Bare minimum

gonee · MIP Old Timer

Bare minimum

Larry_H · MIP Old Timer

Over the years I have seen far too many people doing the AA Waltz

!, 2, 3, Slip !, 2, 3, Slip   They as you say Gonee, never get further than step 3

GOD as you undersatnd him seems to trip a lot of us up. Mine was the traditional view but I viewed God like an accountant who was keeping track of what I did.
I believed God could help me but for a while I did not believe he would. The reason was I viewed myself as a bad person instead of a sick person that had done some bad things. When my viewpoint changed my understanding of God changed.

I have seen many Agnostics and a few Atheists who get the program having no problem with finding a God of their understanding.   The factor that seems to count most is that the God of their understanding has a reasonable chance of helping them get sober.   That kind of leaves out the few that for example say the light bulb in the room is their higher power. Although they may rationalize that the light buld is a Higher Power, they can not logically see how it will help them stay sober. These people unfortunatly seldom stay sober.   Their is another group that use a God of their understanding.  One example says that the God of their understanding is the AA Group. GOD = Group Of Drunks. Does the Group of drunks have more power than the single Alcoholic? - You bet they do. Can they help you stay sober? - You bet they can.

We know that Bill W., Dr. Bob and the early AA groups used God as traditionally understood as their Higher Power. They even used the Bible and read from it as part
of the AA meetings. Then the first Agnostic got sober and suggested that a God of our understanding could get them sober.  The Alcoholics that wrote the Big Book
wisely changed the wording to "God as We Understood Him"

Larry,
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People see God every day, they just don't recognize him. ~Pearl Bailey

AGO · MIP Old Timer

That little blip has saved more lives then Dr House on TV, as we understand him

We needed to ask ourselves but one short question. "Do I now believe, or am I even willing to believe, that there is a Power greater than myself?" As soon as a man can say that he does believe, or is willing to believe, we emphatically assure him that he is on his way. It has been repeatedly proven among us that upon this simple cornerstone a wonderfully effective spiritual structure can be built.

All I had to do was be willing to believe in my own concept of a power greater then myself, I didn't have to believe anything, I just had to be open minded

My Third Step

I believe the twelve steps are a mathematical equation that when worked bring about a personality change sufficient to recover from alcoholism.

I used electricity as a "power greater then yourself" concept, it started with electricity then "evolved" to include every single thing in The Universe.

When working with Atheist sponsees I take them through that thought process, first going over we agnostics, then sharing how I did it:

First I tell them if you don't believe in a power greater then yourself I'd like you to stick your tongue in that electrical outlet over there, get back to me when you are done to tell me how it went.

Then I use my paramedic training to tell about the heart, how it has electricity in it, how in the absence of electricity the person dies, and how there is also electrical activity in the brain, and if the electrical activity in the Brain stops they either go "brain dead" or will actually die if the damage is severe enough. Without electricity you wouldn't be alive.

Every living thing in the world has electrical activity, there is even electricity in trees and plants (very very small amounts but it's there)

I explain how it fits the greeting "Namaste" which means:

# "I respect divinity within you that is also within me." (Here, "that" refers to divinity, or that which is divine.)
# "The light within me honors the light within you." (in yoga)

and how it fits with all of the interconnectedness and spiritual theories, as in there is divine in all of us, and the "oneness theories" but all animals, trees, everything has electricity in it in some form or fashion but by using a basic principle such as electricity you can use that to build to a Power greater then yourself that is personal to you.

I explain that the truth is, no one really knows what electricity is, but that it may very well be part of a divine light, a divine spark if you will, since every living creature possesses it.

I also bust out with "A new Pair of Glasses" and show many passages that confused me greatly for over a decade about his description of God, and how he states he is not a christian then uses many sayings attributed to Jesus to show many things, but how spirituality can "fit" in with Christianity. (many are pretty anti-christian when they get to me, so by using we agnostics, Glasses, and the electricity analogy by the time they walk away they are open minded and realize they have been displaying the very character defects they claimed not to like in Christianity)

I talk about how it's actually the ego that is trying to kill us, that voice in our head, and we need to learn how to start listening to that voice in our hearts which takes place from working the steps.

I talk about him finding "God" in the last place we ever thought to look, inside our own heart, how we (as a species) go "looking for God" when it's inside of us all the time. I tell the story of the three fish, swimming in the Ocean, and the big fish that swims by and says "Hello boys, nice day, waters great today huh?" one fish looks at another and asks, "what is water" and the three fish spend the rest of their life swimming around the Pacific Ocean, looking for water, in which they live and breathe and have their very existence.

Anyway, yes, I start with Electricity, from there it moves to spiritual principals, I show that reliance on a deity made in a human image need not concern them, but how once they have their own concept of God, they can plug that value into anywhere the word God is written (in the big book) and have it work.

Faced with alcoholic destruction, we soon became as open minded on spiritual matters as we had tried to be on other questions. In this respect alcohol was a great persuader. It finally beat us into a state of reasonableness. Sometimes this was a tedious process; we hope no one else will prejudiced for as long as some of us were.

-- Edited by AGO on Friday 23rd of April 2010 08:52:53 AM