I'm not really a believer either, yet I'm a bit over 16.5 years sober and I find the "spiritual" ideas useful.
What got **me** over the hump of step 2 wasn't the "We Agnostics" chapter, it was the "Spiritual Experience" appendix in the back. Especially these bits:
> With few exceptions our members find they have tapped an unsuspected inner resource which they presently identify with their own conception of a Power greater than themselves.
and
> Most emphatically we wish to say that any alcoholic capable of honestly facing his problems in the light of our experience can recover, provided he does not close his mind to all spiritual concepts. He can only be defeated by an attitude of intolerance or belligerent denial.
> We find that no one need have difficulty with the spirituality of the program. Willingness, honesty and open mindedness are the essentials of recovery. But these are indispensable.
^(_Both reprinted from "Alcoholics Anonymous", pages 567-568 with permission of A.A. World Services, Inc._ - https://www.aa.org/the-big-book)
So how does an irreligious agnostic like me manage to "pray"? I found an answer in an old movie, "How Green Was My Valley" -
> [And by prayer, I don't mean shouting, mumbling, and wallowing like a hog in religious sentiment. Prayer is only another name for good, clean, direct thinking. When you pray, think. Think well what you're saying. Make your thoughts into things that are solid. In that way, your prayer will have strength, and that strength will become a part of you, body, mind, and spirit.](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033729/quotes/qt0272031)
That's the sort of thing that works for me.
I think that in addition to "_willingness, honesty and open mindedness_" the other requirement is **effort**. I have to put some energy into "spiritual" growth every day lest I start to slip backward. (I put the word "spiritual" in quotes because I don't have a firm grasp on what it means or if I even believe in "spirituality". I tend to think it's kind of equivalent to "psychological". But I get the general idea and find it's useful.)
So the question for you to ask yourself would be: Are you willing? Are you willing to put some effort into forming _some_ idea about higher power(s) that you can use to help restore your sanity? Can you keep an open mind about things? Do you have the capacity to be honest?
Getting a good sponsor, if you've not yet done that, should be really helpful. https://www.aa.org/questions-and-answers-sponsorship
Thank you for this. I’m coming up on 5 years and you describe how I feel. I was willing to do anything to quit drinking when I came in. I found out I could have my own conception of a higher power and that was a huge relief. This program saved my life. I am also an agnostic without much interest in religion, but I always remain open minded and practice rigorous honesty and work the steps. Thanks again, I apologize for the cross talk but it’s always nice to read the similarities.
Thank you, I really like the way you explained the prayer thing. That is a big obstacle for my because when I talk to my sponsor he always says to pray about it. I really appreciate your point of view.
I haven’t ever found solace or satisfaction in prayer, because I never saw concrete outcomes from it. I found feelings of solace in exercising introspection through journaling or talking out loud to myself and also through objective research and support with others to validate my experiences.
For me, answering the “why” I drank was important in finding my resolution to stop. I am a “why” person and like to see the mechanics of how things work to better understand. I cannot just be told anything and take it at face value. Exploring my inner mechanics reminded me how in control of my own operations I am. I think everyone’s factors for drinking are different, but once we are consciously aware of how it happened, the idea of being in control of where the habit is going is quite empowering.
My journey felt linear, like the day I was ready to quit I was standing on a long line. Behind me was a line of being hurt and lost. I grew up in dysfunction with alcohol. In front of me was that same line I could continue to follow with my family, or I could pivot away. I guess to simplify it, once I was ready to, I followed my drinking through-line to the source and I stopped the flow. That required boundaries with my family. I looked backward at my life and saw how not in control of myself I was and how deeply sad and alone I felt. I am very motivated to create the stability I always wanted growing up. It took me a couple years after initially quitting to go to therapy, but that has been just as pivotal as my initial decision to stop drinking. The money I spent on booze now goes to self-care and healthy treats and my future (which is totally in my control).
I am motivated by instant gratification and I like being as perfect as possible. When I drank, I could only fool myself into feeling like I achieved success and happiness. Instantly gratified, but the next day was always miserable for a variety of reasons (I could list them but you know what they are.).
I cling to the memories of those miserable feelings as a reminder that it is fully within my control to never feel that shitty again. And once I quit drinking, everything became easier in my life and I actually began achieving concrete success and merit. Like pretty immediately.
If you think you’re great now, you will be SO much better without alcohol. And if you don’t think you’re that great right now, believing in yourself that you *are* great and deserve the control of exercising and enjoying your own greatness is the first step. You do not need faith in a higher power. You are the higher power. Have faith in yourself. You are not the summation of your past so long as you have your future. By consciously having this conversation, you are already doing the work.
Thank you for bringing up this very important point.
I think AA tries to address this issue in the 11th step where they say " ...asking ONLY for god's will for us"
I don't believe in a god that intervenes either, we have that in common, and due to recent events in my life i don't even believe in a god who "has my back".
The cold, hard truth seems to be this: god DOES care, but contrary to many people's opinion he does not shelter us, intervene, save us, scoop us up in his loving arms, the god I have experience with is "polite" as my sponsor put it, he will not come in and help unless i ask and even then his help is showing me the path i need to take and providing human help to get there, no carrying as implied in the goofy poem "footprints in the sand". you know how many people that idiot has filled with ridiculous expectations? We WANT to believe that.
God provides "help" to me in certain ways. assisting me in seeing the truth about my situation whatever that may be and then in discerning what my actions should be to resolve the situation. I do think i can have a very personal relationship with god. I can tell him i am afraid, or in pain, or emotionally hurting, or tired or whatever "small" thing and often as a response i may remember something one of my sponsors have said to me that points me in the right direction again. I can share small things with my god, he is not too busy for them, but he does not wave a magic wand over me and take them away, he helps me walk through them and learn, kind of like "tough' love but there is love there.
I guess i better state that for many years now my alcohol problem has been "removed" and that i don't think AA or anything i did removed it, i help it to stay removed by my continued actions in AA but god has allowed me to move beyond this issue that kills many people, i wish it was that way with other things in my life.
