Gods of Our Misunderstanding in A.A.: Not Just for Atheists & Agnosticj

Copyright 2018

All rights reserved

ISBN: 9781543950113

Cover photo by Jeon Sang O

Cover design by J. Bourge Hathaway

Alcoholics drink to heal their broken hearts.

Anonymous

When I look out this window sober, it’s cheap and it’s dirty and it’s ugly. But when I look out drunk it’s beautiful.

Days of Wine and Roses

How do you find the divine power in yourself? The word enthusiasm means filled with a god, that’s what it means. So what makes you enthusiastic? Follow it. That’s been my advice to young people who ask me, What shall I do? I taught once in a boys’ prep school. That’s the moment for young boys when they had to decide their life courses. You know, where are they going? And they’re caught with excitement. This one wants to study art, this one poetry, this one anthropology. But dad says study law; that’s where the money is. OK, that’s the decision. And you know what my answer would be? Go where your enthusiasm is. So I have a little word: follow your bliss. The bliss is the message of God to yourself. That’s where your life is.

Joseph Campbell, Thinking Allowed: Conversations On The Leading Edge Of Knowledge and Discovery with Dr. Jeffrey Mishlove

The atoms of our bodies are traceable to stars that manufactured them in their cores and exploded these enriched ingredients across our galaxy, billions of years ago. For this reason, we are biologically connected to every other living thing in the world. We are chemically connected to all molecules on Earth. And we are atomically connected to all atoms in the universe. We are not figuratively, but literally, stardust.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

A fair reading of the fundamental A.A. doctrinal writings discloses that their dominant theme is unequivocally religious… While A.A. literature declares an openness and tolerance for each participant’s personal vision of God… the writings demonstrably express an aspiration that each member of the movement will ultimately commit to a belief in the existence of a Supreme Being of independent higher reality than humankind.

Griffin v. Coughlin, N.Y. Court of Appeals, June 11, 1996

Though he could not accept all the tenets of the Oxford Groups, he was convinced of the need for moral inventory, confession of personality defects, restitution to those harmed, helpfulness to others, and the necessity of belief in and dependence upon God.

Foreword to Second Edition Alcoholics Anonymous p.xvi

Yes, we of agnostic temperament have had these thoughts and experiences. Let us make haste to reassure you. We found that as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice and express even a willingness to believe in a Power greater than ourselves, we commenced to get results, even though it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that Power, which is God.

We Agnostics Alcoholics Anonymous p.46

Without help it is too much for us. But there is One who has all power—that One is God. May you find Him now!

How It Works Alcoholics Anonymous p.59

This is the how and the why of it. First of all, we had to quit playing God. It didn’t work. Next, we decided that hereafter in this drama of life, God was going to be our Director. He is the Principal; we are His agents. He is the Father, and we are His children. Most Good ideas are simple, and this concept was the keystone of the new and triumphant arch through which we passed to freedom.

How It Works Alcoholics Anonymous p.62

Our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God and the people about us.

Into Action Alcoholics Anonymous p.77

Remind the prospect that his recovery is not dependent upon people. It is dependent upon his relationship with God.

Working With Others Alcoholics Anonymous p.100

But now the words "Of myself I am nothing, the Father doeth the

works" began to carry bright promise and meaning.

Twelve Steps & Twelve Traditions, Step 7 p.75

When we developed still more, we discovered the best possible source of emotional stability to be God Himself. We found that dependence upon His perfect justice, forgiveness, and love was healthy, and that it would work where nothing else would. If we really depended upon God, we couldn’t very well play God to our fellows nor would we feel the urge wholly to rely on human protection and care.

Twelve Steps & Twelve Traditions, Step 12 p.116

A.A. works for people who believe in God.

A.A. works for people who don’t believe in God.

A.A. never works for people who believe they are God.

Anonymous

Everyone knows that God protects drunkards and lovers.

Alexandre Dumas – The Three Musketeers

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

GOD ENDORSES A NEW BIG BOOK

GOD’S RULES

God’s Twelve Steps

God’s Ten Commandments

God’s Seven Deadly Sins

The Pope’s Fifteen Ailments of the Curia

GOD INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE ROOMS OF A.A.

