A.A. Gets Honest with Clergy about Atheists and Agnostics

A.A. puts out a pamphlet, #25, called Members of the Clergy ask about Alcoholics Anonymous. It makes for some very interesting reading. It appears that A.A. is willing to tell the clergy things that it has a problem saying to the membership in general.

For example, in the Introduction, 3rd paragraph, it states:

• "It would be unrealistic to assume that all A.A. members are spiritually inspired. Many, too, are not committed to a formal body of religious doctrine."

The second sentence is so obvious it's almost a non-starter. But the first sentence is a shocker. To hear that it is "unrealistic" to expect everyone in a God-driven program to be spiritually inspired is like saying "the god of your understanding is not important". Of course, there is no reason except tradition to link a god to "spirituality", since I am a spiritual person without a god. But A.A. doesn't link them together, either, at least not if you say one sentence "necessarily follows" the other, because it doesn't necessarily follow, and A.A. doesn't make it out to be that way.

But the next section of the pamphlet makes it clear that A.A. is indeed "religiously oriented", because they tell the clergy that A.A. is "a nonsectarian, nondenominational ally in their efforts to help alcoholics..." It would not be necessary to disclaim any link to a sect or a denomination if AA was entirely "sectarian".

" Sectarian groups are religious, political or ideological organizations whose services are limited to a particular sect..." So A.A. makes the truthful claim that they do not ally with any sect in particular, but we must assume that they are not secularist or they would plainly say so.  Instead, they claim "non-sectarianism", the same as Universalist-Unitarian churches.

And yet, speaking of the honesty shown to the clergy, A.A. says that "Nonalcoholics attending an A.A. meeting for the first time are often surprised to note...[that] some members recount their drinking experience [in] a decidedly agnostic tone..."

If the GSO already knows this, why don't they tell those yokels down in Georgia who believe in the Christian God alluded to in the A.A. Big Book as though it was the Bible?

And under the heading of "Is Religious Belief Part of the A.A. Program?" the pamphlet specifically states:

"Individual members are free to interpret these values as they think best, or not to think about them at all." [emphasis added] 

And going on, where the Big Book tells us several times in different ways that we will "find a higher power" or "find God", etc., this pamphlet merely says that members "will in time find an answer to this distinctly personal dilemma."

Step Two says we will come to believe in a power greater than ourselves; Step Three says we turn our will over to "the care of God as we understood him"; Step Five says we "Admitted to God"; and on and on. 

But we are guided in the Steps by the Traditions, including Two: "For our purpose there is but one ultimate authority--a loving God..."

Then this little pamphlet tells the clergy that "The Traditions are not formally binding on A.A. groups." Period.

Show that one sentence to any person in A.A., even one who is not necessarily religious but still adheres to A.A. as closely as he can, and he will look at you with open eyed astonishment and say, "But!---then how is A.A. supposed to work? Those are our working guidelines!" I know this happens because I've shown it to people, and most of them are none to happy to see it in print. That makes it official.

There is more out there in our official material than we know about. How many dozen books have I never even laid eyes on, like all those from the Grapevine?

Never let another member tell you there is only one way to do things in A.A. The book "Living Sober" states, "There is no wrong A.A. way and no right A.A. way."

Alcoholics can get sober without god, since there is none. Bill Wilson was wrong about self-will; but we must direct our will toward what keeps us sober. A higher power (HP) is no power at all if it doesn't help us. But as you will read in the page titled Higher Power, Part 2, that HP does not necessarily need to be outside yourself. ©

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Tradition Two, As Learned from Experience by an Atheist

For the group purpose, a loving God as He may express Himself in the group conscience is the ultimate authority, as I put it in my own words rather than quote it. I know I don't have it wrong. That's what it says.

God didn't want me attending the group conscience meetings of my home group. I used to attend them. I only missed two in more than two years. But at the last one that I missed, the group conscience decided to move the meeting to a night I could not attend.

