Category: Alcoholism

Websites and The Growth of Secular AA

by bob k

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This was more than a delisting.

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

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

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

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

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

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

We need a new website and webmaster.

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

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

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

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

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

A Full Blown Addiction – Just Like My Mother’s

By Anonymous
Originally published on February 18, 2021 on Elle

My worst fear in life has always been ending up like my mum. Sure, plenty of women feel the same, but it’s not premature greying I’ve been worried about, it’s inheriting her alcohol addiction – an addiction that has cut fractures so deep in my family, I don’t think they can ever be bridged.

Today, the nightmare has been realised. I’m in my late twenties, with my very own addiction. I’m hiding bottles of red wine in my clothes basket, topping up my coffee with vodka, constantly chewing mints so my housemates don’t smell the stench of alcohol on my breath. I know which corner shop owners won’t make a comment when I buy yet another bottle or two at 10am on a Tuesday. I know exactly how much to drink to turn off my racing thoughts and gnawing anxieties, without becoming comatose; the amount that keeps me functioning on the outside, answering the right questions on a work Zoom call, whilst comfortably numb inside. I know that red wine is better than white because you don’t have to refrigerate it, and what time to creep out of my room with all the empty bottles so no one will see me.

I know all this and I hate myself for it because the more I do it, the more I am like my mum, going through the same motions that destroyed mine and my brother’s childhoods. Perhaps worst of all, it was a man leaving me that sparked it, just like for my mum – another of her weaknesses I’d promised myself never to fall victim to.

My mum’s drinking started when I was 11-years-old, after my dad left us. My memories of that time are a blur: a week or two of explosive arguments eavesdropped through the stair banisters, my dad’s suitcase packed up by the door, a brisk kiss on the forehead and a vague promise of, ‘See you soon’. He left us for another woman – someone from his work I later found out, younger, prettier, a total cliché – and quickly set up a new life with her.

It’s like my mum stopped being my mum after that, withdrawing into a grey, impenetrable shell that neither me nor my brother could break through. I associate those early days of her drinking with her closed bedroom door, some trashy TV show blaring, her curtains drawn. It was still a secret at that point, clinking bottles late at night and slurs that she covered up with coughs or changes in subject. I quickly learnt how to look for the signs that it was ‘mummy’s bad day’, scurrying out of her way before the drink and the wrong question set her off. Thinking about it now, it’s almost like I’ve copied her, action by action.

For years we lived in that terrifying stasis – I was never quite sure which mum I would get picking me up from school or a friend’s house, anxiety bubbling up like acid as the home time bell drew near. I hated anyone knowing about her, like she and her habit were a hot, shameful secret to bury. Even as pre-teen, I knew that there was a huge taboo surrounding addiction.

The worst thing about my mum’s drinking is that, like all addicts, she refused to believe that she had an issue. As a functioning alcoholic, she’d developed this sick ability to go through the motions of life, even half a bottle, or more, down. I’m sure the people she worked for knew, they would’ve been stupid to have missed the signs, but as a self-employed cleaner, she spent most of her work days alone with the radio and a flask of something. As long as she didn’t nick anything and kept the place spotless, who was going to complain?

By age 12 I was outwardly confronting her about the stash of vodka bottles hidden in her wardrobe, demanding to smell her breath, and refusing to get in the car if she dared to grab her keys. My brother and I were regular bus pass holders from the very start. I’m not sure how many desperate pleas I made for her to stop. Tearful ones, angry ones, calm ones; I remember writing her a letter one Christmas, begging Santa to bring back my old mum, knowing that she would be the one reading it. Even though she made promises over and over to change – to me, my brother, her own parents, who were the only adults I trusted – she never did. And my dad didn’t to keep us involved in his new life as he’d promised.

My own relationship with alcohol started when I was 21 and a third year student in Bristol, far from the Newcastle suburb that I had grown up in and far from my mum who I had cut off all contact with, aged 16. I was far enough away from the very few people who knew the truth – my grandparents who took us in and my two best friends. Miles from the very worst memories of my mum, in hospital after a car accident where she had been black-out drunk and drifting into oncoming traffic. Far from her constant phone calls promising to change once we finally left and from the police who had to physically carry her off my grandparents doorstep. My first drink was a small glass of prosecco at my grad ball. I was surrounded by new people who didn’t know the old me or my sorry story. It was a drink not heavy with all the associations and accusations that I know I would get back home. My brother is still teetotal today.

From that moment on, moving from Bristol to London for a shiny, exciting new life in marketing, alcohol became my friend rather than enemy. Though I always treated it with a wary respect. One small glass of wine, but only with dinner. A toast for a friend’s engagement party or new promotion. After work cocktails, but always with friends.

That was late 2019 me; happy, healthy, earning good money and in a long-term relationship with a man I loved. But at the start of 2020, he left me for another woman, and it was my turn to be heartbroken.

I moved out of our flat and into a house share. It was here my drinking shifted, becoming an emotional crutch and DIY therapy. It began first with friends, in the healthy way that all newly single or heartbroken women drown their sorrows; one or two glasses of chardonnay over pizza or on a girls’ night out. But those glasses never stopped, they multiplied. Soon it was a bottle at least each night, sometimes two. Instead of stopping at the after-work drinks, I would drop into my local corner shop to stock up on the way home. At the time, I had a busy mix of work, social engagements and the gym to distract myself from my problem. Then lockdown happened and I was cut off from the one thing I had to justify my drinking: other people.

It was a month or two into lockdown that I realised I have a problem. Stuck at home, without the usual distractions, I was constantly thinking about the next drink, when I could sneak one or how I could justify another trip to the Off Licence. Originally, all I wanted was to dull the pain of a break up, now I feel like I can’t sleep without a drink; my thoughts are too loud. I’m sure my housemates have realised what’s going on, they’re not stupid. Like me aged 11, they’ve pieced together the clues and I know they’re worried about me. Twisted as it is, it’s often been easy to blow them off – everyone it seems has an alcohol problem in lockdown to joke about.

I do want help. I know that I need it and where to find it. Thanks to my mum’s situation, I know how difficult it is to do it alone, but I’m scared to open up to anyone, especially my family, my little brother. I feel like I’ve failed them by following in my mum’s footsteps.

