We know the answer Gonee

it isn't AA any more, it's something else, it's "Middle of the road" "half measures" "don't drink and go to meetings" and not "with all of the earnestness at our command we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start", AA has fragmented into 2 camps, "Don't drink and go to meetings" and "No human power could relieve our alcoholism" the "meeting makers make it" crowd and the "If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it then you are ready to take certain steps, Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. we asked His protection and care with complete abandon." crowd

I am firmly in the middle although it doesn't appear that way on this site, I think 90 in 90 AND following the directions out of the book is effective, but the newcomer gets so many conflicting messages he doesn't know -who- to believe, so he believes the loudest voice, the voice repeated the most often, "don't drink and go to meetings" and tries the "easier softer way" and when it doesn't work, says to himself and others "AA doesn't work" when in fact if he hasn't taken the steps, he's never tried AA, just gone to some meetings

"How it works" is read at the beginning of every meeting yet it appears many don't even listen to what that says, that the steps are the "suggested program of recovery" for those that are "ready to go to any lengths"

I think with the advent of Treatment centers and court ordered alcoholics, non alcoholics, drug addicts, DUI offenders, heavy drinkers, and the hundreds of thousands of alcoholics sent to AA by everyone under the sun including therapists surpassed our ability to pass on what "the message" of AA really is, that changes started occuring so slowly we didn't see them until it was too late, and AA changed from a "solution based" program to a "group therapy" program, until now it is firmly entrenched in the AA culture

It used to be "rarely have we seen a person fail that thoroughly followed our path" now that path has changed, and it's "rarely have we seen a person succeed" that followed that new path of "don't drink and go to meetings" and as our program has changed our success rate has been dropping and dropping, until now, our numbers are the worst they have ever been, we keep less then 5% of the people who walk through the doors according to some studies, -which is the same rate alcoholics get sober without AA-

Gone is the idea that one has to "participate in their own recovery" that action is the key word, Dr Bob jelled the entire program down to 2 words, "Love and Service", that has changed to "group hug" and "How was your day", gone is the idea that selfishness, self centeredness is the root of the alcoholics problem, and newcomers are even encouraged to talk about themselves and their day at group level!!!!

Service and helping others as a foundation of recovery has disappeared, those that do so are called "the service people" by those who just attend meetings and talk about their day, gone is the idea that 12 step calls are important, that reaching behind us to pull the newer people up is the very foundation of sobriety, Love is an action word, and in AA I feel love should equal "service" or helping others, which is the antidote for selfishness, not "whining about my day" but "helping others"

Gone is the idea that the steps are the key, even though it is read at the beginning of every meeting, then newcomers are encouraged to "take it easy" and not work the steps too fast, to "wait a year" before working the steps

Gone is the idea that a groups primary purpose is to carry it's message to the still suffering alcoholic in favor of listening to the still suffering alcoholic talk about their day, and their problems, meetings used to be focused on "The Solution" now many are just focused on "The Problem", we have Treatment Center Graduates passing along Treatment Center Jargon and "tips and Tricks" like "Triggers" and calling it AA, when in fact it is the exact opposite of what AA is

Gone is the idea that a newcomer had to work the steps and get some time before he was considered able to offer anything to the meeting, that carrying the actual solution to alcoholism was a groups primary purpose, as opposed to listening to people with NO clue what the solution to alcoholism talk about "their day" to a room full of people who also don't know what the solution is, so they learn that SHARING YOUR PROBLEM is the solution, not sharing the solution, the problem is, you can't pass along what you don't have.

Gone is the idea that working with others is integral to ones own sobriety, gone are the people who read Chapter 7 and know what it says, much less the rest of the book

I see people who have been attending meetings for varying lengths of time who have never worked the steps, who have no working knowledge of the Traditions, who have never sponsored others, who have no familiarity with what The Big Book actually says espousing their personal views and calling it "AA" when in fact it is in DIRECT CONTRADICTION with what our program of action really says, they spout this nonsense and say it is AA, no wonder the newcomer is confused

When A.A. was very successful, the folks who did the talking in meetings

were recovered alcoholics. The suffering and untreated alcoholics listened.

