Category: From AA Agnostica

life-j

Fifty Chosen Articles:
Number Forty-Two.
Originally posted in January 2020.

life-j wrote a total of eighteen articles posted on AA Agnostica over a period of six and half years.

By Roger C

Our dear friend life-j passed away on December 14, 2019. Below you will find a section with a bit of his biography and another section with a list of the articles he wrote that were posted on AA Agnostica.

But first, here is one of his articles:

Eight Principles of AA

The 12 steps have helped many people in AA. They seem to work particularly well for people that need, or want, to be told what to do and for people of a religious inclination. Others in AA find them less helpful and rely instead on the fellowship. Either way, there could have been 10, or 14, or 8 steps, and it would have been fine. The important thing is that we work earnestly at changing our lives.

I’m not going to go into whether or not Bill Wilson “accidentally” wound up with 12 steps, like he said, but there seems to be a certain obsession with that number. I have even seen “12 Promises”. But I would like to encourage a bit of thinking outside the groove and I think it may help loosen things up a bit to suggest that not everything has to come in twelve’s. To that end I have picked eight principles which guide almost everything in our program, and eight principles which make AA work:

Honesty, Open-mindedness, Willingness, Humility, Service, Living by the Golden Rule, Gratitude and Acceptance.

They are familiar to all and are, in a sense the basis for the steps. This is what we work toward, and the steps can be a good framework for working toward those principles.

But which are the principles that make AA work? If we know what works, what really at bottom makes AA work, then we can be more effective. Here are some of the most important:

  • An alcoholic will trust another alcoholic more than they will trust just about anyone else – spouses, parents, kids, friends, clergymen, therapists, teachers (never mind cops, judges and probation officers) and so as alcoholics we’re in a unique position to help each other in recovery.

  • Helping other alcoholics with their sobriety is one of the best ways to increase our chances of staying sober ourselves.

  • Most of us need a tribe to belong to, and we greatly increase our chances of staying sober by going to meetings and by associating with other recovering alcoholics. If the tribe is defined in such a manner that we are made to feel that we belong, then most of us will indeed feel that we belong, and we are more likely to stay.

  • Don’t take that first drink, that’s the one that leads to a drunk. And there is no problem so bad that alcohol can’t make it worse.

  • For most of us it is not enough to merely stop drinking. First of all, we need to stop doing things that make us want to drink. But then we need to make some real changes in our lives. And it helps our recovery if we can contribute to making this a better world, especially for other alcoholics and their kin. Having a plan or a program of some sort can make it much easier to do.

  • We need to work toward peace and balance in our lives. Neither despair nor hedonistic elation. Neither grandiosity nor self-flagellation. But while it is important that we accept and allow ourselves to feel where we are, where we actually are right now, a life with plain, ordinary, peaceful happiness with time and space for contemplation would be a good goal.

  • Take it one day at a time, one hour at a time, even 5 minutes at a time if that’s all you can do. You can postpone that drink 5 minutes, or the argument, or whatever other stupid things you’re thinking about getting yourself into.

  • Doing the right thing helps keep me sober, because I will have no reason to feel bad about myself. At least I won’t be adding to the reasons for feeling bad that I showed up here with, and even those will slowly fade away if I keep working on really changing my life.

Let’s try to keep it that simple.

Life (Leif) Jensen was born in Denmark on February 26, 1951. He lost any faith in religion which he may have had around the age of eight. He moved to Berkeley when he was 26, and settled in Oakland for much of his working life and his worst drinking years. He got sober there in 1988. In 2002, he moved to Laytonville, a small coastal mountain valley village in Northern California.

He spent part of his life as a building contractor, part as a technical translator, and dabbled a bit in art work and writing. Retired, he lived with his sweetie, dogs, chickens and gardens on a small homestead, his beloved Dragonfly Farm. He was survived by his mother and his uncle in Denmark, his daughter in Italy, his son in Seattle, and his sweetheart and partner, Jane, at the Dragonfly Farm.

life-j was involved in service work of every kind all along, but decided that the most important work was to help atheists, agnostics and freethinkers feel safe and welcome in AA, and hopefully to do at least a small part in helping AA change with the times and to remain alive and well in the 21st century.

He struggled for a long time with stage 4 liver cancer. After liver surgery in 2014, he was cancer free, but it metastasized to his lungs. Still, he went to the secular AA conference (Widening the Gateway) in Olympia, WA, in January 2016. He attended the International Conferences of Secular AA (ICSAA) in Austin in 2016 and Toronto in 2018. He also attended the Secular Ontario AA Roundup (SOAAR) 2017 in Toronto and some eleven months ago (February 2019) was at the Symposium on AA History in Los Altos, California. As one of the speakers at the symposium, Joe C, reported: “he was laying down in the back for my presentation.”

Over the last year the cancer spread to other parts of his body. life-j passed away on December 14, 2019… peacefully and at home, as he had wished.

As part of his mission, life-j wrote a total of eighteen articles posted on AA Agnostica over a period of six and a half years and these are:

He also wrote fourteen articles for AA Beyond Belief.

Most of the earlier articles are available in a book which he put together. The book can be read and/or downloaded as a PDF right here: My Collected Published AA Stories.

In July of 2019, life-j also published a book. An Introduction and Reviews can be accessed here: About Being Here. The book is available on Amazon.

For a PDF of this article, click here: life-j.

The post life-j first appeared on AA Agnostica.

Unintended Consequences

Fifty Chosen Articles:
Number Forty-One.
Originally posted in March 2019.

AA Agnostica evolved from listing secular AA meetings to posting articles by people in recovery in every part of the world.

By bob k

Earlier this month, AA Agnostica published its 500th article, and one HELL of a lot of people read it. The content of the essays posted here, over the years, has been quite diverse, as has been the authorship of those pieces. There have been contributors from England, Ireland, Poland, Australia, and Scandinavia, and from all parts of Canada and the United States. The overall caliber of writing has been remarkable, and the impact of the website is beyond measurement. AA Agnostica began in June, 2011, with the primary purpose of posting the meeting times and locations of two Toronto groups that had been “delisted” by their local central office.

Originally a directory, the website very quickly evolved into the hub of an international movement of secularists in Alcoholics Anonymous.

To be clear, there was more to Toronto Intergroup’s actions at their May, 2011 gathering of group representatives, than merely removing the listings of two agnostic-friendly groups from its directory of AA meetings in the Greater Toronto Area. The unconventional groups were disenfranchised – voting rights regarding all AA affairs in their local region were removed. A year later, when a motion to relist the groups was considered, the two banished groups could neither speak for themselves, nor could they cast votes in favor of their own re-admission.

GTAIThe groups were not “booted out of AA.” Toronto Intergroup lacked the power to do that, although they plainly did not lack the desire. The two non-conforming groups WERE kicked out of Toronto AA. In the pre-internet days, delisting in and of itself, would have delivered a kiss of death. Who is going to come to your meeting if people can’t find it, or even know that the group exists?

The spearheads of the movement to purify Alcoholics Anonymous did not stop at the limits of their own authority, but lobbied vigorously at the General Service level to get Beyond Belief and We Agnostics kicked out of AA entirely. Those particular efforts were unsuccessful, but the main mission was accomplished. Toronto AA had been decontaminated. Perhaps God’s grace had determined that it be so.

