“Without a Higher Power - One Size does not fit all for this atheist in recovery
AA Grapevine January 2010
This atheist "walked into our midst," and stayed.
At the age of 52, I attended my very first AA
meeting on Oct. 7, 2001. I have not found it necessary to take a single drink
since. Were it not for AA it's likely I would never have put together one
continuous week of sobriety.
Finding all the "God stuff" in the Twelve Steps a
bit hard to swallow, I immediately latched onto Tradition Three, which states,
"The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking."
I also had the good fortune of stumbling across a
Twelve Step study during my first week of recovery. It has been my home group
ever since. That was where someone drew my attention to the chapter on Step Two
in the "Twelve and Twelve" where it states, "First, Alcoholics Anonymous does
not demand that you believe anything. All of its Twelve Steps are but
suggestions."
I also learned in my home group about a fellow
called "Ed" in the essay on Tradition Three in the "Twelve and Twelve." His real
name was Jimmy B. One of the pioneering members of the New York group, Jimmy B.
was apparently the first diehard atheist to find lasting recovery in AA. His
personal story eventually made it into the Second Edition of the Big Book as
"The Vicious Cycle." An internet search turns up lots of interesting information
about Jim. He is my personal AA hero.
Eventually I also discovered the pamphlet
"Questions & Answers on Sponsorship" where, much to my relief, it points out
that "some alcoholics have been able to achieve and maintain sobriety without
any belief in a personal Higher Power." That includes me.
In an article published in the April 1961 edition
of the Grapevine (reprinted in "The Best of Bill"), Bill W. laments: "Though
300,000 have recovered in the last 25 years, maybe half a million more have
walked into our midst, and then out again. . . . We can't well content ourselves
with the view that all these recovery failures were entirely the fault of the
newcomers themselves. Perhaps a great many didn't receive the kind and amount of
sponsorship they so sorely needed."
I certainly know what that's like! I ended up
firing two sponsors in my first three months of recovery. The first one
dogmatically insisted that I absolutely had to turn my will and my life over to
the care of some kind of Higher Power if I wanted to stay sober long. My second
sponsor relapsed.
Unfortunately, sponsors who actually follow the
excellent suggestions outlined in "Questions & Answers on Sponsorship" seem
to be about as rare as four-leaf clovers. I ended up without a sponsor for 15
months before hooking up with my current sponsor. By then I had made a lot of
progress working a personalized program of recovery I had designed for myself,
one that makes absolutely no reference to any kind of "Higher Power"
concept--not even using my home group or AA as a whole as a substitute for God.
My new sponsor's first official advice to me was, "Whatever you've been doing is
obviously working well for you, so let's not try to 'fix' it."
After years of studying the Twelve Steps in my
home group and discussing them with my sponsor, I now understand why faith in
"God as we understood Him" was so vitally important to Bill W. and most of the
AA pioneers.
As clearly explained by Dr. Harry Tiebout in the
appendix of the book Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, they nearly all suffered
from some form of narcissism. Their narcissism had effectively blocked their
recovery from alcoholism and eventually turned them into low-bottom drunks of
the "hopeless variety."
The obvious cure for rampant narcissism and
grandiosity is greater humility; and as it says in the essay on Step Seven in
the "Twelve and Twelve," "the attainment of greater humility is the foundation
principle of each of AA's Twelve Steps."
However, as Dr. Silkworth points out in "The
Doctor's Opinion," "The classification of alcoholics seems most difficult."
Ultimately, he tells us, all alcoholics "have one symptom in common: they cannot
start drinking without developing the phenomenon of craving." That certainly
describes me. All of us do have issues of our own that we need to deal with if
we are to stay both sober and happy, often issues that "the attainment of
greater humility" simply will not touch.
The program of recovery I work directly addresses
my issues. The only person in the world it needs to work for is me, and it does
that very, very well. Today I am not only sober, I am far happier than I had
ever dreamed it was possible for me to be.
I now have a dozen sponsees of my own. Four of
them, like me, are atheists who have absolutely no use for the Higher Power
concept. Two of those have already enjoyed over four years of continuous
sobriety.
Obviously I do not insist that my sponsees must
all work the same program of recovery, nor do I tutor them in the program of
recovery I designed to address my own issues – "defects of character," if you
wish. Instead, I encourage each of them to follow my example by identifying
their own issues, and then working a deliberate, systematic, active program of
recovery designed by themselves, for themselves, to directly address their
issues.
Over the years I have endured a lot of criticism
from other AAs for my unorthodox beliefs, especially for my refusal to endorse
the Twelve Steps as a perfect one-size-fits-all program of recovery for every
alcoholic. But if Bill W. were alive today, I'm sure he would approve. As he
suggested in the long form of Tradition Three, "Our membership ought to include
all who suffer from alcoholism. Hence we may refuse none who wish to recover."
That certainly includes me. My fondest hope is
that if enough others follow my example, someday it will include millions more
like me who previously might have "walked into our midst, and then out again."
GREG H.
San Diego, Calif”
Comment: None needed!
Cheerio
The Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics
Anonymous)
