Category: From AA Agnostica

By John S

Back in December, I was contacted by a reporter who wanted me to help him with an article he was writing about secular people in AA. I don’t think he ever published the article, at least not yet. I ran across the questions he sent and my answers to them, and thought I would go ahead and post them here.

1. Your name, title, and affiliation as you want it to appear in the piece (just to clarify your relationship to AA Beyond Belief).

My name is John S, and I am the host of the AA Beyond Belief podcast and the founder and webmaster of the AA Beyond Belief website. AA Beyond Belief is a community of AA members who walk a secular path to sobriety within Alcoholics Anonymous.

2. Any of your own personal history with addiction, like what substance, for how long, and how long you’ve been sober.

I am a recovered alcoholic. My sobriety date is July 20, 1988, so I have been sober for over 32 years. Alcohol was my drug of choice. I didn’t get involved with other substances. I first recognized that I might have a drinking problem when I was 19 years old, but I didn’t seek help until just before my 26th birthday. I sought help in AA, and I’ve been happily sober ever since.

3. Are secular/atheist/agnostic 12-step groups at odds with the step that refers to “turning our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him” or is there a way to be an atheist and remain consistent with this step?

I can’t speak for every secular AA member or group. However, I have talked with a few hundred of them over the years. We have also conducted surveys on our website, so I understand the agnostic and atheist community within AA as good as anyone.

AA groups are autonomous and can do as they wish, but AA groups don’t generally take a position on any of the Steps. It is up to each individual to determine for themselves what the Steps mean to them personally. Some AA members, secular or otherwise, don’t bother with the Steps at all, but most of us do, and all of us, whether we believe in God or not, have to interpret them. We have to ask ourselves what these things mean to us personally as an individual.

When I was a newcomer in AA, even before I realized that I was an atheist, I understood Step Three as a decision. Many people focus on the part about turning our will over to God, but they forget the most important part of this step, in my opinion. That is we, make a decision. We make a decision to change and that can be done by working the rest of the 12 Steps. Those of us with a secular world-view respect the experiences of our more religious members who rely on their faith to make this change. However, there is no reason that we can’t make the same decision without a belief in God.

The way that I see step three is “We made a decision to change”. I don’t need to turn my will over to something that I don’t believe in and there have always been many loving people around me who will help me when I need help. I didn’t go through the steps alone. Other people helped me.

Believers and atheists in AA who work the Steps have more in common with each other than not, and they have similar experiences with the Steps. The 12 Steps are practical. There is a phrase in the Big Book that I like which describes the Steps as a “practical program of action.” As an atheist, I focus on the action I take, not on what I believe. However, I would never suggest that my understanding or my way of expressing my experience should be the way for everyone. The only difference between the experience of a believer and nonbeliever when it comes to the Steps is how they describe the experience. I learned that from the former Chair of the General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous, Rev. Ward Ewing. He was a non-Alcoholic trustee of AA and is a supporter of secular AA members.

4. What was the impetus behind the creation of AA Beyond Belief? Was it just so nonbelievers would have somewhere they could go to work the steps, or is there more to it than that?

There is another website called AA Agnostica that publishes articles written by secular AA members, and they have been doing this for almost ten years now. A little over five years ago, the person who runs that site thought he would retire and asked me if I would be willing to start a new website to carry on his work. I agreed and decided that with the website I would also have a podcast. It turns out that the person from AA Agnostica never retired, but we continued with AA Beyond Belief none-the-less.

I do this as a service, but it is a labor of love. My experience with the website and podcast has been transformative, and I’m grateful to have this opportunity and participate in such a supportive community.

AA Beyond Belief provides a space for secular AA members to share their experience in recovery. AA works primarily through the sharing of personal experience. When somebody recognizes their own story in that of another person, it can be incredibly comforting to know that if that person who had the same experiences as me could get sober, then maybe I can too.

5. Why do people who are not believers need their own space to work the steps?

Alcoholics Anonymous is a brilliant organization because there isn’t a top-down hierarchy that insists all AA groups operate the same way. Each group, as I mentioned before, is autonomous. For many years, decades, there have been special-purpose groups in AA. There are AA groups for medical professionals, for young people, for LGBTQ+ people, for pilots, women, and men, and there are special-purpose groups for agnostics and atheists.

It is helpful to have these groups so people can be with others who understand them. I like to go to secular AA meetings because I am around others who understand me and my approach to recovery in AA. I have had some negative reactions from believers in meetings, as have other nonbelievers, and it can feel uncomfortable when groups close with the Lord’s Prayer when you are an atheist. However, for the most part, other people in AA are accepting of us. They just don’t understand us as well as we understand each other. The same is true for the LGBTQ+ community or young people, or medical professionals.

6. Anything else you’d like to add?

Atheists and agnostics have been part of AA since it’s founding. Hank Parkhurst, one of the original AA members, was an atheist, and we may not have the Big Book if not for him. Jim Burwell, also one of the early members, was an atheist and is credited with widening the gateway in AA by insisting that the steps read “God as we understand him,” or “higher power.” Secular AA meetings have been going on since 1975 and today is well established and accepted by the fellowship at large.

Our primary purpose in AA is to stay sober and to help other alcoholics achieve sobriety. We don’t care what they believe or don’t believe. Anyone with a desire to stop drinking is welcome at an AA meeting, secular or otherwise.

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On February 22nd of this year (2021), John retired the AA Beyond Belief website. He was very interested in continuing to do podcasts, his rather favorite activity. So he launched a brand new website called the Beyond Belief Sobriety Podcast. To date there have been over 200 episodes of John’s podcasts.

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The post Secular People in AA first appeared on AA Agnostica.

A Review by John B.