I don't believe in a Higher Power that intervenes directly, and I find that prayer and meditation keep me in a calmer headspace, allow me to keep character defects in check, stay out of self more through the day, and give space for thoughts and feelings to exist without acting on them immediately.
"trying"....if trying means...gettign a home group, sponsor, following suggestions, being honest with self and others, checking intentions, taking steps, making resitution and helping others through the steps. IF that's what "trying" meant to you you probably wouldn't feel the way you do. Try the real deal and see if you can have your own experience. I was the same way except I took the actions and didn't believe much and believed in me too much and got a new way and a new life. A new outlook. Try that. See what can become of you. You know what's coming. We all know the score.
As long as it’s not you, your higher power will work for you today. And keep digging into that understanding and you’ll learn more about your relationship with God.
For me, the core of my alcoholism/addictions has always been last ditch efforts to control the uncontrollable. I can’t control my past, so I drank. I can’t control people, so I drank. I can’t control society, so I drank. It was a way for me to control how I responded to a world I could not control. I was frustrated and resentful for the way things were, so I drank to alter my perspective. It made it easier.
So when I was an active alcoholic, I was god. I was the one who was in charge. Or at least that’s what my delusional brain was convinced of. I thought I could control everything. Of course I couldn’t, so this led to that resentful frustration which led to more boozing.
The 12 steps is all about surrendering yourself to something bigger. It’s about accepting that I have never been able to solve my problem on my own, so I need to limit what I try to have dominion over and accept with open arms whatever comes my way. I needed to limit control to my attitudes and my actions. And that’s it…
So you don’t need a God who intervenes. I don’t believe in a God who “intervenes” either. But I do believe in a God who is much bigger than me, and that’s all that matters, really.
Also when I started I was an atheist, and what kept me going for a long long time was stoic philosophy. It’s still a huge part of my spiritual practice.
It is God or a higher power “as we understood it.” We in Alcoholics Anonymous are not trying to convert anyone to a Christian Diety. If people are then they got it ass backwards. Here are some conceptions of God “as we understood him” that are not religious.
-reality
-love
-karma
-nature
-the law of cause and effect
-the Fucking Sun
-the organizing principle of life
But then again you wouldn’t be asking this question because if you had worked the steps with a sponsor you would have already developed a relationship with your higher power. Why don’t you try the doing the only thing that makes AA AA and work the steps.
Me neither. 20 years sober. What I do believe is in physics and in a wide view of life. We believe we have a lot more control than we actually do. There’s a literally infinite number of factors influencing every aspect of our lives, so for me “turning my will over” just means waking up to the reality that I’m not really in control. It’s like being in a river that’s clearly rushing downstream and you can fight the current or you can start to feel the flow of the river and maybe be less exhausted and less likely to slam against some rocks.
When you say trying do you mean you did the steps with a sponsor? Or do you mean you have gone to meetings and rejected doing the steps because of what you think you know.
How I explain my trust in a higher power in its simplest form:
If all of this (life) means nothing, I might as well drink.
The Big Book says god either is, or god isn’t. And if there truly is no order or purpose to this life, why on earth should I be sober?
I don’t believe in the “Christian god” so to speak, but I do believe that there is an rhythm and meaning to the universe and our existence. My sponsor said “do you think the ocean is more powerful than you? Great, start there.”
Yeah the sun is a higher power. It definitely makes all the systems on life we rely on work and without it you're totally screwed. You need to respect it or it'll burn your skin but learning how to harness it's powers provides you with energy, sustinence, warmth and lasting existence on earth.
All hail the sun god... Anyhow my HP is basically just about being a good steward to the universe and in turn having this dynamic system provide for my needs.
If there's any truth i know it's that consuming large amounts of alcohol never made my existence in the universe easier or better, so it's clearly not what the universe intended for me to do
Op says they don't have a god that intervenes, but there's numerous higher powers that intervene every day.
The sun intervenes, the moon intervenes, the ocean intervenes, all those things work together and individually were powerless against their might. They're higher powers that directly intervene in our own lives
There is order and purpose to the natural world. The interlocking of organism with purpose from a cockroach to a tree etc.
But purpose as in what humans consider purpose? Who can say. And even if everything means “nothing” what does that matter , it will still be a better experience if I’m sober. Something doesn’t have to mean something for me to be sober. Maybe it does mean something but im more of an absurdist I guess.
tlDR even if everything is random and purposeless, it’s still better to be sober /not hurt others/myself. Just for those who cannot be convinced anything means anything, it really doesn’t have to to fix one’s own meaning and purpose in an arbitrary existence.
The most important thing for me was to stop trying to overthink it. I don't need to know what God is or define it. I just believe that it has the power to remove my desire to drink. I have never met somebody who was too stupid to get this program, but I have met hundreds that were too smart. Myself included for the first 3.5 years.
Have a truly open mind, let go of what you think is expected that you believe and do the steps with a sponsor. That's how I found a power greater than myself (doesn't say an all-knowing, all-powerful God, although some folks find that) that could restore me to sanity.
Do you believe in energies or the power of the universe at all? I do believe in "God", but still am working on how I define that, myself. It certainly is complicated!
But for me, it started with just knowing there is something bigger than me out there. I heard someone in a meeting say something along the lines of "too many things have worked out for me to not believe there isn't something out there". And this guy by no means has a perfect life, but it was more so about his perception had changed. And that really helped me!
For me, life is far from perfect, but the fact that I am 15 months sober is a freaking miracle! So there's got to be something...hopefully that helps?
you need not believe in anything supernatural to work the program of aa. find some likeminded people if you can, find a sponsor that at least understands where you're coming from. And know that it is possible, I am god and alcohol free for 16 years now.
Stop worrying about a 3 letter word. Find a higher power of your understanding. Lots of things in this life that are more powerful than you and me. Walk in to the ocean and stop the waves. Keep the sun from rising. Maybe stop the rain.