Americans hate atheists more than God does

Commentary on atheists in America

My Higher Power

Mottos from the Master

God’s crisis hotline

LOST A.A. GRAPEVINE SUBMISSIONS

Addiction recovery groups—spin-the-dial

Things no one tells you before you go to an A.A. meeting

Who do we meet in the rooms of A.A.?

A.A. Grapevine magazine reader polls

The unwritten rules of the Fellowship

Float-shifting and double-clutching

An A.A. meeting runs late

How to convince yourself A.A. is not religious

Choosing God as your sponsor

My doorknob and me—a love story

Drop the rock—but not on your foot

The real Bill Wilson—Lois breaks her silence

Dr. Bob—Why I love proctology

How to use the Marijuana Maintenance Program to find God

LSD, mega-vitamins and God

Who needs professional help when we have God?

Bill Wilson’s unpublished book list from Stepping Stones

A.A.W.S. sanitizes Bill Wilson’s historical documents

God Anonymous—for those addicted to God & religion

BILL W.’S UNPUBLISHED GRAPEVINE ARTICLES

Suicide is not the solution

God and Step 13

Sex and adultery

The dilemma of no God

God will empty your pity pot

Goof balls and God

Spiritualism, parapsychology and God

A.A. is big business

Money—from your pocket to our A.A.W.S. bank account

God comes of age in A.A.

Problems other than alcohol—Part II

The next frontier—Emotional God-briety

THE FIRST  ONE

THE FIRST  FORTY FIVE

AMERICANS’ BELIEFS ABOUT GOD

GOD IN THE OXFORD GROUP

GOD IN THE BIG BOOK

Words and phrases

Governance

Foreword

The Doctor’s Opinion

Bill’s Story

There Is A Solution

More About Alcoholism

We Agnostics

How It Works

Into Action

Working With Others

To Wives

The Family Afterward

To Employers

A Vision For You

Appendix II—Spiritual Experience

Higher Power

God As We Understood Him

GOD IN SOCIETY

Humorous

Secular

Historical

Religion and Philosophy

Authors and Writers

NAMING GOD

Christianity

Judaism

Islam

Hindu

GOD, GODS AND MORE GODS

Buddhist

Greek Gods

Roman Gods

Egyptian Gods

Mesopotamian Gods

Japanese Gods

Primordial Gods

Demigods and Heroes

Spirits and Demons

The Seven Lucky Gods

RELIGIONS AROUND THE WORLD

Religious Denominations

Christian Denominations

Christianity

Roman Catholic

Protestant

Baptist

Methodist

Lutheran

Presbyterian

Anglican

Mormon and Latter-Day Saints

Jehovah’s Witnesses

Congregational

Calvinism

Anabaptism

Mennonites

Friends and Quakers

Pentecostal

Evangelicalism

Seventh-Day Adventist

Christian Science

Unitarian-Universalism

Swedenborgianism

Eastern Orthodox

Oriental Orthodox

Judaism

Islam

Hinduism

Chinese Folk Traditional

Buddhism

African Traditional

Sikhism

ALCOHOLIC AUTHORS

ATHEIST AUTHORS

ATHEIST JOURNALISTS

ADDICTED MUSICIANS

AUTHOR’S BOOKS

PREFACE

This book was written by a recovered, sober, alcoholic atheist author as a somewhat rambling, occasionally irreverent, light-hearted poke at the well-meaning but immensely God-laden doctrine of A.A. 

My two companion daily meditation books, Daily Reprieve: A.A. for Atheists & Agnostics and Design For Living: Daily Meditations on the 12 Steps of A.A. for Atheists & Agnostics, focus on my experience studying the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous and completing its 12 Step program. Those two books were written to show not only atheists and agnostics, but anyone, that we don’t need to believe in God to recover, but we best believe in something beyond ourselves.

When we suffer we seek relief, and will try almost anything to ease our pain. When I accidentally cut myself, I clean it up and look for a salve to alleviate the sting, whether that salve is a fancy drug store ointment or a homemade mud pack if I’m camping. 

When we have emotional pain we do the same thing; we seek relief from our pain. If our emotional pain is chronic, we experiment with a variety of remedies until we find one that works, and then we hang on to it, usually until it stops working or starts to harm us. Then we seek an alternative solution for our emotional pain; hopefully one that won’t destroy us and works even better.