After hearing what it takes to recover, the newcomer was faced with a

decision; "Are you going to take the Steps and recover or are you going to

get back out there and finish the job?" If they said they "were willing to

go to any length", they were given a sponsor, a Big Book and began the

process of recovery by taking the Steps and experiencing the Promises

that result from that course of action. This process kept the newcomer

involved in working with others and continued the growth of our Fellowship.

If it aint in the first 164 pages or the 12 x 12, it aint AA, pure and simple, some go so far as to exclude the 12 x 12, that is a personal preference I have no opinion on for others, I always liked the 12 x 12 and think it is a great supplement to the Big Book

With so very few finding lasting sobriety and the continued demise of AA

groups, it is obvious that we have not remained willing to admit our faults

and to correct them promptly. Seems to me that the Delegate of the

Northeast Ohio Area, Bob Bacon, identified our mistakes and our faults when

he talked to a group of AA's in 1976. He said, in essence, we are no longer

showing the newcomer that we have a solution for alcoholism. We are not

telling them about the Big Book and how very important that Book is to our

long-term sobriety. We are not telling them about our Traditions and how

very important they are to the individual groups and to Alcoholics

Anonymous as a whole. 

Rather, we are using our meeting time for drunkalogs,

a discussion of our problems, ideas and opinions or "my day" or "my way".

Having been around for a few years, and reflecting on what Bob Bacon had

to say, it would appear that we have permitted newcomers to convince the

old-timers that they have a better idea. They had just spent 30 or more

days in a treatment facility where they had been impressed with the need to

talk about their problems in Group Therapy Sessions. They had been told

that it didn't make any difference what their real problem was; A.A. had

the "best program". They were told that they should go to an A.A. meeting

every day for the 1st 90 days out of treatment. They were told that they

shouldn't make any major decisions for the 1st year of their sobriety. And

what they were told goes on and on, most of which are contrary to the

Program of Alcoholics Anonymous!

Apparently, what they were told sounded

pretty good to the A.A. members who were here when the TC clients started

showing up at our meetings. And a lot of the A.A. members liked the idea of

the treatment centers because the centers provided a place where they could

drop off a serious drinker, if he/she had insurance. That eliminated some of the

inconveniences we had been plagued with before; having to pour orange

juice and honey or a shot of booze down a vibrating alky to help them

"detox".

Our growth rate was approximately 7% and the number of sober members of

Alcoholics Anonymous doubled every 10 years. With the advent of the rapid

growth of the Treatment Industry, the acceptance of our success with

alcoholics by the judicial system and endorsement of physicians,

psychiatrist, psychologist, etc. all kinds of people were pouring into A.A.

at a rate greater than we had ever dreamed possible.

Almost without realizing what was happening, our meetings began

changing from ones that focused on recovery from alcoholism to

"discussion or participation" types of meetings that invited everyone to

talk about whatever was on their mind. The meetings evolved from a program

of spiritual development to the group therapy type of meeting where we

heard more and more about "our problems" and less and less about the

Program of Recovery by the Big Book and the preservation of our Fellowship

by adhering to our Traditions.

What has been the result of all this? Well, never have we had so many

coming to us for help. But never have we had such a slow growth rate which

has now started to decline. For the first time in our history, Alcoholics

Anonymous is losing members faster than they are coming in and our success

rate is unbelievably low. Statistics from the Inter-Group Office of some

major cities indicate less than 5% of those expressing a desire to stop

drinking is successful for more than 5 years;

The change in the content of our meetings is proving to be misery-traps for the newcomer and

in turn, misery-traps for the groups that depend on the "discussion or

participation" type meetings.

Why is this? The answer is very simple. When meetings were opened so

that untreated alcoholics & non-alcoholics were given the opportunity to

express their ideas, their opinions, air their problems and tell how they

were told to do it where they came from, the confused newcomer became more

confused with the diversity of information that was being presented. More

and more they were encouraged to "just go to meetings and don't drink" or

worse yet, "go to 90 meetings in 90 days". The newcomer no longer was told

to take the Steps or get back out there and finish the job. In fact, they

are often told, "Don't rush into taking the Steps. Take your time." The

alcoholics who participated in the writing of the Big Book didn't wait.