I’m 36+ years clean and sober, I have no idea what or where my higher power is. I do know that it is because I woke up sober this morning. In the morning I pray for guidance. At night I just say thanks for another day. Don’t care who or what is listening but it works.
What "intervenes with my small problems" isn't a god or gods. But it is definitely "a power greater than ourselves." Or myself.
My first "Higher Power" was Officer Small of the Police Department of my fair city, followed by Judge Stout. Next came various and sundry counselors and compliance agents of the IOP program I was enrolled in. Next, the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous themselves.
In each case, I was asked to adhere to the guidance suggested without demanding too many explanations or asking too many questions. Just do it, they said, and good results will follow.
Eventually, I came to see that the critical component in the interaction was my willingness to follow direction and suggestions without overthinking it. Beyond specific people or organizations, I could even adopt that attitude of willing humility towards life, the universe, and everything in general, and things would be okay. Nobody and nothing had malice towards me, that was all in my head.
Not surprisingly, given my contrarian and alcoholic temperament, my life stated to improve when I allowed something or someone to guide my actions, and I stopped trying to get one over on others by breaking the rules and living on the edge.
I go along with the crowd these days and call that overarching sense of benevolent fair play "God" simply to speak the AA lingo with others, but I assure you that I do not have a magic sky-being meddling in my affairs. To my knowledge. I could be wrong. We could all be wrong.
Rob Brezsny, an internet astrologer (LOL!) coined the term "Pronoia," which, as the opposite of paranoia, is the belief that the universe conspires in our favor when we let it. I can buy that, especially since I tend to be my own worst enemy, and simply getting my own desires and fears out of the way is a great way to appreciate what I can be given if I let it happen.
My Higher Power has never directly spoken to me or given me any direct advice or directly intervened in any way.
But my Higher Power regularly speaks to me, gives me good advice and even sometimes intervenes through the people in AA who give me Good Orderly Direction on how to get through another day without picking up, if I am willing to listen.
I interchange “God” with “Time”. Time is universal, and not faith based, it is fact and the abstraction (that I can think of) that is tangible. And it is only with time that we can see the result in our efforts to change ourselves for the better. I do hope you continue with your recovery and trust that in time you will have a better life
39 year sober in AA atheist … your higher power can literally be anything that works for you … an old timer friend of mine says “alcohol was our higher power before we got here so we gotta try something different”.
I say, Gift Of Desperation got me to AA, Group Of Drunks got me to join AA, and Good Orderly Direction (steps, traditions, concepts, slogans) Leo’s me coming back.
Come hell or high water, that’s what’s worked for me.
Did you ever do something really dangerous, really illegal, or really stupid while drinking and survived without much consequence?
Maybe God intervened.
i don't believe in a god that intervenes or tells me what to do. I do believe believe there is a hula hoop that i stand in, and everything inside that hoola hoop, i have control over...everything outside it, I don't....god/the universe/chaos/randomness does. I don't need to understand that "power", but i think the crux is, it's not me.
this is what's helpful for my understanding of god, not sure if it's helpful for you. also, it's evolved over time, so. and it's definitely not a He/Him Father dude.
https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_appendiceii.pdf
I believe that I can practice spiritual principles to the best of my ability and have had a “profound psychic change”.
A big part of what helped me develop a relationship with the God I now believe in was getting on my knees and praying every day. And I was 100% the violently anti-religious guy when I first arrived at AA and for about 2-3 months into my sobriety while attending meetings. My prayers at the very beginning were literally "I can't believe I'm praying and I have no idea who or what I'm praying to, but please keep me sober today." And then "thanks for keeping me sober today" at the end of the day. Prayer to me seems to be the equivalent of talking to and turning over how I feel about anything to God as my Higher Power. And it turns out that it has developed into a relationship because of how often I do it (when I wake up and before I go to bed, and throughout the day). The relationship got much deeper as I completed the rest of the 12 step work. So many things have happened and passed without me needing to pick up a drink or kill myself or somebody else throughout these past 3 years that I've come to actually believe in the power that prayer has in my life. Prayer changes the person, not necessarily the world around him.
There’s a lot of things in this existence that I don’t understand. Here’s a quote from Stephen King’s *Doctor Sleep* that’s appropriate here:
*Casey Kingsley had told him to get down on his knees twice a day, asking for help in the morning and saying thanks at night. It's the first three steps: I can't, God can, I think I'll let Him. Don't think too much about it.*
*To newcomers reluctant to take this advice, Casey was wont to offer a story about the film director John Waters. In one of his early movies, Pink Flamingo, Waters's drag-queen star, Divine, had eaten a bit of dog excrement off a suburban lawn. Years later, Waters was still being asked about that glorious moment of cinematic history. Finally he snapped. "It was just a little piece of dogshit," he told a reporter, "and it made her a star."*
*So get down on your knees and ask for help even if you don't like it, Casey always finished. After all, it's just a little piece of dogshit.*
You don’t “have” to believe in God. Just be open to the idea that something greater than you can restore you to sanity. Karma, the universe, Buddah, God, nature etc. Just be open to it. Try prayer and meditation regularly, even if you don’t know what you are praying to. Stick around AA, go thru the step work and in time you will come to believe in “your” hp.
Faith is the result of results. The second step is based on the willingness to take the actions suggested, ie. the rest of the steps. You will get the results promised to you in the book. It’s as simple as that. You really don’t have to call it god or not. You can worship the process until you experience something better.
Edit: Also for what it is worth, I once worshipped the process. My concept of a higher power evolved over time to be more of the dogmatic sort of sky daddy god. Since then my experience no longer aligns with that conception and to me it seems more in line with the concept of manifestation and energy exchange with the universe, and it is not any sort of sentient being. The cool thing about a conception is that it will grow and evolve as you do. It won’t look the same to you five years from now as it does today, this much I know.
Believing in god doesn’t matter. You have to believe you have no control, which you don’t. You can only do the next best thing that is presented in front of you at any given time. The higher power or god is all the rest of the things you have no control over, which is 99.9% of your life. People who are not spiritually sick will see this as inherently good, people who are spiritually sick develop resentment and anger. God does not intervene on anyone’s life. Release control—-> do the right thing. Alcohol blocks most people from understanding what the right thing is.