Alcohol, drugs, tobacco, gambling, sex, exercise, work and many other chemicals and compulsive activities can distract us and change our brain chemistry just enough to bring us emotional relief in the short term. Long term, they don’t work, so we need to find something that lasts a lifetime and doesn’t kill us during the interval.

I’m not a Buddhist, but their Four Noble Truths say that suffering exists, it arises from our attachment to desires, it ceases when the attachment to our desires ceases, and that freedom from suffering is possible by practicing the Eightfold Path of right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration.

Like Buddhism, A.A. says that the root of our troubles is selfishness and self-centeredness, but unlike Buddhism, A.A. says we need God to ease our suffering, which in my experience isn’t true.

Selfishness—self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt.

So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making.  They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn’t think so. Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it kills us! God makes that possible.  And there often seems no way of entirely getting rid of self without His aid. Many of us had moral and philosophical convictions galore, but we could not live up to them even though we would have liked to. Neither could we reduce our self-centeredness much by wishing or trying on our own power. We had to have God’s help.

This is the how and the why of it. First of all, we had to quit playing God. It didn’t work. Next, we decided that hereafter in this drama of life, God was going to be our Director. He is the Principal; we are His agents. He is the Father, and we are His children. Most good ideas are simple, and this concept was the keystone of the new and triumphant arch through which we passed to freedom. (How It Works, Big Book, p.62)

In the spirit of A.A.’s Rule 62, which suggests we not take ourselves too seriously, I wrote this book for fun after learning that there are over 4,200 different religious groups worldwide for me to choose from, including at least a thousand Christian ones, and that there are at least a thousand different English translations of the Bible.

With so many religious groups and denominations, so many gods, and so many interpretations of the Bible, which one is right? Which one, if any of them, is the true Truth that I need to believe in which will free me of my addiction in A.A.?

I remember going through A.A.’s 12 Steps for the first time. My kind, experienced born-again Christian sponsor and I would discuss A.A., God, the Bible, spirituality and religion for hours on end every week while sitting outside on the patio of a Starbucks coffee house, where we brought our own coffee and Big Books.

I easily came to believe that no one can overcome alcoholism by relying solely on one’s own will-power; otherwise none of us would be in A.A.

Total self-reliance in life doesn’t work, whether we’re an addict or not. We all need help. I always accepted that I needed the very human help of my family and fellows in getting through life, but I didn’t appreciate how much, especially as an alcoholic, that I needed some type of non-human support, nutty as that sounds.

I asked my sponsor, as a life-long atheist, how could I have a God of my understanding if I never believed in God? How could I understand or relate to something that never existed for me? It’s like trying to identify with a unicorn or Big Foot—what is there to understand other than they are myths?

Despite my God dilemma in A.A., I never took another drink, completed the 12 Steps and found a wonderful new way of living. I fully recommend the A.A. Fellowship and its 12 Step program for anyone who has a desire to stop drinking and is willing to ask for and accept help.

Like A.A. co-founder Bill Wilson, I also support, should it be needed, the use of complementary recovery support from qualified physicians, psychiatrists, clergy, counselors or whatever legitimate means is available to the alcoholic (See Bill Wilson’s Let’s Be Friendly with our Friends, Grapevine articles from July, August and September 1957).

Be aware that some of the comments and recommendations in this book are serious and sincere, whereas others are satirical, sarcastic and said totally in jest. If the alcoholic or lay reader is confused or unable to make the distinction between the two, take no action and discuss with your sponsor or advisor.

Having said that, we live in a country where 45 million American families are affected by addiction. The statistics are horrible. Over 20 million adults have a substance use disorder and 17 million people have an alcohol use disorder. Each year, over 72,000 Americans die from drug overdoses and about 88,000 die from alcohol related causes.

Sadly, less than 10% of people suffering with substance abuse and less than 7% of those with alcoholism get the help they need and deserve.

A.A. has provided me with a kit of spiritual tools that showed me not only how to quit drinking for good, but how to live a sane, sober and fulfilling life. The A.A. toolkit consists of two things:

1) the Fellowship, or the people power of A.A., and a

2) Design for Living, which reflects the spiritual power of A.A.

The Fellowship consists of meetings, a home group, service work, sponsees and a sponsor. The Design For Living consists of the Big Book and 12 Step program.

