Category: From AA Agnostica

Chapter 7:
Do Tell! Stories by Atheists and Agnostics in AA

Brent P.

In returning to AA in 2010, broke and briefly homeless, I had already decided, before someone made the point by asking, “so what are you going to do differently this time?”, that I indeed had to change my attitude to AA.

After 27 years of toying with the program I knew that one more flagrant, arrogant FU from me to AA spelled the end. It’s only in AA that so many stories begin with “The End” and, if fortunate, end with “The Beginning”.

The End

An alcoholic addicted to opiates and crack cocaine, I had fulfilled two of the three prognostications promised to alcoholics if they continued to drink: institutions, jail and/or death. You can figure out the one I’ve eluded so far.

Nevertheless I knew what it meant to be a “shivering denizen” of King Alcohol’s dark realm. I had experienced those last 10 to 15 years of absolute horror. The ominous, apocalyptic sound of the Four Horsemen’s mounts, their hooves pounding relentlessly with grim determination, shot electric fear through every nerve in my body.

What I had come to believe was my last stab at AA began when I came out of an institution that treats alcoholics. A hospital that medically detoxed me then put me into a program that fundamentally told me a lot of what I already knew. My brain was damaged as was my liver. The degree to which either would repair themselves was entirely up to me and my constitution. But the real message was, stop assuming that you’re at the head of the class, shut up and take seriously what others can tell you about alcoholism and addiction, whether doctors or peers in AA.

After seven weeks of balanced meals, exercise, massage, acupuncture, art therapy, doctor’s lectures, group therapy and other things I can’t remember, I was polished, dressed up and pushed out the door. They’d done all they could, including suggesting I start attending AA meetings (again!). ASAP.

There were a few days of sleeping on a friend’s couch before I secured a small bachelor’s apartment.

Now, I wonder, have I painted my self portrait clearly enough that you can picture me in your mind? Low bottom drunk/drug addict with a high opinion of himself. Dirty, rough looking, someone you’d hurry past on the sidewalk?

If that’s what you imagine, you wouldn’t be too far off the mark.

However it only took three of those 27 years to arrive at that station. The previous twenty four years I was a successful advertising copywriter. I traveled to some of the world’s most exotic locations, with a hefty expense account, to make commercials. Commercials!

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

Though not rich I was at the upper end of the wage scale. I had a salary that allowed me to buy and sell – one at a time – a 3 story building that was renovated to the nth degree, two houses in a very desirable downtown neighborhoods and, finally, a condo that was one of 17 unique units in what had once been a carpet factory.

I moved there shortly after an embarrassing incident cost me my partnership in a start-up agency. Or almost did. Since our partnership agreement was still to be completed, the other two partners had no basis upon which to sever me from the partnership. Nevertheless they wanted me gone. Some sort of arrangement would have to be crafted. Basically it would involve them paying me to stop showing up there.

I was in a rehab when the negotiating began. I left it to my brother to act for me. He happened to be the CEO and one of three senior partners in a sizeable law firm. That he was also a chartered accountant meant I had formidable representation. My brother and the accountant who was representing my partners, settled on a low six figure payout.

I won again, or so it appeared. Back in charge of my own life I decided I could take six months off; rest, recuperate, then like Lazarus, rise to take the job market by storm. I had to pause to admire my fine work! I was already calculating what a spectacular financial year it was going to be. Double the amount I’d settled for and that’s what my salary would be. Easy Street would be my address once again.

There was a recession and advertising agencies couldn’t afford much more than one senior guy like me and he/she was usually the creative director. While I thought I was perfectly cut out to be a creative director, nobody else appeared to share that confidence. My reputation had changed from one of a young, clever, big picture copywriter, to serious drunk, who looked and smelled the part. If you got me on a run of good days, then you were lucky; a run of bad days and anything could happen. I once passed out in an important meeting, my face dropping, slowly at first then more rapidly, until it was flat on the boardroom table. That ground the meeting to a halt while I was removed.

When I won that payout from my former partners, I didn’t realize that was it for me in the advertising business.

Fast forward a few years, after I’d been robbed by masked, armed crack-heads, been ripped off for $13,000 in a set up dope deal and repeatedly seen the most nightmarish side of humanity, I knew it was time to get out of Dodge. So I sold my condo and moved to an apartment in one of the city’s nicer neighborhoods. With the cash from the condo I could buy drugs and booze by the bundle and not have to leave the apartment for days.