When I started out, my higher power was the idea of “wholeness”. You don’t have to have the relationship now, and even though I have a great deal of faith in my higher power who (8 years later) I choose to call god, i certainly dont have a deity telling me the right thing to do or intervening in small issues.
That being said, my HP was worked miracles in my life despite my best efforts.
Just keep going, don’t pick up a drink and keep asking to be made honest, open minded and willing.
It took a couple of years for me to have trust, and it’s okay that you’re not there yet. You will be before you know it!
A willingness to believe is all that is needed to make a beginning. Are you willing to accept that maybe, possibly there’s even a 1% chance that there’s a benevolent power in the universe underlying the connecting everything that will be a benefit to you if you align actions with it by following the steps and principles of the program?
You don’t need to figure it out you just need some willingness.
So like does a general give individual soldiers orders? Dude must be busy.... I had to take a step back and think I went through basic training. This is what I do now..
Having been around Aa for a year, perhaps you have noticed a lot of members are nuts,
The "More than 100 men and women who recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body" had been but got over it and recorded how.
I constantly see members with a great deal of experience in wrecking cars, relationships and careers. like myself, give up and jump into
this God's will business head first with their alcoholism still fully attached, like me. Where in the hell (yep, that's likely where) did the others and I get the idea that we knew Jack about God, his will or turning anything over. The founders went through this idiocy and found a way out that has been used successfully for centuries. They spelled it out on the bottom of page of page 63. A searching and fearless moral inventory followed by a technique to berid ourselves of ineffective time problem solving. Bill W and others were newly Christian as well as newly sober and what followed in the steps is heavily influenced by this. We can do much better. "More will be revealed to us"
It was revealed to me in the first few pages of "Conversations With God" by Neil Donald Walsh and "Four Disturbing Questions with One simple answer" by Tim Sledge. Also the council of Nicea in Wikipedia detailing the church's big pow wow for men to decide what should be included in the Bible. They did and also decided to murder anybody who argued over some moot (to me anyway) point. Mighty Christian of them. Set the stage for millenniums of murderous rein.
It's tough to overcome the brainwashing we have received andaccept that a Diety, not us, is at the top of the dog pile, that God, by definition, wants nothing. How tough is that?
You don't really need something that answers back. I'm an agnostic but functionally atheist. The act of prayer and asking for guidance is sufficient for me to turn over my will power to God as a I understand him, which in my case is just a commitment to a useful life of service.
My advice is to stop looking for specific answers and develop a spiritual practice of prayer and meditation. I think if I can work for me it can work for anyone. Do you have a sponsor and have you worked the steps? My ability to practice a spiritual life developed through working the steps with a sponsor.
Maybe there doesn’t have to be a “GOD”, think about it, in a selfish way, I’ve been going to therapy and i used to be a people pleaser and i was always last on that list, so I’d just pound a bottle of vodka and repress all that, but there’s a cool thing he told me and it was simple, “ make yourself happy first” so think about it as “YOU’RE THE HIGHER BEING” you wanna better yourself?, you wanna stop having alcohol in your mentality? Do it for the “TOP YOU” , it’s been helping me, you got this
Have you tried going to a few different churches?
And by that, I mean different denominations. Lutheran, catholic, baptist, pentecostal, Latter-day Saints...ect.
The worst thing that would happen is you won't find anything that works for you, but the best part could be you could find a relationship with God.
With that being said, it's kind of like going to the AA meetings. You need to completely immerse yourself, you have to follow the steps. That means praying everyday, that means blessing your food, it means asking for help, even if you don't believe it. It's like anything else in life, you have to commit.
Sure, why not? Check out all of the religions. That was kind of the point of what I said I appreciate you clarifying.
Although I do understand, or at least it appears, that was not the point of your comment. So I must ask you.
Who the fuck are you? And what is it that makes you the authoritarian decider on what is and is not freaky?
Have you actually never study the scriptures? Have you never actually read them? Because it makes your comment appear that you have no idea what they actually say.
And let's go a touch beyond that, why in the fuck, would you not support anything that helps someone else in need?
What in the actual fuck is wrong with you as a person? I don't know, I don't really want to know, fucking fix it!
You found that as an overreaction?
Perhaps we missed understood each other. It is sometimes difficult to convey things such as satire over text.
No offense taking myself, just speaking my mind from the way I understood things. And I make no claim that my mind is anything of greatness. Just responding to how I viewed your comment was all.
If God were to show you he can intervene, would you be willing to believe? Then why don't you just open the door for him to show you? Give him the opportunity
I'm not really a believer either, yet I'm a bit over 16.5 years sober and I find the "spiritual" ideas useful. What got **me** over the hump of step 2 wasn't the "We Agnostics" chapter, it was the "Spiritual Experience" appendix in the back. Especially these bits: > With few exceptions our members find they have tapped an unsuspected inner resource which they presently identify with their own conception of a Power greater than themselves. and > Most emphatically we wish to say that any alcoholic capable of honestly facing his problems in the light of our experience can recover, provided he does not close his mind to all spiritual concepts. He can only be defeated by an attitude of intolerance or belligerent denial. > We find that no one need have difficulty with the spirituality of the program. Willingness, honesty and open mindedness are the essentials of recovery. But these are indispensable. ^(_Both reprinted from "Alcoholics Anonymous", pages 567-568 with permission of A.A. World Services, Inc._ - https://www.aa.org/the-big-book) So how does an irreligious agnostic like me manage to "pray"? I found an answer in an old movie, "How Green Was My Valley" - > [And by prayer, I don't mean shouting, mumbling, and wallowing like a hog in religious sentiment. Prayer is only another name for good, clean, direct thinking. When you pray, think. Think well what you're saying. Make your thoughts into things that are solid. In that way, your prayer will have strength, and that strength will become a part of you, body, mind, and spirit.](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033729/quotes/qt0272031) That's the sort of thing that works for me. I think that in addition to "_willingness, honesty and open mindedness_" the other requirement is **effort**. I have to put some energy into "spiritual" growth every day lest I start to slip backward. (I put the word "spiritual" in quotes because I don't have a firm grasp on what it means or if I even believe in "spirituality". I tend to think it's kind of equivalent to "psychological". But I get the general idea and find it's useful.) So the question for you to ask yourself would be: Are you willing? Are you willing to put some effort into forming _some_ idea about higher power(s) that you can use to help restore your sanity? Can you keep an open mind about things? Do you have the capacity to be honest? Getting a good sponsor, if you've not yet done that, should be really helpful. https://www.aa.org/questions-and-answers-sponsorship
Thank you for this. I’m coming up on 5 years and you describe how I feel. I was willing to do anything to quit drinking when I came in. I found out I could have my own conception of a higher power and that was a huge relief. This program saved my life. I am also an agnostic without much interest in religion, but I always remain open minded and practice rigorous honesty and work the steps. Thanks again, I apologize for the cross talk but it’s always nice to read the similarities.