What is the spiritual power of A.A.? It flows from the Big Book and the 12 Steps. Wilson described spirituality as Humility (Steps 1,2,3) plus Responsibility (Steps 4 to 12). Many of us think of Step 1 as our life of Chaos, Step 2 as our Conviction we aren’t God but need a Higher Something, Step 3 as our Commitment to no longer being solely self-reliant, and Steps 4 through 12 as our Conversion, or our slow change in attitude and actions as a result of the spiritual awakening we receive during our Step work.

Many alcoholics come and go in A.A., for many reasons. And many people find God in A.A., but they never find A.A. They foolishly convince themselves that God alone will keep them sober, when God will do no such thing.

Your prospect may belong to a religious denomination. His religious education and training may be far superior to yours.  In that case he is going to wonder how you can add anything to what he already knows. But he will be curious to learn why his own convictions have not worked and why yours seem to work so well.

He may be an example of the truth that faith alone is insufficient. To be vital, faith must be accompanied by self- sacrifice and unselfish, constructive action.

Let him see that you are not there to instruct him in religion. Admit that he probably knows more about it than you do, but call to his attention the fact that however deep his faith and knowledge, he could not have applied it or he would not drink. Perhaps your story will help him see where he has failed to practice the very precepts he knows so well. (Working With Others, Big Book, p.93)

Bill Wilson was a self-described alcoholic agnostic before he reunited with his friend Ebby Thacher, who shared how he got sober:

The door opened and he [Ebby] stood there, fresh-skinned and glowing. There was something about his eyes. He was inexplicably different. What had happened? I pushed a drink across the table. He refused it. Disappointed but curious, I wondered what had got into the fellow. He wasn’t himself. Come, what’s all this about? I queried. He looked straight at me. Simply, but smilingly, he said, I’ve got religion. (Bill’s Story, Big Book, p.9)

My friend sat before me, and he made the point-blank declaration that God had done for him what he could not do for himself. His human will had failed. (Bill’s Story, Big Book, p.11)

Despite the living example of my friend there remained in me the vestiges of my old prejudice. The word God still aroused a certain antipathy. When the thought was expressed that there might be a God personal to me this feeling was intensified. I didn’t like the idea. I could go for such conceptions as Creative Intelligence, Universal Mind or Spirit of Nature, but I resisted the thought of a Czar of the Heavens, however loving His sway might be. I have since talked with scores of men who felt the same way.

My friend suggested what then seemed a novel idea. He said, Why don’t you choose your own conception of God?

That statement hit me hard. It melted the icy intellectual mountain in whose shadow I had lived and shivered many years. I stood in the sunlight at last.

It was only a matter of being willing to believe in a power greater than myself. Nothing more was required of me to make my beginning. I saw that growth could start from that point.  Upon a foundation of complete willingness I might build what I saw in my friend. Would I have it? Of course I would!

Thus was I convinced that God is concerned with us humans when we want Him enough. At long last I saw, I felt, I believed.  Scales of pride and prejudice fell from my eyes. A new world came into view. (Bill’s Story, Big Book, p.12)

Simple, but not easy; a price had to be paid. It meant destruction of self-centeredness. I must turn in all things to the Father of Light who presides over us all.

These were revolutionary and drastic proposals, but the moment I fully accepted them, the effect was electric. There was a sense of victory, followed by such a peace and serenity as I had never known. There was utter confidence. I felt lifted up, as though the great clean wind of a mountain top blew through and through. God comes to most men gradually, but His impact on me was sudden and profound.

For a moment I was alarmed, and called my friend, the doctor, to ask if I were still sane. He listened in wonder as I talked. Finally he shook his head saying, Something has happened to you I don’t understand. But you had better hang on to it.  Anything is better than the way you were. The good doctor now sees many men who have such experiences. He knows that they are real.

While I lay in the hospital the thought came that there were thousands of hopeless alcoholics who might be glad to have what had been so freely given me. Perhaps I could help some of them. They in turn might work with others. (Bill’s Story, Big Book, p.14)

One could say that A.A. really started on December 11, 1934, when Bill Wilson took his last drink and had his religious conversion experience in Towns Hospital, not when Dr. Bob had his last drink on June 17 (not June 10), 1935.

Much has been written in A.A. literature on exactly how Bill W. wanted the reader to identify and find a power greater than themselves which could restore them to sanity, and enable them to recover from their hopeless state of mind and body.

