(((((AMJM)))))  He knows and so do alot of other people.  Trying to hide it is about wanting to have the booze and the bounty both at the same time.  I couldn't do that either because it was me telling on me and so even when I was hating AA I was hating myself more.  Damned if I did and damned if I didn't.  My wife was alcohollic/addict and so she became my excuse to get into Al-Anon and I guess that was good for me because it taught me to look at myself and the wide picture honestly and I finally took the Alcoholic Assessment Questionaire...for me.  After I turned it in to a nurse on the adult section of the rehab I was working in...(it was an anonymous assessment) I was told that who ever it belonged to needed to be in inpatient care immediately or the next time they drank they died.  I was honest on that assessment and I got the big nudge I needed to get into the rooms, find my chair, sit down...all the way down, listen, learn and then practice, practice, practice.  At 16 years I strongly felt I was done with AA and was leaving the program cause I thought kinda sorta I was cured.  I'm glad I didn't...I might not have ever gotten to read your post tonight.  I want to be sober...better still I like it.   Keep coming back.  Choose your 4th meeting and go as fast as you can.   In support (((((hugs)))))

Thank you. I really do appreciate your response. Apparently I was still writing a second message of my own when you posted yours.

 

Sis...I relate cause I've been there in a bit of difference haveing been raised in the church and abuse by some of the laity and then to have my first marriage destroyed by a church that my then wife was getting fanatic with.  I am not atheist because I've never trusted my own thinking.  Alcoholism is an addiction so worse yet it didn't take any thinking.  I arrived at participating until I was pure victim of the disease.  I was born pre-disposed and active from the age of 9.  What the hell was I going to think my way out of?  I didn't even know about alcoholism...couldn't spell it...didn't say it until I got into recovery.  The psuedo-Christian/God atmosphere put me off alot because by then my first marriage was ashes and I didn't like what was happening to me.  I am grateful beyond words for the philosophy and perception of a "God of my own understanding"  I could handle that being just what I was then.  They weren't of course asking me to join a church and no told me I "had to do" anything.  I was so oppositional and defiant when I got in that I wouldn't listen to the suggestions without having to take days on end to do it.  Since then I have heard tons of personal shares on "God as they understood God" and I'm fine with mine which has evolved during recovery.   One night at my home group a Blackfoot Indian was to close with the usual Lords Prayer and he confided in me that he just couldn't do that because he didn't know it and he was a Blackfoot Indian and since it was so close to closing the meeting I told him "do it the way you were taught John...do it your way".  Ever hear a Blackfoot Indian talk to their Creator/Father?  It wasn't a prayer it was almost a face to face conversation and I've never forgotted the grace of it for me or the prayer.  I learned to have a conversation between my higher power and myself.  A couple of weeks ago I was talking to a new member who stated she was a Jew and that she had trouble with the Christian God of the program.  I told her I didn't know where her problem was that wasn't it the Jews that had cornered the market on God?  She knee jerked for a second and they she laughed out loud.  I was raise in and around the Hawaiian Culture...the name of my Higher Power is Akua...the God of all of our other gods.  That name isn't found much less ever mentioned in the church I was baptized into and served in many capacities in until it finally became the God of my understanding.  I am not such a powerful thinker that I can prove or disprove the other God or no Gods...I'm free to have my own personal relationship with positive consequences in my life.

One of the natural characteristics of the alcoholic is resistance mainly due to fear.  I'm so fortunate that I was brought out of fear in my first year of recovery.  Free at last.

If you still have that risky nature that we alcoholics all have...every time we try to sneak one around our lovers and/or around our promises not to...we are exercising the risk of drinking without remorse or guilt.  I never could do that.  Soooo if you believe that one of the psychological markers of the alcoholic is that we're risk takers...take the risk of your 4th meeting and or the risk of saying into the atmosphere..."Help me" than take the risk of not doing the next drink...You've got support and unconditional love and tons and tons of experience at your keyboard.  I read your posts and think of some of our other members who will be coming up behind me.  Keep coming back (((((hugs)))))

If you could at least turn that "atheism" to agnostic, it would help. Sticking to a hard line of "I don't believe in any god of any sort" is closed-minded. If you can at least open it a crack to get to the point of "Hey, I'm not convinced yet but whatever..." that will help greatly. I think some folks having rejected the God of traditional religion, then start calling themselves atheist when, in fact, they just have not developed a concept of a higher power they can understand.