Most of all, I’m scared to admit to myself that I’m more like my mum than I ever thought I could be. Even though we rekindled our relationship a few years ago after she got herself sober, opening up to her would be too painful. These are old wounds that haven’t quite healed yet.

 

The post A Full Blown Addiction – Just Like My Mother’s first appeared on AA Agnostica.

Someone with alcoholism appointed as Labor Secretary reminds us that recovery is never over

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

The Biden Cabinet has been boldly stacked with people whose presence is itself a statement of values: the first Native American secretary of the interior, the first Black secretary of defense, the first openly gay man confirmed as a secretary, the first Latino homeland security secretary. Amid these deservingly heralded pioneers, there’s a necessarily quieter debut. Marty Walsh, the former mayor of Boston just confirmed as labor secretary, will be the first Cabinet member in U.S. history to be openly in 12-step recovery from addiction.

I have little doubt that the White House has seen its share of people with alcoholism up and down the chain of command; maybe a few even darkened the door of a meeting or two. But until now, the most famous recovering person in the White House was a character on “The West Wing.” In the real world, until now, no one in that upper echelon had introduced themselves to the public the way Walsh did at the 2016 Democratic National Convention: “My name is Marty Walsh, and I’m an alcoholic.”

While our culture has crept toward erasing much of the stigma around addiction, President Biden only has to look as far as headlines about his son Hunter for a reminder that the public can still be wildly judgmental and cruel about those of us forced to contend with the disease — which is chronic as well as fatal — on a national stage.

When someone is lost to the disease of addiction — and there are so many ways you get lost — the thing you too often hear is, “What a waste.” When we get sober, we get to share our gifts, and we want to share them; but if we are public about our story, we’re limited by the expectations others have of someone who admits to living one day at a time. When I think of the people who have hesitated to enter politics or limited their ambitions because they know they can’t promise to be sober forever … what a waste.

Walsh’s elevation to the Cabinet is meaningful because he’s in recovery and because the Biden administration is allowing him to be lot of other things (a union leader, the son of immigrants, a two-term mayor) in addition to being an alcoholic.

Americans love a good redemption story, except when it means revealing that redemption is not a permanent state. Which is probably why George W. Bush turned his story of “quitting drinking” into a stump speech set piece but never called himself an alcoholic or described his daily drinking as anything but “a problem.” It’s one thing to tell the world you beat your addiction; it’s quite another to confess that a rearguard attack could come at any minute.

About 9 percent of Americans report having “resolved an alcohol or other drug problem,” and a little less than half of them identify as being “in recovery.” The distinction may seem trivial to some. But to those of us who belong to the latter group, it’s an acknowledgment that our particular journey doesn’t end with having a problem “resolved.”

That’s the idea behind the present tense introduction (“and I’m an alcoholic”) Walsh echoed in his speech in 2016. I know a lot of people who don’t like that tradition; some of them sit in the same meetings as I do, and they say something else: “I’m so-and-so, and I want to be sober,” or “… and I’m chemically dependent” or “… and I’m here because I don’t want to drink again,” or maybe they just end with the name. There’s no rule. The tradition exists as a way of acknowledging that the 12 steps aren’t a recipe for sobriety but a road map for living. To say “I’m an alcoholic” after more than 20 years sober — as Walsh does — is admission that, for you, the work of recovery is never done. I celebrated 10 years free from booze and benzodiazepines this week, and that’s the way I introduced myself at a Zoom meeting today.

When I was thrashing around at what turned out to be my last months drinking, resolving every day to really quit this time, and never being able to stick with it, I knew there were sober people in the world. I knew there were people who used to drink and then didn’t. I just thought they were better fighters than I was. What I needed, at that point, was someone to show me that there was no shame in just staying in the ring.

I was lucky: I stayed alive long enough and went to enough meetings that the present-tense introduction finally sank in. I gave up on trying not to be an alcoholic and focused on living without a drink.

But for some people, Marty Walsh will be the first and only person they know to acknowledge that sobriety isn’t necessarily something you achieve, a medal that gets pinned to your chest once — and that gets ripped away if you stray. Walsh will be there to show anyone who cares to pay attention that it is always a victory to stay sober just for today.

The post Someone with alcoholism appointed as Labor Secretary reminds us that recovery is never over appeared first on WashingtonPost.com.

Another Apostate in Sobriety

Chapter 13:
Do Tell! Stories by Atheists and Agnostics in AA

Kit G.

Apostate: Noun, a person who renounces a religious or political belief or principle. Synonyms: dissenter, defector, deserter, traitor, backslider, turncoat.

Looking back over my life, I have been always been part of culture or cult; my identity derived from the group philosophy whether family, nation, religion, sect, or recovery affiliation. My problem has always been a sense of self that depended on whatever group I was in, and being OK with it. Adopting and shedding labels has been a life-long process.

The firstborn (1948) of five military brats to a nurse and Navy medic, the higher powers of my first 16 years were mom, dad, the U.S. Navy, and the deities of the Roman Catholic Church, in that order.

Then the Sixties happened. Parental dysfunction, alcohol, sexuality, drugs, music, assassinations, the Vietnam War; world, social, and personal unrest all collided with my own self-centered fears to set me on a 28 year path of searching for a replacement of my childhood sense of ease, comfort and security. That searching included not only drugs and alcohol but a ten year stint in a fringe Christian evangelical fundamentalist group and various other beliefs, both western, eastern, and new-age; all mixed with alcohol and various drugs and behaviors. Add to that a 31 year marriage with one child, the first 20 years of which were soothed by alcohol and/or drug use, and the last 10 of which were nothing more than what some call dry, untreated alcoholism.

Alcohol was always within reach. Grampa’s home brew and wine as an altar boy were my first tastes of the heavenly elixirs. In high school I became a weekend blackout drinker all the while expected to be the devout Roman Catholic. Then I enlisted in the Navy due to my fears of being drafted and sent to Vietnam. Little did I realize that I had jumped from the frying pan into the fire, as they made me a medic. And medics, as you may not know, went with the Marines!

