I'm am trying to find a way to be part of the fellowship of AA, but I found some barriers which made me uncomfortable. Maybe this is my problem. I started the other thread not to be confrontational, I just hoped for some answers, so I'll just say that I don't mean to criticize and be negative, I just needed some questions answered and hoped I would find some understanding on the forum. I apologise if I offended anyone.
I've not had a drink in 17 months have been to AA and I'm thinking of going back. I don't want or need to drink anymore but I'd like to live my life with good principles and deal with my defects of character on a regular basis. I really miss the fellowship, of meeting people who completely understand me.
I highly suggest AA simply because although it is not the only way to get and stay sober. It seems to work best for most. In AA look for people and experiences you can identify with. Many of us in the beginning looked at differences and that slowed or even stopped in some cases our growth.
We suggest 90 meetings in 90 days. Getting and staying sober is for most of us the hardest thing we have ever done in our lives. It is also the most rewarding.
Find someone of the same sex that seems to be living the type of life you want and ask them to be your sponsor. Don't worry about commitments if you picked the wrong person it is ok to fire them and look for another. AA is a simple program but most alcoholics, me included, tend to complicate the heck out of it. That is where the real value of a sponsor comes in as they can make it simple for us,
Larry, ---------------- Once you are a Pickle You can't go back to being a Cucumber
You may find you feel different this time about the things you felt uncomfortable with the first time round - and even if not, you may feel in a position to ask for some clarification re the barriers you perceive and feel after the meeting. I have known this happen to people.
Something that helped me was to take what I needed from the meeting and leave the rest. If I struggled with stuff - say for instance were I to struggle with the Lord's prayer being said at the end of a meeting (I can get easily freaked out by religion - or what I perceive to be religion) I would hold hands and just stay silent and say my own little prayer.
For me, the concept of taking what I liked and leaving the rest was so helpful as it enabled me to continue to go and just like you so beautifully shared have "the fellowship, of meeting people who completely understand me."
Sending you lots of love, stick around and I feel sure you will find your way......seems to me you're finding it now! Louisa xx
-- Edited by louisa on Monday 26th of July 2010 10:58:02 AM
I have been practicing an alternative spirituality nearly as long as I have been in the program, which is (actively) since '83. I stay silent during the Lord's prayer, and say a quiet few words of my own. I always figured that if I'm willing to drink a pint of vodka for breakfast, or stick an unknown powder up my nose, standing quietly for a prayer that is giving support to others who are also supporting me is a small, miniscule thing to do in the scheme of things. It supports others trying to stay clean and sober, and it hurts me much much less to be there loving those around me than what I used to do. I consider it a win-win. I give a little but get a whole lot---like, my life. I don't think of it as offensive, and nobody is forcing me or even questioning me about my beliefs. It's just giving back, and by acknowledging that I'm doing it by choice, and with love, it lets me keep my own control, without feeling threatened. I need those people and those steps and a program if I want to have a quality sobriety. Yes, I may be able to stay sober without them, and I have. But the risk? And the quality of my sobriety suffers if I don't have others trying to stay sober around me a few times a week. All in all, a small "price" to pay, to just hold other's hands as we stand in what I think of as a sacred space for a few moments, sharing eachothers desire and energy to have a good, hopeful and sober life.... be well, Chris
Hi Larry and louisa, Thanks for your replies and understanding. I certainly do tend to complicate things and I know it's something I have to overcome for my own good.
BTW I was baptized a Christian, go to Church very occasionally and say the Lord's Prayer in Church, but enough said on that subject.
Welcome to MIP brandysnap! I can relate to finding barriers in AA. My biggest was my resentment towards God and religion in general. I didn't have a God of my own understanding. I was using one that wasn't merciful and forgiving. 5 years later I finally discovered that I could find and use my own God. If religion had been any part of AA I would still be drinking today. Thankfully, I learned that religion and spirituality were 2 totally different things. Today I work toward my spirituality, and leave organized religion where it belongs...in church.
I wonder, have you ever read the entire serenity prayer. The half that's left out seems to be just as religious (imho) as the Lords prayer. Just a curious question, not trying to start a debate here ;).
Anyhow, stick around and share your ESH with us all. We all need help staying sober...but only for today!
BrandySnap, Welcome to the board. I can relate. It took me 3 years of in & out of the program before my life sucked and there was no alternative left. I look back at it now as a blessing. The gift of desperation. What it did was make me: get honest, open to new ideas and be willing to change........ The gift that keeps giving today if I continue to work at it. I love the AA people and program today. I work it hard and my life keeps getting better. I hope you find your way back soon.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next. Amen.
I appreciate your concerns. I have neither a resentment toward nor a belief in the concept of "God." I wasn't raised with religion at all and am generally atheist or agnostic (depending on my mood), and was very uncomfortable with that aspect of AA at first.
Nevertheless, I found out a lot of people in the fellowship feel the same way. There are so many things you can choose to see as your higher power. For me, it's my grandparents -- even though I don't believe they're really up there watching over me from an intellectual standpoint, there's a part of me that thinks maybe their spirits are somehow listening, and I am able to pray and talk to them (and imagine how they would guide me and what they want for me in my life) in a way that feels genuine to me.