Readers can appreciate that technically Wilson was describing his journey to sobriety, which required a belief in God, and that our journey into sobriety might rely on something other than Bill’s God.

However, the Big Book adamantly advocates to Do as we did. Bill purposely mixes and conflates the terms God, Higher Power and spiritual so that the average reader’s interpretation remains muddled and confused.

When Bill suggested that we choose our own conception of God, I believe that he absolutely, positively, intended for us alcoholics to choose whatever variation of the Christian God we wanted, not that we choose some power other than God as our non-human power. God must be our Higher Power of choice—nothing else will work.

If I could magically ask Bill Wilson two questions, they would be:

1) Do you truly believe that no one can get sober without believing in your God?

2) Why did you conflate all your references to God in the Big Book?

On a final note, being an atheist saved my life. Had I not been a lifelong freethinker, I would not be alive today.

When my wife died of cancer at age 43, seven months after we got married, if I had believed in God, Christianity and Heaven, I would have killed myself to join her. I could not stand the thought of living without her for the rest of my life, and since we had no children for me to live for, I seriously thought Why not join her in Heaven now?

I kept trying to convince myself there was an afterlife, but I knew deep in my heart there was no God or Heaven, so nothing would ever bring us together after death.

I hope the reader enjoys this lighthearted romp, and may it help keep you amused and sober long enough to fully live life for another day.

Note: the Big Book excerpts are from the second edition of Alcoholics Anonymous. The other excerpts in this book are from the text of Wikipedia, or are included under Fair Use, or are in the public domain.

And when he was demanded of the Pharisees when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold,

The kingdom of God is within you.

(Luke 17:20, Bible, King James Version)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A very special thanks:

To Jeanne H. and her wife Julia F., who had much to say and designed and created the book cover.

To Bonnie G., Cecile G., Cindy R. and Jeanie K., Dave S., Dianna T., Greg B., Harry N., Joe M., Kasey and Burns B., Kathy D. and Tom A., Kyle and Jeff C., Lisa and Bob T., Roger C., Skip B. and Stephi W., who provided motivation, inspiration, and a range of spoken and unspoken opinions, whether they were aware of it or not.

And to each and every member of Alcoholics Anonymous, who continues to carry the message of Fellowship, friendship and recovery the world over.

GOD ENDORSES A NEW BIG BOOK

God spoke to me and said that after 79 years A.A. needs a revised Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. She says it’s time for her to expand the Big Book instruction manual for the twenty-first century.

She has graciously chosen me for a special look inside the revised and supplemental material of her new sacred volume, due to be released by her Most Supreme Holy World Services Press and available in bookstores later this year.

Foreword To The New Edition of Alcoholics Anonymous

Yo! you lot of drunken, willful, self-centered immoral sinners—it’s God here. I’ve examined your Fellowship, and I’m not pleased.

Your A.A. membership has remained stagnant at two million members worldwide since 1990—that’s almost forty years—despite an increase in my world’s population of two billion people, and who knows how many millions of new alcoholics I created during that time period.

As the total number of alcoholics has grown over the past four decades, there has been no growth in A.A. The pathetic excuses made by you drunks and the A.A.W.S. Mother Ship in New York for your failure to attract more members includes: 1) the for-profit secular recovery programs are sucking off our business, 2) the increased use of on-line internet recovery services, 3) the growing pharmacologic and behavioral therapy available to treat addiction, 4) the variability of court-ordered referrals into A.A., and 5) an increase in the number of heathen, impious, non-religious-affiliated younger newcomers who won’t attend or contribute to my churches on a regular basis.

And I know that A.A.’s retention and success rates for long term sobriety have remained unchanged for decades, holding steady at three to five percent. This suggests that most who come into A.A. simply churn through the Fellowship from treatments centers and the courts without getting sober.

On top of that, several recent medical research studies have not demonstrated that 12-Step programs, including A.A., are any more effective than dozens of other treatment modalities.

Many addiction specialists are telling me that A.A.’s organizational structure, originating from the General Service Office Mother Ship in New York City, is not one of attraction run by trusted servants, but one of authoritarian rigidity whose primary purpose is to protect their literature copyrights and increase Big Book sales income, without which their national office would go broke and have to close down, since fellowship donations have never fully covered their expenses.

