon which our current secular recovery community is built. I hope it continues to help people see that recovery without dogma is not only possible but just as valid as any other approach. I am currently working on the workbook version of Staying Sober Without God and a 2nd edition of the original text will follow. Graduate school and family life has made the workbook a much longer project than the original book, but it is slowly coming along.

I’m excited to see how the world of secular recovery continues to grow, and I’m incredibly grateful that I get to be a part of it.

Available on Amazon.

Jeffrey Munn was born in Southern California where he still resides with his wife and daughter. He is a licensed marriage and family therapist and has been working in the field of mental health since 2010.

Jeffrey works as a therapist in private practice and specializes in addiction, OCD, and anxiety disorders. In addition to his master’s degree in clinical psychology, Jeffrey earned a degree specialty in co-occurring disorders.

Click here to access the book on Amazon: Staying Sober Without God.

To visit Jeffrey’s website, click here: Practically Sane.

The post Staying Sober Without God: Three Years Later first appeared on AA Agnostica.