There are clearly things out there larger than you. There are questions like "What keeps the world going?" "What happens when we die?" "Where is the end of the universe?" Do you really know the answers to those questions? Not really. Nobody can factually know those things. By admitting simply "I don't know" That is a huge step in recovery. It's not about embracing a traditional God. It's about stopping the process of being cynical, crapping on life, and starting to see possibilities instead of doom. That shift of thinking is the spiritual shift and the life of faith they are getting at in AA. It has nothing to do with a Christian God or any other religion. Hence, if you hear people saying "Jesus" or "God"...it's just what they have embraced as their personal HP along their own spiritual journey in AA.

When I came into AA, I was so miserable that I had a mentality of "oh well...can't beat em...might as well join em." I didn't necessarily adopt God right away but I wasn't averse to it and I didn't reject what faith was doing for other people. I wanted that. Stop clinging to misery due to what you think doesn't exist. Go to AA with an open mind this time. It works much better that way.

AMJM . I  Still DON'T understand  the God bit .

Yes , even after more than 26 yrs of sobriety .

But , th God bit understands me , that sits fine with me .

AMJM , a bloke I mentioned in a post yesterday , Typhoon Tony.

Came out with a 'Pearler' (trans - a gem of an idea) at one of my very early meetings .

"God has Not saved us from drowning , to kick us to death on the beach".

AMJM , he/she don't care if you don't believe in her/him . It says in the 2nd step .

"Came to believe" , it does not say you have to , or when this will happen .

AMJM , your disbelief & my misunderstanding of a 'power greater than our self' ,

could help somebody else . Is that what we are about . To "keep our sobriety , we give it away".

Could we be helping somebody who is in a quandry about 'th higher power bit' .

Remember "Crocodile Dundee" , movie 1 . In the scene at th billabong . Linda asks Hoges .

"Do you believe in God?"  Hoges replies "Yeah , God's me mate .

AMJM , my7 prayers for th day are like this . I throw my legs out of bed , plant me feet on th floor .

"Thank you God for Today . Mate what are WE doing Today . Lead me , guide me Safely & Sanely Today"

if I am in a bit of a hurry I add . Mate I'm in a bit of a rush Today , best You keep up .

At night . 'Thanks Mate' .

 if I'm not too tired . 'Thank you God for today'

AMJM , I sorta hope this helps You a LOT , I KNOW it has helped me a lot also .

Just think , one day , you may do something like this that will help me .

IS this what WE are about . Helping each other .

 

I wish I had a chance to go back and make that decision, I finally made the decision about 22 years later (Daughter was 25).Better late than never I guess. Dont wait any longer, 22 years later you will look back and say I made the right decision to quit drinking.

Welcome AMJM,

I will PM you the link to Athiest guide the recovery in AA. Below is a section:

So whats the point of being here? (AA)

They have something, these people. You can feel it, and you can see it in the smiles of the best of them. Some of their stories are a lot worse than yours, and theyre fat and happy now. They have a solution to this endless, insane habit of eating yourself alive for emotional sustenance until youre gnawing away at your own heart. Theyre not getting loaded and theyre not white-knuckling it. They just dont need it anymore. Youre pretty sure theres no God up there, so what in the world is at work here?

Heres the nut of what they have going on in a quote from their literature:


This is the how and why of it. First of all we had to quit playing God. It didnt work.

They stopped playing God.

You dont run the world, so stop trying. You cant alter the law of cause and effect, especially when the cause is a drink or a drug, and the effect is the need to drink and use even more. Wishing, hoping, pretending that you can change the things you cant this could be described poetically as playing God. The folks here have quit that position. It was a suck job anyhow.

Im referring only to the people that are actually practicing the principles represented in the steps. There are plenty of poor bastards here too who are just following their herd instinct and are staying dry because they couldnt bear the disapproval of their new friends. For the most part theyre a miserable lot. Some of these people will get loaded again and eventually die of their addictions because they cant bear to come back through those doors minus the badge of however many years they had without a drink or a drug. That pride in their clean and sober time was in essence their new drug. Theyre not your concern.

But the people who really have decided to stop playing God, they have something you need. They have a willingness to live life on lifes terms. And the most important of those terms is that if youre an alcoholic or an addict, you cant get loaded recreationally. For people like us the consequences of getting loaded are disastrous. Jails, institutions, death they will tell you and you can see its true from the arc of your own experience.

Most of these people gave up playing God because they came to believe there is a God and so of course they accept that they cant possibly be Him. Perfectly logical. You can do it for the simple reason that it just doesnt work. Thats enough, isnt it? Maybe its time to say enough of doing what doesnt work. That youre not God means quite simply that you dont dictate the laws of reality. It doesnt really matter who or what does. Thats what the 12-step program has for you.