Maybe you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but Glenn Rader has shown us you can give an old program a new look. Using a friendly and factual approach presented in an easy-to-read style, the 1938 AA antique program of recovery  is analyzed from a 21st century perspective. Rader’s respect for Wilson and his program is easily detected from the outset, but like many of us in recovery, who credit our sobriety to AA participation, he takes the liberty to re-structure the 12 Steps in a manner completely devoid of any reference to God. His approach is to explain the effectiveness of the Steps in terms of widely accepted principles of psychological and physical health – a secular and humanistic approach that relies on science, not a deity.

The first two sections of the book “provide a practical perspective on addiction and the fundamentals of recovery.” (p. 4) Both topics are addressed clearly and concisely. Rader relies on the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) and the American Psychological Association (APA) for the definition of addiction. ASAM defines addiction as “a primary chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory, and related circuity.” (p. 6) The APA says “addiction is a chronic brain disorder with social, biological, psychological, and environmental factors influencing its development and maintenance.” (p. 6)

As a follow-up to these you’ll find mention of several dysfunctional manifestations that accompany chronic addiction and a clear description of “the path to addiction”. Rader depicts seven points along that path and even though I have now been sober well over 37 years he enabled me to visualize what I had been like at each of the points: genetics, emotional foundation, initial exposure, transitional dependency, delusional thinking and behavior, crossing the line, and living an alternative reality. These glimpses into the past gave me a sense of gratitude for the rewards sobriety has given me, and I would think this explanation of the disease concept would be useful to newcomers.

Rader specifies four fundamentals of recovery: self-direction, abstinence, physical health maintenance, and cognitive-behavioral transformation. Sticking with his clear and concise style, he gives the reader a thorough explanation of each fundamental and stresses that they are interrelated and that each one needs to be dealt with on a continual basis. This of course begs the question “just how am I supposed to do this?”

How Mr. Rader answers that question is far superior to the answers found in the chapters “How It Works” and “Into Action” in the basic text of AA. The wording of the modern 12 Steps and the single action word the author assigns to each of them conveys a much stronger message than the Big Book. That judgment is mine, not Rader’s.

It would be a mistake to look at the title of the book and to expect a harsh critique of AA. Rader sees the creation of AA as a major breakthrough, superior to the recovery programs that preceded it, but he politely curtails his praise by saying “it was a layman’s undertaking by smart, motivated, recovering alcoholics who were trying to help others with the same serious illness.” (p. 41) He does concede that the underlying principles in the 12 Steps “…are very contemporary from the standpoint of modern psychology.” (p. 41)

The modern psychology that Rader refers to is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). He carefully explains the connection between CBT and his modern AA Steps, and stresses that it is important for the alcoholic to understand that what AA does for you is firmly grounded in modern psychology.

AA gets credit for identifying the psychic change necessary to achieve successful recovery, for devising the steps toward making the change, and for creating the mutual support network for the alcoholic to tie into. Here again the author politely separates himself from the AA pioneers and backs up his belief system with this simple statement, “Today we have the benefit of more than eighty years of research into the psychology of thinking and behavior to draw from to get a better understanding of why the 12 Step program has been effective for people.” (p. 44) In other words, science gives us the answer we seek, not divine intervention. The author devotes a major portion of the book to explain the basics of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, the interrelationship between CBT and the Modern 12 Steps, and a detailed action plan for a sobriety seeker to follow.

This book is worthy of being added to your recovery library. Clarity and conciseness is the model. The material gives the reader the ability to see that the efficacy of the 12 Steps is solidly based on science not on a person’s ability to tap into a divine power source. The author presents a respectful and meaningful connection between “old fashioned” AA and his version of 21st century AA. This book would have been of great value to me 41 years ago when I struggled with the God question and floundered in ignorance about alcoholism. This book deserves to be used by addiction counsellors, handed to patients in treatment facilities like the Big Book was handed to me in 1980, and a place on the literature tables at meetings and at conventions.

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You can watch a video version of a podcast with John Sheldon, the founder of Beyond Belief Sobriety, and Glenn Rader. Here it is: Modern 12 Step Recovery, by Glenn Rader.

John reports: “In this episode, I had a conversation with the author, Glenn Rader, who talked about why he thinks it’s important that AA and the Twelve Steps be framed within the context of modern psychology.”

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Here’s a link to a website that includes printable and downloadable items from the book: Modern 12 Step Recovery.

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The author of the review, John B, is an eighty-four year old sober alcoholic with 36 years of continuous sobriety. His alcoholism ultimately led to treatment, and eventually led to a career as an addiction counselor. John provided individual and group counseling to vets at the Marion, Indiana, V.A. hospital. He retired from the V.A. in 2001 and fondly describes it as the most challenging and satisfying job he ever had. John has also served as office manager for a major AA intergroup office in Ft. Wayne, Indiana for six and a half years. John reads 20 to 25 books a year, and three or four quality periodicals on a regular basis; mostly about politics, economics, science, history: about anything going on in the world that strikes his curiosity.

Glenn Rader is an accomplished business professional with a background in organization development and an MBA from the University of Michigan. He is in successful recovery from alcohol and drug addiction and is a public speaker, author, and a resource in the addiction recovery community. Glenn is also the author of the book STOP – Things You Must Know Before Trying to Help Someone with Addiction. The book is the product of his work with families and friends of addicts at a major addiction treatment centre.

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The post Modern 12 Step Recovery first appeared on AA Agnostica.

Chapter 15:
Do Tell! Stories by Atheists and Agnostics in AA

David B.

Coming to: What happened? Where am I? Who am I? Most alcoholics are familiar with this feeling: an abyss of loss and then a desperate search for the events that led to this point. Sometimes there’s nothing, sometimes there’s a flash – of momentarily seeing, understanding something, but that disappears in a flash, too. And then sometimes – if you’re as determined as I’ve always been – you will chase the flash that might, eventually, lead you to your awakening, a new coming to; a reality where you can finally function without having to compromise your true self.

* * *

In December of 2004, I came to with several emergency technicians around me; there was noise: words, words, words… Maybe words? People yelling, at me, to me: trying to engage me in a conversation – asking me if I could hear them, if I knew where I was. My wife, there too, pleading with me to come out of it, come to.

Come to what? I felt confused.

What date, where was I, did I know what happened? The questions kept on, or maybe they were asked once and my brain was only getting to them now, after playing them on the loop. Words.

So I said some words back, answered some questions. I tried.

My body wasn’t cooperating either – it was sore; it was a body beat up from contracting, seizing, twitching. My tongue screamed with pain: I bit it, repeatedly, just moments ago.

A grand mal seizure.

Finally, there was clarity in the chaos – words coming together, aligning with their meaning. My wife’s eyes looking at me with relief. Vicki. I was coming to. Back to reality. Vicki could see that I would live.

And in four months, thanks to the seizure, I would question this life that I was coming to.

I lost my driver’s license. There were medical tests: Why did I have the seizure? I told the doctors about painkillers and drinking too much but that wasn’t it – although after my confession, I was prescribed Topamax, which creates monster hangovers. My anxiety was monstrous too. There were more medical tests. The doctors said I was possibly epileptic. They wanted to know where the seizure came from. It wasn’t the first one and as months went on, there was pressure to learn my medical history.

What complicated things was the fact that I was adopted. I had to find out more: it seemed my life depended on it.

And here’s what I found: Miss Bender, 56 years old, died in 1996 of alcoholism. My biological mother. My DNA, my medical history. (Me: “Baby Boy Bender” on the birth certificate – that last name, a grand irony or what?)

I couldn’t deal with it, with my genetics – like me drowning in Jack Daniels, that was yet another truth I didn’t want a part of. So I did what every addict does when confronted with reality: I put that information in a box – figuratively, literally – and the progression of my alcoholism went off the charts.

* * *

Nine-plus months later, picture this: a grown man bawling his eyes out in front of a room full of strangers.

My name is, I say – but everything – like these people, this room – remains unfamiliar for a moment. Even my name and who I am. And whatever happened in the past 24 hours is a blur of one tormented, interrupted sleep; flashbacks of my son and my wife bringing me clothes, other things… a fog of events, feelings of humiliation, too, as my body detoxed.

Then I was off to the treatment center; there was a five minutes-long assessment; more confusion – Who am I? Why am I here? – and I was thrown into this room. An AA meeting.

And now, in this room, bawling; all eyes on me – compassionate eyes, encouraging eyes of people who understand why I’m bawling -I finally choke it out: My name is David and I’m an alcoholic.

Instantly, I feel an immense relief: I know who I am. Only for a flash at this point, but it’s the first time I recognize something concrete about myself.

There’s shame too – for now, only the leftover shame any alcoholic feels; the shame that haunts and often makes sobriety seem like the worst idea ever because you’ll have to face it, the shame. But in this moment, saying the words, admitting who I am, the relief is bigger than the shame; the desire to stop drinking is genuine. It trumps the shame. The shame will come back – it will haunt me for years – but right now even the shame is only a shadow; it waits for me to finish coming to in this room full of strangers. They are bearing witness to a man dying and becoming a new man right before their eyes – the eyes who already know everything without knowing anything specific about me. What they know – everything – is that I am coming back to reality.

* * *

Every day, I am a new man. This has been a theme in my life. As a sober alcoholic, being a new man every day helps me keep in touch with the world around me: I must always be aware of my perception and how close it is to reality. The closer the better.

I am close today.

Wait. Let me check: yes, I am still here. Still sober.

Today, my perception is aligned with my reality.

* * *

You see, addicts have a problem with perception – this is not because we’re stupid; we’re just used to life that is based on manipulation, double-think, secrets – any thing to confirm our delusions. We’re used to not wanting to see things for how they are – we especially avoid the truth of our addiction. And even when we see it, our addiction, we are helpless against it: just because you know something is very wrong, it doesn’t mean you know how to treat it.

When we drink or use, we try to mold the world around us to suit the addiction – for example, I’ve spent years in my basement office, drinking and watching television. One show, Intervention, sticks in mind – the ridiculousness of it: me, an addict, watching other addicts. Me watching addicts drink themselves to death while drinking myself to death. It’s not that I thought that that was the right thing to do – sitting there and making myself die, slowly – it’s just that I did it because it suited me at the time. My perception wasn’t aligned with my reality. But it allowed me to avoid everything that was happening outside of the basement. Like the world that was happening upstairs, the real world.

Upstairs, outside the basement, there was my daughter and son, and my wife.

Upstairs, there I was: a successful businessman.

Upstairs, there I was: a social guy with an ability to draw people. There was a beautiful lake and a lifestyle that was fun and full of adventure.

But then look back in to the basement: there I was, too, drinking. Alone. There I was: a man who self-imprisoned with all kinds of alcohol and a cooler full of ice, no food, in the same basement; a three-day-long bender. (Coming to with my face planted in my keyboard: Where am I? Did anyone see me like this?

My son did. He saw me passed out and he called my wife. I found out later he thought I was dead; my wife told him to spend the night at a friend’s place.)

But I made it all work – no, it didn’t work at all.

It was my perception that deceived me – my perception was warped; it allowed all of that to co-exist, however dysfunctional.

There was something else there the whole time: that box with a secret. The box where I knew something about myself but wasn’t sure how to deal with. My mother, how she died, how she… relinquished me. Another twist in this tale of who I was or wasn’t.

* * *

The definition of perception is three things: “The way you think about or understand someone or something; the ability to understand or notice something easily; the way that you notice or understand something using one of your senses.” Was I doomed? Perhaps. Because how could I ever have the right perception of the guy I was if, at the age of 44, after the seizure, I learned I was somebody else entirely?

The facts: my biological mother died of alcoholism. I drank constantly.

There was no coming out of darkness without facing it – all of it – properly. But you can’t face anything when you can’t think or understand, or even use your senses. When your perception is a deformity.

And even today, sober, that guy is a part of me, or rather that story is a part of me, like my mysterious DNA – and this is why I check in with reality all the time. This is why I question my perception. I must. I am not living in a delusion of addiction any more but it’s easy to slip into it.

For an alcoholic, it takes a second – or not even a second, a millisecond – to lose the reality of addiction. Since 2005, I haven’t had a relapse but I’ve heard and read about them enough to be aware of them.

For now, I’m David and I’m an alcoholic. And I just have to remember that I am that man, a new man. Every day.

* * *

I don’t just mean this metaphorically since as an adoptee and an alcoholic, I come by my newness honestly. I’ve led the kind of split existence that can only be dealt with by ignoring it, numbing what I knew, and didn’t know. I refer to myself as a relinquishee – rejected by his birth parents but also having to adapt to the reality of my adopted family. Because of this, I’ve always had problems with attachment and reaching out to people… my sense of rejection shadowed my whole life. So I drank over that too. Alcohol silenced the war that was going on in my head – me against myself; the adoptee versus the adopted.

* * *

Sobriety was the number-one place where I felt at home. After that first meeting, I sat in dozens of group sessions at the rehab facility, still full of skepticism, fear, confusion. The shame was sneaking its way back, but for now I immersed myself in my recovery. In the sessions, I watched the people I dubbed COINS: Commuity of Individuals Needing Support – people who needed the same support I did. They were like coins because there were so many of them: they came from NA, AA, Marijuana Anonymous… There were also volunteers and professionals who talked about relapse prevention strategies, disease of addiction – finally, spirituality. I didn’t always understand what was being taught but I was determined: I had to adapt to survive. And I knew two things; One: If these people are wrong I will never trust anyone ever, again, and Two: If they’re wrong, I’m dead.

I secured a mentor, a sponsor who right after I graduated from rehab said, You’re not going home to sleep in your own bed – you are going to an AA meeting. And that’s where I went.

* * *

It was where I stayed: 450 meetings in the first 365 days of my sobriety. I read every bit of AA-approved literature I could put my hands on; then I read some things mentioned in the Big Book such as The Varieties of Religious Experiences by William James.

I sold my house on the lake to change my former lifestyle – full of drinking buddies, well-meaning neighbors who greeted me from rehab with a welcome basket, a 1.75 liter bottle of Jack Daniels perched on top – and I attended conferences, readings… I went back to the same rehab facility six months into sobriety to passionately talk about my new life.

And I lived happily ever after.

* * *

No I didn’t. I tried. Very hard. What was standing in my way was Shame, again. And now I was finding it in the rooms of AA!

I kept finding it because I was missing something – a crucial thing, specifically god. I kept hearing, Let go and let God. I was told I was too self-centered; I wasn’t able to turn my life over to my (?) Higher Power; I had to set aside my pride and my ego; make room for this god who kept evading me.

God. Where was she?

I looked for her, for god, everywhere as the shame of not being able to find her, of not fitting in, again, was getting bigger and bigger. I tried to immerse myself, to come to a spiritual experience that included god.

So I read about god. I talked about god to rabbis and pastors, and during lunches, I sat in a beautiful St. Andrew’s church near my workplace, waiting for god to appear. I prayed day and night… but to what?

I suppose I was praying to lure her out, make her appear like a genie from a bottle. And speaking of bottles – my fear was that I was going to go back to it, the bottle, if I didn’t find this god.

This went on for eight, grueling, shame-filled years.

Sit back. Relax. God will get in touch with you. God exists: after all, God graced you with sobriety.

It made no sense to me. I was getting hopeless.

My perception was getting blurred.

* * *

Except there was hope. There was a new coming to.

I had a specific tool and it was the same one as always: immersing myself in something and this time it was going on a quest but a completely opposite one of the one I had been on. Because, I thought, surely, there are others like me out there? Just like there were other relinquishees in the world, there must be others in the program who also couldn’t make sense out of the god part.

There were. Lots of them.

First in books.

Appendix II in Alcoholics Anonymous
Beyond Belief: Agnostic Musings for 12 Step Life
The Little Book: A Collection of Alternative 12 Steps
Don’t Tell: Stories and Essays by Agnostics and Atheists in AA
An Atheist’s Unofficial Guide to AA – For Newcomers
Waiting: A Nonbeliever’s Higher Power
The Five Keys: 12 Step Recovery Without A God

Then in on-line chat rooms and blogs, and so I immersed myself yet again, this time into a like-minded community within the program that made me come to originally.

* * *

Essentially, the story of my life are genetic clues, a series of coming-tos, adapting to a recovery program where I didn’t quite fit in and then, finally, coming to my senses, my feelings and my values.

I realized I needed to conduct myself in alliance with who I truly was instead of adapting and using all of my energy – the energy that was needed in my life outside of recovery, my family, my career – to try to fit in. This new, agnostic reality was perfectly aligned with mine – this reality gave me permission to finally find my true place in the world.

It was in the rooms of agnostic AA where I became the new man that I am now – a man who’s a whole bunch of parts and contradictions but who is also whole, most true to himself and his reality.

Coming to: a new man.

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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.

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The post A New Man first appeared on AA Agnostica.

Chapter 15:
Do Tell! Stories by Atheists and Agnostics in AA

David B.

Coming to: What happened? Where am I? Who am I? Most alcoholics are familiar with this feeling: an abyss of loss and then a desperate search for the events that led to this point. Sometimes there’s nothing, sometimes there’s a flash – of momentarily seeing, understanding something, but that disappears in a flash, too. And then sometimes – if you’re as determined as I’ve always been – you will chase the flash that might, eventually, lead you to your awakening, a new coming to; a reality where you can finally function without having to compromise your true self.

* * *

In December of 2004, I came to with several emergency technicians around me; there was noise: words, words, words… Maybe words? People yelling, at me, to me: trying to engage me in a conversation – asking me if I could hear them, if I knew where I was. My wife, there too, pleading with me to come out of it, come to.

Come to what? I felt confused.

What date, where was I, did I know what happened? The questions kept on, or maybe they were asked once and my brain was only getting to them now, after playing them on the loop. Words.

So I said some words back, answered some questions. I tried.

My body wasn’t cooperating either – it was sore; it was a body beat up from contracting, seizing, twitching. My tongue screamed with pain: I bit it, repeatedly, just moments ago.

A grand mal seizure.

Finally, there was clarity in the chaos – words coming together, aligning with their meaning. My wife’s eyes looking at me with relief. Vicki. I was coming to. Back to reality. Vicki could see that I would live.

And in four months, thanks to the seizure, I would question this life that I was coming to.

I lost my driver’s license. There were medical tests: Why did I have the seizure? I told the doctors about painkillers and drinking too much but that wasn’t it – although after my confession, I was prescribed Topamax, which creates monster hangovers. My anxiety was monstrous too. There were more medical tests. The doctors said I was possibly epileptic. They wanted to know where the seizure came from. It wasn’t the first one and as months went on, there was pressure to learn my medical history.

What complicated things was the fact that I was adopted. I had to find out more: it seemed my life depended on it.

And here’s what I found: Miss Bender, 56 years old, died in 1996 of alcoholism. My biological mother. My DNA, my medical history. (Me: “Baby Boy Bender” on the birth certificate – that last name, a grand irony or what?)

I couldn’t deal with it, with my genetics – like me drowning in Jack Daniels, that was yet another truth I didn’t want a part of. So I did what every addict does when confronted with reality: I put that information in a box – figuratively, literally – and the progression of my alcoholism went off the charts.

* * *

Nine-plus months later, picture this: a grown man bawling his eyes out in front of a room full of strangers.

My name is, I say – but everything – like these people, this room – remains unfamiliar for a moment. Even my name and who I am. And whatever happened in the past 24 hours is a blur of one tormented, interrupted sleep; flashbacks of my son and my wife bringing me clothes, other things… a fog of events, feelings of humiliation, too, as my body detoxed.

Then I was off to the treatment center; there was a five minutes-long assessment; more confusion – Who am I? Why am I here? – and I was thrown into this room. An AA meeting.

And now, in this room, bawling; all eyes on me – compassionate eyes, encouraging eyes of people who understand why I’m bawling -I finally choke it out: My name is David and I’m an alcoholic.

Instantly, I feel an immense relief: I know who I am. Only for a flash at this point, but it’s the first time I recognize something concrete about myself.

There’s shame too – for now, only the leftover shame any alcoholic feels; the shame that haunts and often makes sobriety seem like the worst idea ever because you’ll have to face it, the shame. But in this moment, saying the words, admitting who I am, the relief is bigger than the shame; the desire to stop drinking is genuine. It trumps the shame. The shame will come back – it will haunt me for years – but right now even the shame is only a shadow; it waits for me to finish coming to in this room full of strangers. They are bearing witness to a man dying and becoming a new man right before their eyes – the eyes who already know everything without knowing anything specific about me. What they know – everything – is that I am coming back to reality.

* * *

Every day, I am a new man. This has been a theme in my life. As a sober alcoholic, being a new man every day helps me keep in touch with the world around me: I must always be aware of my perception and how close it is to reality. The closer the better.

I am close today.

Wait. Let me check: yes, I am still here. Still sober.

Today, my perception is aligned with my reality.

* * *

You see, addicts have a problem with perception – this is not because we’re stupid; we’re just used to life that is based on manipulation, double-think, secrets – any thing to confirm our delusions. We’re used to not wanting to see things for how they are – we especially avoid the truth of our addiction. And even when we see it, our addiction, we are helpless against it: just because you know something is very wrong, it doesn’t mean you know how to treat it.

When we drink or use, we try to mold the world around us to suit the addiction – for example, I’ve spent years in my basement office, drinking and watching television. One show, Intervention, sticks in mind – the ridiculousness of it: me, an addict, watching other addicts. Me watching addicts drink themselves to death while drinking myself to death. It’s not that I thought that that was the right thing to do – sitting there and making myself die, slowly – it’s just that I did it because it suited me at the time. My perception wasn’t aligned with my reality. But it allowed me to avoid everything that was happening outside of the basement. Like the world that was happening upstairs, the real world.

Upstairs, outside the basement, there was my daughter and son, and my wife.

Upstairs, there I was: a successful businessman.

Upstairs, there I was: a social guy with an ability to draw people. There was a beautiful lake and a lifestyle that was fun and full of adventure.

But then look back in to the basement: there I was, too, drinking. Alone. There I was: a man who self-imprisoned with all kinds of alcohol and a cooler full of ice, no food, in the same basement; a three-day-long bender. (Coming to with my face planted in my keyboard: Where am I? Did anyone see me like this?

My son did. He saw me passed out and he called my wife. I found out later he thought I was dead; my wife told him to spend the night at a friend’s place.)

But I made it all work – no, it didn’t work at all.

It was my perception that deceived me – my perception was warped; it allowed all of that to co-exist, however dysfunctional.

There was something else there the whole time: that box with a secret. The box where I knew something about myself but wasn’t sure how to deal with. My mother, how she died, how she… relinquished me. Another twist in this tale of who I was or wasn’t.

* * *

The definition of perception is three things: “The way you think about or understand someone or something; the ability to understand or notice something easily; the way that you notice or understand something using one of your senses.” Was I doomed? Perhaps. Because how could I ever have the right perception of the guy I was if, at the age of 44, after the seizure, I learned I was somebody else entirely?

The facts: my biological mother died of alcoholism. I drank constantly.

There was no coming out of darkness without facing it – all of it – properly. But you can’t face anything when you can’t think or understand, or even use your senses. When your perception is a deformity.

And even today, sober, that guy is a part of me, or rather that story is a part of me, like my mysterious DNA – and this is why I check in with reality all the time. This is why I question my perception. I must. I am not living in a delusion of addiction any more but it’s easy to slip into it.

For an alcoholic, it takes a second – or not even a second, a millisecond – to lose the reality of addiction. Since 2005, I haven’t had a relapse but I’ve heard and read about them enough to be aware of them.

For now, I’m David and I’m an alcoholic. And I just have to remember that I am that man, a new man. Every day.

* * *

I don’t just mean this metaphorically since as an adoptee and an alcoholic, I come by my newness honestly. I’ve led the kind of split existence that can only be dealt with by ignoring it, numbing what I knew, and didn’t know. I refer to myself as a relinquishee – rejected by his birth parents but also having to adapt to the reality of my adopted family. Because of this, I’ve always had problems with attachment and reaching out to people… my sense of rejection shadowed my whole life. So I drank over that too. Alcohol silenced the war that was going on in my head – me against myself; the adoptee versus the adopted.

* * *

Sobriety was the number-one place where I felt at home. After that first meeting, I sat in dozens of group sessions at the rehab facility, still full of skepticism, fear, confusion. The shame was sneaking its way back, but for now I immersed myself in my recovery. In the sessions, I watched the people I dubbed COINS: Commuity of Individuals Needing Support – people who needed the same support I did. They were like coins because there were so many of them: they came from NA, AA, Marijuana Anonymous… There were also volunteers and professionals who talked about relapse prevention strategies, disease of addiction – finally, spirituality. I didn’t always understand what was being taught but I was determined: I had to adapt to survive. And I knew two things; One: If these people are wrong I will never trust anyone ever, again, and Two: If they’re wrong, I’m dead.

I secured a mentor, a sponsor who right after I graduated from rehab said, You’re not going home to sleep in your own bed – you are going to an AA meeting. And that’s where I went.

* * *

It was where I stayed: 450 meetings in the first 365 days of my sobriety. I read every bit of AA-approved literature I could put my hands on; then I read some things mentioned in the Big Book such as The Varieties of Religious Experiences by William James.

I sold my house on the lake to change my former lifestyle – full of drinking buddies, well-meaning neighbors who greeted me from rehab with a welcome basket, a 1.75 liter bottle of Jack Daniels perched on top – and I attended conferences, readings… I went back to the same rehab facility six months into sobriety to passionately talk about my new life.

And I lived happily ever after.

* * *

No I didn’t. I tried. Very hard. What was standing in my way was Shame, again. And now I was finding it in the rooms of AA!

I kept finding it because I was missing something – a crucial thing, specifically god. I kept hearing, Let go and let God. I was told I was too self-centered; I wasn’t able to turn my life over to my (?) Higher Power; I had to set aside my pride and my ego; make room for this god who kept evading me.

God. Where was she?

I looked for her, for god, everywhere as the shame of not being able to find her, of not fitting in, again, was getting bigger and bigger. I tried to immerse myself, to come to a spiritual experience that included god.

So I read about god. I talked about god to rabbis and pastors, and during lunches, I sat in a beautiful St. Andrew’s church near my workplace, waiting for god to appear. I prayed day and night… but to what?

I suppose I was praying to lure her out, make her appear like a genie from a bottle. And speaking of bottles – my fear was that I was going to go back to it, the bottle, if I didn’t find this god.

This went on for eight, grueling, shame-filled years.

Sit back. Relax. God will get in touch with you. God exists: after all, God graced you with sobriety.

It made no sense to me. I was getting hopeless.

My perception was getting blurred.

* * *

Except there was hope. There was a new coming to.

I had a specific tool and it was the same one as always: immersing myself in something and this time it was going on a quest but a completely opposite one of the one I had been on. Because, I thought, surely, there are others like me out there? Just like there were other relinquishees in the world, there must be others in the program who also couldn’t make sense out of the god part.

There were. Lots of them.

First in books.

Appendix II in Alcoholics Anonymous
Beyond Belief: Agnostic Musings for 12 Step Life
The Little Book: A Collection of Alternative 12 Steps
Don’t Tell: Stories and Essays by Agnostics and Atheists in AA
An Atheist’s Unofficial Guide to AA – For Newcomers
Waiting: A Nonbeliever’s Higher Power
The Five Keys: 12 Step Recovery Without A God

Then in on-line chat rooms and blogs, and so I immersed myself yet again, this time into a like-minded community within the program that made me come to originally.

* * *

Essentially, the story of my life are genetic clues, a series of coming-tos, adapting to a recovery program where I didn’t quite fit in and then, finally, coming to my senses, my feelings and my values.

I realized I needed to conduct myself in alliance with who I truly was instead of adapting and using all of my energy – the energy that was needed in my life outside of recovery, my family, my career – to try to fit in. This new, agnostic reality was perfectly aligned with mine – this reality gave me permission to finally find my true place in the world.

It was in the rooms of agnostic AA where I became the new man that I am now – a man who’s a whole bunch of parts and contradictions but who is also whole, most true to himself and his reality.

Coming to: a new man.

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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.

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The post A New Man first appeared on AA Agnostica.

By Roger C

The road to recovery can be rough. The detox, the rehab… Even without those, the first few weeks and months without alcohol or drugs can be a challenge. But…

Life in recovery is often inspiring. Over time we discover how to live a good life, and to do that one day at a time. Who would have thought?

Today we have five inspiring songs, all about living in recovery, and what it’s all about. Enjoy!

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I Can See Clearly Now

Johnny Nash wrote and produced this song for his 1972 album of the same name. The song is about hope and courage for people who have experienced adversity in their lives, but have later overcome it. ‘I Can See Clearly Now’ reached number one in America, selling over a million copies. “It’s going to be a bright sunshiny day.” You will hear more about the sun in another one of today’s songs.

Here’s the song on YouTube and here are the lyrics.

I can see clearly now the rain is gone.
I can see all obstacles in my way.
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind.
It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day.
It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day.

Oh, yes I can make it now the pain is gone.
All of the bad feelings have disappeared.

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Let It Be

Well, the Beatles. I was one of 73 million people who saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show on February 9, 1964. Beginning two years earlier, they released over 300 songs and one of my favorites – something I understand in recovery – is “Let It Be”, released in 1970. This is a song that connects very well with the Serenity Wish (otherwise known as a prayer), often shared at AA meetings.

Paul McCartney wrote the song. Guilty of extreme substance abuse at the time, he had a dream in which his mother – her name was Mary and she had died ten years earlier – told him to “let it be”. Here are the lyrics and you can watch and listen to the song on YouTube. Whisper words of wisdom, my friends:

And when the night is cloudy there is still a light that shines on me
Shinin’ until tomorrow, let it be
I wake up to the sound of music, Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be

And let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be

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Just for Today

My long time friend, Nina, also a member of our “We Agnostics” AA group in Hamilton, has written a song about her life in recovery. Sung by Nina with the harmonies by her daughter, you can listen to Just for Today and, if you wish, you can read and download the lyrics.

Just for today I’ll do everything right
Hold onto the bright side with all of my might
If this is the last day I spend with you
Then let it be joyful, authentic and true

Just for today I’ll be happy and bright
Just for today I’ll let go of the fight
Just for today I’ll love all that I am
Just for today I won’t give a damn
Just for today I won’t give a damn

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One Day at a Time

This song is about Joe Walsh’s recovery from heavy alcohol and cocaine addictions. As Joe put it “I got sober. It was not easy, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, and I had to stop and learn how to do everything over again sober”. He then had “a wonderful life,” as he put. This song was released in 2012 and you can listen to it on YouTube and here are the lyrics for “One Day at a Time”.

Well I finally got around to admit that I might have a problem
But I thought it was just too damn big of a mountain to climb
Well I got down on my knees and said hey
I just cant go on livin’ this way
Guess I have to learn to live my life one day at a time

Oh yeah, one day at a time
Oh yeah, one day at a time

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Here Comes the Sun

Another Beatles song, this one written by George Harrison and, as part of the Abbey Road album, was released in 1969. As someone put it, “To me Here Comes the Sun is a good metaphor to forget the dark, cold past, and bask in the new warm sunlight, because good is on its way…” Well said.  Here are the lyrics and here it is on YouTube.

Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces
Little darling, it feels like years since it’s been here

Here comes the sun do, do, do
Here comes the sun
And I say it’s all right

Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting
Little darling, it seems like years since it’s been clear

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The post Songs about Recovery first appeared on AA Agnostica.

Published on The Fix

What makes life meaningful?

Knowing the answer can make a big difference in your personal fulfillment. At Sunshine Coast Health Centre in British Columbia, program director Geoff Thompson and his team regularly help clients discover and develop a meaningful life.

Despite that, Thompson doesn’t have any easy explanation for what makes life meaningful.

“A meaningful life is a personally meaningful life,” he says. “Regardless of wealth, education, fame, power, etc., if a person does not feel their life is meaningful, then it isn’t.”

It can be easy to overthink whether or not your life has meaning. But if you find yourself questioning whether you have a meaningful life or not, chances are you have some work to do.

“It’s interesting that those who are contented in life don’t really think about living a meaningful life,” Thompson says. “In fact, if questions of meaning come to the fore, it’s a guarantee that the wheels have come off.”

No one but you can decide what makes your life meaningful. However, there are some things to consider as you think about creating a more meaningful life.

Recognize that Happiness Isn’t Enough

It’s common to think that a meaningful life is one full of happiness. However, that’s not always the case, says Thompson. We’ve all heard of people who have everything they thought they wanted — the perfect job, home, spouse, etc. — but who were not content. On the other hand, we’ve heard stories of people who have given it all up to pursue a passion and found meaning and richness of life along the way. So, it’s safe to say there’s more to a meaningful life than just happiness.

Embrace Life, with Good and Bad

Happiness isn’t the key ingredient to meaning, and to find a meaningful life you also need to accept that life comes with good times and bad, Thompson says.

“The problem with the ‘happiness’ approach is that those who pursue happiness are doomed,” he says. “Suffering is a natural part of life, so they will always fail.”

Some people find meaning through their suffering — including people who have navigated the difficulties or drug or alcohol addiction. It can be worth exploring what your suffering has contributed to your life — the lessons it has taught or the people it has brought in — and reflecting on how those things have increased meaningfulness.

Accept Reality

For many people, life is harsh. This can be particularly true coming out of the chaos of addiction and the traumas that might have contributed to your drug or alcohol misuse. But in order to find meaning, you must accept life, just as it is, Thompson says.

“A person who desires a meaningful life must first accept reality, no matter how bleak,” he says.

This means no excuses — you can’t say your childhood trauma caused your addiction, or that you only have a record because the criminal justice system was out to get you. Instead, you need to accept reality and make sense of the world around you.

Know Yourself

A meaningful life is incredibly personal. To know what is meaningful to you, you must have a sound sense of self. That means defining the values, principles and beliefs that will guide you throughout life.

“Those who live meaningfully understand what is important to them: their values, their beliefs, strengths, limitations, desires and wants,” Thompson says.

Once you understand these things, you can create goals based on these criteria.

Build Relationships

Almost everyone finds meaning in quality, authentic connections with others. Fostering healthy relationships — and getting rid of those that are no longer healthy — can contribute to the meaning in your life.

“Those who live meaningful lives develop positive, authentic connections with others,” Thompson says.

Diversify

The people who have the most fulfillment in life find meaning from various sources, Thompson says.

“A contented person needs several sources of meaning to live a meaningful life: work, family, community, etc,” he says.

If you just have one or two of those, you might find your sense of a meaningful life lacking.

“Many clients find meaning only in one area of their life,” Thompson says. “In this case—all eggs in one or two baskets—we would say the person is not living a personally meaningful life.”

Finding fulfillment from different areas can ensure that you maintain a rich and meaningful existence.

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Sunshine Coast Health Centre is a non 12-step drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in British Columbia. The Fix staff consists of the editor-in-chief and publisher, a senior editor, an associate editor, an editorial coordinator, and several contributing editors and writers. Articles in Professional Voices, Ask an Expert, and similar sections are written by doctors, psychologists, clinicians, professors and other experts from universities, hospitals, government agencies and elsewhere. For contact and other info, please visit our About Us page.

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The post 6 Ways to Create Meaning in Your Life first appeared on AA Agnostica.

Chapter 14:
Do Tell! Stories by Atheists and Agnostics in AA

Deirdre S.

I drank for twenty years. Too many times I drank past my tolerance level and woke up shivering on some bathroom floor. When I picked up my first beer of the night, I rarely knew how or where I’d end up. In the mornings, I often felt like someone had slipped me poison. Of course that mysterious “someone” was me.

My last and final drunk wasn’t my last and final drink. After a terrible night, wasted, stumbling, and trying to find my way home only five short blocks from my apartment, I knew I couldn’t go one more round with alcohol. Stopping completely seemed too final. I decided that I needed to lay off for a few months. I drank a couple of beers here and there while I contemplated the right time to begin my R and R (resisting and rehydration). Finally an acquaintance suggested acupuncture. Initially this worked; I went ten days without a drink, for me a long interval. But I found, underneath all the drinking, that I had a lot of un-dealt-with emotions I’d been diluting.

A sober friend urged me to go to an AA meeting. During the twenty years that I’d been drinking I had come in contact with the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Each time I read them the word God loomed high. I’ve been an atheist since I was twelve. I never had the need or desire to have a divine being in my life. When I said to my sober friend that I couldn’t go to AA she said that she was also an atheist, but found what she needed to stay sober were meetings and the fellowship.

At my first meeting I stayed quiet. During a discussion about Step One a big Irish guy, former bartender, said that the step had nothing to do with God. He boiled down the program to: Don’t drink; Go to meetings; and Help another alcoholic. Keep it simple he said. Relief swept over me. I could take what I heard in meetings, identify with the stories, and stay sober.

However, I still needed something more to maintain long-term sobriety. I needed the fellowship and the experience, strength, and hope of others. I needed to find a meeting where I could let those emotions I’d been drowning come out and be aired.

About six months into my sobriety, I found a meeting that catered to agnostics, atheists, and freethinkers as well as anyone else who needed a giant dose of AA. In that meeting I found people who had decades of sobriety who never prayed a day in their lives. I met people who tried all the suggestions of well-meaning AAs, but they still found that praying did not feel like rigorous honesty – no matter how hard they tried. When they surrendered to the idea that they couldn’t drink safely, they accepted their powerlessness over alcohol. These sober people were members of AA, no better or worse than people who believed in God.

Everyone, it seems, has their own definition of spirituality and that confuses me. But after I stopped the intake of the depressant alcohol, I felt better. I got my “joy of life” back. That’s as close as I come to having a spiritual experience and I’m thrilled to discover that the booze-induced cloud of lousy feelings vanished. Even the streets of New York City looked brighter. My grumpy attitude transformed and my co-workers saw the difference in the clearness of my eyes.

I look to my fellows every time I get an urge to drink. If I find myself in a situation where I can’t call one of them for support, I imagine their healthy sober faces. I learned that I can leave parties and other social situations if I feel uncomfortable about the drinking. I shared lots of coffee with people I met at these meetings. Slowly they became my friends. I found a sponsor and did the steps with her. Some parts of AA literature we liked, other parts we couldn’t identify with. But we’ve both found what we needed for long-term sobriety in meetings and fellowship.

I’ve been sober for eighteen years now. I’m happy with the profound changes I made. My life is bigger than I ever imagined. I’m glad the hand of AA was there for me when I needed it. I’m also glad that I found a home meeting where people have accepted me as I am, encouraged me to grow, and demanded that I remain true to my better self.

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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.

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The post My Diluted Emotions first appeared on AA Agnostica.