Fueled by my resentments about my parents’ imminent divorce and destruction of my childhood security and my fears of an uncertain future, I used the cloak of the virtues of the anti-war movement to protest my unrighteous involvement in it. The Navy was not impressed. So I resorted to less desirable means to get myself removed from their employ, especially after a fellow friend and co-worker was killed in action. I was willing to go to any length to save myself, even a lifelong label of being a gay drug addict. The military didn’t consider alcohol abuse or alcoholism a problem back then, at least not openly, so I couldn’t use that even if I had been aware of it.

Not long after my undesirable discharge and much more excessive use of alcohol and drugs of any kind I could get my hands on, I got religion again. It was 1970 and Jesus People were everywhere, militant and strange ones at that. I joined up with the Children of God and became intoxicated, as John Bradshaw described in Healing the Shame that Binds You, on righteousness. This is where I met my late wife and made feeble attempts at responsibility and relationship, all the while dependent on my addictive nature for relief or escape. But at the end of a 12 year experience with them, it was just alcohol and more fear and uncertainty.

Our son was born in ‘82 and more responsibility meant the need for more relief and reward and that meant more drinking. By 1992 I figured my alcohol use might be the cause of my then marital, financial, and mental distress. Actually, my drinking was becoming more problematic than my other stressors. Facing bankruptcy, divorce and unemployment, I went to my first AA meeting with a sincere desire to stop drinking and it worked. That desire, combined with the fellowship and comradery, displaced my need to drink. I got what I came for and stopped going to meetings after two months but read the books for the next ten years as my wife and life became more unmanageable without alcohol. I adopted lots of other issues to cope; mostly materialism, work-a-holism, affairs of the actual or emotional variety, smoking, and occasional pill popping.

I became extremely depressed, or as a friend said, “just depressing.” I didn’t know it at the time but that ten year span was my first and longest experience as a “dry drunk”, and I fully experienced the emotional lows that can be reached without self-medication. My family wished I’d return to drinking, when I’d seemed happier.

After reading tons of self-help, relationship, psychology, and new-age books, I went to a therapist on my own. It helped. Then my wife died and our only son began his tear into his own searching and left. Sober and alone for the first time in my life, I met a woman member of AA and went to a meeting on a date. I don’t know who was more desperate. After ten years without a meeting I felt at home again.

I got a sponsor, did the steps Joe and Charlie style (an old fundamental by the book way), got into service, some sponsoring, AA conventions and daily meetings; all the while being frustrated with the “god talk” and feeling agnostic but wanting to fit in and not make waves. I had always felt this conflict from the beginning in AA but was willing and desperate enough to sit with it or ignore it in order not to drink and be part of the fellowship.

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.

Everyone was saying that step work was integral to my inner happiness and usefulness, so I listened to hundreds of speakers and Big Book thumper’s recordings and step studies. I wanted sobriety but I also wanted to sound good and be liked, as well as grow.

After about five years sober I discovered Edward Bear’s series of books, starting with The Dark Night of Recovery, which had just the right amount of irreverence and free-thinking for me at the time. I closed many a meeting with, “Great Pumpkin, grant me the serenity…” Looking back, this is where I consider my experience with conference “unapproved” literature began to enhance my emotional sobriety and free-thinking.

While working the steps with other members, I began to finally put the steps and attendant prayers into my own words for myself as best I could and felt much happier about it. I found that the language of religion or the Big Book was insufficient to communicate the language of my heart. I think what turned the key for me was the line in the Big Book that says, “The wording was, of course, quite optional so long as we express the idea, voicing it without reservation”. It was liberating to take that to heart!

How could I talk about or pray to a god I honestly did not believe existed anymore? So, I have discarded the mythological and gone for the tangible. The group itself, its collective consciousness, the idea that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”, the principles of the “we” factor, and the expansion of that idea to include not only AA but all of humanity, are all powers greater than me. Also, the idea expressed in Appendix II about an “unsuspected inner resource” that we are all born with has marked my path.

By 2011 I had read Waiting: a Nonbelievers Higher Power by Marya Hornbacher and realized I was agnostic and still felt out of step and distanced by all the god talk and prayers in the fellowship. I didn’t realize I was finding my own voice and language. And I have found this new language everywhere. I had heard it a long time in the background and had been drawn to it but felt separate from it, or that it was not inclusive or approved of, or less than, with regard to the more religious aspects of the fellowships and program. I’ve found it not only in religions but mythology and philosophy, in fable and folklore. The difference is that I’m OK with not having to gravitate towards the belief in anyone else’s mythology as I am expected to do in the chapter to We Agnostics in the Big Book. I feel that as an agnostic, atheist, or realist member of AA, I’m finally being part of a whole that is inclusive. I am being honest with myself and others and sense a profound equilibrium with that. The need for a few drinks that others take with impunity is no longer necessary to feel this way. Alcoholics Anonymous doesn’t care what I do or don’t believe because it is not allied with any faith, sect or denomination, although you wouldn’t know it at some meetings.

When I discovered Beyond Belief by Joe C. and AA Agnostica in January of 2014, I realized I was also an atheist to at least a degree. My apostasy has grown by degrees just as my former beliefs did, and of course, are being replaced by new beliefs which I’m sure will also change. I still find it difficult to sit still in meetings parroting steps and traditions, trying to translate meaningfulness only in my head, faking it, feeling internally divided and untrue to myself and others, rarely meaning anything I said. I was letting AA become another cult to me. I acknowledged a growing sense of indignation and anger, a desire to stand up for what I felt, especially after reading about the prejudices that were occurring elsewhere regarding delisting of agnostic and atheist meetings by “governing” AA intergroups.

At this point I remember exploring many books on atheism and feeling a sense of loss, grief, and fear of the unknown. A lot of fear. Fear of what it would be like to be without a god, capital G or not. Fear of what others would think and say. A blank screen was in front of me psychically, waiting for me, and no one else, to fill in the picture.

The screen remained blank.

It was frightening and still is at times but it has now become more challenging to explore what I really think and feel is most meaningful in each moment. The beliefs of others had dominated my thinking for so long I felt as though my own thinking muscles had become atrophied and crippled. I still find myself reaching outside of myself for information to describe what I think, feel and believe, and there doesn’t seem to be any way around that. I have to accept that, but can recognize it as not necessarily me.