They took the Steps in the first few days following their last drink.

There have always been a few groups that would not yield to the group

therapy trend. They stayed firm to their commitment to try to carry a

single message to the suffering alcoholic. That is to tell the newcomer "we

have had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps and if you want

to recover, we will see that you have a sponsor who has recovered and will

lead you along the path the 1st 100 laid down for us". Recovered

alcoholics have begun founding groups that have a single purpose and

inform the newcomer that until they have taken the steps and recovered,

they will not be permitted to say anything in meetings. They will listen to

recovered alcoholics, they will take the Steps, they will recover and then

they will try to pass their experience and knowledge on to the ones who are

seeking the kind of help we provide in Alcoholics Anonymous. As this

movement spreads, as it is beginning to, Alcoholics Anonymous will again be

very successful in doing the one thing God intended for us to do and that

is to help the suffering alcoholic recover, if he has decided he wants what

we have and is willing to go to any length to recover, to take and apply

our Twelve Steps to our lives and protect our Fellowship by honoring our

Twelve Traditions.

There is a tendency to want to place the blame for our predicament on

the treatment industry and professionals. They do what they do and it has

nothing to do with what we in Alcoholics Anonymous do. That is their

business. That is not where to place the blame and also is in violation of

our Tenth Tradition.

The real problem is that the members of Alcoholics Anonymous, who were

here when the "clients" began coming to our Fellowship did not help the

"clients" understand that our Program had been firmly established since

April 1939, and that the guidelines for the preservation and growth of our

Fellowship were adopted in 1950. That they must get rid of their new "old

ideas" and start practicing the Twelve Step Program of Alcoholics Anonymous

as it was given to us. That until they had taken the Steps and recovered,

they had nothing to say that needed to be heard except by their sponsor.

But that didn't happen. To the contrary, the old timers failed in their

responsibility to the newcomer to remind them of a vital truth, "Rarely

have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who

do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves

to this simple program." We have permitted untreated alcoholics and

non-alcoholics to sit in our meetings and

lay out their problems, ideas and opinions.

We have gone from, "Rarely

have we seen a person fail" to "Seldom do we see a person recover".

So there we are. We have had 30 years of unbelievable success by

following the directions in the Big Book. We have had 30 years of

disappointing failure by wanting to hear from everyone. We now have

something to compare.

We now know what the problem is and we know what the solution is.

Unfortunately, we have not been prompt to correct the faults and mistakes,

which have been created by what would appear to be large doses of apathy

and complacency. The problem we are trying to live with is needlessly

killing alcoholics.

The Solution? The Power, greater than ourselves, that we find through

our Twelve Steps promises recovery for those who are willing to follow the

clear-cut directions in the Big Book.

Do you want to be a part of the problem or a part of the solution?

-- Edited by LinBaba on Sunday 28th of November 2010 01:29:56 PM

I agree with lot of the things Lin has said. 

Given that almost all the meetings in my area are "open meetings",  we get the court ordered, spouse/family/Doctor/Therapist/Church ordered, AA curious ETC.  Occasionally they do work the program and get sober.

Given that we don't pre-screen and have very few qualifications for meeting attendance and membership,  I wouldn't expect our success percentages to ever be great,  but I have seen a lot of miracles over the years every drunk is a mutually exclusive individual,  not a statistic.

I have seen less young people at our meetings the past 15 years,  many chose to attend NA meetings as they typically abused both the drink and drugs.  NA membership has surged.

I live in the NW Atlanta Burbs and the number of AA groups members and sobriety has really soared in the 10 years I have lived here, we really have a lot of good meetings and sobriety, although we do have a lot of the issues Lin has mentioned.

The SR. group members:

1) need to be part of the solution when issues/poor meeting content arises.  Meeting formats and chairperson/discussion leader guidelines need to be revised.

2)  Talk the the new people, if they are serious,  help get them involved and get sponsor to help them work the steps. (Don't just hang out taking to your old buddies)

3) Start a group if necessary. I was so pissed after a meeting one night, I had to take action. If you can help start a well run and formatted meeting,  other groups in the area will take note and start to use ideas to help their group.

4) Getting resentful and not going to meetings is BS,  it is our responsibility to make sure the light is on for the new person,  as it was on when we arrived for help.








   

Yeah, AA in my city certainly seems to be thriving.

In many areas of life, as people accumulate experience, they decry the fact that the world is changing around them and that things are not as good as they used to be.

I wonder if the thing that is really changing is THE OBSERVER. Having developed a pretty accurate internal meter of what works and doesn't work, I wonder if that makes the less useful practices stand out more in their minds and seem more important than they are.

Just speculation.

Thank you Lin Baba.

Sorry folks, that's the hard truth. We're shrinking.

I just got back from a meeting that both scared me and gave me hope.

A couple of people that didn't "get it" for TWENTY years!

Somebody that couldn't say they have recovered because it had only been four months.....

They are "in recovery". Others that were fighting to stay sober.

Scary.

Page 84, paragraph 4: "And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone - even alcohol. For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality - safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us."

Really. It just comes. The thing is, it comes from God. AA (the real program) is how to get the gift.
This other stuff just isn't working. A lot of people are making a lot of treatment center money, and their clients pay through the nose, and go back time after time after time...

And treatment center BS theory all has two major themes:

Encourage self centeredness.
Avoid God.

And now it has filled the rooms.
And the rooms are getting empty.

Hmmm.. going from 2.16 million to 2.1 million in ten years IS technically shrinking, yes, but that difference might be within the range of statistical error. It sounds like "not growing" is more accurate than "shrinking".

Could lack of growth not also result from reaching the saturation point? If there are 300 million people in the US, and 10% of them have a drinking problem, and only ten percent of THOSE people ever even ATTEMPT to quit, that would be 3 million.  If 2 million of them are in AA, that seems pretty good.

Changes in attitudes could indeed have impact also, agreed.  Just thinking out loud here.

I will also admit that it rankles me a bit when people talk in meetings about how the fellowship is the primary thing keeping them sober.  Human fellowship is a darn fragile thing and apt to collapse when things get tough.


-- Edited by zzworldontheweb on Tuesday 30th of November 2010 08:00:03 AM

I don't think it's logical to expect AA to continue to grow exponentially.  I think much of the recent growth has been from the influx of people from treatment programs, court orders, employee assistance programs, etc.  As we know from experience, the majority of these referrals are less than fully voluntary, and they don't stick around.  OTOH, the number of cold walk-ins does seem to be in decline, but I can't put a finger on why.   I came in cold.  AA was my first attempt of any kind to deal with my drinking.  I was not court ordered, or referred by a doctor, employer, or even urged by family - in fact it came as a shock to my wife at the time that I admitted I had a drinking problem.  I got the feeling that even then, a lot more people were going through some kind of therapy or treatment program first, or concurrent with AA.  I contemplated it, but when I called AA the person who answered the phone was blunt.  "You can not drink and go to meetings, or you can go spend 10 grand for a 30 day treatment program and THEN not drink and go to meetings".

I want to emphasize, "don't drink and go to meetings" isn't the entire program.  I don't know anyone who presents it that way, or anyone who assumes it's that way really.  It was told to me early on, and I clearly understood that not drinking and going to meetings gave me a foothold preferable to staying home and drinking.  That if I was going to get it, I had to want it, and a way to find out that I wanted it was to hang around some people who had it.  In order to do that, I didn't drink and I went to meetings.

But the other thing I heard pretty quickly was, AA is not for those who need it it's for those who want it.  I have never had any results "selling" AA to someone who doesn't want to stop drinking.  In fact, in many of these encounters it seemed like it was the other person doing the selling... when somebody with a bottle in one hand and a phone in the other tells me AA doesn't work, there isn't really anything I can do except move on.  I love to argue and debate as much as anyone, maybe more than most, but I love AA too much to reduce it to a tit-for-tat, should and should not, and I especially do not want to see AA become a crusading entity for solving social problems.  AA works because it works on an individual level; one alcoholic to another.  I could go out on a limb and say that maybe no problem ever gets solved except on an individual level.  But suffice it to say, individuality is very important to me.  The still-suffering alcoholic is a person.  When I see the line in the Big Book, about what can I do for the man who is still suffering, that's what I see - a man who is suffering.  It doesn't say what can I do to cure the world of the giant blight of alcoholism/addiction/mental illness.

Therefore, I don't feel that obsession with numbers and statistics is productive.  As some have pointed out, the stats have a very high margin of error because AA does not (and should not) keep membership rosters, has no method of policing sobriety, and none of those things would contribute to our primary purpose.  My goal today is to stay sober today, practice step 10, 11, and 12, and be ready to be the hand of AA should anyone reach out.  My goal is not to get those numbers back up there in the double-digit growth rate, or for that matter, to win any on-line arguments, or to project some politically correct image of AA... or project an oldtimer hard-core image of AA.  I have to pretty much get down to basics - I didn't come to AA to save the world, or save my soul.... I came to save my ass.  I'm sure there are plenty of people who don't like me and don't want what I have.  The only thing I can tell them is to keep coming back, go to more meetings, and they'll find someone they can relate to.

One other thing I want to say, is that I don't believe there are two "factions" in AA or that it is split between hard-core Big Book oldtimers and new-age touchy-feely therapy types.  AA is made up of millions of individuals, a few of which may see themselves as one or the other extreme, or more likely see others as the opposite extreme, but everybody is somewhere in between, off to the side this way or that.  If they are sober and they are happy, they must be doing something that works for them.  What I watch out for are people who are clearly miserable self-loathing grumps that want to tell me I have to do it their way or else I'll end up drunk and dead.  That was how I pictured sobriety when I walked through the door, and the funny part is, I was - at that moment - utterly willing to become stupid, boring and glum in order to cheat my fate at alcoholic death.  Fortunately, the first people I met were the opposite of stupid, boring, or glum and they offered something I wanted and were totally willing to give it away.

Barisax

LinBaba wrote:

---

Interesting this seems to be a recurring theme

People who say the steps ARE the Program = miserable self-loathing grumps

telling a newcomer that the 12 steps ARE the program = ass kicking

That going to a big book or step study and concentrating on The Solution = being told to shut up

Well there is certainly a recurring theme of you putting words in my mouth and connecting dots, as well as assuming you are the target of my response... LOL.

As to sponsoring people, that's an attraction-over-promotion thing.  I've never tried to convince anyone, overtly, directly, or indirectly, that I should be their sponsor.  I guess I am not perceived as someone with leadership or authority qualities, and I'm ok with that.  My original sponsor did come across as an authority, which is kind of interesting because hanging out with him never turned me into one.

I guess I should mention, even though it's not necessary, that for every self-loathing grump that I've met in AA, I've met 20 more who worked the steps and came across as happy, joyous and free.  The self-loathing grumps were more into putting people down and themselves down by inference, than working the steps.  In fact my own old-timer, traditionalist, authoritarian, slightly grumpy but not glum sponsor told me in the middle of my self-flagellation that I called my first attempt at a 4th step, to write down 10 good things about myself.  I hemmed and hawed and really couldn't think of anything and even when I tried to write something out - however qualified it may have been, this voice in my head was screaming "Liar! Liar!!"  That was something I came to very, very slowly.

I don't find grumpiness in the steps.  It's certainly possible to work the steps only from a negative side - and that's how to get mired in 4, 5, 8, 9 and never get around to 6 or 7.   When I came to AA, self-loathing was ME, it was my middle name and probably my first name and last name.  I was *attracted* to fellow self-loathing grumps, but fortunately that was short-lived.  There were people doing a whole lot better that attracted me and I got swept up in wanting what they had. 

I guess I still have way more ego than I can cope with, I'm still drawn into these threads even when I try to just live and let live.  Nothing I say is going to change anyone's opinion, and certainly isn't going to change their experience.  I'm going to try and just listen for a while.

Barisax

I wonder how much of a factor the continued use of the word "God" (rather than "Higher Power") is?

When I attended a day treatment program, I met a lot of women who were experiencing their first exposure to AA meetings. Many of them were turned off and gravitated towards alternate programs like Lifering because of the frequent mentions of God in AA. I discussed this with them an tried to explain that I'm also not religious but that "God" just means a Higher Power, mine is sometimes the strength of the AA community, sometimes the power of time, it doesn't have to be a religious god. Still, I think replacing "god" with "higher power" in the literature might make the program more palatable to a wider audience.

That said, we have something like 700 meetings a week here in San Francisco so I think AA seems pretty alive and healthy!

GG

Looks like the idea of God was never popular; that may be the point:



"I was in favor of practically everything he had to say except one thing," Wilson later recalled of his conversations with Thatcher. "I was not in favor of God."
After a couple of days at Towns Hospital, Bill Wilson was past the d.t.'s and feeling really low. Science could do nothing for him. He now realized that he couldn't kick the booze by himself. Yet he was unable to believe in the only power experts knew of to save a drunk.

Then:




"Like a child crying out in the dark, I said, 'If there is a Father, if there is a God, will he show himself?' And the place lit up in a great glare, a wondrous white light. Then I began to have images, in the mind's eyes, so to speak, and one came in which I seemed to see myself standing on a mountain and a great clean wind was blowing, and this blowing at first went around and then it seemed to go through me. And then the ecstasy redoubled and I found myself exclaiming, 'I am a free man! So this is the God of the preachers!' And little by little the ecstasy subsided and I found myself in a new world of consciousness."

Wilson never had another drink.

Rainspa, I think that's kind of my point. In the big book the message is that if you are an atheist/agnostic, you just haven't had your magical conversion experience YET. A lot of people find that patronizing. Many people have thought it through over a lifetime and do not believe in the sort of god described in the big book. But the world is still full of many powers greater than ourselves from which we can draw strengh. I think the key part is turning your will and your life over to fate or some other higher power and recognizing that we as humans cannot control the outcome, so we need to stop trying -- to whom or what we are turning it over is of less importance. I just think it would be helpful if that was more clear to the newcomer.

Personally, I would love to believe in a god, I think it would be so comforting to think there is someone up there watching over me and designing a path for my life. But you can't just make yourself believe something you know in your heart isn't true, and that shouldn't stop anyone from working the steps in their own way and getting sober through AA.

GG

Twelvesteps, regarding it being comforting to think there is someone up there watching over one and designing a path for one's life, it can actually be pretty terrifying because the plan He is hatching may be neither comfortable nor easy. Martyrdom is one possibility some have faced!

It's not so much comfort as groundedness. If one recognizes order in the universe then a lot of things make a lot more sense than they would otherwise.

-- Edited by zzworldontheweb on Thursday 2nd of December 2010 11:03:38 PM

   

LinBaba sez "The only people I have ever seen stumble on that (choosing one's own concept of God) are people who get stuck looking at others peoples concept of God and can't get it together to have their own concept."

 

I was thinking about this subject back in February, so some of my post is from an older post, but it still represents where I am at with my own concepts surrounding this "God thing", which at base is what AA is all about...no way around that, it is an historical fact...the central thesis of God as the Power greater than ourselves may be morphing into something else these days, but, if, so, then too is AA, which comes full circle back to the first post on this thread.

 

Since I am Not God...whatever the heck I understand, or dont understand that to be, or not to be...it means there is hope for me, because I do not have to go it alone...and that is what AA is all about.

 

My shortcomings are merely human...there is no human behavior, however horrifying and despicable, that only one person possesses. We are all in this together. If there is the capacity to be honest, then there is hope. If there is hope, then there is the potential for humbleness. 

 

I have learned in my sobriety that if I can humble myself enough to allow some genuine  humility emerge from within and be evidenced externally, I will live and grow in sobriety and receive...and be able and willing to share...all the good things that brings. If not, then I am sorely limited and may perish, in the soul-death of alcoholism, dry or drunk.

 

It concerns me that there is such an aversion, distortion,  dilution, substitution thing going on in AA culture today that seems bent on chipping away at the (undeniably Christian) roots and essence that birthed and has carried this fellowship for pushing 100 years now. Just as we tend to attribute anthropomorphic qualities to God (and capitalize His name) we speak of AA as though it is a single living entity. AA can not sustain itself. We have to do it.