I lived that way for about a year and I knew my brain was not functioning properly, that the tiny strokes that occur in your brain every time you smoke crack, were catching up to me. That every time I smoked crack I could have a sudden, crippling stroke. The alcohol I needed to accompany every crack-isode was so that I didn’t go into a major panic attack and bite my tongue off, was burning through the lining of my stomach. I was mixing vodka with Pepto Bismol and still my stomach burned and stung like I’d swallowed a swarm of bees. Finally, what started out as an occasional thing to help me sleep, opiates were required every day in greater and greater amounts. So when my brother finally caught up with me and said, “you need help”, I wrapped my arms around his waist – I was sitting and he was standing – buried my head just below his chest and let go with great heaving sobs.

So what are you going to do differently this time?

I was just over seven or eight weeks sober and still in a complete fog. Work wasn’t an issue since I didn’t have any nor could I have done any. I went primarily to daytime meetings and usually just sat there. On one of those occasions I thought to myself, “This is what you do all the time. Once you start feeling better you become argumentative, challenging the crap that inevitably drives you nuts. Then when you feel like you’re back to normal, you tell yourself you can’t take anymore of the nonsense and you stop coming”.

That was something I could do differently. The next change was a deal I made with myself; I could say anything I wanted in AA as long as it wasn’t driven by anger, wasn’t meant to be provocative nor could it be hurtful. Sure, it sounded good but could I do it? Turned out, with a little practice, I could. In fact with the nonsense I found amusing ways to show it for what it was.

It took awhile but I joined that group and pitched in all I could. It wasn’t until six months that you could chair a meeting so that kept being held out to me as a carrot. What they didn’t know was that I had severe anxiety accompanied by panic; the very last thing I wanted to do was chair a meeting. Rather than let that drive me out, as it had in the past (without knowing it part of my drinking and using was me self medicating), I decided I needed some outside help.

I finally ended up with two doctors, remarkable men whose compassion was equaled only by their BS detectors. I was prescribed a mild tranquilizer to use only in the most extreme cases (I only ever had a few pills at any time) and I was taught how to relax. Relaxing is a skill that you have to practice before you can really use it. But I practiced and if I still couldn’t halt the anxiety in a critical (to me) circumstance, I had the medication as back up.

I had dealt with two of the things that could make me walk out of a meeting, but there was another that had been a deal breaker so many times in the past – God and all the Judeo Christian constructs that infused many of the meetings. Add to that a Big Book that hadn’t changed in 75 years – I think it still refers to wives as “the little woman” – a book that people read and re-read as if there were treasure buried deep in its pages.

It was then somebody suggested I checkout AA Agnostica. I was suspicious. But I returned several times and finally wrote a kind of harsh rebuttal to one of the articles that appear fresh and new every week. They thanked me for my opinion!

I was invited to contribute some articles to the site. And as happy as I felt I could be in my regular AA group, I was growing more and more connected to this movement that became noticed here by virtue of an Intergroup hearing and ruling that would determine if secular groups in Toronto could be listed. They couldn’t. But that didn’t seem to impede the progress of AA Agnostica. The website flourishes as many are drawn to it and, for the first time, an atmosphere of open mindedness – not the kind that means turning off your critical faculties so you can accept a fairy tale as the reason for your sobriety – but instead the kind that encourages new ideas while caring little or nothing for your religion. AA Agnostica, the website, is a barometer of the movement around the world while bringing hope to people who either had to keep their thoughts to themselves or often live with them bottled up. The optimism the site exudes is palpable and compelling, telling this alcoholic, AA is changing and one day, in the not to distant future, the secular meetings and their members will be leading the charge to an AA that enjoys a symbiotic relationship with Science & Medicine, Mental & Physical Health Facilities and much more.

So I thank AAAA and AA Agnostica for giving me the hope I’m not certain I ever had. And I thank AA for its groundbreaking work and the vital insight it brought to treating that most acute symptom every alcoholic struggles with, loneliness. AA is a real community that AAAA continues to learn from and show gratitude towards.

Despite the fact that I’m still broke and on a disability pension that barely covers my monthly costs, I’m happy. I have inside help and I have outside help. My current doctor is a member of AA herself and actively involved in the science of addiction.

And for the first time in my life I wake up almost every morning now and on the cinema screen in my head I see, in a fantastic font, the words I’ve so desperately wanted to see at the introduction to my story:

The Beginning

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

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

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

The post The Beginning first appeared on AA Agnostica.

By Rand T.