Now, if I could not attend because of my own personal commitments, such as piano lessons, or because a judge ordered me to do community service, I would understand.

But I could not attend because I was the elected representative for that group to Intergroup. Intergroup's schedule was well known: first and third Monday of each month. My home group decided to move its conscience meeting to an evening hour, from a 1:00 pm hour, ostensibly so “more people could show up.” But it turns out that it was precisely so the “right people” could show up. Those “right people” were the elders, the one's who had started the group. They had commitments during the 1:00 pm hour. I understand that. Strange thing is, now fewer people show up.

What I don't understand is why their God chose to make it very night that He knew I had an elected meeting to attend for the very group that was choosing to exclude me.

When I found out about this change, I asked one of those elders about it. He said that was the “group conscience speaking”. I asked why it had to be Monday and not some other night. He answered that Monday was the night the group conscience chose. I asked if that could be changed so that I could continue to go to the group conscience meetings. He flatly said no, that it was the group conscience that it should be that particular Monday.

Now, I liked my group. Of course when I spoke of my experience, strength or hope it was often contrary to the members who believed in God, but that group has a “no cross-talk” rule that includes criticizing other people's testimony. But most of the time I was thanked afterward for speaking my mind. Sometimes the thanks came from one of the elders. Sometimes it came from other atheists. Sometimes it just came from someone who was able to take away from my words something he or she needed to hear.

One time it was from a visitor from out of town, who thanked me for telling other people who might have a problem with the “God part” of A.A. to “just keep coming back” because they could always find a reason at the table that would help them stay strong. That particular time I even said that the Big Book says we must go to any length necessary, and while I didn't find it necessary to seek God after nearly 4 years in A.A., maybe they would come to the conclusion that for them it was necessary. Good for them! I said. Whatever it takes! Just keep coming back!

So I was not a pariah in my group. I didn't always speak contrarily; sometimes I affirmed the topic even while denying that God had any part in it for me. It was because I was able to say how I could do it without God that I often got the most comments after the meeting. thanks from people who also found it hard to accept that God would have a hand in some particular thing in their lives. Often they were agnostics who leaned more toward a belief in God than a non-belief.

When I heard that the group's conscience meeting could not be changed because it was the group conscience, I immediately thought of this Tradition. After some personal thinking, I told one of the group's elders I had my own conscience problem: I could not be the conscience of that group at the Intergroup meetings when I could not attend the group conscience meetings.
Funny thing is, that elder thought I meant I was quitting Intergroup so I could attend the group conscience meetings. I said no, I wanted to stay with Intergroup, so I become the representative for another group, one that I had helped create: Atheists and Spirituality, group # 688207. I am also the GSR for that group.

After more thinking, I have subsequently quit the first group altogether. I do not need to attend a meeting where God, as the ultimate authority, has decided I am not to be. I don't blame God, however. Atheists don't believe God exists, so I must blame it all on the people who first voted to put me on Intergroup, and then decided that I no longer needed to attend the group's conscience meetings.

At least when my atheist group has conscience meetings, we are honest and blame any consequences on ourselves. We don't foist it off on God. I'll bet if I asked God, he would rather see the group meet another night so I could go back to being part of the the group conscience, and go back to the group itself in order to fulfill the Responsibility Statement, which I hold near and dear. The atheists' group closes with it.

Perhaps this article will help those whose thinking is entrenched in the idea that no one can make it in A.A. without God, as to why so many people who don't have God do not make it in A.A.: they are not met with “the hand of A.A.” which does not demand belief. Instead, they are met with the hand of people who tell them they will fail without God, that Dr. Bob said we who try to make it on our own are to be “pitied”, and that when God says something through the group, that's the way it's got to be—it can't be changed.

And that is what I mean by being honest and blaming such decisions on the people in the group, not on God. Those people could have decided on the second Monday if they wanted Monday; or on the first Tuesday if they wanted it in the first week of the month. Instead, God said it had to be the first Monday, and that's that.