In June of 2014 after six months of stewing in that discomfort, I and a few others started our own open group of Alcoholics Anonymous for Atheists, Agnostics and All others. (Yes, that’s 5 A’s.) I did it for me and because of the several alcoholics who have died in my community in recent years. They were atheist, agnostic, or terribly oppressed and self-loathing Christians. I want others who feel as I do to have a place to come and share their innermost selves, including and especially their doubts, without shame or fear of being rejected or coerced into believing in somebody else’s traditional outlooks.

What it’s like now? Now I want to (and have to!) explore all of my thinking, instincts and motives with the freedom, challenge and responsibility that I find in the principles of the steps based on my own understanding and wording which is continually evolving to meet current needs and feelings. Confirmation bias is hopefully kept in check by steps five and ten’s suggestions to check my views with others.

Now I become myself. It’s taken
Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people’s faces

So begins a poem by May Sarton. Those words for me represent the ease and comfort as well as depth and weight I have so long sought and continue to yearn for. I have grown tired of wearing other peoples’ faces. I want to know myself as well as others. Does identity formation ever stop? I don’t think so. As I have heard in the rooms, “I have a yearning disability”. Only it’s not a disability, it’s just human. It’s a normal human instinct, a thirst. To desire connection, food, shelter, companionship, and security is the root of human development on one hand and the root of addiction on the other; normal instincts versus instincts gone wild.

Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “When you adopt the standards and values of someone else… you surrender your own integrity [and] become, to the extent of your surrender, less of a human being”. The challenge is keeping my own integrity while making said values and standards my own. This is the trial and error process of being a human being and what Ernie Kurtz called the “spirituality of imperfection”. Emotional sobriety is my current and continuing frontier. It has to be. These squirrelly things called feelings are in a confluence with my thinking and behavior more than anything else. They seem to be intimately attached to those instincts mentioned above. They are acutely reactionary and defensive and seem to transport me out of the moment more often than not. Flights of fantasy into the future whether fearful or pleasurable, or regrets and remorse over the past; both keep my emotional sobriety date at about five seconds ago.

But that’s OK. Length of sobriety of any kind is, as I have heard, a bankrupt currency by itself. Depth and breadth of sobriety is what I’m interested in.

My name is Kit G. and I have been un-continuously sober for 66 years and today is the first day of the rest of my sobriety.

Do Tell! [Front Cover]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 Another Apostate in Sobriety first appeared on AA Agnostica.

Alcoholics’ Silent COVID Suffering: What’s a Recovering Addict to do in Isolation?

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

The uneven impact of COVID-19 has long been evident. White-collar workers who can earn a living from laptops have fared better than blue-collar and service workers, who are more likely to lose both their jobs and their health insurance. Communities of color have seen higher rates of hospitalization and death than whites, and children from lower-income families face obstacles to remote schooling that more affluent students do not.

But classrooms aren’t the only mission-critical environments Zoom is struggling to replicate. Another is an organization that has saved lives (including my own) over eight decades: Alcoholics Anonymous. And as elsewhere, a chasm in AA has emerged between the haves and have nots.

That gap generally goes like this: Those with longstanding sobriety remain sober, while newcomers struggle mightily to achieve and sustain sobriety.

Some of this is well-publicized. Unsurprisingly the anxiety, fear and isolation COVID-19 has caused lends itself to increased risks for alcoholism and substance abuse. Evidence shows overdoses increasing, and analysts noticed marked upticks in alcohol consumption from the very first week of stay-at-home restrictions.

But while it’s relatively easy to track indicators of substance disorders, more difficult is assessing the challenges COVID poses to those ready to leave the bottles and baggies behind. Here, the growing pandemic-caused recovery gap is rooted in two truths: Getting sober is really hard, while remaining so is comparably easy.

I’ve been a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous for nine years, and can unequivocally state that AA’s Zoom rooms are an unworkably far cry from in-person meetings, which have served as lifelines for countless millions. AA works; I am living proof. But Zoom does not, and it’s costing lives.

For most addicts, myself included, getting sober is arguably the most arduous endeavor — and most rewarding accomplishment — of our lives. We come in broken and, with help from those who’ve walked the path before us, slowly emerge stronger, 2.0 versions of ourselves. We develop life tools we never possessed prior, even before descending into addiction’s depths. We become weller than well.

We did not, we could not, do it alone. AA thrives on the principle that addiction and alcoholism are “takes one to help one” diseases. Those with longstanding recovery pay their experience forward to the next generation of newcomers.

And for those newcomers, including me in 2011, there is something magical about an AA meeting — something whose spirituality is tied to physical symbols and experiences. The 12 Steps posted to show adherence to principles over personalities. The formality of the introductory readings — reverence to a text written in 1935 that remains penetratingly current. The Serenity Prayer said in unison by dozens gathered for one primary purpose: arresting addiction.

Recovery lives and breathes behind those closed church basement doors. The sing-song “Hi Chris” from fellow alcoholics as I identity myself as one of them, at once humbled and empowered. The atta-boys and applause received by a newcomer celebrating another day free of drugs and booze. The enraptured silence of a group listening to someone who once drank or drugged like them explain their downfall and ultimate redemption through the 12 Steps, sober mentors and fellowship.

And finally, a circle of sober drunks, hands linked, closing the gathering as they opened it: united against a common enemy.

The best in-person meetings are instructive, inspiring, fortifying. The best Zoom meetings are…a heaping pile of meh. If you think teaching a 6-year-old arithmetic is difficult online, try teaching a 26-year-old not to drink during the other 23 hours in his isolated day.

Instead of awed silence, there is muted awkwardness. Instead of a room full of engaged sober drunks, there is a Brady Bunch screen of stacked, often distracted faces. Instead of hugging and handholding, there is, simply, nothing. I’ve seen all this first-hand.