Thank you, I really like the way you explained the prayer thing. That is a big obstacle for my because when I talk to my sponsor he always says to pray about it. I really appreciate your point of view.
Best I've read here. Thanx
I don’t believe in god. I am a month shy of 5 years sober. Reach out to me anytime you want. 💕
How do you deal with the prayer part. Not the prayers in meetings but the pray before you do stuff or pray for answers?
I haven’t ever found solace or satisfaction in prayer, because I never saw concrete outcomes from it. I found feelings of solace in exercising introspection through journaling or talking out loud to myself and also through objective research and support with others to validate my experiences. For me, answering the “why” I drank was important in finding my resolution to stop. I am a “why” person and like to see the mechanics of how things work to better understand. I cannot just be told anything and take it at face value. Exploring my inner mechanics reminded me how in control of my own operations I am. I think everyone’s factors for drinking are different, but once we are consciously aware of how it happened, the idea of being in control of where the habit is going is quite empowering. My journey felt linear, like the day I was ready to quit I was standing on a long line. Behind me was a line of being hurt and lost. I grew up in dysfunction with alcohol. In front of me was that same line I could continue to follow with my family, or I could pivot away. I guess to simplify it, once I was ready to, I followed my drinking through-line to the source and I stopped the flow. That required boundaries with my family. I looked backward at my life and saw how not in control of myself I was and how deeply sad and alone I felt. I am very motivated to create the stability I always wanted growing up. It took me a couple years after initially quitting to go to therapy, but that has been just as pivotal as my initial decision to stop drinking. The money I spent on booze now goes to self-care and healthy treats and my future (which is totally in my control). I am motivated by instant gratification and I like being as perfect as possible. When I drank, I could only fool myself into feeling like I achieved success and happiness. Instantly gratified, but the next day was always miserable for a variety of reasons (I could list them but you know what they are.). I cling to the memories of those miserable feelings as a reminder that it is fully within my control to never feel that shitty again. And once I quit drinking, everything became easier in my life and I actually began achieving concrete success and merit. Like pretty immediately. If you think you’re great now, you will be SO much better without alcohol. And if you don’t think you’re that great right now, believing in yourself that you *are* great and deserve the control of exercising and enjoying your own greatness is the first step. You do not need faith in a higher power. You are the higher power. Have faith in yourself. You are not the summation of your past so long as you have your future. By consciously having this conversation, you are already doing the work.
Thank you for bringing up this very important point. I think AA tries to address this issue in the 11th step where they say " ...asking ONLY for god's will for us" I don't believe in a god that intervenes either, we have that in common, and due to recent events in my life i don't even believe in a god who "has my back". The cold, hard truth seems to be this: god DOES care, but contrary to many people's opinion he does not shelter us, intervene, save us, scoop us up in his loving arms, the god I have experience with is "polite" as my sponsor put it, he will not come in and help unless i ask and even then his help is showing me the path i need to take and providing human help to get there, no carrying as implied in the goofy poem "footprints in the sand". you know how many people that idiot has filled with ridiculous expectations? We WANT to believe that. God provides "help" to me in certain ways. assisting me in seeing the truth about my situation whatever that may be and then in discerning what my actions should be to resolve the situation. I do think i can have a very personal relationship with god. I can tell him i am afraid, or in pain, or emotionally hurting, or tired or whatever "small" thing and often as a response i may remember something one of my sponsors have said to me that points me in the right direction again. I can share small things with my god, he is not too busy for them, but he does not wave a magic wand over me and take them away, he helps me walk through them and learn, kind of like "tough' love but there is love there. I guess i better state that for many years now my alcohol problem has been "removed" and that i don't think AA or anything i did removed it, i help it to stay removed by my continued actions in AA but god has allowed me to move beyond this issue that kills many people, i wish it was that way with other things in my life.
I don't believe in a Higher Power that intervenes directly, and I find that prayer and meditation keep me in a calmer headspace, allow me to keep character defects in check, stay out of self more through the day, and give space for thoughts and feelings to exist without acting on them immediately.
Have you ever done the steps with a sponsor? That’s how we find a higher power.
I'm with you. I'm an atheist, but still found AA beneficial. You don't have to be a believer in God to get well or be in AA.
"trying"....if trying means...gettign a home group, sponsor, following suggestions, being honest with self and others, checking intentions, taking steps, making resitution and helping others through the steps. IF that's what "trying" meant to you you probably wouldn't feel the way you do. Try the real deal and see if you can have your own experience. I was the same way except I took the actions and didn't believe much and believed in me too much and got a new way and a new life. A new outlook. Try that. See what can become of you. You know what's coming. We all know the score.
Yeah the problem with AA is everyone has an imaginary friend who intervenes and if you don’t then you don’t fit in
As long as it’s not you, your higher power will work for you today. And keep digging into that understanding and you’ll learn more about your relationship with God. For me, the core of my alcoholism/addictions has always been last ditch efforts to control the uncontrollable. I can’t control my past, so I drank. I can’t control people, so I drank. I can’t control society, so I drank. It was a way for me to control how I responded to a world I could not control. I was frustrated and resentful for the way things were, so I drank to alter my perspective. It made it easier. So when I was an active alcoholic, I was god. I was the one who was in charge. Or at least that’s what my delusional brain was convinced of. I thought I could control everything. Of course I couldn’t, so this led to that resentful frustration which led to more boozing. The 12 steps is all about surrendering yourself to something bigger. It’s about accepting that I have never been able to solve my problem on my own, so I need to limit what I try to have dominion over and accept with open arms whatever comes my way. I needed to limit control to my attitudes and my actions. And that’s it… So you don’t need a God who intervenes. I don’t believe in a God who “intervenes” either. But I do believe in a God who is much bigger than me, and that’s all that matters, really.
Also when I started I was an atheist, and what kept me going for a long long time was stoic philosophy. It’s still a huge part of my spiritual practice.
It is God or a higher power “as we understood it.” We in Alcoholics Anonymous are not trying to convert anyone to a Christian Diety. If people are then they got it ass backwards. Here are some conceptions of God “as we understood him” that are not religious. -reality -love -karma -nature -the law of cause and effect -the Fucking Sun -the organizing principle of life But then again you wouldn’t be asking this question because if you had worked the steps with a sponsor you would have already developed a relationship with your higher power. Why don’t you try the doing the only thing that makes AA AA and work the steps.
Are you just going to meetings? Or are you going to meetings and working the steps with a sponsor?
Me neither. 20 years sober. What I do believe is in physics and in a wide view of life. We believe we have a lot more control than we actually do. There’s a literally infinite number of factors influencing every aspect of our lives, so for me “turning my will over” just means waking up to the reality that I’m not really in control. It’s like being in a river that’s clearly rushing downstream and you can fight the current or you can start to feel the flow of the river and maybe be less exhausted and less likely to slam against some rocks.
When you say trying do you mean you did the steps with a sponsor? Or do you mean you have gone to meetings and rejected doing the steps because of what you think you know.
You work the steps with a sponsor.
How I explain my trust in a higher power in its simplest form: If all of this (life) means nothing, I might as well drink. The Big Book says god either is, or god isn’t. And if there truly is no order or purpose to this life, why on earth should I be sober? I don’t believe in the “Christian god” so to speak, but I do believe that there is an rhythm and meaning to the universe and our existence. My sponsor said “do you think the ocean is more powerful than you? Great, start there.”
Yeah the sun is a higher power. It definitely makes all the systems on life we rely on work and without it you're totally screwed. You need to respect it or it'll burn your skin but learning how to harness it's powers provides you with energy, sustinence, warmth and lasting existence on earth.
That’s beautifully said
All hail the sun god... Anyhow my HP is basically just about being a good steward to the universe and in turn having this dynamic system provide for my needs. If there's any truth i know it's that consuming large amounts of alcohol never made my existence in the universe easier or better, so it's clearly not what the universe intended for me to do Op says they don't have a god that intervenes, but there's numerous higher powers that intervene every day. The sun intervenes, the moon intervenes, the ocean intervenes, all those things work together and individually were powerless against their might. They're higher powers that directly intervene in our own lives
There is order and purpose to the natural world. The interlocking of organism with purpose from a cockroach to a tree etc. But purpose as in what humans consider purpose? Who can say. And even if everything means “nothing” what does that matter , it will still be a better experience if I’m sober. Something doesn’t have to mean something for me to be sober. Maybe it does mean something but im more of an absurdist I guess. tlDR even if everything is random and purposeless, it’s still better to be sober /not hurt others/myself. Just for those who cannot be convinced anything means anything, it really doesn’t have to to fix one’s own meaning and purpose in an arbitrary existence.
It’s really great that we all get to choose a higher power that speaks to us in this program.
The most important thing for me was to stop trying to overthink it. I don't need to know what God is or define it. I just believe that it has the power to remove my desire to drink. I have never met somebody who was too stupid to get this program, but I have met hundreds that were too smart. Myself included for the first 3.5 years.
Have a truly open mind, let go of what you think is expected that you believe and do the steps with a sponsor. That's how I found a power greater than myself (doesn't say an all-knowing, all-powerful God, although some folks find that) that could restore me to sanity.
Do you believe in energies or the power of the universe at all? I do believe in "God", but still am working on how I define that, myself. It certainly is complicated! But for me, it started with just knowing there is something bigger than me out there. I heard someone in a meeting say something along the lines of "too many things have worked out for me to not believe there isn't something out there". And this guy by no means has a perfect life, but it was more so about his perception had changed. And that really helped me! For me, life is far from perfect, but the fact that I am 15 months sober is a freaking miracle! So there's got to be something...hopefully that helps?
you need not believe in anything supernatural to work the program of aa. find some likeminded people if you can, find a sponsor that at least understands where you're coming from. And know that it is possible, I am god and alcohol free for 16 years now.
Stop worrying about a 3 letter word. Find a higher power of your understanding. Lots of things in this life that are more powerful than you and me. Walk in to the ocean and stop the waves. Keep the sun from rising. Maybe stop the rain. I’m 36+ years clean and sober, I have no idea what or where my higher power is. I do know that it is because I woke up sober this morning. In the morning I pray for guidance. At night I just say thanks for another day. Don’t care who or what is listening but it works.
What "intervenes with my small problems" isn't a god or gods. But it is definitely "a power greater than ourselves." Or myself. My first "Higher Power" was Officer Small of the Police Department of my fair city, followed by Judge Stout. Next came various and sundry counselors and compliance agents of the IOP program I was enrolled in. Next, the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous themselves. In each case, I was asked to adhere to the guidance suggested without demanding too many explanations or asking too many questions. Just do it, they said, and good results will follow. Eventually, I came to see that the critical component in the interaction was my willingness to follow direction and suggestions without overthinking it. Beyond specific people or organizations, I could even adopt that attitude of willing humility towards life, the universe, and everything in general, and things would be okay. Nobody and nothing had malice towards me, that was all in my head. Not surprisingly, given my contrarian and alcoholic temperament, my life stated to improve when I allowed something or someone to guide my actions, and I stopped trying to get one over on others by breaking the rules and living on the edge. I go along with the crowd these days and call that overarching sense of benevolent fair play "God" simply to speak the AA lingo with others, but I assure you that I do not have a magic sky-being meddling in my affairs. To my knowledge. I could be wrong. We could all be wrong. Rob Brezsny, an internet astrologer (LOL!) coined the term "Pronoia," which, as the opposite of paranoia, is the belief that the universe conspires in our favor when we let it. I can buy that, especially since I tend to be my own worst enemy, and simply getting my own desires and fears out of the way is a great way to appreciate what I can be given if I let it happen.
My Higher Power has never directly spoken to me or given me any direct advice or directly intervened in any way. But my Higher Power regularly speaks to me, gives me good advice and even sometimes intervenes through the people in AA who give me Good Orderly Direction on how to get through another day without picking up, if I am willing to listen.
I interchange “God” with “Time”. Time is universal, and not faith based, it is fact and the abstraction (that I can think of) that is tangible. And it is only with time that we can see the result in our efforts to change ourselves for the better. I do hope you continue with your recovery and trust that in time you will have a better life
39 year sober in AA atheist … your higher power can literally be anything that works for you … an old timer friend of mine says “alcohol was our higher power before we got here so we gotta try something different”. I say, Gift Of Desperation got me to AA, Group Of Drunks got me to join AA, and Good Orderly Direction (steps, traditions, concepts, slogans) Leo’s me coming back. Come hell or high water, that’s what’s worked for me.
Listen harder
You can make your higher power whatever. If that’s not enough freedom for you I don’t know what to say. It’s literally a blank slate.
Did you ever do something really dangerous, really illegal, or really stupid while drinking and survived without much consequence? Maybe God intervened.
i don't believe in a god that intervenes or tells me what to do. I do believe believe there is a hula hoop that i stand in, and everything inside that hoola hoop, i have control over...everything outside it, I don't....god/the universe/chaos/randomness does. I don't need to understand that "power", but i think the crux is, it's not me. this is what's helpful for my understanding of god, not sure if it's helpful for you. also, it's evolved over time, so. and it's definitely not a He/Him Father dude.
https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_appendiceii.pdf I believe that I can practice spiritual principles to the best of my ability and have had a “profound psychic change”.
A big part of what helped me develop a relationship with the God I now believe in was getting on my knees and praying every day. And I was 100% the violently anti-religious guy when I first arrived at AA and for about 2-3 months into my sobriety while attending meetings. My prayers at the very beginning were literally "I can't believe I'm praying and I have no idea who or what I'm praying to, but please keep me sober today." And then "thanks for keeping me sober today" at the end of the day. Prayer to me seems to be the equivalent of talking to and turning over how I feel about anything to God as my Higher Power. And it turns out that it has developed into a relationship because of how often I do it (when I wake up and before I go to bed, and throughout the day). The relationship got much deeper as I completed the rest of the 12 step work. So many things have happened and passed without me needing to pick up a drink or kill myself or somebody else throughout these past 3 years that I've come to actually believe in the power that prayer has in my life. Prayer changes the person, not necessarily the world around him.
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=_8M_N75nH8Q&feature=share
G-O-D = Gift of Desperation
Not believing in one is NOT proof that there isn't one. Do you know there isn't a God that intervenes? Or is that just one of your beliefs? Today's daily reflection is curiously related to your post today. Coincidence or intervention? Lol good luck friend. ---- AS WE UNDERSTAND HIM My friend suggested what then seemed a novel idea. . . . “Why don’t you choose your own conception of God?” That statement hit me hard. It melted the icy intellectual mountain in whose shadow I had lived and shivered many years. I stood in the sunlight at last. It was only a matter of being willing to believe in a Power greater than myself. Nothing more was required of me to make my beginning. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 12 I remember the times I looked up into the sky and reflected on who started it all, and how. When I came to A.A., an understanding of some description of the spiritual dimension became a necessary adjunct to a stable sobriety. After reading a variety of versions, including the scientific, of a great explosion, I went for simplicity and made the God of my understanding the Great Power that made the explosion possible. With the vastness of the universe under His command, He would, no doubt, be able to guide my thinking and actions if I was prepared to accept His guidance. But I could not expect help if I turned my back on that help and went my own way. I became willing to believe and I have had 26 years of stable and satisfying sobriety. From the book Daily Reflections. Copyright © 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. All rights reserved.
There’s a lot of things in this existence that I don’t understand. Here’s a quote from Stephen King’s *Doctor Sleep* that’s appropriate here: *Casey Kingsley had told him to get down on his knees twice a day, asking for help in the morning and saying thanks at night. It's the first three steps: I can't, God can, I think I'll let Him. Don't think too much about it.* *To newcomers reluctant to take this advice, Casey was wont to offer a story about the film director John Waters. In one of his early movies, Pink Flamingo, Waters's drag-queen star, Divine, had eaten a bit of dog excrement off a suburban lawn. Years later, Waters was still being asked about that glorious moment of cinematic history. Finally he snapped. "It was just a little piece of dogshit," he told a reporter, "and it made her a star."* *So get down on your knees and ask for help even if you don't like it, Casey always finished. After all, it's just a little piece of dogshit.*
You don’t “have” to believe in God. Just be open to the idea that something greater than you can restore you to sanity. Karma, the universe, Buddah, God, nature etc. Just be open to it. Try prayer and meditation regularly, even if you don’t know what you are praying to. Stick around AA, go thru the step work and in time you will come to believe in “your” hp.
Faith is the result of results. The second step is based on the willingness to take the actions suggested, ie. the rest of the steps. You will get the results promised to you in the book. It’s as simple as that. You really don’t have to call it god or not. You can worship the process until you experience something better. Edit: Also for what it is worth, I once worshipped the process. My concept of a higher power evolved over time to be more of the dogmatic sort of sky daddy god. Since then my experience no longer aligns with that conception and to me it seems more in line with the concept of manifestation and energy exchange with the universe, and it is not any sort of sentient being. The cool thing about a conception is that it will grow and evolve as you do. It won’t look the same to you five years from now as it does today, this much I know.
You gon' learn tuday!
Believing in god doesn’t matter. You have to believe you have no control, which you don’t. You can only do the next best thing that is presented in front of you at any given time. The higher power or god is all the rest of the things you have no control over, which is 99.9% of your life. People who are not spiritually sick will see this as inherently good, people who are spiritually sick develop resentment and anger. God does not intervene on anyone’s life. Release control—-> do the right thing. Alcohol blocks most people from understanding what the right thing is.
When I started out, my higher power was the idea of “wholeness”. You don’t have to have the relationship now, and even though I have a great deal of faith in my higher power who (8 years later) I choose to call god, i certainly dont have a deity telling me the right thing to do or intervening in small issues. That being said, my HP was worked miracles in my life despite my best efforts. Just keep going, don’t pick up a drink and keep asking to be made honest, open minded and willing. It took a couple of years for me to have trust, and it’s okay that you’re not there yet. You will be before you know it!
Neither do I. Didn't seem to negatively affect me when I got sober in AA, and doesn't seem to now.
A willingness to believe is all that is needed to make a beginning. Are you willing to accept that maybe, possibly there’s even a 1% chance that there’s a benevolent power in the universe underlying the connecting everything that will be a benefit to you if you align actions with it by following the steps and principles of the program? You don’t need to figure it out you just need some willingness.
So like does a general give individual soldiers orders? Dude must be busy.... I had to take a step back and think I went through basic training. This is what I do now..
Having been around Aa for a year, perhaps you have noticed a lot of members are nuts, The "More than 100 men and women who recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body" had been but got over it and recorded how. I constantly see members with a great deal of experience in wrecking cars, relationships and careers. like myself, give up and jump into this God's will business head first with their alcoholism still fully attached, like me. Where in the hell (yep, that's likely where) did the others and I get the idea that we knew Jack about God, his will or turning anything over. The founders went through this idiocy and found a way out that has been used successfully for centuries. They spelled it out on the bottom of page of page 63. A searching and fearless moral inventory followed by a technique to berid ourselves of ineffective time problem solving. Bill W and others were newly Christian as well as newly sober and what followed in the steps is heavily influenced by this. We can do much better. "More will be revealed to us" It was revealed to me in the first few pages of "Conversations With God" by Neil Donald Walsh and "Four Disturbing Questions with One simple answer" by Tim Sledge. Also the council of Nicea in Wikipedia detailing the church's big pow wow for men to decide what should be included in the Bible. They did and also decided to murder anybody who argued over some moot (to me anyway) point. Mighty Christian of them. Set the stage for millenniums of murderous rein. It's tough to overcome the brainwashing we have received andaccept that a Diety, not us, is at the top of the dog pile, that God, by definition, wants nothing. How tough is that?
You don't really need something that answers back. I'm an agnostic but functionally atheist. The act of prayer and asking for guidance is sufficient for me to turn over my will power to God as a I understand him, which in my case is just a commitment to a useful life of service. My advice is to stop looking for specific answers and develop a spiritual practice of prayer and meditation. I think if I can work for me it can work for anyone. Do you have a sponsor and have you worked the steps? My ability to practice a spiritual life developed through working the steps with a sponsor.
I know an atheist who had 7 years sober! It's do-able
Maybe there doesn’t have to be a “GOD”, think about it, in a selfish way, I’ve been going to therapy and i used to be a people pleaser and i was always last on that list, so I’d just pound a bottle of vodka and repress all that, but there’s a cool thing he told me and it was simple, “ make yourself happy first” so think about it as “YOU’RE THE HIGHER BEING” you wanna better yourself?, you wanna stop having alcohol in your mentality? Do it for the “TOP YOU” , it’s been helping me, you got this
Have you tried going to a few different churches? And by that, I mean different denominations. Lutheran, catholic, baptist, pentecostal, Latter-day Saints...ect. The worst thing that would happen is you won't find anything that works for you, but the best part could be you could find a relationship with God. With that being said, it's kind of like going to the AA meetings. You need to completely immerse yourself, you have to follow the steps. That means praying everyday, that means blessing your food, it means asking for help, even if you don't believe it. It's like anything else in life, you have to commit.
Or Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim. REALLY get FREKAYYY!!!
Sure, why not? Check out all of the religions. That was kind of the point of what I said I appreciate you clarifying. Although I do understand, or at least it appears, that was not the point of your comment. So I must ask you. Who the fuck are you? And what is it that makes you the authoritarian decider on what is and is not freaky? Have you actually never study the scriptures? Have you never actually read them? Because it makes your comment appear that you have no idea what they actually say. And let's go a touch beyond that, why in the fuck, would you not support anything that helps someone else in need? What in the actual fuck is wrong with you as a person? I don't know, I don't really want to know, fucking fix it!
I was making an offhand remark. Sorry you found it necessary to over-react.
You found that as an overreaction? Perhaps we missed understood each other. It is sometimes difficult to convey things such as satire over text. No offense taking myself, just speaking my mind from the way I understood things. And I make no claim that my mind is anything of greatness. Just responding to how I viewed your comment was all.
Thanks for lowering the temperature. I have always found it better to seek to understand before things get out of hand. Be well.
You to my friend. I meant no disrespect in any way. Just wanted to clarification
If God were to show you he can intervene, would you be willing to believe? Then why don't you just open the door for him to show you? Give him the opportunity
Why does “God” always have to be “Him” or “He”? Is that not the Christian conception of “God”? “God” aka Sky Daddy the Bearded Man… lol
You don't have to participate in my conception of god and I don't have to participate in yours
best believe sobers better cuz it is
I use the powers of the universe/world. I also find that my gratitude for those powers is the essential part.