Our human response to food and sex both involve survival issues. If you don’t eat you will die. You won’t die if you don’t have sex (you might think you will but you won’t) but getting pleasure from sex ensures we will seek it out and then there will be babies which ensures species survival. Drugs like alcohol, opiates, cannabis and stimulants work in the same brain pathway as those natural survival mechanisms.

The primary reward neurotransmitter is dopamine; food and sex stimulate dopamine release – and drugs also stimulate a high level of this release.

This occurs in our mesolimbic dopamine system which is below the level of thought. Our brain is hard-wired to respond to reward and the mesolimbic system doesn’t know what is okay or not okay. It just “likes”.

Once we like something we seek it out and start to have an anticipatory dopamine response to the thought of doing it again. Then we do it again, and again receive the reward. This is the fun part.

The not so fun part is that as we recreate that chemical reward we start to reduce the availability of dopamine and also serotonin (sense of well-being transmitter). Dopamine, in addition to being a reward transmitter, is also a connection transmitter. As the availability of these two are reduced (from overuse/overstimulation) our brain functions are reduced, particularly in the prefrontal cortex. Consequently, we have a harder time problem solving, decision making, and managing stress. Remember this is occurring in the same pathway as a food reward. When we are hungry we eat, when we are feeling stress or frustration we look for something to fix that and our limbic system will remember the reward we felt from the drug (including  alcohol) and seek it out again.

The problem is that it works to change how we feel and we have just created a new brain pathway that becomes our primary response to stress. The neurobiological rule is the neurons that fire together wire together. Unfortunately, every time we do this we are weakening our natural stress response system (it’s like paying someone else to go to the gym for you) and more and more things feel stressful which creates more and more desire to use to escape from the stress.

At this point, the “addiction” (substance use disorder) is primarily emotional, as the use increases, we will start to develop physical dependency as well. With both of these as soon as the level of the drug starts to go down our stress response system activates and we start seeking more drugs.

In recovery, we essentially reverse the process and start to recreate and exercise our natural stress response system.

Rand T. is in long-term recovery, having been free from alcohol and other drugs since March 26, 1972. That freedom “from” has given him the freedom “to” do a lot of other things.

Recovery has also given him the energy to expand much of his work into helping others affected by substance abuse. He is a Canadian Certified Addiction Counselor and an Internationally Certified Prevention Specialist in drug and alcohol concerns (kids call him the Drug Teacher). He is very grateful that he has been able to do as much work as he has in the field of substance abuse.

Rand recommends three books in particular (their covers can be seen above):

• The Science of Addiction: From Neurobiology to Treatment;
• Never Enough: the neuroscience and experience of addiction;
• Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction.

You can also read another article by Rand, posted on AA Agnostica some two years ago, right here: Life in Recovery from Addiction in Canada.

The post The Science of Addiction and Recovery first appeared on AA Agnostica.

Chapter 6:
Do Tell! Stories by Atheists and Agnostics in AA

Patricia K.

I crawled into AA as a sick drug addict. At that time 12 step programs for my drug of choice did not exist in my area. It took me a number of years of sitting in the back of AA meetings and wondering if I belonged, to understand that I was indeed an alcoholic. I had the same disease that was being talked about in the literature and from the podium, I just happened to use other drugs as well as alcohol.

When I got to AA, I was emaciated and sick of body and heart.

My use of alcohol and other drugs had rendered my 34 year old body into a knot of pain and tension that was held together by anger and resentment. I wore a black leather jacket and I had an attitude and a vocabulary to match; all meant to keep the world at bay. The reality was, I was terrified. My life up until that point had been full of abuse. Abused as a child, physically, sexually and mentally, I then become a mark for future abuse. To my mind the phrase “he hit me because he loves me”, made sense. Before recovery I used any substance I could to numb the pain: alcohol, other drugs, men, food. It took years of step work and therapy to unravel all of this.

I first hit bottom during one of my many attempts to go university. Two of my classmates were in recovery in AA. Although I was drinking and using, I had a sense that we were kindred spirits. These two women listened to my horror stories of drinking and fights, and drug sickness. They came to the hospital when I had been beaten up by my ex-husband. One day, as I was going on about what a bastard my ex was, one of these women very gently said: “Do you think maybe you are the one with the problem?“ I can still hear her voice. I started to attend AA meetings but was not convinced that I had a problem. I went to meetings drunk and high. I went to find a way to get HIM sober.

And then I had a moment of clarity. A street clinic doctor told me that I would soon die if I did not stop my destructive lifestyle. Lying on that hospital gurney and wanting nothing more than to get back to the drug that I had just overdosed on, the word powerless came to mind and I knew it was true. I admitted I was an alcoholic/addict. There was nothing divine about that occurrence. I had obviously heard what I needed to hear at the meetings I had attended even though I was under the influence.

Looking back at that young woman I was in early recovery I feel such empathy and respect for her. It was a struggle to understand life and to try to learn to accept my past and to believe that I could have a future in which I did not get beat up, I was not drug sick or hung over. Early on in my recovery, I accepted that I was an alcoholic/drug addict and that I could not safely use any mind altering substance.

However, I was tormented by pain, anger, shame and guilt for how I had lived my life, and I had yet to learn other ways to deal with these feelings. As a result, I didn’t stay clean and sober right away. I had a number of one day relapses. However, I was taught to learn from those relapses. I was told to figure out if I was doing something that I shouldn’t be, something that jeopardized my sobriety: an unhealthy relationship perhaps? I had to figure out what had caused me to relapse. Was I not dealing with the feelings that were surfacing now that I had stopped anesthetizing myself? Was I being honest? Going to meetings? Seeking the help and support I needed inside and outside AA? Was I trying to be of service? I had to grapple with these questions and figure out what I needed to do to stay clean and sober. There was no other entity earthbound or otherwise that was going to figure this out for me.

I was also grappling with the whole concept of god.

I am an atheist. I do not believe in god and yet I have remained sober in AA since Nov 9, 1986. Sober and attending a program that suggested that I could not get sober without a god.

I am one of those individuals who were told to “fake it till you make it” and I did that because I didn’t want to die. I did try to find a god of my understanding. I prayed, even so far as to get on my knees to do so. But I could not believe in a god that would grant me sobriety if I asked in the right way. When I was nine months clean and sober, I returned to school to study Addictions and Mental Health and there were two nuns in my class. I would have long conversations with them about the nature of spirituality and religion.

It didn’t help… I still did not believe.

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

However I continued to attend meetings of AA and other 12 step programs and I am very thankful for the support that I received there. I read the Big Book and took some very good guidance from what I read. I did however change my copy so that “He” was taken out of the text. Later the term “God” was taken out. I used a paper clip to contain parts of the book such as the chapter “To Wives” because I found it to be sexist and codependent. I figured it was my book, it was my sobriety and I would do what I needed to stay sober and fairly sane.

It is only in the last 10 years that I have come out as an atheist in AA. At first, I began to speak tentatively of my non-belief. I wanted to tell the truth and I thought there may be others who needed to hear that I do not believe in any god, but I was nervous. And rightly so. I did get flak from some quarters. It was even suggest by one person that perhaps I am not an alcoholic after all, if I could remain sober without god.

However I also got encouragement and even thanks for sharing my non beliefs and the fact that I had remained clean/sober for 20 + years without god.

About five years ago, I was told that an Agnostic, Atheists and Free Thinkers group had been started in my area. At first, I was reluctant to attend. Even after many years of sobriety, I remembered what my life was like before I found the 12 step fellowships and I remembered the struggle to gain and maintain sobriety and I did not want to jeopardize my sobriety. Even though I did not believe in god and I did question much of the dogma of the program, mainstream AA and other 12 step programs had been my reed and I was afraid to let go. However, curiosity got the best of me and I finally went to a meeting of Beyond Belief.

Far from jeopardizing my sobriety, attending Agnostic, Atheists and Free Thinkers meetings has deepened and enhanced my sobriety. I found acceptance for the non-believer that I was. No one was going to try to convert me or, worse, question my sobriety because I did not believe in god. In the Agnostic, Atheist and Free Thinkers meetings I didn’t have to pretend to believe in something I did not. I did not have to deny that I believe that I am solely responsibility for my sobriety. It is up to me to figure out what to do to remain sober and then do it. Of course I am not doing this alone. I have had and continue to have great teachers and support in the fellowship.

And it has worked so far. Using the tools that I had picked up in 12 step programs, I have remained sober through the deaths of both of my parents. Relationships and jobs have come and gone. There have been financial and health difficulties but still have had not had to drink or do drugs.

My life is far from perfect but it is so much more than I ever believed I could have. I deal with depression and PTSD every day. When I was nine years clean I was suicidal and so I finally took the advice of my doctor and started to take medication. Her words “it will give you an opportunity to get a foot hold on life”. Many years of therapy and 12 step work later, I am now not on medication. However, I would have no qualms about going on a medication with the consultation of my doctors if I felt it necessary.

Although I still have these “issues” in my life, today I have a rich full life. I finally finished university. I have a good job that I enjoy. I am not wealthy but the bills are paid. I found my creativity. I found my love of nature and the joy in being outside. I am a tree hugger. The biggest payoff for me in staying clean and sober is the respect I have for myself today. I can look in the mirror and know that I have not deliberately harmed another person today. Although the wording of the original 12 steps is archaic and Christian-based, digging down, I found the essence of each step, the principle it is based on. These are my creed for living.

In Twelve and Twelve it states, “Of course, we were glad that good home and religious training had given us certain values”. Coming from an abusive and dysfunctional family I did not have that kind of education. The only values I learnt as a child were the value of a “26er” and the value of a good lie to keep from being beaten or abused. My religious education consisted of me being sent to stand outside the classroom because I would not accept some nonsense the nuns were trying to feed me.

I do not mean to sound bitter, so forgive me if I do. I am not. I honestly believe in what the late, great John Lennon said, “Whatever gets you through the night”. I am happy for believers and wish them well. I hope there is room for all of us in Alcoholics Anonymous, believers and non-believers alike.

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

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

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

The post Once a Sick Drug Addict first appeared on AA Agnostica.

Chapter 6:
Do Tell! Stories by Atheists and Agnostics in AA

Patricia K.

I crawled into AA as a sick drug addict. At that time 12 step programs for my drug of choice did not exist in my area. It took me a number of years of sitting in the back of AA meetings and wondering if I belonged, to understand that I was indeed an alcoholic. I had the same disease that was being talked about in the literature and from the podium, I just happened to use other drugs as well as alcohol.

When I got to AA, I was emaciated and sick of body and heart.

My use of alcohol and other drugs had rendered my 34 year old body into a knot of pain and tension that was held together by anger and resentment. I wore a black leather jacket and I had an attitude and a vocabulary to match; all meant to keep the world at bay. The reality was, I was terrified. My life up until that point had been full of abuse. Abused as a child, physically, sexually and mentally, I then become a mark for future abuse. To my mind the phrase “he hit me because he loves me”, made sense. Before recovery I used any substance I could to numb the pain: alcohol, other drugs, men, food. It took years of step work and therapy to unravel all of this.

I first hit bottom during one of my many attempts to go university. Two of my classmates were in recovery in AA. Although I was drinking and using, I had a sense that we were kindred spirits. These two women listened to my horror stories of drinking and fights, and drug sickness. They came to the hospital when I had been beaten up by my ex-husband. One day, as I was going on about what a bastard my ex was, one of these women very gently said: “Do you think maybe you are the one with the problem?“ I can still hear her voice. I started to attend AA meetings but was not convinced that I had a problem. I went to meetings drunk and high. I went to find a way to get HIM sober.

And then I had a moment of clarity. A street clinic doctor told me that I would soon die if I did not stop my destructive lifestyle. Lying on that hospital gurney and wanting nothing more than to get back to the drug that I had just overdosed on, the word powerless came to mind and I knew it was true. I admitted I was an alcoholic/addict. There was nothing divine about that occurrence. I had obviously heard what I needed to hear at the meetings I had attended even though I was under the influence.

Looking back at that young woman I was in early recovery I feel such empathy and respect for her. It was a struggle to understand life and to try to learn to accept my past and to believe that I could have a future in which I did not get beat up, I was not drug sick or hung over. Early on in my recovery, I accepted that I was an alcoholic/drug addict and that I could not safely use any mind altering substance.

However, I was tormented by pain, anger, shame and guilt for how I had lived my life, and I had yet to learn other ways to deal with these feelings. As a result, I didn’t stay clean and sober right away. I had a number of one day relapses. However, I was taught to learn from those relapses. I was told to figure out if I was doing something that I shouldn’t be, something that jeopardized my sobriety: an unhealthy relationship perhaps? I had to figure out what had caused me to relapse. Was I not dealing with the feelings that were surfacing now that I had stopped anesthetizing myself? Was I being honest? Going to meetings? Seeking the help and support I needed inside and outside AA? Was I trying to be of service? I had to grapple with these questions and figure out what I needed to do to stay clean and sober. There was no other entity earthbound or otherwise that was going to figure this out for me.

I was also grappling with the whole concept of god.

I am an atheist. I do not believe in god and yet I have remained sober in AA since Nov 9, 1986. Sober and attending a program that suggested that I could not get sober without a god.

I am one of those individuals who were told to “fake it till you make it” and I did that because I didn’t want to die. I did try to find a god of my understanding. I prayed, even so far as to get on my knees to do so. But I could not believe in a god that would grant me sobriety if I asked in the right way. When I was nine months clean and sober, I returned to school to study Addictions and Mental Health and there were two nuns in my class. I would have long conversations with them about the nature of spirituality and religion.

It didn’t help… I still did not believe.

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

However I continued to attend meetings of AA and other 12 step programs and I am very thankful for the support that I received there. I read the Big Book and took some very good guidance from what I read. I did however change my copy so that “He” was taken out of the text. Later the term “God” was taken out. I used a paper clip to contain parts of the book such as the chapter “To Wives” because I found it to be sexist and codependent. I figured it was my book, it was my sobriety and I would do what I needed to stay sober and fairly sane.

It is only in the last 10 years that I have come out as an atheist in AA. At first, I began to speak tentatively of my non-belief. I wanted to tell the truth and I thought there may be others who needed to hear that I do not believe in any god, but I was nervous. And rightly so. I did get flak from some quarters. It was even suggest by one person that perhaps I am not an alcoholic after all, if I could remain sober without god.

However I also got encouragement and even thanks for sharing my non beliefs and the fact that I had remained clean/sober for 20 + years without god.

About five years ago, I was told that an Agnostic, Atheists and Free Thinkers group had been started in my area. At first, I was reluctant to attend. Even after many years of sobriety, I remembered what my life was like before I found the 12 step fellowships and I remembered the struggle to gain and maintain sobriety and I did not want to jeopardize my sobriety. Even though I did not believe in god and I did question much of the dogma of the program, mainstream AA and other 12 step programs had been my reed and I was afraid to let go. However, curiosity got the best of me and I finally went to a meeting of Beyond Belief.

Far from jeopardizing my sobriety, attending Agnostic, Atheists and Free Thinkers meetings has deepened and enhanced my sobriety. I found acceptance for the non-believer that I was. No one was going to try to convert me or, worse, question my sobriety because I did not believe in god. In the Agnostic, Atheist and Free Thinkers meetings I didn’t have to pretend to believe in something I did not. I did not have to deny that I believe that I am solely responsibile for my sobriety. It is up to me to figure out what to do to remain sober and then do it. Of course I am not doing this alone. I have had and continue to have great teachers and support in the fellowship.

And it has worked so far. Using the tools that I had picked up in 12 step programs, I have remained sober through the deaths of both of my parents. Relationships and jobs have come and gone. There have been financial and health difficulties but still have had not had to drink or do drugs.

My life is far from perfect but it is so much more than I ever believed I could have. I deal with depression and PTSD every day. When I was nine years clean I was suicidal and so I finally took the advice of my doctor and started to take medication. Her words “it will give you an opportunity to get a foot hold on life”. Many years of therapy and 12 step work later, I am now not on medication. However, I would have no qualms about going on a medication with the consultation of my doctors if I felt it necessary.

Although I still have these “issues” in my life, today I have a rich full life. I finally finished university. I have a good job that I enjoy. I am not wealthy but the bills are paid. I found my creativity. I found my love of nature and the joy in being outside. I am a tree hugger. The biggest payoff for me in staying clean and sober is the respect I have for myself today. I can look in the mirror and know that I have not deliberately harmed another person today. Although the wording of the original 12 steps is archaic and Christian-based, digging down, I found the essence of each step, the principle it is based on. These are my creed for living.

In Twelve and Twelve it states, “Of course, we were glad that good home and religious training had given us certain values”. Coming from an abusive and dysfunctional family I did not have that kind of education. The only values I learnt as a child were the value of a “26er” and the value of a good lie to keep from being beaten or abused. My religious education consisted of me being sent to stand outside the classroom because I would not accept some nonsense the nuns were trying to feed me.

I do not mean to sound bitter, so forgive me if I do. I am not. I honestly believe in what the late, great John Lennon said, “Whatever gets you through the night”. I am happy for believers and wish them well. I hope there is room for all of us in Alcoholics Anonymous, believers and non-believers alike.

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

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

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

The post Once a Sick Drug Addict first appeared on AA Agnostica.

Chapter 5:
Do Tell! Stories by Atheists and Agnostics in AA

Russ H.

On a sunny Saturday morning at the end of July, 1995, I pulled into the cul-de-sac where I lived with my wife of 19 years and our two teenage children. My sister’s van was parked in the driveway. A police squad car occupied the spot in front of our house forcing me to park across the street. I don’t recall how long I had been gone. It might have been a few hours or a few days. As I walked across the front yard I noticed that the van in the driveway was full of stuff – our stuff – and I wondered “are we going somewhere?” As I walked in the front door I was greeted by a police officer who asked me my name. The pivotal event that defines the end of the beginning of my AA story was about to unfold.

After identifying myself to him, the policeman told me that my wife and my sister were packing some things and would then be leaving with the children. He explained that he was there to make sure I didn’t do anything to make this process any more difficult for them than it already was. I was instructed to take a seat in the nearest chair and stay there until my family was gone. The 28 years leading up to this moment are littered with countless incidents of blackout drinking and outrageous behavior – usually accompanied by negative consequences. The common thread through all of those years, the singular fact that drove me to my bottom, can be summed up neatly: having that police officer there that morning was a very good idea.

They left. I had no idea where they had gone. To reach my children I had to call my sister. She would then call them. If they felt like talking they would call me. Talking to my wife was not an option. I spent the rest of that weekend in miserable solitude mulling over a brand new realization. The way I was leading my life simply was not working. As so often mysteriously happens to alcoholics approaching their bottoms, I had acquired a big book and a schedule of AA meetings in my area. I had looked at them very briefly – just long enough to know that I was not interested in what they had to offer. Now, suddenly, there was a glimmer of interest in the meeting schedule. On Monday morning I called in sick and went down to a noon meeting at the nearest AA meeting place.

The big book tells us that “If you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps”. The unsteady steps I took as I walked into that meeting were the first evidence of my readiness to go to any length. I had no expectations. I simply didn’t know what else to do. I wound up going to three meetings that day.

I met people who said they were alcoholics and drug addicts. They told their stories and shared openly about what their lives had been like and what they were like now. I saw in them what it looks like when people like me stop drinking and using. I learned from them what it is like to speak frankly and without embarrassment about who we really are, what we have really done, how we really feel.

A doctoral dissertation called “Experiences of Atheists and Agnostics in AA” was recently submitted and it is based entirely on the book Do Tell. For more information click on the above image.

They allowed me to talk. They listened as I revealed anger, fear and shame and they were neither shocked nor disapproving. It dawned on me that I desperately needed to be with them. They were eager for me to join them. They didn’t require anything from me other than my own willingness to belong. The friendship and love from those people, and others in the years that have followed, changed my life.

At some point that day I realized that I wanted what those people had – to be a clean and sober person – more than I had ever wanted anything in my life. I had come to believe – not in God or spirituality – but simply that it really was possible for me to recover from alcoholism and drug addiction.

I got home late that evening. The hope and optimism I had felt while in the company of my new-found sober friends gave way to loneliness and desperation. Tears became weeping which became the convulsive sort of sobbing that makes it difficult to breathe and nearly impossible to speak. I found myself crying out “God help me. I don’t know what to do. Show me what to do.” Surprising words, perhaps, for an atheist to utter but that is what happened. They say there are no atheists in foxholes. I was in a metaphoric foxhole that evening. Apparently, not only are atheists sometimes in foxholes but some of us also sometimes pray.

The next morning I went in to work. I stopped first to speak to my boss. I told him that I was an alcoholic and drug addict. He was used to seeing me work long hours. I said I would now only be able to give him 40 hours per week – that my recovery had become my first priority. I thought there was a good chance I might be fired. Instead he looked at me and said “You look like a man who has had the weight of the world lifted from your shoulders. You have been a valuable asset here and we will stand by you now.”

Next I visited his boss, a woman named Esther. I started to tell her the same story but I had hardly begun before she stopped me and said “Well, you probably should try to go to 90 meetings in 90 days. See if you can find a sponsor. I will try to get the company to cover the cost of a 30 day rehab. If they will you should do that.” She sounded to me like she might be a recovered alcoholic herself although I learned later that day she was not. I was overcome with gratitude for the unconditional support I was receiving and told Esther I could hardly believe how wonderfully people were treating me that morning. She just shook her head and said “You expect too little from people”. How true I now realize that was.

I left her office and went to my own. As I sat there, trying to maintain composure, my boss walked in and put a key to his house down on my desk. He said “Your wife and kids need your house more than you do. Come stay with me until you get back on your feet”. I spent that night and the next several weeks accepting his generous offer. A few minutes later a coworker dropped by. News travels fast in a workplace where most people are housed in cubicles. She said she’d heard what was up and asked “So, you’re a 12-Stepper?” Of course, I really wasn’t but said I was. She smiled and said “Me too. Mine is a different ‘-A’ but we use the same 12 Steps.” Until then she had been a casual friend. That day she became a trusted confidant.

I left the office in time to make the 5:30 meeting near my home. When I arrived a man was waiting for me at the entrance to the room. He introduced himself as Scott, Esther’s son. Scott was an alcoholic and addict who’s “other” drug of choice was the same as mine. He had been clean and sober for 10 years and lived about six blocks down the road from me. Within a couple of weeks he became my first sponsor.

When I tell this story at AA meetings it is not uncommon for people to come up to me and say. “You’re an atheist? How is that possible? You prayed for guidance and the very next day you did things you formerly would not have considered doing. Your prayer was answered. It may not have been a burning bush but what happened to you was surely a miracle.” I’m inclined to agree that what happened feels miraculous. However, I simply do not believe in supernatural phenomena. When I hit my thumb with a hammer I am likely to cry out, “God damn it!” Driven to hopeless despair that evening I cried out “God help me!” The prayer was genuine but it was not a declaration of faith.

That marriage that seemed hopelessly doomed in July was reunited shortly before Christmas after a five month separation. I ecstatically shared my new and improved AA story which now featured restored domestic harmony and renewed family bonds. Then one day in early 2000 I returned from a two week business trip to learn that my wife had fallen in love with a friend of ours. For the first time as a sober man I was confronted with a devastating personal setback. It was not an easy time. I did not handle it gracefully. But I did share the experience with my sober friends. I let them see me suffer. Emotional pain has a tendency to rapidly morph into anger for me – even today – and my friends endured my anger too. As before, they did not turn away or express disapproval. I did not drink or use. Eventually the pain subsided. Life became, at first, tolerable then ultimately enjoyable once again.

I stayed clean and sober on the strength of the fellowship alone for over two years before I approached the 12 Steps with any real interest. It was then that I met the man who became my second AA sponsor. I have now known him for nearly 18 years. Although he will always be my sponsor, I no longer see him as a mentor. He is my trusted friend and one of the men in my life whom I love and know that I am loved by. He shared with me a point of view about life and recovery and AA that was, in large part, passed on to him by his sponsor. It is a point of view that resonates deeply with me and I pass it along to other men if they express an interest. It is not based on the 12 Steps as a recipe or formula for achieving sobriety.

The 12 Steps embody principles of a self-examined life that are neither unique nor new. They direct us to acknowledge who and what we are, to look for and rely upon help from outside ourselves, to examine past actions and motives, to understand that what we say and do may have greater or lesser merit, to seek to speak and act in ways that have greatest merit, to acknowledge our shortcomings, to make retribution for harm done to others whenever possible and to open our minds and hearts to great things we have not yet considered or felt. To adopt these goals (whether or not we try to achieve them specifically as prescribed in the 12 AA Steps) is a noble calling.

The notion that we should seek to speak and act in ways that have greatest merit implies that there is, in this world, an inherent morality. I believe this to be the case. Many AA members speak of seeking to do God’s will. They are using different language based on a different world view but, it seems to me, they are saying essentially the same thing that I am saying. I have heard it said that there really is no “them” in AA. There is just “us.” This applies to the whole world not just to AA.

What it’s like now is a moving target. The ups and downs of being human have not been supplanted by some persistent state of happy and joyous freedom.

Sustaining long term sobriety is inevitably accompanied by growing older. Both processes seem, generally, to smooth rough edges and round off sharp corners. The emotional extremes of my drinking and using days have given way to the much less dramatic emotional extremes of life as a sober and recently retired person. More and more the virtues of “easy does it” and “live and let live” seem to be driving my daily existence.

Sometimes I wonder why I still call myself an alcoholic. The urge to drink or use drugs vanished entirely many years ago. An alcoholic, my thinking goes, is not someone who chooses to drink but, rather, someone who is unable to choose not to drink. By that definition I am now the opposite of alcoholic. Then I remember. “My name is Russ and I am an alcoholic” is by far the most powerful admission of my life. It was the first step of my journey into a life of sobriety. Today it continues to be the simple prelude to new friendships and astonishing experiences in Alcoholics Anonymous. It connects who I am now and what it is like now to who I was during those precious 28 years of drinking and using. Every one of those years and all the things that happened during them are bricks and mortar in the foundation of my life today.

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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