Joined: 23 Aug 2007 Posts: 36 Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Sobriety for 2 months - possible w/o a higher power Posted: 11-10-07 19:03pm
I've seen a lot of people claiming that
their spiritual awakening has helped them
achieve sobriety. That you HAVE to work
the steps or you're bound to fail. But for
anyone else out there who questions, is
agnostic or atheist, I want to share what
has worked for me so far. I'm a person who
questions everything. I don't pray and I
claim no higher power. Whatever has kept
me sober these last two months has been of
my own accord. I was scared, never alone
and I knew that alcohol had a grip on my
addictive prone brain that would drive my
family away and then me to death. AA is
driving me crazy lately. I can't stand the
religious jibber jabber about God and how
his healing hands have reached out to
touch alcoholics everywhere through AA.
Well, if I'm "healed" of my alcoholism,
why can't I sit down and have A, as in
ONE, drink during the hockey game tonight?
Because I am an alcoholic and somewhere in
my brain/body chemistry, I need to have
more. It's not because a higher power or a
prayer has kept me from drinking or drove
me to drink. I will admit however that
some steps of AA are worth examining and
using to help those of us who don't accept
a definite higher power.
First admitting that we are powerless to
alcohol does not take a higher power. WE
have to admit that to ourselves. WE have
to come to that realization even if
everyone around us has seen it for years.
If you need a place to start as I did,
this is it. AA will help you realize you
aren't alone. You may find someone who
shares your beliefs(or lack of) but odds
are, you won't. Because most people really
need the comfort that someone "up there"
is listening and helping. For some, it's
just too painful to give up the drink and
find themselves alone. So I worked step
one. Most of the asking the higher power
for forgiveness, giving ourselves over and
asking "HIM" to remove our short comings
are just not possible for me. If there's
one thing I've learned in my life it's
that I AM IN CHARGE OF IT. I'm on a large
rock spinning around a big ball of gas.
There's genocide, disease, poverty and war
because of man's willful ignorance, yet
please forgive me and remove MY
shortcomings or deficiency's because I'm
all important in this blip of a human time
span. I'm not saying that we in our own
way aren't important, but I don't buy that
one human being is more important than
another simply because they pray or have a
"superior" religion. That's what I've been
seeing at AA lately. I found another
meeting and it was worse that what I had
been attending. maybe it was the topic
about higher powers or maybe it was the
Jesus talk that I couldn't handle. Had I
accepted the Lord Jesus as my Saviour? Uh,
no. I was cornered. Was I at an AA meeting
or recruitment meeting? I thought all I
had to do was have a desire to quit
drinking. What happened to that? I had to
leave early and I've NEVER left a meeting
early. I always stay even through prayers
and holding hands and hugs. I know it
doesn't sound like I keep an open mind,
but I'm always willing to listen until you
tell me I'm going to hell or I won't
maintain my sobriety unless I pray and
give it up to the good lord above. We may
have a commonality of alcoholism, but
everyone's recovery is different.
Intentions may be good and I can
appreciate that but I need those who
continue to push, to accept my no thank
you and realize they are pushing me away
from AA. Right now, I'm dread the
meetings. Where I used to find comfort in
commonality, I finding scorn because I
haven't accepted my higher power
yet...whatever, It's frustrating and
certainly NOT what the recovering
alcoholic needs.
I don't miss alcohol right now. I know
what I did to my family and I know how
horrible I felt. I may not have been sober
for a full year, but I've been consciously
battling the"demon rum" for a good 14
months. For any women out there, I
suggest Susan Powter's book and how she
dealt with her alcoholism. It's helped me.
I also did a lot of reading and research
on the subject. Knowledge is the key to
sobriety for me, not prayer. And I respect
anyone that accepts their higher power and
is firm in their beliefs, just don't try
to convert me and let me accept sobriety
as mine.
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shadowalker164
Experienced User , Rather EHEALTHy
Joined: 14 Jan 2005 Posts: 175 Location: Tampa, FL
Posted: 11-12-07 10:03am
Mom, I an sorry you are having such a
tough time. I have little patients for the
Jesus fans prophesizing in meetings
myself. It is not in accord with the
program as I understand it, but it happens
never the less.
I get it when you say that you are the
master of your life. In spite of years of
AA, I still feel that this higher power is
an inside job. It is in me, it has been
from the beginning. I don’t call it
“he” I don’t give it a name at all.
But that isn’t what I want to talk to
you about,
The first guy I ever sponsored was a lot
like you. He told me he just couldn’t,
in all honesty tell me that he could ever
believe in a supernatural being of any
stripe. But he wanted to stay sober. He
discovered a program called Rational
recovery. I saw him maybe a year ago and
he was chairing a Rational Recovery
meeting. I sat in and I enjoyed it very
much, but mostly, I was happy that he was
sober and happy.
There is also another program called SOS
Secular Organization for Sobriety that is
much like Rational recovery. Sort of AA
without god. And there are more options
still.
Back in my LSD days, I started reading the
adventures of Don Juan. He was an mythical
Indian mystic living in Mexico. A primer
for all class A stoners back in the
60’s. At any rate, here is a little
ditty he wrote…
"Any path is only a path and there is no
affront, to oneself or to others, in
dropping it if that is what your heart
tells you. Look at every path closely and
deliberately. Try it as many times as you
think necessary. Then ask yourself, and
yourself alone, one question...Does this
path have a heart? If it does, the path is
good; if it doesn't it is of no use.”
Don Jaun
Mom, Look everywhere for that elusive
freedom, and here are a few links to get
you started.