AA has an essence that cannot be digitalized and, because of this, many with substantial recovery time have limited their attendance during the pandemic. Others have undoubtedly abandoned it entirely. We’ve worked the Steps, adopted the principles, and have already proven durable through protracted emergencies, alcohol-related and otherwise. We have the luxury of time, and don’t want Zoom eroding our esteem for AA. With vaccinations pending, we can wait this thing out safely and soberly.

Newcomers, though, cannot. And therein lies the inequality COVID has foisted upon recovery. It has significantly diminished the effectiveness of the most prolific recovery program in human history, and those most affected are the ones most threatened by active addiction.

Is it possible to achieve and sustain sobriety via Zoom AA? I’m sure it is, but it’s exceptionally difficult. Remote rooms have made an exceedingly challenging, existentially important process exponentially harder. And so, for the vast majority of struggling newcomers, to arrest alcoholism we must first arrest COVID. The clock is ticking.

morThis article first appeareed at NYDailyNews.com

 

Drinking This Much Alcohol Could Shorten Your Life by 5 Years, Says Study

It’s no secret that alcohol consumption has surged during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a study of 6,000 Americans conducted by the Rand Corporation’s American Life Panel and published on JAMA Network Open last year, binge drinking has been significantly on the rise since the onset of COVID-related lockdowns, especially among female respondents. Another survey, conducted by Blue Cross Blue Shield, found that alcohol consumption overall—not just binge-drinking—spiked by 23 percent in the first few months of the pandemic. Additionally, a survey by The Recovery Village, updated in December of last year, found that 55 percent of respondents reported an increase of alcohol consumption in the prior month, with 18 percent reporting a significant increase. “In the states hit hardest by the coronavirus (NY, NJ, MA, RI, CT), 67 percent reported an increase in past-month alcohol use,” the report notes.

As more evidence mounts that widespread alcohol use is on the rise, it’s important to note the potential health consequences for people who are drinking more. “In addition to a range of negative physical health associations, excessive alcohol use may lead to or worsen existing mental health problems, such as anxiety or depression, which may themselves be increasing during COVID-19,” noted the researchers at the Rand Corporation.

As we’ve reported, the dangerous side effects of drinking alcohol every day are numerous and include a greater risk of heart disease, a greater risk of infertility, osteoporosis, liver damage, and prolong slurred speech. But according to a recent study published in journal The Lancet, there’s an even bigger side effect any heavy drinker should be mindful of every time they’re fixing a cocktail at home or sidling up to a bar: You could be shortening your life by years.

RELATED: The One Vitamin Doctors Are Urging Everyone to Take Right Now

The study drew on data of roughly 600,000 alcohol drinkers and monitored their health over a period of time. Ultimately, the researchers concluded that drinking more alcohol was linked to a greater risk of heart failure, stroke, aneurysms, and even death—regardless of the gender of the person drinking. According to their calculations: Adults who drink seven to 14 drinks per week may be shortening their lives by six months, adults who drink 14 to 15 drinks per week may be shortening their lives by one to two years, and heavier drinkers who consume in excess of 25 drinks every week may be shortening their lifespans by four to five years.

For what it’s worth, scientists have long known that light drinking, defined as one to three drinks per week, can be healthy and actually have benefits. A study published in PLOS Medicine found that those who adhered to those aforementioned guidelines actually had a lower cancer or death risk than people who actually had one drink per week or didn’t drink at all. That being said, the study authors of The Lancet study noted succinctly: “Our results show that the safest level of drinking is none.”

If you’re finding that your drinking habits are out of control, it could be time to seek out professional help. One of the best ways to find out, according to doctors, is to simply try to stop and gauge your success. “Don’t drink for a month,” advises Robert Doyle, MD, a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and co-author of the book Almost Alcoholic. “If that’s hard for you, then maybe it’s a problem. Or ask the people around you what they think. If it’s causing them distress, then it’s a significant problem.” And no matter how much you’re drinking, make sure you avoid The Most Dangerous Alcoholic Drink for Your Body, According to Experts.

This article appeared first on Yahoo.com

Biggest Danger Sign You’re Drinking Too Much

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

If your pattern of drinking results in repeated significant distress and problems functioning in your daily life, you likely have alcohol use disorder,” their health experts write.

But according to Dr. Doyle, the surest sign your alcohol use is a real problem is if you try to stop for a period of time and you simply can’t.

“Don’t drink for a month,” he advises. “If that’s hard for you, then maybe it’s a problem. Or ask the people around you what they think. If it’s causing them distress, then it’s a significant problem.”

Doyle also emphasizes that problems may become more profound as you age and you stick to the same amount that you’re used to drinking in your younger years. After all, if you’re getting older, your body’s ability to metabolize alcohol diminishes, and your drinking habits should change in tandem if you don’t want to impair your body’s ability to function properly. “Ask your doctor to check for signs that alcohol is affecting your health, such as higher blood pressure or higher liver enzymes,” Doyle advises.

If you or someone you know may be exhibiting signs of an alcohol use disorder, it may be time to seek out professional help. And if you’re considering cutting back, a great way to start is to avoid The Most Dangerous Alcoholic Drink for Your Body, According to Experts.

The post Biggest Danger Sign You’re Drinking Too Much appeared first on EatThis.com.

America’s Favorite Poison

Whatever happened to the anti-alcohol movement?

By Olga Khazan
Posted on  January 14, 2020 on The Atlantic

Occasionally, Elizabeth Bruenig unleashes a tweet for which she knows she’s sure to get dragged: She admits that she doesn’t drink.

Bruenig, a columnist at The New York Times with a sizable social-media following, told me that it usually begins with her tweeting something mildly inflammatory and totally unrelated to alcohol – e.g., The Star Wars prequels are actually good. Someone will accuse her of being drunk. She, in turn, will clarify that she doesn’t drink, and that she’s never been drunk. Inevitably, people will criticize her. You’re really missing out, they might say. Why would you deny yourself?

As Bruenig sees it, however, there’s more to be gained than lost in abstaining. In fact, she supports stronger restrictions on alcohol sales. Alcohol’s effects on crime and violence, in her view, are cause to reconsider some cities’ and states’ permissive attitudes toward things such as open-container laws and where alcohol can be sold.

Breunig’s outlook harks back to a time when there was a robust public discussion about the role of alcohol in society. Today, warnings about the devil drink will win you few friends. Sure, it’s fine if you want to join Alcoholics Anonymous or cut back on drinking to help yourself, and people are happy to tell you not to drink and drive. But Americans tend to reject general anti-alcohol advocacy with a vociferousness typically reserved for IRS auditors and after-period double-spacers. Pushing for, say, higher alcohol taxes gets you treated like an uptight school marm. Or worse, a neo-prohibitionist.

Unlike in previous generations, hardly any formal organizations are pushing to reduce the amount that Americans drink. Some groups oppose marijuana (by many measures a much safer drug than alcohol), guns, porn, junk food, and virtually every other vice. Still, the main U.S. organizations I could track down that are by any definition anti-alcohol are Mothers Against Drunk Driving—which mainly focuses on just that—and a small nonprofit in California called Alcohol Justice. In a country where there is an interest group for everything, one of the biggest public-health threats is largely allowed a free pass. And there are deep historical and commercial reasons why.

Americans would be justified in treating alcohol with the same wariness they have toward other drugs. Beyond how it tastes and feels, there’s very little good to say about the health impacts of booze. The idea that a glass or two of red wine a day is healthy is now considered dubious. At best, slight heart-health benefits are associated with moderate drinking, and most health experts say you shouldn’t start drinking for the health benefits if you don’t drink already. As one major study recently put it, “Our results show that the safest level of drinking is none.”

Alcohol’s byproducts wreak havoc on the cells, raising the risk of liver disease, heart failure, dementia, seven types of cancer, and fetal alcohol syndrome. Just this month, researchers reported that the number of alcohol-related deaths in the United States more than doubled in two decades, going up to 73,000 in 2017. As the journalist Stephanie Mencimer wrote in a 2018 Mother Jones article, alcohol-related breast cancer kills more than twice as many American women as drunk drivers do. Many people drink to relax, but it turns out that booze isn’t even very good at that. It seems to have a boomerang effect on anxiety, soothing it at first but bringing it roaring back later.

Despite these grim statistics, Americans embrace and encourage drinking far more than they do similar vices. Alcohol is the one drug almost universally accepted at social gatherings that routinely kills people. Cigarette smoking remains responsible for the deaths of nearly 500,000 Americans each year, but the number of smokers has been dropping for decades. And few companies could legally stock a work happy hour with joints and bongs, which have never caused a lethal overdose, but many bosses ply their workers with alcohol, which can be poisonous in large quantities.

America arrived at this point in part because the end of Prohibition took the wind out of the sails of temperance groups. When the nation’s 13-year ban on alcohol ended in 1933, alcohol control was left up to states and municipalities to regulate. (This is why there are now dry counties and states where you can’t buy alcohol in grocery stores.) At the national level, anti-alcohol efforts were “tainted with an aura of failure,” writes the wine historian Rod Phillips in Alcohol: A History. Membership in the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, the original prohibitionist group, declined from more than 2 million in 1920 to fewer than half a million in 1940. Some Christian groups continued to push for restrictions on things such as liquor advertising throughout the ’40s and ’50s. But eventually alcohol dropped off as a major national political issue and was eclipsed by President Richard Nixon’s war on drugs such as marijuana and heroin.

This dearth of anti-alcohol advocacy was met with a gradual shift in the way Americans began to view alcoholism—and with commercial interests that were ready to step into the breach. When Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in 1935, it portrayed alcoholism as a disease rather than a moral scourge on society, says Aaron Cowan, a history professor at Slippery Rock University, in Pennsylvania. (In time, the medical community would come to agree with the idea of alcohol abuse as a medical disorder.) By emphasizing individual rather than social reform, the organization helped cement the idea that the problem was not alcohol writ large, but the small percentage of people who could not drink alcohol without becoming addicted. The thinking became, If you have a problem with alcohol, why don’t you get help? Why ruin everyone else’s fun?

Of course, many people have a normal relationship with alcohol, which has been a fixture of social life since the time of the Sumerians and ancient Egyptians. But today, what actually constitutes a “normal” relationship with alcohol can be difficult to determine, because Americans’ views have been influenced by decades of careful marketing and lobbying efforts. Specifically, beer, wine, and spirit manufacturers have repeatedly tried to normalize and exculpate drinking. “The alcohol industry has done a great job of marketing the product, of funding university research looking at the benefits of alcohol, and using its influence to frame the issue as one of ‘The problem is hazardous drinking, and as long as you drink safely, you’re fine,’” says Michael Siegel, a professor of community health sciences at Boston University.

During World War II, the brewing industry recast beer as a “moderate beverage” that was good for soldiers’ morale. One United States Brewers’ Foundation ad from 1944 depicts a soldier writing home to his sweetheart and dreaming of enjoying a glass of beer in his backyard hammock. “By the end of the war, the wine industry, the distilled-spirits industry, and the brewing industry had really defined themselves as part of the American fabric of life,” says Lisa Jacobson, a history professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

In later decades, beer companies created the Alcoholic Beverage Medical Research Foundation, now called the Foundation for Alcohol Research, which proceeded to give research grants to scientists, some of whom found health benefits to drinking. More recently, the National Institutes of Health shut down a study on the effects of alcohol after The New York Times reported that it was funded by alcohol companies. (George Koob, the director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, told the Times that the foundation through which the funds were channeled is a type of “firewall” that prevents interference from donors.)

Meanwhile, the National Beer Wholesalers Association, which is listed as the top campaign contributor to political candidates in the “beer, wine, and liquor” category by the Center for Responsive Politics, has lobbied for a bill that would, among other things, reduce excise taxes on beer and spirits.

(In an email, the NBWA spokeswoman Lauren Kane said, “The alcohol industry has varying views when it comes to regulation, but NBWA will continue to advocate for laws and policies that support public health and safety through thoughtful, common-sense alcohol regulation led by the states.”)

A few temperance organizations are still out there, says Mark Schrad, a political-science professor at Villanova University, but they’re more active in Europe. Alcohol Justice, the California nonprofit, supports tighter limits on alcohol sales and advertising. But Bruce Lee Livingston, the group’s executive director, says that because many nonprofits are dependent on state, federal, and county grants, it’s difficult for the group to lobby policy makers. And nonprofits’ forces are dwarfed by the firepower of the alcohol industry. “Alcohol has, to a large extent, been abandoned by foundations and certainly is not funded by direct corporate donations, so alcohol prevention as a field of advocacy is very limited,” Livingston says.

The way Bruenig sees it, pop culture tends to depict society as split between “good guys” who just want to have fun and “bad guys” who want to destroy all the fun. If you’re someone who calls alcohol into question, she said, “you get kind of recruited against your will into this anti-fun agenda.”

Regardless of how much Americans love to drink, the country could be safer and healthier if we treated booze more like we treat cigarettes. The lack of serious discussion about raising alcohol prices or limiting its sale speaks to all the ground Americans have ceded to the “good guys” who have fun. And judging by the health statistics, we’re amusing ourselves to death.

 

The post America’s Favorite Poison first appeared on AA Agnostica.

The Unsuspected Dangers of Passive Alcoholism – The Company You Keep

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

The researchers analyzed the responses of 8,750 adults during a survey conducted in 2015 by the National Alcohol Survey (an alcohol research group) and the National Alcohol’s Harm to Others Survey (a collaborative alcohol research group). Participants answered questions, including questions about problems related to people around them who had been drinking over a one-year period. The problems could be related to a car accident, physical violence, marital problems, damage to the house or financial problems … For men, the results are slightly different: after harassment, the second most common problem is related to drinking and driving, followed by damage to private property and, finally, vandalism related to another person under the influence.

As we all know, passive smoking is extremely bad for the health, as is alcohol. But how? Allow us to explain.

According to a study published in the scientific Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, one in five adults (about 53 million people) in the United States are affected by passive alcoholism, making it a ‘public health concern’ according to researchers. Katherine Karriker-Jaffe, the author of the study and senior scientist at the Alcohol Research Group at the Public Health Institute in Emeryville (United States), told CNN:

One thing to realize with the figure of one in five is that it is limited to one year. So there are probably more people who have been affected by the consumption of alcoholic beverages in their surroundings.
What is passive alcoholism?
It is the fact of experiencing disorders related to the drunkenness of another person around him or her, such as being with a drunk driver or being harassed or threatened by a drunk person.

How was the study carried out?
The researchers analyzed the responses of 8,750 adults during a survey conducted in 2015 by the National Alcohol Survey (an alcohol research group) and the National Alcohol’s Harm to Others Survey (a collaborative alcohol research group). Participants answered questions, including questions about problems related to people around them who had been drinking over a one-year period. The problems could be related to a car accident, physical violence, marital problems, damage to the house or financial problems.

The researchers also found that people under 25 years of age were the most likely to experience a greater variety of disorders related to another person’s state of intoxication. In addition, according to the scientists, women are more likely to file a complaint when it concerns a husband or family member, while men would be more likely to do so when it concerns a stranger.

The post The Unsuspected Dangers of Passive Alcoholism appeared first on https://www.gentside.co.uk

The Challenges of 12 Step Recovery for Agnostics

By Andy F

Going to my first AA meeting at the age of thirty was the best thing I ever did. I loved the fellowship from my very first meeting. I was someone who lived on the margins of society; alone and isolated by years of drinking. I suddenly found myself in a community of people that were just like me. They were sharing openly in meetings, about how I felt all my life. I had finally found my tribe. For me, coming to AA was a homecoming.

I grew up in care and never had a family that I could belong to. Almost overnight, my fellow recovering alcoholics became the family that I never had. In this blog, I will offer reasons why I was unable to believe in God. Why I felt unable to do the steps? What were the higher powers that worked for me that were not unseen or divine in nature?

A newcomer to AA

After my arrival in the fellowship, I started to go to meetings every day. Sometimes twice a day. It was suggested that I get into the middle of the AA bed. That’s exactly what I did. When I first got sober, my life was very chaotic and unmanageable. I was unemployable at the time, so was able to go to plenty of meetings.

It took a while for the alcoholic fog to clear. When it did, I began to notice things in AA that I hadn’t seen before. Most of my fellow members had sponsors and were working a program. I didn’t know what the expression “working the program” even meant. It had me bewildered for a long time. I genuinely believed that recovery was just about not drinking and going to meetings.

An agnostic reaction to the 12 steps

I began to take notice of what was written on the scrolls of AA meetings. One scroll had the 12 steps in bold print and the other had the 12 traditions. I began to read through the twelve steps. After I read steps two and three, my heart sank. I suddenly wondered if AA was the right place for me after all?

Step two mentioned a Higher Power and step three used the God word. “What did a higher power or God have to do with not drinking,” I thought? To me, that sounded ridiculous and left me feeling totally bewildered. I had rejected the idea of God in childhood and wanted nothing to do with any God or religion. The very mention of the God word or religion would make me “bristle with antagonism”! (Big Book Chapter 4 “We agnostics” p. 48, 4th edition)

Why I became an agnostic?

I was placed in foster care by my Mother when I was still a baby. My mom was forced into this situation because she was a single Mum and had to work. I explain more about my childhood in my book “The 12 steps for agnostics.” My foster mother was an ardent church-going Catholic. She put her faith in God at the very centre of her life. She doted on my foster brother who in her eyes could do no wrong. To me, she was cold and indifferent. Sadly, she was also physically as well as emotionally abusive. I was constantly shamed and put down. I was told that I would never amount to anything. My foster brother, on the other hand, was her shining star.

By the time I reached nine years old, I wanted nothing to do with God. If his followers were anything like my foster mother. God definitely wasn’t for me. When my mother put me into care, I experienced this as abandonment. She did have valid reasons for placing me with a foster family. I didn’t understand this as a child and took the abandonment very personally. As I grew a bit older, I began to project those feelings of abandonment onto the childlike idea I had about God too. If my mother abandoned me, then as far as I was concerned, God had abandoned me too. If he was real, he would not have allowed this to happen.

A Catholic boarding school

When I was about nine or ten, my mother took me away from my foster mother and placed me in a boarding school for boys. Coming from a Polish background, the school she placed me in was Catholic. The school was run by an order of Polish priests. The religious education we received at that school was very extreme; as were the religious observances we had to follow every day.