I just turned 55, and I've been atheist since I was 4. You are not going to change me. But as long as I keep coming back I can always find a way to stay clean and sober, because I have a desire to stop drinking, our only requirement.

No, it wasn't God who wanted me out of the group. The elders who thought the first Monday of the month was the only appropriate day they would settle for wanted me out, because it was they who voted to make me the Intergroup representative. They didn't want me out of the group itself, but out of the conscience meetings. Why, I still don't know. They said God wanted it that way.

Alcoholics can get sober without god, since there is none.
Bill Wilson was wrong about self-will; but we must direct our will toward what keeps us sober. A higher power (HP) is no power at all if it doesn't help us. But as you will read in the page titled Higher Power, Part 2, that HP does not necessarily need to be outside yourself. ©

The Atheist AA,
The Atheist AA Blog,
and the Google group
Atheist AA

are all © or ^SM of the

Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC

Atheists in Alcoholics Anonymous

Should atheists go to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings? I say yes, but I also say "it depends". It depends on the particular meeting you go to.

Some meetings are very god-oriented. That is their right, according to the "Traditions" and the "Concepts" of AA, which state that every group is autonomous. Every group must operate according to its own "conscience". Most groups have regular consciousness meetings, which are sometimes called "business" meetings, or "steering committees". If any particular group wants to make god the dominant theme of its meeting, that is its right.

It is also AA Tradition that no one can be asked to leave a meeting just because the other attendees don't like the message you are proclaiming as yours. But it doesn't seem wise to go into such a group and stir things up. I stir things up at meetings that are less god-oriented, meetings that accept the message of AA on the issue of god but which do not make it the one, over-riding theme of their group. I do not stir things up to be contrary. I do it because it is my AA right; so I choose my groups and only attend those that show tolerance toward other points of view.

A "newbie" in AA might wish to be careful about being contrary. Most groups don't allow "cross talking", and that usually means addressing directly what someone else has said in a contrary manner. It might be seen as taking someone else's inventory, a strict no-no anywhere you go.

But if you speak from your own "experience, strength, or hope", then no one can say you are not allowed to disagree with the AA approved literature. The Big Book itself admits that there was a lot of controversy in the first few years about what should be the official stance of the groups, and about who could say what about what. The reason that the Twelve Steps talk about your god "as you understand him" is because so many early member objected to language that put them in one box together, all praying to the same god.

And as logic would have it, many of those early members, and even more today I would suppose, have a different conception of how they understand "god". Some of them don't see god as a deity at all, but rather as the forces of nature.

But in order for an atheist to feel comfortable in a group that does have many virtues, the biggest being its ability to keep people sober who want to be sober, that atheist ought to be in a group where he/she feels comfortable speaking about his/her disbelief or atheism. You may have to point out to some recalcitrant, beligerant members that you have as much right to speak as they do.

The General Service Organization, the headquarters of AA, puts out a publication called "Box 459", and in an early 2009 edition it published a story of a man who uses a GI Joe doll as his higher power! That same GSO is the one who gave my atheist home group a registration number and lists it in its directory right alongside all the god-oriented groups.

But for the same reason as a Catholic member will not (or should not) argue against a Pagan or Southern Baptist member's point of view, we atheists cannot be beligerant and argue against the god position of AA, unless we do it as everyone must: from our own experiences, strengths, and hopes, not on the contrary opinions of others.

And if others take issue in the meeting with out point of view, we have the right to call "Point of Order" and politely set them straight. No one is allowed in a meeting to criticize the beliefs or positions of other members. The old timers who value the Traditions will have your back, even if they don't like your message.

Alcoholics can get sober without god, since there is none. Bill Wilson was wrong about self-will; but we must direct our will toward what keeps us sober. A higher power (HP) is no power at all if it doesn't help us. But as you will read in the page titled Higher Power, Part 2, that HP does not necessarily need to be outside yourself. ©

The Atheist AA,
The Atheist AA Blog,
and the Google group Atheist AA

are all © or ^SM of the

Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC