Smartrecovery.org

Recovery begins when one alcoholic/addict shares with another. It doesn’t begin when I find God, I’m very happy to report. But I need something between me and my next first drink. It’s you. You + Me = We. 1 + 1 = 3. That is all the spirituality I need and it’s all I can muster. We works.

I drank hard and partied hard all through my 20s. I got sober at 30. Stayed clean and sober for 10 years and decided I would allow myself to drink wine when I went to Europe for the first time. That started an eight year binge that led to me being asked to leave the house by my wife.

Three weeks of living on my own and drinking my face off convinced me that I was probably going to drink myself to death during this divorce and that I needed help again. I went back to AA and tried to forget everything I thought I knew about the 12 steps. But all I really wanted to do was argue about God and all the concomitant nonsense. After about four years I realized that there is enough secularity in the big book for me to get a foothold and do steps four through nine with a sponsor.

That has made all the difference. I just decided to stop worrying about other people’s Gods, pick my meetings more carefully, and when someone waxes poetically and interminably about their Higher power (which they choose to call God - brilliant!) I try to practice love and tolerance of others and take a kindly attitude towards them. Meetings are tedious at times but I look at it as service work and try to contribute. When I come across a fellow atheist or agnostic I make it a point to talk to them about my experience and let them know that it’s possible to get sober in AA and be a nonbeliever.

I have HUGE problems with the whole higher power crap, and the evangelical fundamentalist nonsense in AA. Been doing a lot of research on the topic, and was quite surprised to find I'm not the only one. I read up on CBT related info in addition to other therapies. The AA way is simply not for everyone, and damn if you don't agree with them, well then you're a failure. O_O

We've had numerous posts and comments about how to get around the higher power/god shit. You can look back through some of them or go to my profile and look through my posts and comments. I've been kinda prolific so it may take awhile. Congrats on the the clean and sober man!

I feel ya u been clean 4.5 years and I struggle with the higher power aspects of the program I just try to use what I can and forget the rest

I was a really messed up but partly functioning binge drinking, smoking weed and tobacco with acid, glue and mushrooms person. the hard stuff I gave up ages ago like speed and acid. I gave up tobacco 13 years ago, booze about 9 and weed 5 years ago. I did enjoy a lot of it but it really helped fuck my head up. I feel much better in my head but I've put on some weight and I'm disabled but its mostly good.