Nonetheless, these groups did not wither and die. A third group, formed in Richmond Hill, was also delisted and disenfranchised in spite of showing some willingness to come into conformity. It was too late in the blood-letting to have rationality take a role in the proceedings.

Unintended Consequences

The idea of unintended consequences was popularized in the mid-twentieth century by sociologist, Robert Merton. Unintended consequences are said to come in three specific groups:

  1. Unexpected benefits;
  2. Unexpected drawbacks;
  3. Perverse results – aka “backfires.”

I must confess to taking perverse pleasure from the perverse results that have arisen out of Toronto Intergroup’s perverse prosecution.

It is a matter of absolute speculation as to what MIGHT have happened, had Toronto Intergroup simply let the two unconventional groups go unchallenged. Group autonomy and all that, after all. Would there have been an AA Agnostica? Maybe eventually? But certainly not when it developed – the purpose in June, 2011 being to provide notification of group times and locations.

With no delisting, there’d have been no need.

Thus it’s time for a perverse “thank you” to those who pressed the issue of ostracizing the secular Toronto AA groups. Thanking Toronto Intergroup would be more than inaccurate as that body is in constant flux – reps changing, committees changing, and thankfully, attitudes changing. The delisting drive was spearheaded by a couple of members. Appropriately in an anonymous program, they will go unnamed, as will those from the 2011 and 2012 executive committee. Although one might have expected neutrality from the head table, that isn’t what we got. Passions ran high. It cannot be hidden that a considerable amount of venom accompanied the righteousness as the blood-letting took its course.

The forces of anti-corruption were completely successful, until they weren’t, but let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.

AA AgnosticaAA Agnostica pretty much immediately evolved into something far, far more than a listing resource. With the sting of the spurning of still fresh, the persecuted didn’t wither and fade away. Instead, it rapidly became evident that the godless were not wordless. Weekly blogs appeared on a variety of subjects. As the readership spread to a worldwide audience, and the Toronto events became well-known, articulate heathens sent in essays from farther and farther afield. Some criticized the Toronto crusaders, who in their zeal to bring about the greater good, seem to have employed questionable means to bring about their desired ends.

On the night of the original purging, the agnostic groups were delisted within two hours. That the discussion was inadequate is evidenced by the 20% of groups that abstained from voting. Six months later, the motion to relist needed to be considered VERY carefully, over a period of six months. An “informed” group conscience was now something that was critical. Ultimately, the motion to relist was soundly defeated, and procedural changes were passed that would prevent any revisiting of the issue.

That coffin was nailed shut. Tight. The issue was OVER, until it wasn’t.

A complaint was brought some time later before the Human Rights Commission of Ontario. It was groundless, I was told – sour grapes. The case was spurious, until it wasn’t.

In the end, the two delisted groups have been relisted, and operate as they did in 2011. Across Southern Ontario, they have been joined by additional Toronto groups, and ones in Hamilton, Ajax, Newmarket, Mississauga, and Whitby. AA Agnostica has been visited two and a half million times – a remarkable number for this sort of special-interest website.

Thank you, Toronto Intergroup. Thank you, crusaders.

Thank you, perverse unintended consequences.

Thank you to a new attitude that has brought us three Lord’s Prayer-less Ontario Regional Conferences, an atheist speaker in 2019, and talk of a secular panel in 2020. The wheels are turning slowly, but they are turning.

Key Players in AA Historybob k. is a sober atheist in AA since 1991 and the author of Key Players in AA History. Two new book projects are nearly ready to go to press. The Secret Diaries of Bill W. promises to be controversial and is expected to be published this April. A pre-AA history book — The Road to AA: Pilgrims to Prohibition will dispel fundamentalist mythology that sees the 12-steps as the ONLY path to recovery.

Along with Craig C, bob founded the Whitby Freethinkers in 2013, and the group has been serving the broader Zoom community for over two years.

bob has been a frequent contributor to AA Beyond Belief and to this website. A total of fifty-four articles by bob k have been posted on AA Agnostica (those by Bobby Beach have a check mark – ✔):

For a PDF of this article, click here: Unintended Consequences.

 

The post Unintended Consequences first appeared on AA Agnostica.

Unintended Consequences

Fifty Chosen Articles:
Number Forty-One.
Originally posted in March 2019.

AA Agnostica evolved from listing secular AA meetings to posting articles by people in recovery in every part of the world.

By bob k

Earlier this month, AA Agnostica published its 500th article, and one HELL of a lot of people read it. The content of the essays posted here, over the years, has been quite diverse, as has been the authorship of those pieces. There have been contributors from England, Ireland, Poland, Australia, and Scandinavia, and from all parts of Canada and the United States. The overall caliber of writing has been remarkable, and the impact of the website is beyond measurement. AA Agnostica began in June, 2011, with the primary purpose of posting the meeting times and locations of two Toronto groups that had been “delisted” by their local central office.

Originally a directory, the website very quickly evolved into the hub of an international movement of secularists in Alcoholics Anonymous.

To be clear, there was more to Toronto Intergroup’s actions at their May, 2011 gathering of group representatives, than merely removing the listings of two agnostic-friendly groups from its directory of AA meetings in the Greater Toronto Area. The unconventional groups were disenfranchised – voting rights regarding all AA affairs in their local region were removed. A year later, when a motion to relist the groups was considered, the two banished groups could neither speak for themselves, nor could they cast votes in favor of their own re-admission.

GTAIThe groups were not “booted out of AA.” Toronto Intergroup lacked the power to do that, although they plainly did not lack the desire. The two non-conforming groups WERE kicked out of Toronto AA. In the pre-internet days, delisting in and of itself, would have delivered a kiss of death. Who is going to come to your meeting if people can’t find it, or even know that the group exists?

The spearheads of the movement to purify Alcoholics Anonymous did not stop at the limits of their own authority, but lobbied vigorously at the General Service level to get Beyond Belief and We Agnostics kicked out of AA entirely. Those particular efforts were unsuccessful, but the main mission was accomplished. Toronto AA had been decontaminated. Perhaps God’s grace had determined that it be so.

Nonetheless, these groups did not wither and die. A third group, formed in Richmond Hill, was also delisted and disenfranchised in spite of showing some willingness to come into conformity. It was too late in the blood-letting to have rationality take a role in the proceedings.

Unintended Consequences

The idea of unintended consequences was popularized in the mid-twentieth century by sociologist, Robert Merton. Unintended consequences are said to come in three specific groups:

  1. Unexpected benefits;
  2. Unexpected drawbacks;
  3. Perverse results – aka “backfires.”

I must confess to taking perverse pleasure from the perverse results that have arisen out of Toronto Intergroup’s perverse prosecution.

It is a matter of absolute speculation as to what MIGHT have happened, had Toronto Intergroup simply let the two unconventional groups go unchallenged. Group autonomy and all that, after all. Would there have been an AA Agnostica? Maybe eventually? But certainly not when it developed – the purpose in June, 2011 being to provide notification of group times and locations.

With no delisting, there’d have been no need.