We had to attend mass every morning and benediction every evening. Three times a day before mealtimes, we would all gather in the assembly hall and were led through a prayer known as ‘The Angelus’. Weekly catechism classes were also compulsory. We also had to attend frequent sessions of the rosary as well as the Stations of the Cross. Not attending these religious rituals wasn’t tolerated. We were sometimes beaten by the priests if we disobeyed the rules of the school.

My Mother’s alcoholism

In the meantime, my mother became an alcoholic. Whenever I came home from school during the holidays, she would be too drunk to communicate with me. There was very little meaningful connection between us after she started drinking. By the time I was thirteen, I was so full of rage and pain that I followed my Mother’s example and I too became an alcoholic and addict. They say that alcoholism is a lonely disease and it certainly was for me as a teenager. My father had died when I was still a baby. I had no sense of care or nurture from my absent parents. As far as God was concerned, he did not exist and religion was complete nonsense.

Inability to work the steps as a non-believer

So here I was a newly sober member of AA. The suggestion was to get a sponsor and work through the 12 steps. How was I was expected to believe in a higher power presented in the second step? Step three required me to hand my will and life over to the care of a God I didn’t believe in. No way was I able to entertain such a ridiculous idea.

The thing that added insult to injury, was that God was mentioned in six of the twelve steps. These steps were definitely not for me. I decided to go into therapy to resolve the traumas of my childhood in therapists consulting rooms. I was completely unable to surrender my will and life to the program and certainly not any God!

Therapy instead of the 12 steps

I continued going to meetings and therapy for over a decade. Even after several years in AA, I still found sobriety very challenging. Over the next thirteen years in AA, I was unable to stay sober. I had dry periods from alcohol but the madness in my head was too much to bear. My mind was so tortured with pain and resentment, that I was condemned to keep picking up that first drink again and again. After thirteen years on this merry-go-round of relapse, I developed quite a serious death wish. I no longer cared whether I lived or died. Sobriety was too painful.

First agnostic-friendly sponsor

Following my last relapse, I found myself asking a man known as David B for sponsorship. In a last desperate attempt to save my life, I asked him to help me. I mention David B frequently in my book “The twelve steps for agnostics.” He was a very colourful character. He is also mentioned in one of the blogs on my website. It’s called “healthy sponsorship boundaries.” David was a very tough sponsor. Being honest, he was probably what I needed at the time. I told him that I didn’t believe in God. Despite being a practising Catholic himself, he did something which I believe literally saved my life.

Acronyms for GOD: Good Orderly Direction, Group Of Drunks and Gift Of Desperation

He told me to open the AA book known as “The twelve steps and twelve traditions.” I had to open it on page 27 in the chapter about step two. He told me to read what it said there. Towards the bottom of the page, there in black and white is the following statement. “You can if you wish, make AA itself your higher power” (12 x 12 Step two p. 27) “Are you ready to follow Good Orderly Direction,” he said? I had what David called “The Gift Of Desperation.” I was at the point in my life where if he said “jump,” I would ask “how high”!

The solutions for an agnostic alcoholic

I was to turn my will and life over in step three to Good Orderly Direction. This direction was in the suggestions that David gave me. He let me know, that another effective higher power that I could rely on was the Group Of Drunks in AA. From that moment forward, I was able to use AA as my higher power. As I continued to work through the steps with David, I began to form my own practical conceptions of powers greater than me.

It dawned on me that any suggested action I was being asked to take was a new idea. This was totally opposite to my “old ideas” (See footnote) that condemned me to keep relapsing. I conceded that the new ideas I was learning from David were definitely powers greater than me. I had thirteen years of evidence in AA to show me where my “old ideas” (see footnote) would lead. They failed miserably in every area of my life. My very best thinking would always end with me picking up that first drink. All I had to do was to remain teachable to new ideas.

Footnote: “Some of us have tried to hold onto our old ideas and the result was nil till we let go absolutely.” (Big Book – First page – Chapter five “How it works” First edition)

Effective powers greater than me

When I was with David, I realized that the higher powers that were keeping me sober were:

  1. The AA group
  2. The suggestions of my sponsor
  3. The steps themselves
  4. Love and Service
  5. “Constant thought of others” (Big Book Chapter 2 “There is a solution” p. 20 4th edition)

A non-God-centered spiritual awakening

These higher powers enabled me to do the steps and the steps helped me to let go of my past. They guided me towards healing, forgiveness and self-forgiveness. As I see it, this inner transformation amounted to a spiritual awakening. It was in no way dependent on a God awakening. The non-God-centered spiritual awakening is promised in step twelve as the result of working the first nine steps. I remain open-minded about the question of God and continue to see myself as a spiritual seeker.

Just for today, I am happy and enjoying my sobriety. I have had a powerful spiritual awakening that does not require a belief in God. For the first time in my life, I have found love and peace of mind. There are many other effective higher powers to choose from in the life-saving fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.

They are the new ideas I learn whenever I go to a meeting. I am very grateful for the precious gift of sobriety. All my agnostic friendly sponsors showed me a way of going through the steps as an agnostic alcoholic. Do you have any helpful conceptions of practical higher powers that are helping you to stay happily sober?

Andy has been sober in AA for 22 years. He was born in London to a Polish Mother. She arrived in the UK as a refugee after the Second World War, soon to become naturalized and a British citizen.

After getting sober in AA, he enjoyed a long and happy career in the social care field in London. Andy was a community outreach worker supporting elderly clients in their own homes. He retired early and went to live in Thailand. After going there on vacation, he fell in love with the country, the people and the culture. Andy has been with his Thai partner for five happy years.

Andy never met his Dad who was a published author in Poland. He always wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps and write. Being retired, he now has the time to pursue his passion for writing. He will soon be publishing a book, The Twelve Steps for Agnostics – How to Get Happily Sober Without a Belief in a God.

More information about Andy and his book is available on his website: AA for Agnostics.

 

The post The Challenges of 12 Step Recovery for Agnostics first appeared on AA Agnostica.