Other things I have known people to envision as their "Higher Power": - The collective strength of the other women in their AA meetings - The ocean or nature in general - "Fate," some sort of ordered nature of the universe - Their dog - An imaginary wise old surfer dude
Like Louisa said, just take what you want and leave the rest, or modify it to fit what works for you.
I hope you make your way back to AA and look forward to hearing your perspective here.
Aloha Brandy...Thanks for coming and reaching out for help cause if you let absolutely nothing stand in the way of your sobriety and sanity you will get that in bunches and bunches. I read your earlier post and thanks Dean for not erasing it cause it might not have been useful for those of us with other perspective to inventory our recovery principles.
Brandy early on in recovery It was suggested that I drop the pronoun "we" when I spoke out. The reason was that I could only speak for myself and then I understood that as far as my own recovery and progress it was an "I" program. I got what I wanted and looked for and worked on. I was the one that chose my road blocks what ever they were. It is I who is responsible not "we" as long as I have the choice.
I was told in very early recovery (which was coming in by the door of the Al-Anon Family Groups) that "we are not a religious program...(I was a very suspicious Catholic person) but if you work these steps religiously... I came to understand.
I find that often fear is the basis of my objections and that my definition of fear as taught by this program of recovery is False Evidence Appearing Real. It is all false evidence because it is created in my oppositionally defiant mind/brain. And then it was the program again that gave me the key to open the door of open mindedness. I can listen to anything today and consider it all and in the end it is I who get to pick and choose what it is I will use to gain and maintain my sobriety...just like I use to shop for my booze. This is a choose program for me.
I started recovery as a then lifetime member of a fundamental Christian religion that some very wrongly associate the ownership of the Lord's Prayer to. Actually that's not accurate at all.
I have stood in the closing circle of a meeting and listened to a Blackfoot Indian close it with the prayer to the "Great Creator Father" and been spiritually enlightened. Today I am neither a member of my former church or a blackfoot indian and I am a fully participating member of recovery with 31+ years of spiritual recovery who hasn't had a need like you to drink a mind and mood altering drink. I have attained that with the help of others like yourself...newbies who had the desire to get and stay sober and sane. I am forever grateful to my higher power as I understand my higher power for allowing all of it into my life so I could become a use to others.
Here is something an early sponsor taught me for nothing that may help you if you care to. "Put no barrier up against what another member in recovery may offer you." If you use an open mind you will find help. An open mind entertains no fear.
Thank you, thank you, thank you TwelveSteps and Jerry. I am in the middle of packing an overnight bag as I'm going away for a couple of days with my husband. Your posts have given me food for thought. I'll digest them better when I have more time.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next. Amen.
I know a member in my area who calls herself a "devout heathen". She's 21 years sober, goes to at least one meeting a day, has never taken the 12 steps, and is very comfortable and happy in her sobriety. I don't think too many people have been able to skip the Steps and still stay happily sober for that amount of time - but apparently it is possible. Anyway, it's probably true that the majority in THIS country have adopted some version of the Christian "God", but there is a very large minority (of which I'm one) who get by just fine having some other conception or remaining largely agnostic. The program will work for anyone who wants it to work for them. My sponsor is quite a bit too religious for my taste, and has done some things I find objectionable -- like assigning some non-AA reading with serious religious overtones, having a Bible prominently placed in his home, etc. However, I've managed to accept these things about him, just take what works for me and leave the rest. I'm sure you will be able to do the same - and then you'll be able to be of service to the many that follow you who are also uncomfortable with the Christian idea of "God".
You gotta admit it's kinda funny to find it "objectionable" that someone displays a Bible in his own home!
I know what you mean, though about the rest. My sponsor has a tendency to forward me those ultra-inspiring powerpoint slideshows with sunsets and flowers and puppies and babies with "inspirational" "poetry" (which I find to be neither)--the kinda stuff that makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little.
I know she forwards them to everyone on her email list, though, so I don't take it personally. I know where the "delete" button on my email is.
Still, she is very tolerant and understanding about my own sort of amorphous religious beliefs (agnostic with an open mind, I'd like to think), and doesn't try to pressure me to accept her concept of God. She has good sobriety and lives the program according to its principles.
I like what Chris had to say about being tolerant of practices like the Lord's Prayer. I say it, and I'm not sure to whom I'm saying it, but a little gratitude and expression for a desire to forgive others, and so forth, never hurts (in my opinion).
Oh, and a big WELCOME to Brandysnap! Glad you have joined us!
-- Edited by Lexie on Monday 26th of July 2010 07:52:32 PM
I was raised Unitarian Universalist which is a very secular religion where some members are even atheist. It is like AA where you can believe what you want more or less. Anyhow, I didn't even know the Lord's Prayer until I came into AA. What I do is focus on the actual words in the prayer rather than where it came from. I do want my higher power's will to be done. I would like to to live in a world where I have sustenence to survive (daily bread). I very much would like to be forgiven of my trespasses and forgive those who trespass against me. And...there is something glorious about all of this, even though I don't fully understand it and I don't have to. Hence, I have no problem with the Lords Prayer AT ALL and this comes from a super liberal unitarian universalist democrat...shrug.
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