Thus it’s time for a perverse “thank you” to those who pressed the issue of ostracizing the secular Toronto AA groups. Thanking Toronto Intergroup would be more than inaccurate as that body is in constant flux – reps changing, committees changing, and thankfully, attitudes changing. The delisting drive was spearheaded by a couple of members. Appropriately in an anonymous program, they will go unnamed, as will those from the 2011 and 2012 executive committee. Although one might have expected neutrality from the head table, that isn’t what we got. Passions ran high. It cannot be hidden that a considerable amount of venom accompanied the righteousness as the blood-letting took its course.

The forces of anti-corruption were completely successful, until they weren’t, but let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.

AA AgnosticaAA Agnostica pretty much immediately evolved into something far, far more than a listing resource. With the sting of the spurning of still fresh, the persecuted didn’t wither and fade away. Instead, it rapidly became evident that the godless were not wordless. Weekly blogs appeared on a variety of subjects. As the readership spread to a worldwide audience, and the Toronto events became well-known, articulate heathens sent in essays from farther and farther afield. Some criticized the Toronto crusaders, who in their zeal to bring about the greater good, seem to have employed questionable means to bring about their desired ends.

On the night of the original purging, the agnostic groups were delisted within two hours. That the discussion was inadequate is evidenced by the 20% of groups that abstained from voting. Six months later, the motion to relist needed to be considered VERY carefully, over a period of six months. An “informed” group conscience was now something that was critical. Ultimately, the motion to relist was soundly defeated, and procedural changes were passed that would prevent any revisiting of the issue.

That coffin was nailed shut. Tight. The issue was OVER, until it wasn’t.

A complaint was brought some time later before the Human Rights Commission of Ontario. It was groundless, I was told – sour grapes. The case was spurious, until it wasn’t.

In the end, the two delisted groups have been relisted, and operate as they did in 2011. Across Southern Ontario, they have been joined by additional Toronto groups, and ones in Hamilton, Ajax, Newmarket, Mississauga, and Whitby. AA Agnostica has been visited two and a half million times – a remarkable number for this sort of special-interest website.

Thank you, Toronto Intergroup. Thank you, crusaders.

Thank you, perverse unintended consequences.

Thank you to a new attitude that has brought us three Lord’s Prayer-less Ontario Regional Conferences, an atheist speaker in 2019, and talk of a secular panel in 2020. The wheels are turning slowly, but they are turning.

Key Players in AA Historybob k. is a sober atheist in AA since 1991 and the author of Key Players in AA History. Two new book projects are nearly ready to go to press. The Secret Diaries of Bill W. promises to be controversial and is expected to be published this April. A pre-AA history book — The Road to AA: Pilgrims to Prohibition will dispel fundamentalist mythology that sees the 12-steps as the ONLY path to recovery.

Along with Craig C, bob founded the Whitby Freethinkers in 2013, and the group has been serving the broader Zoom community for over two years.

bob has been a frequent contributor to AA Beyond Belief and to this website. A total of fifty-four articles by bob k have been posted on AA Agnostica (those by Bobby Beach have a check mark – ✔):

For a PDF of this article, click here: Unintended Consequences.

 

The post Unintended Consequences first appeared on AA Agnostica.

What is AA?

Fifty Chosen Articles:
Number Forty.
Originally posted in March 2019.

AA is a fellowship of people who help each other stay sober
and live a better life.

By Roger C.

Let’s go simple with the answer to this question.

Fellowship

We can start with the first sentence of the AA Preamble published in 1947 in the Grapevine magazine:

Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of people who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism.

Let’s go even simpler now and understand the word “fellowship” as a “group”. AA considers itself a “bottoms up” hierarchy, in terms of autonomy, authority and power. The single most important, powerful and independent piece of AA is a group.

And that’s any AA group. That’s your own AA group, if you belong to a group. As of stats shared in 2017 by the GSO, eighty-six percent of members belong to a home group.

You don’t need to have to know – or have any involvement with – a local AA Intergroup or Central Office, your Area Assembly or the General Service Office of AA in New York City. For a vast majority of people in recovery that’s the way it is and the way it ought to be. It’s the way we support each other. The only thing that matters for most AA folks is the group: people who share their experience strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism.

All right, let’s go back again, way, way back to the mid-1940s, to get more of an understanding of AA.

It was put this way in 1946 in Cleveland:

AA Groups are fundamentally little bands of people who are friends, who can help each other stay sober. Each group therefore reflects the needs of its own members. The way a group is managed is the way its members want it to be managed for their common benefit.

A group doesn’t have to behave like any other group. A group “reflects the needs of its own members”. Period.

It’s important to note that there is no need for any conformity from one group to another. This is how Bill Wilson put it in a Grapevine article, “Anarchy Melts”:

So long as there is the slightest interest in sobriety, the most unmoral, the most anti-social, the most critical alcoholic may gather about him a few kindred spirits and announce to us that a new Alcoholics Anonymous Group has been formed. Anti-God, anti-medicine, anti-our Recovery Program, even anti-each other — these rampant individuals are still an AA Group if they think so!

And then of course there is AA’s Tradition Three, also written in 1946. This is the long form:

Our membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism. Hence we may refuse none who wish to recover. Nor ought AA membership ever depend on money or conformity. Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an AA group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation.

“We may refuse none who wish to recover.” Pretty clear.

This is the rather obvious and inevitable motivation of each and every AA group. Tradition Five: “Each group has but one primary purpose – to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers”.

But back to Tradition Three. It asserts that a requirement for an AA group is that it must have “no other affiliation.” Let’s talk a bit about affiliations.

The AA GroupTo begin with, it’s important to distinguish between “inside” and “outside” affiliations. What Tradition Three is talking about is what is understood as an “outside” affiliation.

There are plenty of “inside” affiliations and they are not a problem. Early on I mentioned local AA Intergroups or Central Offices, Area Assemblies or an AA General Service Office (worldwide, there are a total of 62 autonomous General Services Offices). Most groups are linked to these: many groups have a General Service Representative (GSR) who attends meetings of these affiliated organizations.

Then there are “specialized” groups within AA, as they are described in the pamphlet, The AA Group. They are also described as “special purpose” groups. These include doctors, women, atheists, etc. Here is a list of the very first annual or biennial conferences held by a number of these groups:

  • IDAA – International Doctors in AA (1949)
  • ICYPAA – International Conference of Young People in AA (1958)
  • IWC – International Women’s Conference (1965)
  • ILAA – International Lawyers in AA (1975)
  • GAL-AA – Gays and Lesbians in AA (1976)
  • NAI-AA – Native American Indian AA (1991)
  • ICSAA – International Conference of Secular AA (2014)

The only thing that is asked of these groups is that “they open the door to all alcoholics who seek help, regardless of profession, gender or other distinction”. (AA Group, p. 16) In my own experience, these groups do indeed do that, as I have attended several of these special purpose group meetings.

Okay, that’s it for “inside” affiliations. What about “outside” affiliations?

Self-Contradiction

The AA Preamble, quoted at the beginning of this piece, goes on to say: “AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution.”

If AA is to respect itself then it must not have an “outside” affiliation.

And yet most “traditional” AA groups in North America are allied with a religion. That religion is Christianity.

How are they allied with Christianity? These groups end their meetings with the Lord’s Prayer. “Our Father who art in Heaven” is a venerated Christian Prayer. It can be found in the New Testament in the Gospel of Matthew and in the Gospel of Luke. It was taught by Jesus as the way to pray and is universally understood as the summary of the religion of Christianity.