I’m also hearing rumors that  A.A. attracts and retains few new members because A.A. remains resistant to any change of my carved-in-stone sacred God focused program, and discourages non-A.A. evidence-based medical treatment. 

I, God, know that today only 5% of A.A. newcomers are exclusively alcoholic. Most new members are poly-addicted to drugs and other compulsive activities in addition to alcohol, which disrupts and dilutes A.A.’s alcoholics only membership requirement, which is the desire to stop drinking, and discourages A.A. attendance by those with affiliated addictions.

As time passes our book literature has a tendency to get more and more frozen—a tendency for conversion into something like dogma. This is a trait of human nature which I am afraid we can do little about. (Bill Wilson letter, 1961)

Even in 2018, surveys repeatedly report that most lay people, including the U.S. court system, perceive A.A. as a religious organization and not a spiritual one.

If anything is going to destroy A.A., it will be what I call the tradition lawyers. They find it easier to live with black and white than they do with gray. These bleeding deacons—these fundamentalists—are afraid of and fight any change. (Dr. John Norris, a nonalcoholic physician friend of Bill Wilson’s and for many years the chairman of A.A.‘s board of trustees)

The Big Book’s subtext insistence on having me, God, as your Higher Power of choice is fine by me, but confuses those poor sots who believe addiction is a primarily a medical disorder, and wonder why A.A. pushes its members so hard to believe in me when they can’t or won’t.

In A.A.’s first years I all but ruined the whole undertaking… God as I understood Him had to be for everybody. Sometimes my aggression was subtle and sometimes it was crude. But either way it was damaging—perhaps fatally so—to numbers of non-believers. (Bill Wilson, The Dilemma of No Faith, A.A. Grapevine, 1961)

Many alcoholics wonder why they are powerless over alcohol without me—God, when in fact millions of people all over the world who don’t believe in me have gotten sober through A.A.’s 12 Step program and design for living.

So I say, Let’s keep them guessing. Let’s hang on to our old ways despite Bill Wilson’s advice to the contrary.

Speaking for Dr. Bob and myself I would like to say that there has never been the slightest intent, on his part or mine, to try to found a new religious denomination. Dr. Bob held certain religious convictions and so do I. This is, of course, the personal privilege of every A.A. member. Nothing, however, could be so unfortunate for A.A.’s future as an attempt to incorporate any of our personal theological views into A.A.’s teaching, practice or tradition. Were Dr. Bob still with us, I am positive he would agree that we could never be too emphatic about this matter. (Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, p. 232)

Speaking as God, who has known the fellowship of A.A. since its inception, I’ve noticed that many members yearn to incorporate their belief that the Big Book insists, or at least strongly suggests, that me, God, is the only Higher Power by which one can get sober and find that new design for living.

Simply because we have convictions that work very well for us, it becomes quite easy to assume that we have all of the truth. Whenever this brand of arrogance develops we are sure to become aggressive. We demand agreement with us. We play God. This isn’t good dogma. This is very bad dogma. It could be especially destructive for us of A.A. to indulge in this sort of thing. (Bill Wilson, General Service Conference, 1965)

I won’t have A.A. members pretending to be me. I’m the only God there is and I’ve reminded you of that with my not so subtle Ten Commandment instruction sheet. You better not cross me on that one.

Now there are some rituals in A.A. and I think we have to be careful about these. In the South they almost always end meetings with the Lord’s Prayer, but when they did that at the world conference in San Antonio in 2010,* I was surprised and frankly I was a little shocked. Again, I consider myself reasonably religious and I want you to be religious but don’t try to make A.A. religious. The line between religion and spirituality has to be maintained strongly in this fellowship. (Rev. Ward Ewing, former General Service Office Chair)

*Note: A.A.’s world conference in Atlanta in 2015 was also shamefully closed with the Lord’s Prayer. A.A.’s fear of God runs deep.

Being God, I love the Lord’s Prayer—because it’s my prayer. I love it when my subjects worship me and submit to my will. My ego swells when the Fellowship promotes my Christian religion and reveres me the world over, despite A.A. members lying and denying they do any such thing.

Nothing makes me happier than when my trembling members hold hands at the end of their A.A. meetings, chanting my Lord’s Prayer skyward, all the while insisting A.A. is spiritual and not religious.

Who are they kidding?

I’m God, and I’m in charge, and the A.A. Fellowship knows it! