Category: From AA Agnostica

By Ronald W.

I started drinking at age 15 in high school, and I always drank to get drunk. And I did that for 37 years. That was my deal with life – as long as I could drink when I wanted to or needed to, I could deal with life and get by.  At first I was seeking nirvana, and then gradually seeking comfortable numbness, and then finally oblivion.

My parents were not drunks. They barely drank at all. They were very strict, very religious people, and they raised their family of 6 children that way, with a lot of corporal punishment and harsh discipline when we were young. But I did have a stable environment, and enough food, clothing, and shelter,  along with a decent education, and I am grateful for that.

By the time I was a teen I was overflowing with guilt, shame, fear, feelings of inferiority, and suppressed anger. I found some others who became my friends and we started drinking together on weekend nights. And then I got involved with other mind-altering substances as well, and other friends. And I had become an agnostic as well.

I was a nerd in high school, and very socially awkward, and that did not improve much in college. I was thirsty for learning, however, and I earned two bachelor’s degrees over the course of 10 years. I was able to keep my partying to mostly just weekend blowouts for about 12 years, until a breakup with a girlfriend, and I drank more often after that. Still I got a good job, which involved a lot of travel, and which allowed me to drink a lot during the week after work. I knew I needed money to drink, and I needed to drink so I needed to work. That cycle worked for many years, more or less.

However, after another couple of breakups with more girlfriends, I started going downhill and struggled to keep my drinking in check. During this time I earned by Master’s degree and several more certificates and certifications for my career. But after about 1½ years of voluntary sobriety, I finally went over the edge again on my last three year run. I was still very much a closet drinker, but most of my friends were gone. I never had a family of my own as alcohol was always my mistress and first choice. And my drinking was starting to affect my work. During that final phase, I started to drink to blackout and passing out and waking up in my own vomit, which I had mostly been able to avoid in previous years. I was desperately seeking oblivion.

Then came the moment of clarity, when the fog cleared a bit after 32 years of drinking. The sign was flashing “Point of No Return”, and I was descending into a very ugly oblivion. I knew I had a decision to make. That I could continue on with my downward spiral and probably not escape, or something had to change. I could not live without alcohol, but I realized I could not live with alcohol anymore.

My employment had an Employee Assistance Program, and I called them Monday morning after my latest drunken spree. They set me up with a therapist after telling them I was depressed and seeking help (I did not tell them I was considering suicide). The therapist I went to the next day turned out to be a very beneficial beginning on the road I was embarking on. I was honest enough that my therapist recommended I go to AA. And the very next day, Wednesday, I attended my first meeting.

Just talking to my therapist once a week, or reading a self-help book was not going to cut it, I knew that from the get go. I needed a more active solution, a tool kit for life, but mostly I needed to get out of myself and my own head, and around others who had a similar problem but who had found a solution.

And so every night after work on my drive home, I was able to find a meeting, and then on the weekends I would go to a morning meeting and an evening meeting, so I did more than 90 meetings in 90 days. But I desperately needed those meetings, and the hope and encouragement I felt and heard in these rooms. I needed to see that there were other people who had problems with life and with alcohol and with their own self, like I did. And that they had found a way to help them not drink, and to help them live life on life’s terms.

One day at a time really hit me right where I needed it. I could not see swearing off alcohol forever when I had no idea if I could go for a week without drinking. That would be meaningless. But I could maybe go for a day, and just do today, one day at a time, each day. And that is what I have done ever since. I have never taken an oath to not drink and I never will. I will always only do one day at a time.

I did not identify with any of the god talk in AA and I mostly ignored it. I then came to realize I was actually more of an atheist that an agnostic. But what did I believe? I believe in myself, and in others, and in the fellowship, as well as things like truth, justice, liberty, equality, fairness, nature, science, and the wonder of living.

I was psychologically weak when I first came in to get sober, and I needed emotional support, friendship, and connection with others who had done this thing. I found an agnostic sponsor and worked a secular version of the 12 steps. It kept my mind off drinking.

As a human, I do need relationships with other people, and even though I am still very much a loner, I have found some of what I need in AA. I also found that by helping others as others helped me, I feel better about myself,  and find a place for myself among others in different ways.

I know I never want to go back to those final desolate days of desperation and hopelessness, and staying in a fellowship of others like myself is the best way for me to do that. I will soon be celebrating my 18^th year of sobriety, and have been retired for three years now after my 35 year engineering career. Still having fun and looking forward to more one day at a times. I take care of myself and my relationships, help others, sleep well, eat healthy, stay active, and keep involved. I will continue dancing one day at a time until I dance no more!

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Ron W. had his last drink on September 30, 2006. He came to AA on the recommendation of his therapist. Ron has used many different ideas as his higher power, as he was agnostic when he joined AA and soon realized he was actually mostly atheist. Many meetings in southern California are more tolerant of different versions of one’s higher power, even though they use the Big Book and Twelve Steps, and he is grateful for that.  During the Covid lockdown, he found many available secular meetings and fellowships and that was a breath of fresh air. Today he is retired, travelling, and is content with life.

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For a PDF of this article, click here No Longer Seeking Oblivion.

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The post No Longer Seeking Oblivion first appeared on AA Agnostica.

By Chris N.

My observation is that most people give credit to Alcoholics Anonymous for helping to change attitudes about the phenomenon called alcoholism. The book Alcoholics Anonymous famously claims that alcoholism is a disease, and includes “the doctor’s opinion” as part of establishing that claim.

Of course, A.A. was not first to claim that alcoholism is a disease, so this is not unique or new to A.A. or the book.  One of the most bizarre things in the book is the glaring, stunning, OMLOG (O, My Lack Of God) contradiction between the claim that alcoholism is a disease rather than a moral failing, and the prescribed religious and moral treatment for that disease. But if that is bizarre, consider that legal systems send offenders, and medical treatment programs for addiction continue to send patients, to A.A. and N.A.—as though what is offered there isn’t a religion-based moral system. For no other kind of legal infraction, and for no other ailment, does our society consider it appropriate to refer people to a self-help group whose mainstream operates as an ongoing Christian moral training camp.

A.A. does have something right: that whatever “addiction” is, it is somehow different from other wrongs or ailments. It is not like committing fraud or lying to Congress; it is not like breaking your arm playing lacrosse or even a chronic condition like multiple sclerosis. But in none of those cases would we imagine that the treatment should involve sharing your “experience, strength, and hope” with others in like condition, and undertaking 12 steps aimed at a “spiritual awakening.”

There is something else that I believe A.A. has right: that for an “addict,” living without alcohol or the substance of choice takes the help of others, and the best others to provide that help are other addicts. Addiction is in some way different from acts of treason, tennis elbow, or prostate cancer. The difference of addiction that I want to discuss is also what leads me to doubt the disease model of addiction.

I will assert without argument that A.A. is wrong about the “spiritual” part of the “program.” This language originally intended to assuage worries of alcoholics concerned that A.A. was a Christian cult group, until they could be fully inculcated into the group, when its true Christian meaning could be accepted (see Schamberg on this point). A.A., at its core, is a religious program, especially in the conventional version as represented by the book of Alcoholics Anonymous. In what follows, I am simply going to reject and ignore the notion that a supernatural being would cure anyone of addiction.

The Disease Model of Addiction

Let me return to a more salient point A.A. makes: alcoholism is a disease, rather than a moral failing. Despite this, it prescribes a moral (“spiritual”) remedy. This contradiction reveals an underlying assumption in both the “moral” and disease models of addiction: it affects individuals as such. There may be conditions contributing to the development of addiction, but the addiction itself is treated as the behavioral problem of the individual. Treatments, whether moral or “medical,” are focused on the individual. The individual has the problem, the individual needs to be treated, the individual needs to be sobered up, the individual needs to have the spiritual awakening, and so on.

This assumption appears natural because it is fundamental the ideology of Liberalism and Capitalism—the fundamental and dominant set of assumptions about social reality that prevail in our society, of which a bit more anon. The assumption that it is the individual who “has the disease” and the individual who needs treatment leads to an unconscious, fast bit of reasoning. Addiction comes from continuous use of a substance. An addict must have continuously used that substance. Therefore, the addict must be responsible for the addiction. It follows that the person who needs to be treated is the addict, and the one who needs to be held to account for this addiction is the addict.

This is how the predominant models of addiction and recovery reproduce the ideology of individualism. Whatever social conditions pertain to the development of addiction, social and economic systems are usually regarded as irrelevant, and at best considered co-causal factors. Consumer capitalism is never considered as fundamental to the production of addiction and recovery; or, when it is, it is considered merely as the unchangeable, inevitable background situation, i.e., “the real world.” ^[1] The differences between two poor people of color growing up with discrimination in education, transportation, economic and social opportunity, one of whom becomes addicted to alcohol and one who does not, is chalked up to individual strength of character, or strong family background, or moral virtue, or religion—something outside the public sphere.

And the familiar shibboleth that “alcoholism can affect all kinds,” regardless of education or wealth or social class, allows us to ignore any of the social and economic factors that pertain to the development of addiction. It mystifies alcoholism and addiction. Underlying causation is not merely ignored, it is hidden by layers of assumption that the individual has somehow been created by itself.

This ideology leaves us with far fewer resources for understanding or ameliorating addictive and other unhealthy consumption behavior. It has us ignore the way brain chemistry works, and how a person in distress, lacking safety, security, affection, care, or a home can alleviate this distress through tricking their own brains, via alcohol or other drugs, into producing hormones that reduce the feeling of distress. We know that the repeated use of alcohol and other drugs to reduce distress is the heart of substance addiction. Therefore, we know that it is not the individual’s lack of good character, lack of moral upbringing, lack of religion that leads to addiction. We know that it is ongoing experiences of acute distress.

You don’t necessarily need to grow up a poor kid of color and consequently discriminated against in myriad other ways, to lack safety, security, affection, or care, or a home. Often the distress is not recognized, or is misrecognized as “discipline,” particularly, in my experience, among those who grew up poor or in families who did not gain much education. Furthermore, plenty of white “middle class” kids, plenty of wealthy kids, grow up in situations of tremendous ongoing distress. It is not poverty or discrimination that necessarily leads to alcoholism or addiction—no news there. It is not what we used to call deprivation. It can be as simple as neglect.

Acute distress is a complex phenomenon involving psychic, emotional pain, lack or loss of resources, lack or loss of social support or economic support, and other factors. It can, and often is, related to trauma. The rates of addiction among those who have unresolved trauma in their personal history is very high, for instance—according to the National Institutes for Health, close to half of PTSD sufferers fit the diagnostic criteria for substance use disorder, and more than one quarter fit the criteria for substance dependence disorder (the DSM-V term for addiction).^[2] No one traumatizes themselves. No child neglects or abuses itself. No one dispossesses themselves economically and socially. These are harms and oppressions that a society produces, along with the so-called individual who experiences the distress of living through them.

We know that this is the heart of addiction and unhealthy consumption behavior. Yet the way we talk about addiction and recovery, leaving aside “miracles,” continues to tell us and the “individual” that the individual is responsible, the individual needs to take stock of themselves, the individual needs to do the work.

The industry of “self-help” is built on this premise. And while the idea of self-improvement is ancient, the specific concept of self-help in the modern sense belongs very much to the capitalist-individualist ideology of the first book published in this industry, Self-Help, by Samuel Smiles. Smiles’ text draws from a series of lectures he gave to audiences of laborers in the North of England, allegedly by invitation. Smiles tells us:

But to wrestle vigorously and successfully with any vicious habit, we must not merely be satisfied with contending on the low ground of worldly prudence, though that is of use, but take stand upon a higher moral elevation. Mechanical aids, such as pledges, may be of service to some, but the great thing is to set up a high standard of thinking and acting, and endeavor to strengthen and purify the principles, as well as to reform the habits.^[3]

It is a story we hear often, but it simply is not true, and A.A.’s own practice shows that it is not true. What helps us is not strengthening and purifying our principles, but being able to share our woes and miseries, being able to speak in a frank way about our distress, in a space that is practically unique in the modern world. Groups of alcoholics who meet in person or online and are able to talk about their lives freely together and share their grief and their struggles, and occasionally their joys and pleasures, can provide each other support, friendship, conviviality, love, safety, connection, and community. These are all goods that our economy and society provide only scarcely and at high cost to us (especially in the cost of time).

Otherwise, for most of us, our environment continues to be the same unsupportive or oppressive situation that produces distress in the first place. For myself, being sober does not eliminate—in fact, only leaves open, raw, and more acute—the unresolved trauma of the first 20 years of my life before I began drinking, to say nothing of everyday stresses. As Gabor Maté mulled in In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, the ecological milieu in which addiction thrives is one in which peace of mind, self-care, and general well-being are almost impossible to achieve. When “treatment” of the “individual” returns a sober person to a social milieu as stressful, oppressive, and where income divides are as inequitable as in our society, no disease has been cured, or even cared for. Maté says, “Stress is salient in the ecology of addiction… The most potent stressors are loss of control and uncertainty in important areas of life, whether personal or professional, economic or psychological.”^[4] For example, at present, roughly 45% of workers in the U.S. are fearful of losing their jobs this year.^[5] This is both a stressor in itself, and something out of the individual’s control.

Neoliberal, capitalist society does not provide social support or a public sphere where the question of the ecology of addiction can be addressed. To remain consistent with the ideology of this economic and social system, the individual-disease model of addiction and alcoholism must be maintained, despite its inherent contradictions. That is how the bizarre disease of alcoholism appeared in the 1930s, the only disease in modern medicine to be treated with a moral and “spiritual” program. This bizarre disease was the only one in modern medicine caused by egotism and selfishness, according to the book Alcoholics Anonymous: failings of the individual, “defects of character.” Yet even a psychiatric diagnosis of substance dependency disorder today stipulates that this is an individual’s disorder, an in that way the DSM-V continues to echo that addiction is a defect, even if it does not say “of character.”

I repeat: we know better. Alcoholism, addiction, is not a disease that an individual has. It is the predictable result we ought to expect from acute distress and lack of support, conviviality, and care. We know this, because we know that what keeps us sober is our mutual support, our conviviality, and our care.

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^[1] For instance, in his book Addiction, one of the oddly most economically and socially conscious books on the subject, Russell Brand makes the connection between capitalism’s dependence on unending consumption, and the addict’s own dependence. Although Brand asserts that addictive behavior is really only consumption behavior that has become overwhelmingly self-sustaining and destructive to people, he surrenders any possibility of social change to the power of capitalism.

^[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3811127/ Accessed 23 September 2024.

^[3] Smiles, Samuel, Self Help. Forgotten Books, 2012, p. 295. Originally published 1866. If you’re of the right mindset, it is as hilarious as you’d expect.

^[4] Maté, Gabor. In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2008, p. 397.

^[5] https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/03/07/job-market-cooling-despite-high-employment-numbers/72846912007/ Accessed 23 September 2024.