To suggest it is not a Christian prayer is either ignorance or hypocrisy.

In the United States, the Lord’s Prayer – or any other prayer – has been prohibited in public schools since 1962. In Canada, the use of the Lord’s Prayer in schools in Ontario and all parts of Canada ended in 1988 when the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that the “recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, which is a Christian prayer… impose(s) Christian observances upon non-Christian pupils and religious observances on non-believers”.

Nevertheless at the end of traditional AA meetings, people stand up, hold hands, and recite the Lord’s Prayer. It’s shameful. This is not only an “outside” affiliation or alliance but it blatantly contradicts the purpose of an AA group as it increasingly drives more and more “alcoholics who seek help” out of the rooms of AA.

So, is there self-contradiction within traditional AA? You bet. And it’s not 1935 anymore. It’s time to grow up and behave as if we are in the twenty-first century.

The “Suggested” Program

We know, of course, that there is a program in Alcoholics Anonymous: the 12 Steps. As they were published in 1939, half of the Steps contain a reference to God.

As a result of these references to God, for a number of AA members, two questions emerge.

First, do the Steps have to be done exactly as they were published in 1939?

Well, no, according to the author of the Steps, Bill Wilson. To begin with, the Steps are described in the Big Book as a “suggested” program of recovery (page 59).

And can they be altered? Rewritten? The number of Steps changed? At the third General Service Conference, held in 1953, Bill was quite clear:

In one country, the Steps have been altered somewhat in phrasing and reduced to seven. Do you think we should tell those people: “You can’t belong to Alcoholics Anonymous unless you print those Twelve Steps the way we have them?” No…. We even have a Tradition that guarantees the right of any group to vary all of them, if they want to. Let’s remember, we are talking about suggested steps and traditions.

In a book written a few years later, Bill repeated himself:

We must remember that AA’s Steps are suggestions only. A belief in them as they stand is not at all a requirement for membership among us. This liberty has made AA available to thousands who never would have tried at all, had we insisted on the Twelve Steps just as written.

Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, page 81, 1957

Second, do they even need to be done at all?

No. Again, we are talking about a “suggested” program. And then again there is Tradition Three, “The only requirement…”. Bill summarized both in a letter written to Father Ford in 1957: “A belief in the Steps or in God is not in any way requisite for AA membership.”

The Steps can be altered, rewritten, renumbered, or ignored completely, if that is the desire of a member or group.

It is important to acknowledge that “a personality change” (Appendix II of the Big Book) is often a key component of recovery from alcoholism. And the Steps can be an important part of that, even essential for some people. But it should also be noted that there are many other paths to recovery. As Bill put it in a speech at the General Service Conference in 1965: In AA “the full liberty to practice any creed or principle or therapy should be a first consideration. Hence let us not pressure anyone with individual or even collective views.”

This is a point of view that clearly was shared by the other co-founder of AA, Dr. Bob. As it was put in the 1940 Akron Pamphlet, edited by Dr. Bob, “Spiritual Milestones in Alcoholics Anonymous”:

Consider the eight-part program laid down in Buddhism: Right view, right aim, right speech, right action, right living, right effort, right mindedness and right contemplation. The Buddhist philosophy, as exemplified by these eight points, could be literally adopted by AA as a substitute for or in addition to the Twelve Steps. Generosity, universal love and welfare of others rather than considerations of self are basic to Buddhism.

And that final sentence aptly describes what we believe ought to be basic to AA.

AA Is Not Medical Treatment

Much of the above will annoy a number of members of traditional Alcoholics Anonymous. These “fundamentalists” treat the Big Book as a Bible and the 12 Steps as the only solution for folks suffering from alcoholism or addiction.

They are in part inspired by this quote from the Big Book which is commonly shared at the beginning of so many AA meetings: “Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program…”

The path? The program? There is only one in that quotation: the 12 Steps.

There are often good comments on AA Agnostica and here is one, by Megan: “A most viciously dangerous fundamentalist distortion of AA is ‘don’t go to a therapist or psychiatrist’ and ‘get off all medications’”. She then talks about suicides as a result of people being coerced into taking that “dangerous advice”.

Over the years we have learned that alcoholics commonly suffer from other problems. Gabor Maté, author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, believes that most addictions are the result of PTSD. We also know that there are genetic causes. Indeed, roughly 6 out of 10 AA members receive various forms of medical treatment, from medication to therapy, and that’s the way it should be. In its pamphlets, therefore, The AA Members – Medications and Other Drugs and AA for Alcoholics with Mental Health Issues, it is advised that “No AA member should ‘play doctor’; all medical advice and treatment should come from a qualified physician.”

But, sad to say, many AA fundamentalists do indeed play doctor. Our commentator, Megan, added this, “Fundamentalists hate those pamphlets almost as much as the recent ‘God Word’ pamphlet.” Perhaps she is right and the desire by some to control everything and everyone is the mark of a dominating, dogmatic, and anti-democratic zealot.

Our co-founder, Bill, saw this coming in AA. At the 1965 Conference he went on to say that dogmatism of this kind often leads to a form of arrogance: “Whenever this brand of arrogance develops we are sure to become aggressive. We demand agreement with us. We play God. This isn’t good dogma. This is very bad dogma. It could be especially destructive for us of AA to indulge in this sort of thing.”

As Megan put it, this fundamentalism is a “distortion” of AA.

What is AA?

Let’s go back to the start. AA is a fellowship. AA is a group, and that could be your group.

It is a mutual aid organization, if you will.

It isn’t about rules. As it is put in Living Sober, written by Barry Leach:

There is no prescribed AA “right” way or “wrong” way. Each of us uses what is best for himself or herself – without closing the door on other kinds of help we may find valuable at another time. And each of us tries to respect others’ rights to do things differently.

But we do have a primary purpose, and that is “to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.” As Bill put it, AA is a “kinship of a universal suffering”.

AA’s co-founders met on May 12, 1935 (Mother’s Day), with Bill trying to help Dr. Bob sober up at Dr. Bob’s home in Akron, Ohio. Bill worked away at that for almost a month.

It was one drunk helping another. And that, my friends, remains the very essence of AA.

For a PDF of this article, click here: What is AA?

The post What is AA? first appeared on AA Agnostica.

What is AA?

Fifty Chosen Articles:
Number Forty.
Originally posted in March 2019.

AA is a fellowship of people who help each other stay sober
and live a better life.

By Roger C.

Let’s go simple with the answer to this question.

Fellowship

We can start with the first sentence of the AA Preamble published in 1947 in the Grapevine magazine:

Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of people who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism.

Let’s go even simpler now and understand the word “fellowship” as a “group”. AA considers itself a “bottoms up” hierarchy, in terms of autonomy, authority and power. The single most important, powerful and independent piece of AA is a group.

And that’s any AA group. That’s your own AA group, if you belong to a group. As of stats shared in 2017 by the GSO, eighty-six percent of members belong to a home group.

You don’t need to have to know – or have any involvement with – a local AA Intergroup or Central Office, your Area Assembly or the General Service Office of AA in New York City. For a vast majority of people in recovery that’s the way it is and the way it ought to be. It’s the way we support each other. The only thing that matters for most AA folks is the group: people who share their experience strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism.