-- Edited by leeu on Friday 3rd of December 2010 08:16:18 PM

leeu wrote:

---

LinBaba sez "The only people I have ever seen stumble on that (choosing one's own concept of God) are people who get stuck looking at others peoples concept of God and can't get it together to have their own concept."

I was thinking about this subject back in February, so some of my post is from an older post, but it still represents where I am at with my own concepts surrounding this "God thing", which at base is what AA is all about...no way around that, it is an historical fact...the central thesis of God as the Power greater than ourselves may be morphing into something else these days, but, if, so, then too is AA, which comes full circle back to the first post on this thread.

Since I am Not God...whatever the heck I understand, or dont understand that to be, or not to be...it means there is hope for me, because I do not have to go it alone...and that is what AA is all about.

My shortcomings are merely human...there is no human behavior, however horrifying and despicable, that only one person possesses. We are all in this together. If there is the capacity to be honest, then there is hope. If there is hope, then there is the potential for humbleness.

I have learned in my sobriety that if I can humble myself enough to allow some genuine humility emerge from within and be evidenced externally, I will live and grow in sobriety and receive...and be able and willing to share...all the good things that brings. If not, then I am sorely limited and may perish, in the soul-death of alcoholism, dry or drunk.

It concerns me that there is such an aversion, distortion,  dilution, substitution thing going on in AA culture today that seems bent on chipping away at the (undeniably Christian) roots and essence that birthed and has carried this fellowship for pushing 100 years now. Just as we tend to attribute anthropomorphic qualities to God (and capitalize His name) we speak of AA as though it is a single living entity. AA can not sustain itself. We have to do it.

-- Edited by leeu on Friday 3rd of December 2010 08:16:18 PM

 

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I don't think "choosing your own concept of God" is diluting the program though, I got sober on the "left coast", in San Francisco and The Bay Area, where there is a LOT of Eastern Religion, Atheism, and Agnostics, the where I know hundreds, if not thousands of people who's concept of God doesn't include the Christian Deity, and they are Big Book fundamentalists, as am I

This Program is meant to be a spiritual one, not religious, and as Bill states, the realm of the spirit is all inclusive, never exclusive, one doesn't need to be a follower of The Christ to find the realm of the spirit, but many of us had Christianity shoved down our throats as children and adults, just like Bill when he describes his experiences in WE Agnostics, so many newcomers are touchy about what could be construed as the Religious aspect of The Program, until they learn it is a spiritual program, not a religious program, and there is complete and utter freedom of religion and beliefs in AA. AA, like the realm of the spirit, is inclusive to all alcoholics, not just the Christian ones.

All we need is the willingness to believe in a Power greater then ourselves, it needn't be a Christian Power

To help other alcoholics achieve sobriety, Bill W. borrowed and embraced many of the Oxford Group's principles, of which there were four requiring members to:

• Make restitution to any people they'd harmed;
• Take a moral inventory by listing "personal defects;"
• Confess these defects to another person; and
• Receive direction from God through prayer and meditation.

After parting ways because Bill W. thought the Oxford Group was becoming too political and too black-and-white (and other reasons, both sides were pretty tired of each other, but one reason was to allow Catholics in AA LB), he wanted a program of tolerance and not specific requirements. It was then that he talked about a "higher power" as the source of conversion experience. This could be a Christian God or any other power greater than him- or herself that an alcoholic would accept.

A.A. members can believe in anything they wish, including the Christian religion, but everyone, no matter WHAT their religios beliefs are, are entitled to full membership in the A.A. fellowship including atheists, agnostics, Jews, Moslems, Buddhists, Hindus, and many others who are recovering alcoholics.

The A.A. Preamble
The A.A. Preamble states: A.A. is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution. This is clear enough. If A.A. is not allied with any sect, denomination ... or institution, then it is not allied with the Christian religion, which is, after all, one particular sect. There do exist other religions and other beliefs, and it is my experience that The Program of AA is big enough for all of them, which is why we have no opinion of outside religion...there is no need for it, nor a place for it in AA.

You an Alcoholic that worships a flying female spaghetti monster?

Welcome, you are in the right place

The Third Tradition
The Third Tradition says: The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking.  It does not say, the only requirement is to believe in a Christian Deity