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

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For a PDF of this article, click here: Against Recovery and Self-Help, Part 1.

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The post Against Recovery and Self-Help, Part 1 first appeared on AA Agnostica.

By Alcohol Free Margarita

I had really high expectations for this event for several years, and my expectations were nowhere near high enough! Leading up to the event, I had the rewarding privilege of working with the folks from the OMAGOD ICSAA Host City Committee, as a member and the secretary of the Board of Secular AA. Let me tell you. Be glad people like Tony F and Alison P use their powers for good not for evil. They are capable of amazing things! Participants at the conference only saw the tip of that iceberg. And what an amazing weekend we had in Orlando!

I was looking forward to meeting so many of my heroes like authors of the secular literature that has enhanced my life, speakers I’d seen only online, and especially all the folks I’ve grown to love from their honest, vulnerable shares and for the compassion they’ve shown me from their little 2D boxes in my Zoom screen.

There they were in 3D and living color. Even before arriving in Orlando, I had the huge pleasure of flying with my Hubbie and love of my life, Will.I.Am, and Beth Aich, author of We Are Not All Egomaniacs. Then to find Dr. Judy Hollis, author of From Bagels to Buddha, Fat is a Family Affair, others, and renowned for much more that was truly exciting. We were ever so grateful for Rady who’d driven from Cleveland delivering us and many others throughout the weekend to the hotel where more hugs, heroes, and hugs from heroes awaited. At dinner, I remember thinking, “Don’t pinch me! If this is just a dream, I don’t want to wake up.” There I was sitting amongst the amazing Penny, Mary C, Joe C, Dr. Allen Berger, Zanner, my beloved Will.I.Am and tables full of more of my heroes nearby, knowing many loved ones were yet to arrive in Orlando. I slept less than 3 hours that night; too fucking excited.

Friday morning, I loaded up on ICSAA Orlando 2024 merch. Will.I.Am, chair of Secular AA and Tony, cochair of the ICSAA Orlando Host Committee expressed warm welcomes and gratitude for everyone there. Then I had the huge honor of presenting Zanner from Beyond Belief Toronto in the first session of the conference. With their story, they shredded my heart, stitched it back together, and filled it with hope and inspiration for all our abilities to recover from trauma and addiction. The recording of Zanner’s session has already been posted on our website, https://secularaa.buzzsprout.com/1536487/episodes/15810118-icsaa-2024-zanner-w-from-sobriety-torecovery. Luckily many more recordings are coming soon as there were always multiple sessions offered concurrently throughout the weekend. I will have to catch the recordings of Atheism as Affirmations in Sobriety by John H. and How to Start a Secular Meeting in the Bible Belt by Glenn G as they shared the time slot with Zanner’s, The Next Step: From Sobriety to Recovery. Check back here for those https://www.aasecular.org/recordings.

I also had the huge honor of introducing Allen Berger PhD in his session titled Emotional Sobriety and Healthy Relationships: Creating Room for People Rather than Expectations and Rules. He spoke about emotional sobriety foremost as maturing, a process many of us stunted in the throes of active addiction. However maturing toward self-sufficiency doesn’t mean not asking for help. As I understood Allen, it means understanding what we need, a challenge in and of itself for many of us, and learning how to communicate that in our relationships. Resonate? “I alone can do this, but I cannot do this alone.” Access Allen Berger’s books and schedule of ongoing talks and more at his website, https://abphd.com/. He and Joe C. even posted a 30-minute session I have yet to listen to titled, He Doth Protest Too Much (Missive from ICSAA)! from the conference in their podcast, Emotional Sobriety: The Next Step in Recovery, accessible where you listen to podcasts. I also look forward to listening to the recordings of sessions held concurrently to Allen’s like Kurt R’s, Our (Troublesome?) Relationship to AA Literature, Experience and Strategies for the Future as well as the Beyond Belief Sobriety Podcast Reunion Panel with Mary C, Angela, and John S as they’re released to Secular AA’s podcast site, https://www.aasecular.org/recordings.

Joe C. was the Keynote speaker Friday evening sharing on what best helps people with mental health challenges and addiction to thrive. He discussed the scientifically studied conceptual framework, C.H.I.M.E.: Connection, Hope, Identity, Meaning, and Empowerment. I saw Joe present on this topic a year ago, July 2023, at the Langley, BC Roundup, One Big Tent, and it was awesome, but his presentation has become even more fascinating, polished, and informative.

Friday afternoon’s sessions were followed by fellowship and chocolate chip cookies! Smiling faces can be seen from then and throughout the weekend posted on ICSAA Orlando 2024’s private Facebook group, https://www.facebook.com/share/g/sXEiXqXp3SZnK1Zj/ .

Nell and Joseph, I forgive you. Friday evening, I joined one of the yoga/Pilates sessions they led. But, for the rest of the weekend, was I ever sore from my healthy lifestyle choice! But, yes, Nell and Joseph, I forgive you. Still, I was too excited and only got about 4 hours sleep Friday night.

Tired but happy, I attended sessions all day Saturday. Wow. What another joy it was to introduce and hear the LGBTQIA+ panel on Identity, Not an Outside Issue first thing Saturday morning with Stephanie F, Tracy C, and Chad C giving leads. To those three and the participants who spoke after, thank you for your loving, compassionate, inspiring and brave shares and insights. Thank you, Sri from Boston! Meanwhile and unsurprisingly, I heard great feedback from folks who attended the concurrent session presented by Glenn Rader on Cognitive Distortions and am eager for that recording to be available as well. His book, Modern 12 Steps, was the first book on secular 12 Step recovery I came across as a newbie the summer of 2021. Thankfully, he and his partner stayed for the whole conference and Will.I.Am and I were able to chat with them about recovery and much more. Being able to thank and hang in person with authors and presenters was an unanticipated benefit that kept happening throughout the ICSAA Orlando weekend.

It happened with Beth Aich, too, author of We’re Not All Egomaniacs: Adapting the 12 Steps for People with Low Self-Esteem who led the next session I attended. I’ve thanked her before because I came across her book when I was struggling with Step 4 just a few months into recovery. You know that ‘My Part’ column in the 4^th Step? Her insight about victims of abuse not being to blame for their abuse was a dramatic turning point in my recovery. It now feels like common sense, but I needed to hear it and am ever grateful to Beth. There wasn’t a dry eye in the crowd when Beth finished her presentation. Together she had us recite the following aloud using our own names, “I, Margarita, take you, Margarita, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to have and to hold, to love and to cherish, until death do us part.” Try it! Imagine the power of doing that together in a room full of people.

At the conference, we suffered the wonderful problem of too many great options scheduled at once and I must listen to the recordings of the concurrently offered sessions of The Young Faces of AA: Stories of Early Entry and Ongoing Recovery led by Stephanie F from New Zealand and Who Is Hank Parkhurst? led by Geri B when they are posted at https://www.aasecular.org/recordings as well.

One of the greatest gifts of the many given me by sobriety is meeting Penny on zoom and finally in person this weekend. Penny from Virginia, the keynote speaker at lunch Saturday shared on the remarkable experiences her 56 ½ years of sobriety made possible; nonbeliever all her life and sober in AA since 1968 because she led her life guided by choosing not just the next right thing, but always the loving thing to do.

Feeling like an awkward kid in front of her superhero, I met Dr. Jamie Marich who, while wearing her ‘Sober is Sexy’ T-shirt, presented on the intertwined topics of trauma, dissociation, addiction, and trauma-informed and adapted 12 Step recovery. I already own and have benefitted from reading and discussing her book, Trauma and the 12 Steps (An Inclusive Guide to Enhancing Recovery). So, I had to pick up a few more, Process Not Perfection: Expressive Arts Solutions for Trauma Recovery for the artist in me, and Dissociation Made Simple. I want the e-version of her book, Trauma and the 12 Steps: Daily Meditations and Reflections to add to mine and my husband’s morning readings of Joe C’s Beyond Belief, Agnostic Daily Musings for a 12 Step Life and Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic. (Bob K, if you’re reading this, we’re patiently awaiting your own soon to be published daily musings to add to our morning reflections, too.)

I am looking forward to hearing the recordings of the other sessions offered in that time slot of The Art of Living Sober: A Panel on Stoicism and Meditation in Recovery led by Lily A as well as the Friends of Secular AA Panel ~ OA, NA, ACA, CoDA, AlAnon posting soon at https://www.aasecular.org/recordings.

Following Jamie, I attended Tracy C of Westside Agnostics Cleveland’s presentation titled Double Winners, followed by Michelle’s presentation titled, Black, Female, Atheist & Sober – Seeking Wholeness: Finding “The” Shoes That Fit. I am grateful for the space granted in secular AA meetings to recognize the importance of mental health factors or belonging to other recovery fellowships or society’s marginalized groups as integral to our recovery, not as outside issues, and we can improve at providing safe space. I look forward to hearing recordings of the sessions offered concurrently, Secular Voices at International Women’s Conferences led by Jen B; Afternoon with the Atheist Panel led by John C; as well as Limitless Expansion through Practice of THESE Steps, a Lifelong Adventure led by the beloved Ever Grateful JEB; Legislative Remedies to Prevent State-Coerced Participation in Orthodox Twelve-Step Programs led by Eric C; and Slogans in AA led by Max and Mikey J of OMAGOD.

Saturday night, many of us danced our sober asses off and were entertained by Robin from Secular Sobriety Tulsa’s cover of Drops of Jupiter by Train.

Sunday morning brought Dr. Trysh Travis, author of, in Bob K’s words, the “FANTABULOUS” book The Language of the Heart: A Cultural History of the Recovery Movement from Alcoholics Anonymous to Oprah Winfrey (2009). The recording of her presentation, AA in the Age of Polarization, is already available on our podcast https://secularaa.buzzsprout.com/1536487  and recordings of the concurrent sessions of Relationships in Recovery: Platonic and Romantic led by Stephanie F and Chad C as well as Kurt R’s Working Under Cover (or Exposed!) will soon be added.

Surprisingly, I thoroughly enjoyed Dr. Noeréna A of Westside Agnostics Cleveland’s presentation on grief. She inspired and filled the audience with tools and hope with her refreshingly upbeat presentation on Twelve Stepping through Loss, Change and Grief While Protecting Recovery, a valuable must-listen recording for all of us in recovery given experiencing loss is inevitable. Access her recording here https://secularaa.buzzsprout.com/1536487/episodes/15815818-icsaa-2024-loss-change-and-grief-the-12-steps.  I’m eager to hear recordings of concurrently offered sessions of Healing Our Relationships in Al-Anon led by Tracy, Alex, and Marilyn as well as the Long Timers Panel led by Mary C.

The last panel I attended was not recorded, but no fear, one of the speakers, BD Zack, has already offered to speak at the next conference. He and Owen shared their Experience, Strength and Hope and truly filled me with hope, inspiration and joy of knowing people like these two are out there in this world.

The closing. Where are my words to describe the closing?! Chills reliving the memory of, after gratitude was expressed, the concluding exchange made between the newest and most veteran of us in recovery, Marcela and Penny. The crowd sobbed in unison with the love, joy, and hope personified in that pairing.

Check back at this link for more recordings as they are released: https://www.aasecular.org/recordings. Session recordings will be wonderful, but you can’t experience the comfort and joy of being right there in kinship. ICSAA Orlando 2024 was a ‘lovefest’, to steal a word from Penny, like no other conference before because so many of us already knew and loved each other thanks to Zoom. Now I have even stronger connections and many beautiful new ones as well. Of course, not every loved one in our recovery networks could make it and we lamented that and truly missed them.

Join us Sunday, October 6 at 2 pm ET, Zoom ID: 864 4075 003 and Passcode: 121212 for the Biennial General Membership meeting for opportunities to get involved with Secular AA in the planning of the next in person conference 2026, our secular presence in Vancouver 2025, our virtual conference 2025, monthly zoom Global Speaker Meetings, and more. Several cities initially expressed interest in hosting, but only groups in Phoenix, AZ have followed through. Join in the exciting opportunity of participating in the planning of ICSAA Phoenix 2026!

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Margarita has been alcohol-free since June 20, 2021, after learning religion-free AA existed on zoom. She gratefully joined the Board of Secular AA serving as secretary as of 2022 while also participating in organizing monthly Global Speaker Tour events in addition to International Conferences of Secular AA throughout 2023 and 2024 with no plans of stopping.

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For a PDF of this article, click here: A Zoom Baby Attends ICSAA 2024.

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The post A Zoom Baby Attends ICSAA 2024 first appeared on AA Agnostica.

By Mick S.

I’m sure my experience with AA is not totally unique but it’s probably a little unusual.

In short, I spent a decade sober in AA in the 60’s and 70’s, then drank for 22 years before  returning to AA in 1999. So I have now enjoyed 25 years of continual sobriety.

By the benchmark of “Once having taken a drink, I cannot guarantee my consumption or my behaviour” I have been an alcoholic from my first drink at the age of 15. I am the son of alcoholics and if you shake my family tree bottles will fall from many branches. Whether my alcoholism stems from genetics or environment is an interesting topic for discussion but really quite irrelevant.

I made my first contact with AA in 1966, aged 19, and got sober at 20. This was in the Goulburn Valley area of Victoria, Australia. The first AA member I met was known to me, being the father of boys with whom I’d gone to a Catholic school. I had to stop myself from calling him “Mister”.

The AA which I encountered was very big on fellowship, less so on program. The advice (and example) offered to the newcomer was simple and direct.

The FIRST step was in fact to accept unreservedly that one was an alcoholic and could not take the first drink. The “One day at a time” mantra was emphasized and stressed that if a day was too long one should break it down to shorter periods or simply get another member on the phone. (Early on there were simply no mobile phones and not every home had a landline).

The next step was to get to meetings. Our home city of Shepparton had one meeting a week and there were meetings most nights in surrounding country towns within an hour or so drive. Often a country town group consisted of one person who, on a designated night, would open up the church hall and wait for visitors to arrive, and usually they did. So a meeting could also consist of a meeting in the car on the way to the meeting and again on the way home. Often the “meeting after the meeting” would adjourn to the local member’s kitchen until the small hours of the morning.

One was further advised to make amends to those one had harmed, with family being a priority.

Initially I was by far the youngest but over the years other young people joined the group and we would make up a carload and drive the 2 ½ hours to Melbourne ( the state capital) to attend the young people’s group, drink coffee and talk in coffee lounges for hours and race back up the highway to be home for work in the morning. We were young, sober and enjoying life.

The religious views of the members seemed to represent a microcosm of the greater community. Some were believers, many were nominally Christians but non practising and a few were non theist though the term atheist was rarely used. Most meetings closed with The Serenity Prayer but I, and I suspect most others, regarded this as a commendable thought process rather than a plea for divine intervention. The “Lord’s Prayer” has never been a part of Australian AA culture. At meetings the Big Book was on the table and the banners on the wall but discussion was more about practical matters and strategies for a life without alcohol. A lot of the people were at best semi- literate so reading and philosophizing was of little interest.

After 10 years of this my life was good. Whilst an earlier (far too young) marriage had failed I had remarried to the woman who is my wife today, moved to Melbourne and had a small and successful business. The only problem was that I was busy. People to see, places to go, money to earn. Before too long I was thinking of myself simply as somebody who chose not to drink instead of an alcoholic who couldn’t drink, and I just didn’t have time for the AA meetings.

Of course, the inevitable happened and I did drink. I think there was something in the back of my mind telling me that if this was a major problem, I could always head back to AA. Predictably and spectacularly, it was a problem and, yes, I did make my way back to AA. The flaw in my plan was that it took 22 years to find my way back to AA in 1999.

I do not propose to deal with those 22 years here other than to say that I am very fortunate to still be here and that my survival is largely due to the support of my wife with whom I celebrated 48 years of marriage this year. This is the woman who met and married me as a sober person in AA with no alcoholism in her family background or experience and when I drank she found herself married to a man she’d never met.

At about 3:00 AM on February 24^th, 1999, I awoke from a fitful sleep with an overpowering sense of impending doom and a moment of total clarity that my life was at a crossroads like none I had experienced before. Everything that I held dear was balancing on a knife edge: marriage, sanity, finances, health, even life itself. Later that morning I contacted each of my 6 children to seek their forgiveness and support in the action I was about to take which was to re-engage with AA and again seek sobriety.

I started attending meetings and bit by bit the fog lifted. I really don’t think I took too much notice of what was actually happening or being said in the meetings and simply maintained my resolve to refrain from drinking one day at a time. However, I soon became aware of an emphasis on spiritual matters which was foreign to me. When I examined my attitudes to this, I realized that I had over the years moved from a general dislike of my Catholic school years to what I realized was atheism. I could find not one trace of evidence, let alone proof, of the existence of a deity. Not all, but many of the meetings I attended preached a doctrine of “Believe or Begone” and would quote the egregious Chapter 4 of the Big Book to those who would resist their religiosity. I was also counselled to “Fake it till I Make it”, usually right after being told that this was a program of rigorous honesty. (And I seemed to be the only one in the room who saw the irony in this.)

As time passed, I became more open about my atheism and more likely to confront those who harangued the newcomer with their “You’ll never get sober without God” nonsense. And I was now angry because of the number of people I saw being driven away from AA by the cultish and dogmatic attitudes of the fundamentalists. Going to meetings was becoming a chore for which I had less and less appetite.

At about this time I began to hear about something called “Secular AA” in the USA and even of a couple of meetings in Australia. In 2018 my wife and I holidayed in North America and I attended the International Secular AA Convention in Toronto.

“Life Changing experience” is a cliché, but that’s what it was. From feeling marginalized in Australia to agreeing with several hundred like-minded people at the International Conference of Secular AA (ICSAA) in Toronto was incredible. Shortly before my Toronto visit, I had met Helen M who’d started a secular meeting at Kawana, on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. Helen had encountered a lot of push backs trying to get her meeting listed and even when she did open her meeting the harassment from local AA traditionalists forced her to close the meeting due to fears for her safety. Upon my return from North America we joined forces and started the Bulimba Freethinkers Secular Meeting. Helen’s tormentors paid us a visit but upon finding a male (a 71 year old male) they slunk back and left us alone. Covid drove our meeting to online and post Covid we have continued as both and in person and zoom meetings and we host participants from all round the world. We lost Helen to cancer in 2022.

Today Secular meetings are listed under their own heading in Australia and the last several National Conventions have featured secular meetings. On the surface it almost looks like inclusiveness is the order of the day. I was naive enough to start to believe that was the case until I became involved in AA politics and realized that it is there is little more than reluctant tolerance of secular AA. It doesn’t really matter what the hierarchy (and yes there is a hierarchy) tries to pretend, little has changed in AA. Secular newcomers are still being turned away in droves.

In Australia in recent years a pamphlet created by secular people for secular people was created and distributed around secular groups. It was resolved that that pamphlet be presented to the AA Conference to become “Conference Approved”. I attended when our local area met to consider this proposal. As a co-author I saw myself I felt I could answer any questions about the pamphlet. Instead, I found myself under attack and defending the very right of secular AA groups to exist at all, a battle which I was naive enough to believe had been fought and won.

The motion was defeated at the conference, but it was decided that there should be such a pamphlet but it should be written and designed by people appointed of the Conference. The process is ongoing and I’ve heard that a secular member has managed to have some say in the finished product and it may not be a total loss. Given the pace with which AA moves and the fact that I’m now 77 I have little confidence in living to see the outcome.

Given the speed with which AA is inevitably moving towards the precipice of total irrelevance by insisting on imposing 1930’s thinking in the 21st century I doubt if it can continue in its present form for more than another decade or so.

I had long been a proponent of the school of thought that secular AA should exist under the umbrella of AA. I was a secular member of a secular AA group (secular being an adjective not a title). I now think that the best way we can be of service to the non-theist who seeks our help is to shake off the shackles of an organization which has lost its way and forge our own path.

The difficulty of course with this is that traditional AA owns the “brand” and so long as the fundamentalists hold sway I can’t see this happening.

I think Bill Wilson deserves the last word on this from his speech at the General Service Conference 1965.

“Our very first concern should be with those sufferers that we are still unable to reach… Newcomers are approaching us at the rate of tens of thousands yearly. They represent almost every belief and attitude imaginable. We have atheists and agnostics. We have people of nearly every race, culture and religion. How much and how often did we fail them?”

I think Bill would be turning in his grave.

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Mick was born in rural Victoria, Australia in 1947. At an early age he resolved never to work where he couldn’t see the sun for most of the day and a life spent largely behind the wheel of a long haul truck was the outcome. He did manage to spend some time at home as is evidenced by his 6 children, 11 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren. Today he is retired in subtropical Brisbane Queensland with his wife, Joan, and two Cocker Spaniels, Joe and Charlie, and most of his family live within an hour’s drive. His experience of 2 introductions to AA 40 odd years apart qualifies him to draw comparisons between AA “then” and “now” and he’s no fan of the modern iteration.

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For a PDF of this article, click here: AA Then and Now.

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The post AA Then and Now first appeared on AA Agnostica.

by Bobby Freaken Beach

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

If you’ve been around longer than a few weeks, you’ve probably heard that one a few times, or more than a few. Why do people say that? The simplest answer is they have heard other people say it. Basically, it’s just assumed to be true. Pretty much anytime AA is criticized or some change is suggested “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” gets trotted out. Is supporting evidence of the “not-brokenness” ever offered? Oh yeah. “Statistics” get trotted out such as: “Rarely have we seen a person fail….” and “Of those who really tried…”

Let me stop you right there, Bobby Beach! I studied statistics at a very fine university and those are not statistics! 

Calm down, Grasshopper. I know that. Bobby Beach recognizes crappola when it’s flung at him!

The pinheads spewing fake stat Number One will also tell you that Willie Wilson favored only one change to the Bigga Booka. “Rarely” should be changed to “Nev-uh.” “Nev-uh have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path…”

We don’t want to oversell the AA program but it’s flawless!

AA does have some numbers – membership estimates – and according to those figures, AA is very broken. After years of impressive growth, membership peaked in 1992 at 2,489,541. The last number showing on aa.org is 2021’s 1,967,613. That 20% drop is more impactful still when one considers a population increase of about 30% during the same time frame. We can debate the cause(s), but AA is not doing well.

Let’s look back at some of our early history.

AA’s Bigga Booka went on sale on April 10, 1939. The working title had been One Hundred Men but the presence of Florence Rankin, sober for about a year, caused a review of that name. The group conscience then voted for A Way Out but there were (supposedly) several books bearing that name. Besides, Bill Wilson wanted the name Alcoholics Anonymous.

It’s commonly said that the fellowship took its name from the book but that isn’t true. There are 1938 letters using the name “Alcoholics Anonymous” to identify the group, many months before the book was named. Bill Wilson was “acting as if” that were the agreed-upon name. Pretty clever, actually. The One Hundred Men Corporation Prospectus, also crafted in 1938, used the name “Alcoholics Anonymous” as a header on every page – a sort of letterhead.

What was the One Hundred Men Corporation, Bobby?

That was the private publishing company that owned the Bigga Booka.

But AA self-published their book. AA owned it, right?

Not so, Pollyanna. St. Bill and Evil Hank sold about 200 shares to finance Hank and the office through the writing of the book and doled out 200 shares each to themselves. Some loans from Charles Towns carried Bill to the publication date. The book was going to bring huge rewards to the shareholders! They got it printed for 34 cents a copy, then retailed it for $3,50!

Wow!!! That’s a HUGE markup!!!

Indeed, Candide.

Why do you call Hank “Evil Hank,” Bobby?

Because Hank returned to drinking and it’s just smart business to blame all the bad stuff on the guy who’s not around to defend himself. Read “AA Comes of Age” where Bill W. makes himself look like a turnip farmer from Nebraska as Hank spearheaded the money-making schemes!

In William Schaberg’s remarkable 2019 offering Writing The Big Book: The Creation of AA, Bill Wilson is called a “mythmaker” in the early pages. Many of the classic AA stories – tales that have been repeated hundreds of thousands of times – have been shown to be factually inaccurate. Schaberg reviewed thousands of pieces of contemporary documentation before coming to his conclusions which were neither the result of speculation nor the spewing of resentment from an angry agnostic. Bill is agnostic but not at all anti-AA. He does agree that the literature needs to be rewritten.

In any case, AA isn’t falling apart because of Bill Wilson’s fudging of some stories three generations ago.

Let’s return to Florence Rankin.

AA was a men’s club created by men for men. Because of Florence the One Hundred Men title was jettisoned. Did that make AA co-ed? Not really. We have Bob Smith’s post-book remarks reported in Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers: “We have never had a woman. We will not work with a woman.” Every minority group has had to fight for its seats at the 12-step recovery banquet. Chapter 8 of AA’s Bigga Booka is addressed to spouses and is titled TO WIVES.

Although women alcoholics had a tiny presence, a case could be made that the chapter directed at the spouses of alcoholics and its title had some 1939 validity. Florence was divorced so there was no spouse who was a husband. If one forgives all involved for having ZERO foresight that AA would not maintain its boys’ club atmosphere, one can forgive the title TO WIVES in 1939. Yes, even that is a stretch, for sure.

Why is TO WIVES still the title in 2024? That’s a much tougher question.

Women form a significant percentage of the AA membership in the modern era – in the range of 36-38%. Their nonalcoholic husbands have a chapter directed to them. It’s called TO WIVES. There are hundreds of thousands of men being called wives.

But Bobby, that’s just stupid!

Yes, Grasshopper, it surely is, and that’s why AA is doomed to arrive at a point of complete irrelevancy in the very near future. We’ve moved a long way from the world of Ward, June, Wally and the Beav, and even further from the 1930s. And yet, AA repeatedly refuses to freaken change anything!!!

By the way, it has already been decided that the Fifth Edition Bigga Booka is coming with no real modification other than to the story section. TO WIVES in all its misogynistic glory will be with us for at least another 20 years. Not that that’s all that is wrong with the book, but TO WIVES provides an absolutely glaring example of the powerful voice against change in AA. Hundreds of thousands of partners of alcoholic women in AA have a chapter called TO WIVES.

Why won’t they at least change the title Bobby Beach??

Well, my Inquisitive One, that’s one of some very small changes that we’ll see in November in the Plain Language Big Book, primarily designed to make the AA book more understandable and relatable to readers with limited reading skills. 

Some of the 1939 idiom will be modified. This isn’t even the sacred Bigga Booka being altered, but a percentage of members are losing their freaking minds. The ragers seem to be particularly miffed that TO WIVES is being changed to TO PARTNERS. The source of that distress is made clear by the fact that these same folks also vehemently oppose the recent Preamble change from “men and women” to “people.” For the more outspoken, this is said to mark the entry of “woke” politics into Alcoholics Anonymous. The GSO is viewed, by many, as having a “progressive” agenda that is at odds with the mainstream membership. Lordy! Lordy!

In any case, there is a widely held sentiment against changing anything. How does a 30 year-old prospect regard the Bigga Book, the prayer at meetings, the preachy sharers, the mindless chanting, the chitty coffee?

Will the reaction be better in 10 years? 15? 20?

Of course not.

The 2022 and 2023 member numbers have not been released. Surely we have those by now. They can’t be good. What will the 2026 membership count look like? 1.5 million? AA is a lot like community theater – you see so many elderly patrons, you have to worry about the future. As the AA geezers die off, will younger peeps queue up to take their seats? Not freaken likely!

I predict that secular AA will sever itself in the not-too-distant future. ZOOM changes the reality that we are still relatively small. The LGBTQ+ folks might do the same. Why keep going where you’re not welcomed? Those dissing the new Preamble send a message that is not ambiguous.

Are you saying we should abandon ship, Bobby?

It’s going down, My Friend. Every opportunity to get with the times has been rejected. AA’s death is essentially self-inflicted. The shrinking mutual aid society refuses to change a freaken thing!

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Bobby Beach has contributed many essays to aaagnostica.org. Many have been feisty but we’ve never seen him so disenchanted. Lordy! Lordy! Indeed!

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For a PDF of this article, click here: Why Alcoholics Anonymous Will Soon Be Dead.

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The post Why Alcoholics Anonymous Will Soon Be Dead first appeared on AA Agnostica.

By Harry C.

When I first came to AA in December 1986, I didn’t have a clear understanding of what AA actually was but I knew it was about dealing with a drink problem, surely obvious by the title: “Alcoholics Anonymous”! I had a brother in NY who’d been in AA for 19 years and he was still “not drinking” but that’s as much as I knew of the place or how it functioned. Drinking, drunkenness and resulting damage was the way of life that I’d grown up with living in the 2-up tenement “bed & kitchen” in Glasgow, where  I was  born.

I was the youngest of three, 51/2 years between Margaret and I and 5 years between my sister and my brother Frank. Wee Elky was our Da and you never knew whether he’d be drunk or sober, but you knew for certain that he’d more than likely come in drunk and chaos would ensue. Week in, week out, and every weekend in life. I never had much to do with the Clark’s, I was always with my Ma’s side of the family. I have always been closer to the Flannigan side, and although my Ma never drank throughout her life, the Flannigan side had its fair share of problem drinkers!

One Flannigan cousin came to AA in Glasgow, another gave the booze up for decades but never came to AA, and another came to AA in Hamilton, Canada, after emigrating there. All male, all different families, and the fourth Flannigan uncle had girls, no sons, and none of the girls found their way into AA. My brother went to NY aged 19/20 and went to AA there aged 30. He’s still going and 57 years sober today. My sis followed to NY a few years later and tragically passed there in 1988. She wouldn’t come over for Elky’s funeral in 1972; she hated what he put us through with his drunken behaviour. Then there’s me. I drank for 20 years, knew I had problems with insecurity and resentments, easily identified in “jealousy and control”, and “why me” issues, but knew for many years that I had a problem with drunkenness.

I loved to drink and always loved the feeling of “ease and comfort” that drinking gave me. I knew at age 38 that if I didn’t deal with my drinking problem, that my ability to deal with my other problems would be negligible; my jealousy and anger were always manifest at some point in my drunkenness. It appeared impossible to control my behaviours when I was drunk; words and actions flowed with the drink.

I grew up in a constant state of fear and anxiety. Shame developed as I developed and I became aware of the poverty of limited privacy, poor hygiene, and tenement living with no hot water, a shared outside toilet, and a chronic alcoholic father that the neighbours below, above and next door could hear! Doctor Mate has given children such as I a name: a Child of Trauma. I bed wet until aged 12 and got my first toothbrush on my first trip to visit my siblings in NY aged 13/14. I got my first shower too at my sisters after being ill on the plane and came out wrapped in a towel and shivering; I didn’t know there was hot water I could turn on.

It is absolutely no surprise to me of the power of alcohol on me when I first drank. The “right of passage” at age 18 when walking into the pub and being served. The realization that I wasn’t drunk after those first 2 pints of lager, and the absolute choice that I made there and then that this new feeling of excitement and freedom was for me! From “fear and anxiety” to “ease and comfort” and I found the answer the more I went to the pub and the more I drank as my tolerance to drink grew. I was truly seduced by alcohol and who’d not want to rid themselves of always being fearful, watching what you do and what you say, needing the approval of others; who’d not want the sense of freedom that you can act and say spontaneously without having to edit yourself first!

The years passed, life happened to me, and my lifestyle was built around “the pub”. I’d enjoy the first pint, “Ah feck it”; by the sixth pint it was becoming “feck you!”; and when into double figures, “feck yous all, I need no one”! Then the resulting unintended consequences had once again to be faced and dealt with. Alcoholism had me and inevitably I’d prefer to drink again than accept the responsibility that I’d promised to take.

Crisis led me to call the Samaritans and they pointed me to AA.

When I phoned AA I told them I’d go to a Meeting myself and did so. I had no idea what to expect. I asked the guy at the Church door if there was an AA meeting there. He asked if this was my first Meeting and led me inside and introduced me. The welcome was warm, the people inquisitive and accepting, but I was anything but forthcoming. I was scanning the set up and the Scrolls. They announced they would focus on the First Step as Mr. Newcomer was there. I cringed every time Mr. Newcomer was referenced.

There was talk of God and the need for a Higher Power and then Wee Peter responded. He was an older guy with two sticks and an atheist with no need for a God. Wonderful, relief! I was an atheist and his declaration kept the door open for me.

I was an Alien in AA not knowing the language, the rituals and protocols, and not knowing if this AA could help me. But I felt the warmth of the intentions of those present towards helping me, I listened to the changed lives that AA had given those that spoke, and I realised that if Peter could stay sober and come along when he didn’t believe in God then maybe it may be able to help me. I got hope. That welcome and hope I got did the trick and for the next week I didn’t drink and I came back again the following Monday.

In spite of many trials and tribulations throughout my years of trudging, I’ve never drank again since going to AA, hence never been drunk again; never found any Dog or Higher Power that I can honestly say I’ve ever understood, and I went looking. I still regularly engage in the fellowship within AA to help maintain my choice to live a sober life. Since learning to live an abstinent life, the obsession dwindled away over time and I’ve developed a solution to my drunken experiences I previously encountered that led me to seek help through AA. I live with my solution, abstinence from alcohol and engaging with my AA friends for giving and receiving support.

To be clear: I don’t engage intentionally in any AA Steps; don’t engage with the Big Book in any way; never had a Sponsor; never sponsored; don’t pray nor “meditate”; I call myself an Atheist and don’t use the term “spiritual”; I have no love of religion.

There are so many variables in each life, so many experiences that have impacted us and influenced our frame of reference to our life and the world we live in. I have no idea how another person should choose how to live life. I’ve lived my life for the past 37+ years by choosing abstinence from booze and by never being too far removed from AA, one way or another. In this day and age we have Roger to thank for AA Agnostica and another way of giving and receiving through AA fellowship.

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Harry is retired and worked for 17 years in local regeneration in Glasgow, Scotland. He lives with Christine his partner of 11 years outside Glasgow and is 76, but says he doesn’t look it! Happily divorced and living in sin but as an atheist he doesn’t worry about the sinning! He has only one brother and he lives in NY and between them they currently have 94 years of sobriety; Frank with 57 and Harry with 37. Loves to hear from his FB friends he met at ICSAA in Toronto. A skeptic at heart, he no longer attends Secular AA meetings but is still a regular attendee at his local meeting.

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The post Quitting Alcohol first appeared on AA Agnostica.

By Keith C.

Hello, I’m Keith and I am an alcoholic and this is my story. Why start my story in such a strange way? Because as an alcoholic I have a disease of denial that tries to convince me I don’t have it. I need to remind myself, not you, that I am and always will be an alcoholic.

The alcohol industry uses a variety of tactics to make alcohol seem fun, cool, and even necessary. Alcohol is everywhere. It’s in our movies, our music, our TV shows, and most certainly our sporting events. Why I mention this is because as a kid I became very intrigued by this magical golden nectar. Of course they never mentioned the potential negative consequences. I don’t ever remember reading a warning label informing me that I might become addicted and my life would be a complete fiasco for decades. Not that I would have heeded to that information anyhow, because I always thought I was special. I was different.

They say there is fine line between a problem drinking and full-on alcoholism, but for me there wasn’t. I was never a normal drinker, nor even a problem drinker. I truly believe I was an alcoholic before I even had my first sip. So when I ponder the root cause of my addiction I believe it’s because I do everything alcoholically, it’s ingrained in me. I am a collect the whole set type of guy, one is never enough of anything I find appealing. A type of character defect or flaw if you will. My brain absolutely craves dopamine.

Few things are more American than drinking heavily. I found that to be true in my immediate family as my bloodlines are littered with alcoholism, but I also found that to be true in the neighborhood I grew up in and later in the United States Air Force and College. I just thought it was normal, because that was all I was ever exposed to. The whole drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, and hard drinking lifestyle also had this certain allure to my friends and myself. We thought we were cool. Looking back, I have a few other adjectives in mind.

When I try to explain my drinking problem, it goes like this: the more I drank, the more I wanted to drink. Drinking increased my thirst. I wanted the second drink more than the first, and I wanted the fifth more than I’d wanted the fourth. My thirst always increased over the course of an evening. But it also increased, in a more subtle way, over the course of a month, a year, a decade, a quarter century.

My relationship with alcohol became more and more abusive and I didn’t care because in my own odd way I was in love with a substance that was masked as a friend but at the same time destroying my life. I can now see how it had been poisoning not only my body but my mind and soul as well. I drank when I was happy; I drank when I was sad. I drank to celebrate and I drank to drown my sorrows. I drank when it was sunny. I drank when it rained. I just drank like a madman — because I was.

My whole world became a blur. At times it was almost as if I was running on auto pilot, occasionally trying to fool the people I came in contact with that I actually knew what planet I was trying to walk and pretend to function on. Yet, alcohol had masqueraded as the solution to the problems it actually created for me. It stunted and prohibited my growth in many other areas, especially emotional maturity and conflict resolution.

Booze was a thief of my time, memories, ambition and so much more. The more I drank, the more it stole. Relationships, jobs, cars, my summer camp, boats, even cats and a dog. But the greatest asset I had and nearly lost — was myself.

Drinking was my choice — addiction was not. Addiction had a hold on me. I was firmly in its grasp. The only way I was able to start my recovery journey was finally realizing it was a matter of life or death — and I had to make that choice. I was well aware that it was going to be a bit more complex than merely putting down the bottle, because I had already tried that before and it only works for so long. I needed a new strategy, and that had to start with willingness, an enthusiastic acceptance.

The Big Book describes the mental obsession as: “The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.” That was also my illusion and I certainly gave it a whirl. Not surprisingly, the experiments all failed miserably. The love affair was over. I finally admitted I was powerless over alcohol — that my life had become unmanageable.

I knew that AA worked, as I had seen many people succeed and thrive in the program. I just never fully committed to it in my previous attempts, because I was convinced I was special and that many of the suggestions in the Big Book simply didn’t apply to me. This time around I was open minded. I was encouraged by another member of the fellowship to completely discard my illogical and delusional thinking and stop picking the book apart looking for flaws and getting stuck on the God part of it. He assured me that contrary to popular belief in the rooms, it was quite possible to maintain sobriety without the help of God. He said he was living proof.

For me to be truly successful in breaking the chains of alcoholism, I needed to be honest with myself. There would be no white lights illuminating my path. Nor would I claim to believe in someone else’s God, as that would mean I would be constitutionally incapable of being honest with myself.

You may be wondering how this happened? It was the fellowship, love, acceptance, encouragement and support that I found at Alcoholics Anonymous that changed my life for the better. The philosophy of the program is has points of pure genius. The storytelling aspect of the program is also very meaningful to me as I often hear my story spoken in the words of another or hear something that is thought provoking. It’s a powerful reminder that I do not walk alone, especially in the Secular/Agnostic/Freethinker Groups.

Sobriety is not a journey to an exciting new destination, but a return to my natural state. This is the place always intended for me to be and I like to call this place home.

I feel more connected to myself, others and life. I am becoming a person that I look forward to greeting each day. It has been most marked, I suppose, by the regaining of a certain childlike sense of wonder at the world. The magic of me is back, because today I walk with a sense of purpose.

I’m under no illusions. I am still an alcoholic, and I will always have work to do on myself. But within the four walls of the AA meeting halls, I learned how to change what I could and accept what I could not. I’m still gaining wisdom to know the difference.

I didn’t sign up to be an alcoholic, nor do I consider it among my greatest life accomplishments. However, it has given me a special gift, as I am able to lift others afflicted with the same deadly disease. That’s what makes us all different. That’s what makes us all special.

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Keith C. had his last drink on August 22, 2020. He initially struggled in AA due to his agnosticism. Many members of the fellowship assured him that some magical white light moment would come his way. It never did. Today he has finally found his people via Zoom and is happy to report that he is in the process of helping create a much needed agnostic meeting in central New Hampshire. Keith operates an online shop called the Sobriety Club, specializing in unique, clever and special items to commemorate and provide inspiration for the recovery journey.

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For a PDF of this article, click here: I Am Different.

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The post I Am Different first appeared on AA Agnostica.

By Jason W.

Is accepting reality – acknowledging things the way they actually are, not how we think they should be – the same as a belief in God?

As an atheist, the 12 steps of AA were quite difficult early on, with some seemingly impossible for me to undertake.

For many non-theists, the 3^rd step – “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him” – stands out as a non-starter.

For one, the word “God” (capital G) means something. It is how in the English language we describe a specific monotheistic deity. “Him” denotes this God to be masculine as is customary. To me, this is equivalent to people describing Big Foot as “Him” when the gender of something I don’t believe exists is irrelevant.

Just adding “as we understood him” doesn’t help much in that it is still asking us to define our own concept of a specific monotheistic deity.

One thing I’ve learned in my many years of sobriety is that the wording of the 12 steps is less important than the principles underlying the steps. One of the steps even states this when we are to “…practice these principles in all our affairs”.

In meetings we are told that we can choose our own idea of God, or even our own concept of a “higher power”. One would have to attend many AA meetings to comprehend the nuances of this concept and would have to disregard all of the other mentions of God in the Big Book that seem very specific.

There’s even a chapter that would seem to give hope to non-believers – We Agnostics. This chapter could be summarized as “some of us used to believe like you, but now we don’t. Keep coming back and eventually you will join us.” Seems very condescending to those who are fine with their current beliefs.

So why not just skip the God steps, or all of the steps?

Because the program of recovery in AA – the 12 steps – seem to work for many suffering alcoholics. I can personally attest that they worked for me.

For those who recover from alcoholism, the 12 steps seem to help elicit a spiritual awakening as defined in Appendix II of the Big Book – “…the personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism”. Most members have no issues with the God stuff, so they attribute this personality change to their higher power, who most choose to call God.

Non-theist alcoholics who find sobriety in AA must also have this personality change. If they didn’t, I suspect they’d return to drinking. As the saying goes, “if I do what I did, I’ll get what I got”. The way we see the world and our place in it must change or we will fall back to what we did in the past.

Back to step 3. The underlying principle of this step for me is faith. A faith that works under all circumstances. This is important for alcoholics because when life throws us challenges or a catastrophe, having faith that we can get through it without having to resort to oblivion from that first drink helps us stay sober.

There is wisdom in the saying “there’s nothing so bad that a drink won’t make worse”.  For alcoholics, this is certainly true.

This faith, not that everything will be ok (sometimes it’s not), not that whatever happened was meant to be (too mystical), but faith that we will be able accept circumstances without resorting to the first drink is vitally important for long-term sobriety.

Our theistic brethren get this same faith, but they have something they can attribute it to – God. They get to acceptance with the help of their higher power with thoughts such as “it must be God’s will”, or “God knows what’s best for me”, or “God will see me through this without having to take a drink”, etc. The end result is acceptance of the way things are.

Theistic or not, both can stay sober with their individual brand of a faith, and most in AA would point to the 3^rd step as to where they got this faith.

For me, turning my will and life over to my higher power, who I choose to call Reality, is simply striving to align my thinking with the way things are. Not how I think they are. Or worse, how I think they should be.

This gives me a faith that works under all circumstances, but I often need to remind myself:

Something is bothering me – It is what it is.

My past is holding me back – It was what it was.

The future concerns me – It will be what it will be.

For my theistic friends in AA – it is, was, or will be God’s will.

The outcome for both of us is the same.  Continued sobriety.

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Jason W. has been sober since May 30, 1988. He credits getting sober at an early age due to experiencing the effects of alcoholism growing up and developing the “phenomenon of craving” from his first drunk. While admitting to another person that he was an alcoholic at 18, in his 18 year-old brain this meant he would probably have to quit drinking in his 50’s. The thought of not drinking was out of the question. Consequences caused an early surrender at 23. Always an atheist, AA didn’t seem like an option due to the “god stuff”, but the people he met in the early meetings he attended seemed happily sober and their lives were improving so he kept coming back and found a path to sobriety. He started the first We Agnostics meeting in Dayton, Oh in 2014, and another secular AA meeting in 2022. Thanks to sobriety and the wisdom he garnered in AA, he has been able to become a successful entrepreneur, a father of two, and a friend to many.

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For a PDF of this article, click here: Acceptance, God and the 3rd Step.

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