All right, let’s go back again, way, way back to the mid-1940s, to get more of an understanding of AA.

It was put this way in 1946 in Cleveland:

AA Groups are fundamentally little bands of people who are friends, who can help each other stay sober. Each group therefore reflects the needs of its own members. The way a group is managed is the way its members want it to be managed for their common benefit.

A group doesn’t have to behave like any other group. A group “reflects the needs of its own members”. Period.

It’s important to note that there is no need for any conformity from one group to another. This is how Bill Wilson put it in a Grapevine article, “Anarchy Melts”:

So long as there is the slightest interest in sobriety, the most unmoral, the most anti-social, the most critical alcoholic may gather about him a few kindred spirits and announce to us that a new Alcoholics Anonymous Group has been formed. Anti-God, anti-medicine, anti-our Recovery Program, even anti-each other — these rampant individuals are still an AA Group if they think so!

And then of course there is AA’s Tradition Three, also written in 1946. This is the long form:

Our membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism. Hence we may refuse none who wish to recover. Nor ought AA membership ever depend on money or conformity. Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an AA group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation.

“We may refuse none who wish to recover.” Pretty clear.

This is the rather obvious and inevitable motivation of each and every AA group. Tradition Five: “Each group has but one primary purpose – to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers”.

But back to Tradition Three. It asserts that a requirement for an AA group is that it must have “no other affiliation.” Let’s talk a bit about affiliations.

The AA GroupTo begin with, it’s important to distinguish between “inside” and “outside” affiliations. What Tradition Three is talking about is what is understood as an “outside” affiliation.

There are plenty of “inside” affiliations and they are not a problem. Early on I mentioned local AA Intergroups or Central Offices, Area Assemblies or an AA General Service Office (worldwide, there are a total of 62 autonomous General Services Offices). Most groups are linked to these: many groups have a General Service Representative (GSR) who attends meetings of these affiliated organizations.

Then there are “specialized” groups within AA, as they are described in the pamphlet, The AA Group. They are also described as “special purpose” groups. These include doctors, women, atheists, etc. Here is a list of the very first annual or biennial conferences held by a number of these groups:

  • IDAA – International Doctors in AA (1949)
  • ICYPAA – International Conference of Young People in AA (1958)
  • IWC – International Women’s Conference (1965)
  • ILAA – International Lawyers in AA (1975)
  • GAL-AA – Gays and Lesbians in AA (1976)
  • NAI-AA – Native American Indian AA (1991)
  • ICSAA – International Conference of Secular AA (2014)

The only thing that is asked of these groups is that “they open the door to all alcoholics who seek help, regardless of profession, gender or other distinction”. (AA Group, p. 16) In my own experience, these groups do indeed do that, as I have attended several of these special purpose group meetings.

Okay, that’s it for “inside” affiliations. What about “outside” affiliations?

Self-Contradiction

The AA Preamble, quoted at the beginning of this piece, goes on to say: “AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution.”

If AA is to respect itself then it must not have an “outside” affiliation.

And yet most “traditional” AA groups in North America are allied with a religion. That religion is Christianity.

How are they allied with Christianity? These groups end their meetings with the Lord’s Prayer. “Our Father who art in Heaven” is a venerated Christian Prayer. It can be found in the New Testament in the Gospel of Matthew and in the Gospel of Luke. It was taught by Jesus as the way to pray and is universally understood as the summary of the religion of Christianity.

To suggest it is not a Christian prayer is either ignorance or hypocrisy.

In the United States, the Lord’s Prayer – or any other prayer – has been prohibited in public schools since 1962. In Canada, the use of the Lord’s Prayer in schools in Ontario and all parts of Canada ended in 1988 when the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that the “recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, which is a Christian prayer… impose(s) Christian observances upon non-Christian pupils and religious observances on non-believers”.

Nevertheless at the end of traditional AA meetings, people stand up, hold hands, and recite the Lord’s Prayer. It’s shameful. This is not only an “outside” affiliation or alliance but it blatantly contradicts the purpose of an AA group as it increasingly drives more and more “alcoholics who seek help” out of the rooms of AA.

So, is there self-contradiction within traditional AA? You bet. And it’s not 1935 anymore. It’s time to grow up and behave as if we are in the twenty-first century.

The “Suggested” Program

We know, of course, that there is a program in Alcoholics Anonymous: the 12 Steps. As they were published in 1939, half of the Steps contain a reference to God.

As a result of these references to God, for a number of AA members, two questions emerge.

First, do the Steps have to be done exactly as they were published in 1939?

Well, no, according to the author of the Steps, Bill Wilson. To begin with, the Steps are described in the Big Book as a “suggested” program of recovery (page 59).

And can they be altered? Rewritten? The number of Steps changed? At the third General Service Conference, held in 1953, Bill was quite clear:

In one country, the Steps have been altered somewhat in phrasing and reduced to seven. Do you think we should tell those people: “You can’t belong to Alcoholics Anonymous unless you print those Twelve Steps the way we have them?” No…. We even have a Tradition that guarantees the right of any group to vary all of them, if they want to. Let’s remember, we are talking about suggested steps and traditions.

In a book written a few years later, Bill repeated himself:

We must remember that AA’s Steps are suggestions only. A belief in them as they stand is not at all a requirement for membership among us. This liberty has made AA available to thousands who never would have tried at all, had we insisted on the Twelve Steps just as written.

Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, page 81, 1957

Second, do they even need to be done at all?

No. Again, we are talking about a “suggested” program. And then again there is Tradition Three, “The only requirement…”. Bill summarized both in a letter written to Father Ford in 1957: “A belief in the Steps or in God is not in any way requisite for AA membership.”

The Steps can be altered, rewritten, renumbered, or ignored completely, if that is the desire of a member or group.

It is important to acknowledge that “a personality change” (Appendix II of the Big Book) is often a key component of recovery from alcoholism. And the Steps can be an important part of that, even essential for some people. But it should also be noted that there are many other paths to recovery. As Bill put it in a speech at the General Service Conference in 1965: In AA “the full liberty to practice any creed or principle or therapy should be a first consideration. Hence let us not pressure anyone with individual or even collective views.”

This is a point of view that clearly was shared by the other co-founder of AA, Dr. Bob. As it was put in the 1940 Akron Pamphlet, edited by Dr. Bob, “Spiritual Milestones in Alcoholics Anonymous”:

Consider the eight-part program laid down in Buddhism: Right view, right aim, right speech, right action, right living, right effort, right mindedness and right contemplation. The Buddhist philosophy, as exemplified by these eight points, could be literally adopted by AA as a substitute for or in addition to the Twelve Steps. Generosity, universal love and welfare of others rather than considerations of self are basic to Buddhism.

And that final sentence aptly describes what we believe ought to be basic to AA.

AA Is Not Medical Treatment

Much of the above will annoy a number of members of traditional Alcoholics Anonymous. These “fundamentalists” treat the Big Book as a Bible and the 12 Steps as the only solution for folks suffering from alcoholism or addiction.

They are in part inspired by this quote from the Big Book which is commonly shared at the beginning of so many AA meetings: “Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program…”

The path? The program? There is only one in that quotation: the 12 Steps.

There are often good comments on AA Agnostica and here is one, by Megan: “A most viciously dangerous fundamentalist distortion of AA is ‘don’t go to a therapist or psychiatrist’ and ‘get off all medications’”. She then talks about suicides as a result of people being coerced into taking that “dangerous advice”.

Over the years we have learned that alcoholics commonly suffer from other problems. Gabor Maté, author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, believes that most addictions are the result of PTSD. We also know that there are genetic causes. Indeed, roughly 6 out of 10 AA members receive various forms of medical treatment, from medication to therapy, and that’s the way it should be. In its pamphlets, therefore, The AA Members – Medications and Other Drugs and AA for Alcoholics with Mental Health Issues, it is advised that “No AA member should ‘play doctor’; all medical advice and treatment should come from a qualified physician.”

But, sad to say, many AA fundamentalists do indeed play doctor. Our commentator, Megan, added this, “Fundamentalists hate those pamphlets almost as much as the recent ‘God Word’ pamphlet.” Perhaps she is right and the desire by some to control everything and everyone is the mark of a dominating, dogmatic, and anti-democratic zealot.

Our co-founder, Bill, saw this coming in AA. At the 1965 Conference he went on to say that dogmatism of this kind often leads to a form of arrogance: “Whenever this brand of arrogance develops we are sure to become aggressive. We demand agreement with us. We play God. This isn’t good dogma. This is very bad dogma. It could be especially destructive for us of AA to indulge in this sort of thing.”

As Megan put it, this fundamentalism is a “distortion” of AA.

What is AA?

Let’s go back to the start. AA is a fellowship. AA is a group, and that could be your group.

It is a mutual aid organization, if you will.

It isn’t about rules. As it is put in Living Sober, written by Barry Leach:

There is no prescribed AA “right” way or “wrong” way. Each of us uses what is best for himself or herself – without closing the door on other kinds of help we may find valuable at another time. And each of us tries to respect others’ rights to do things differently.

But we do have a primary purpose, and that is “to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.” As Bill put it, AA is a “kinship of a universal suffering”.

AA’s co-founders met on May 12, 1935 (Mother’s Day), with Bill trying to help Dr. Bob sober up at Dr. Bob’s home in Akron, Ohio. Bill worked away at that for almost a month.

It was one drunk helping another. And that, my friends, remains the very essence of AA.

For a PDF of this article, click here: What is AA?

The post What is AA? first appeared on AA Agnostica.

Religious or Non-Religious Recovery?

Caitlin Halligan is working on a Ph.D. at Western Michigan University and is conducting research on substance use recovery and Alcoholics Anonymous. The research involves a survey which focuses on religious and nonreligious experiences in recovery, specifically as it relates to AA.

If you would like to share your experience in this survey, click here:

bit.ly/AA_ResearchSurvey_WMU

The survey is 100% anonymous and doesn’t collect any identifying information about the individual.

Here is some more information:

Again, if you would like to share your experience in this survey, click here:

bit.ly/AA_ResearchSurvey_WMU

Your contribution to this survey would be helpful and very much appreciated.

 

The post Religious or Non-Religious Recovery? first appeared on AA Agnostica.

Religious or Non-Religious Recovery?

Caitlin Halligan is working on a Ph.D. at Western Michigan University and is conducting research on substance use recovery and Alcoholics Anonymous. The research involves a survey which focuses on religious and nonreligious experiences in recovery, specifically as it relates to AA.

If you would like to share your experience in this survey, click here:

bit.ly/AA_ResearchSurvey_WMU

The survey is 100% anonymous and doesn’t collect any identifying information about the individual.

Here is some more information:

Again, if you would like to share your experience in this survey, click here:

bit.ly/AA_ResearchSurvey_WMU

Your contribution to this survey would be helpful and very much appreciated.

 

The post Religious or Non-Religious Recovery? first appeared on AA Agnostica.

AA and the Lord’s Prayer

Fifty Chosen Articles:
Number Thirty-Nine.
Originally posted in February 2019.

AA needs to grow up – as if it were now the 21st century and not 1935.
It needs to discard the Lord’s Prayer.

All [women and] men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his [or her] own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others.

The Catholic Church, Vatican II, 1965

By Roger C.

The Lord’s Prayer – “Our Father who art in Heaven” – is a venerated Christian Prayer. It can be found in the New Testament in two places: in the Gospel of Matthew and with a shorter version in the Gospel of Luke. It was taught by Jesus as the way to pray and it is universally understood as the summary of the religion of Christianity.

In the United States, the Lord’s Prayer – or any other prayer, for that matter – has been prohibited in public schools since 1962. This was the result of a Supreme Court decision in which Justice Hugo Black, delivering the opinion of the Court, affirmed that the State should not in any way “ordain or support” any religion.

In Canada, the public use of the Lord’s Prayer ended in 1988. At that time the Ontario Court of Appeal heard a case in which several parents objected to prayer at the beginning of the school day. Their children – non-Christians – would have to leave the room if they did not wish to participate in the recitation of the prayer.

The Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that the “recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, which is a Christian prayer… impose(s) Christian observances upon non-Christian pupils and religious observances on non-believers” and constituted a violation of the freedom of conscience and religion provisions in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

That ended the use of the Lord’s Prayer in schools not only in Ontario but in all parts of Canada.

For the three decades since then, children in Canadian schools have somehow survived without a daily dose of “Our Father.”

So what about AA and the Lord’s Prayer?

Across North America most traditional AA meetings end with the Lord’s Prayer. People stand up, hold hands, and recite the “Our Father who art in Heaven…” out loud.

And please note: some AA members are extremely dogmatic when it comes to the Lord’s Prayer. I once submitted a motion to have my AA District stop ending its meetings with it and was literally told by the Chair of the meeting to “get the fuck out of AA”.

How could this possibly happen in the AA fellowship?

Well, AA began a long, long time ago. In 1935. In especially Christian communities, such as Akron, Ohio. And, moreover, the “co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous met through the Oxford Group… a Christian organization founded by an American Christian missionary”. (Wikipedia)

Perhaps not surprisingly then, the word “God”, or a variation of it, appears 281 times in the first 164 pages of the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, published in 1939.

And let me add this: by and large, it’s an ancient and out-dated conception of God. I say this as someone who studied religion for almost a decade, and read the books in the New Testament, at the Faculty of Religious Studies at McGill University.

A bit of the Lord’s Prayer:

Our Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread…

So this particular god is understood as anthropomorphic, male and interventionist.

Anthropomorphic and male. A god with human attributes and of a male gender: “Our Father who art in Heaven”. A guy in the sky, as it is sometimes derisively put. (Or sometimes not derisively. At my first AA meeting in a rehab, the speaker said he owed his recovery to a guy in the sky. I was, I will admit, stunned.)

Interventionist. This is a characteristic of this god that is most shared within AA. In “How It Works”, chapter 5 in Alcoholics Anonymous, which is read at most traditional AA meetings, Bill Wilson wrote: “God could and would if He were sought”. He could and would do what? Well, get and keep you sober of course. No matter what else is going on in the world, one of His main functions apparently is to help the alcoholic in recovery.

Now let me be clear and interrupt myself for just one paragraph: There are without question other conceptions of god, both in the world at large and yes, in AA. And I am not just talking about religions now. Some of these conceptions of “god” are more personal, contemporary and not in the least related to any form of religious dogmatism. They can be exploratory and, rather simply, a part of spiritual growth. This “spiritual growth” is something that Sam Harris describes in his book, Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion, as a form of “self-transcendence”, that is, growth in which an individual comes to understand the world beyond the obsessive characteristics of her or his ego consciousness. I personally laud spiritual growth as a part of recovery, indeed, as a part of life itself.

Okay. Back to AA and the Lord’s Prayer.

My message is very simple: AA meetings must stop ending with the Lord’s Prayer.

Two reasons.

First, it is a contradiction and violation of Alcoholics Anonymous itself. AA insists that while it is indeed spiritual, it is not, nor should it be in any way, religious. Well Christianity is a religion. And The Lord’s Prayer is a Christian prayer. To suggest otherwise is an appalling act of ignorance or hypocrisy. Or both.

If you don’t believe that then re-read what the United States Supreme Court had to say. It removed prayer from schools because it recognized that it should not “ordain or support” any religion. You can also re-read what the Ontario Court of Appeal had to say: the “recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, which is a Christian prayer… impose(s) Christian observances upon non-Christian pupils and religious observances on non-believers”.

AA needs to respect its own principles, its own self. Weird, but true. As it was put recently in The Fix: “It is baffling why the Our Father – a prayer praising a conventional paternalistic, heaven-dwelling religious deity – still closes many meetings, as it directly contradicts the organization’s stated non-alignment with any sect or denomination, per its Preamble.”

Spiritual not religious? No outside affiliations? Then behave accordingly.

Second, the religiosity of the AA born in 1935 and the Lord’s Prayer is increasingly driving alcoholics out of meetings. AA also needs to quit pumping “Conference approved” literature, virtually all of which is based on the ancient Godly thought of the mid twentieth century, and understand that it is now the twenty first century and that AA needs to recognize that and mature as an organization, a fellowship.

AA needs to grow up, to modernize itself and thus be both more relevant and more inclusive, as if it were 2019 today and not 1935. It needs to discard the Lord’s Prayer. A vote at the General Service Conference by AA Area delegates and AA officials is all that would be needed.

Otherwise, as my friend Joe C put it years ago: “My bold prediction is that if AA doesn’t accommodate change and diversify, our 100th anniversary will be a fellowship of men and women with the same stature and relevance as the Mennonites; charming, harmless and irrelevant.”

Amen.

For a PDF of this article click here: AA and the Lord’s Prayer.

 

The post AA and the Lord’s Prayer first appeared on AA Agnostica.

AA and the Lord’s Prayer

Fifty Chosen Articles:
Number Thirty-Nine.
Originally posted in February 2019.

AA needs to grow up – as if it were now the 21st century and not 1935.
It needs to discard the Lord’s Prayer.

All [women and] men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his [or her] own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others.

The Catholic Church, Vatican II, 1965

By Roger C.

The Lord’s Prayer – “Our Father who art in Heaven” – is a venerated Christian Prayer. It can be found in the New Testament in two places: in the Gospel of Matthew and with a shorter version in the Gospel of Luke. It was taught by Jesus as the way to pray and it is universally understood as the summary of the religion of Christianity.

In the United States, the Lord’s Prayer – or any other prayer, for that matter – has been prohibited in public schools since 1962. This was the result of a Supreme Court decision in which Justice Hugo Black, delivering the opinion of the Court, affirmed that the State should not in any way “ordain or support” any religion.

In Canada, the public use of the Lord’s Prayer ended in 1988. At that time the Ontario Court of Appeal heard a case in which several parents objected to prayer at the beginning of the school day. Their children – non-Christians – would have to leave the room if they did not wish to participate in the recitation of the prayer.

The Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that the “recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, which is a Christian prayer… impose(s) Christian observances upon non-Christian pupils and religious observances on non-believers” and constituted a violation of the freedom of conscience and religion provisions in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

That ended the use of the Lord’s Prayer in schools not only in Ontario but in all parts of Canada.

For the three decades since then, children in Canadian schools have somehow survived without a daily dose of “Our Father.”

So what about AA and the Lord’s Prayer?

Across North America most traditional AA meetings end with the Lord’s Prayer. People stand up, hold hands, and recite the “Our Father who art in Heaven…” out loud.

And please note: some AA members are extremely dogmatic when it comes to the Lord’s Prayer. I once submitted a motion to have my AA District stop ending its meetings with it and was literally told by the Chair of the meeting to “get the fuck out of AA”.

How could this possibly happen in the AA fellowship?

Well, AA began a long, long time ago. In 1935. In especially Christian communities, such as Akron, Ohio. And, moreover, the “co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous met through the Oxford Group… a Christian organization founded by an American Christian missionary”. (Wikipedia)

Perhaps not surprisingly then, the word “God”, or a variation of it, appears 281 times in the first 164 pages of the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, published in 1939.

And let me add this: by and large, it’s an ancient and out-dated conception of God. I say this as someone who studied religion for almost a decade, and read the books in the New Testament, at the Faculty of Religious Studies at McGill University.

A bit of the Lord’s Prayer:

Our Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread…

So this particular god is understood as anthropomorphic, male and interventionist.

Anthropomorphic and male. A god with human attributes and of a male gender: “Our Father who art in Heaven”. A guy in the sky, as it is sometimes derisively put. (Or sometimes not derisively. At my first AA meeting in a rehab, the speaker said he owed his recovery to a guy in the sky. I was, I will admit, stunned.)

Interventionist. This is a characteristic of this god that is most shared within AA. In “How It Works”, chapter 5 in Alcoholics Anonymous, which is read at most traditional AA meetings, Bill Wilson wrote: “God could and would if He were sought”. He could and would do what? Well, get and keep you sober of course. No matter what else is going on in the world, one of His main functions apparently is to help the alcoholic in recovery.

Now let me be clear and interrupt myself for just one paragraph: There are without question other conceptions of god, both in the world at large and yes, in AA. And I am not just talking about religions now. Some of these conceptions of “god” are more personal, contemporary and not in the least related to any form of religious dogmatism. They can be exploratory and, rather simply, a part of spiritual growth. This “spiritual growth” is something that Sam Harris describes in his book, Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion, as a form of “self-transcendence”, that is, growth in which an individual comes to understand the world beyond the obsessive characteristics of her or his ego consciousness. I personally laud spiritual growth as a part of recovery, indeed, as a part of life itself.

Okay. Back to AA and the Lord’s Prayer.

My message is very simple: AA meetings must stop ending with the Lord’s Prayer.

Two reasons.

First, it is a contradiction and violation of Alcoholics Anonymous itself. AA insists that while it is indeed spiritual, it is not, nor should it be in any way, religious. Well Christianity is a religion. And The Lord’s Prayer is a Christian prayer. To suggest otherwise is an appalling act of ignorance or hypocrisy. Or both.

If you don’t believe that then re-read what the United States Supreme Court had to say. It removed prayer from schools because it recognized that it should not “ordain or support” any religion. You can also re-read what the Ontario Court of Appeal had to say: the “recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, which is a Christian prayer… impose(s) Christian observances upon non-Christian pupils and religious observances on non-believers”.

AA needs to respect its own principles, its own self. Weird, but true. As it was put recently in The Fix: “It is baffling why the Our Father – a prayer praising a conventional paternalistic, heaven-dwelling religious deity – still closes many meetings, as it directly contradicts the organization’s stated non-alignment with any sect or denomination, per its Preamble.”

Spiritual not religious? No outside affiliations? Then behave accordingly.

Second, the religiosity of the AA born in 1935 and the Lord’s Prayer is increasingly driving alcoholics out of meetings. AA also needs to quit pumping “Conference approved” literature, virtually all of which is based on the ancient Godly thought of the mid twentieth century, and understand that it is now the twenty first century and that AA needs to recognize that and mature as an organization, a fellowship.

AA needs to grow up, to modernize itself and thus be both more relevant and more inclusive, as if it were 2019 today and not 1935. It needs to discard the Lord’s Prayer. A vote at the General Service Conference by AA Area delegates and AA officials is all that would be needed.

Otherwise, as my friend Joe C put it years ago: “My bold prediction is that if AA doesn’t accommodate change and diversify, our 100th anniversary will be a fellowship of men and women with the same stature and relevance as the Mennonites; charming, harmless and irrelevant.”

Amen.

For a PDF of this article click here: AA and the Lord’s Prayer.

 

The post AA and the Lord’s Prayer first appeared on AA Agnostica.

The Wave of Religiosity

Fifty Chosen Articles:
Number Thirty-Eight.
Originally posted in October 2018.

Poland is considered to be a religious, Catholic country.
Nevertheless, the nonreligious movement in AA is growing.

By Witek D.

A few years ago, at the AA Convention in Texas, I talked to a lady from New York, who was a member of the GSO staff. She knew about the rapid growth of AA in Poland (we have 2700 groups) and told me that, in her opinion, it was because we Polish people are believers. Believers in a religious sense.

I was surprised. Indeed, Poland is considered to be a religious, Catholic country, I said, but AA hasn’t got that religious connection. I was surprised, but now I know she was right. I clearly see that Polish AA is linked with religion, rather not officially but practically.

I’m writing “rather not officially” because some groups quite openly had organized workshops, retreats and pilgrimages at “holy” places for years. These very popular events usually connected with attendance in Catholic masses. They are not run by our GSO, but do a lot of harm to AA’s image.

What’s more, I’m afraid, a quite new strong wave of religiosity is rolling through Polish AA now.

Some claim it’s not religion, it’s spirituality because we don’t talk about a particular God and our He or She is not obligatorily associated with the Church. But it’s a whitewash. Religion is a faith in God who intervenes in people’s lives, heals them or not, depending on His will, and to whom one has to pray. What we have in a large part of our AA is “theism”: non-institutional religion, not related to a specific denomination. But it’s still religion.

The vast majority of AA members (and I didn’t pay attention to this early on) believe that God recovered them from alcoholism and they speak about it at every meeting. Sometimes they say that they don’t manage their own lives any longer but have turned themselves over to the care of God. What does this mean? It’s a declaration of deep religious faith.

This kind of faith is well beyond my agnostic approach. I can accept the idea of turning my life over to the care of a higher power, however we understand it, but I understand that I control my own mind and that managing my life on a day-to-day basis is still my responsibility.

I often wonder how a newcomer feels when he or she hears in the Preamble at the beginning of the meeting that AA is not religious and nevertheless later on hears from most of the speakers that they have been saved by a personal God who has intervened in their lives. Probably some of them suspect that we are simply not being honest.

Here’s another example from a meeting. A young man, three years in AA, said: “I still have various fears, despite the program and my sponsor I still worry about my family, work, health …” Someone in the room raised his hand and suggested: “Apparently your contact with God is too weak. Correct your relations with your Higher Power and all fears will pass”.

Everyone nodded with agreement with how sensibly he had advised, but it made me feel bad. I wondered: Where am I, what am I doing here, what do I have in common with these religious people? What I felt was rather low spirits and embarrassment, and absolutely not an identification.

It’s true that no one rejects atheists at a regular meeting but also no one cares if we feel good. Quite often we don’t. We feel instructed, discriminated against, sometimes scared and offended. For example, one AA group translated and widely propagated “Gresham’s Law and AA” which offends unbelievers, calling them cheats who dissolve AA’s program.

So far there are no secular AA meetings in Poland but we atheists and agnostics AA members definitely need them. We deserve this sense of community in our recovery, feeling connected, not strange and awkward, rather than like a person who, so far, doesn’t believe but in a while… who knows?

We all know this saying: “Fake it until you make it”. I’ve been sober for 23 years, how much longer should I fake it?

After articles I got from AA Agnostica and then translated and sent to friends I received many interesting responses: “Thank you for these important words, wonderful text, it’s good to know I’m not alone…” “At some meetings I don’t dare say I’m an atheist and then I feel like a fraud…” “Once when I said I was an agnostic I heard that there was no sobriety without God and I that didn’t know anything about spirituality… “

It was a wonderful feeling that I experienced it at the International Conference of Secular AA (ICSAA) in Toronto, to sit among people who prove by their attendance that it’s possible to get and stay sober without faith in a supernatural being. And to think: that’s what I have done too.

Some people I spoke to about secular AA meetings said it was a bad idea, a threat to our unity. Really? American and Canadian experiences show something different. On the contrary, secular meetings attract to the fellowship people who wouldn’t come to AA under any other circumstances.

And meetings for women, priests, policemen? They are like that too, not liked by everyone, but apparently, these people need them. For the same reason: it’s about identity and a sense of community. It is important that these, let’s say, special meetings would be not closed, so that everyone who needs help can attend. And a second thing: they shouldn’t be pushed out of AA, for example by being refused registration on Intergroup lists.

We all would like to have a choice, go once to one group, the second time to another. Also we Polish atheists and agnostics appreciate the strength of AA and want to be a part of this wonderful fellowship. We don’t want, not in the least, to split AA’s unity. We are the same – alcoholics – but we only understand in a different way the concept of a “higher power”. For us, it can be the wisdom of other alcoholics and/or ethical rules given us by our ancestry.

And let’s remember Bill’s W words:

…this was the great contribution of our atheists and agnostics. They had widened our gateway so that all who suffer may pass through, regardless of their belief or lack of belief.

Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, Page 167, 1957

Witek D. is 63 years old and has been sober since December 27, 1994. He has been living in a small town in the middle of Poland where he attends his home group, ”Compas”, and the online group AAinAA.

Active in AA service at all levels, in the years 2009-2013 he was a member of the Polish Board of Trustees. Witek openly talks about his agnostic views; just like Albert Einstein, he considers “…the idea of a personal God is a childlike one… which cannot be taken seriously”.

To visit the Polish secular AA website, click on the image.

He is concerned with the fate of agnostics and atheists in AA and translates into Polish some articles from AA Agnostica and sends them to friends with similar concerns. Witek attended the last International Conference of Secular AA in Toronto.

Currently (2022) in Poland, there are three agnostic groups: the oldest, AAinAA, meets online and two others meet in-person. The nonreligious movement in Polish AA is slowly growing.

For a PDF of the article, click here: The Wave of Religiosity.

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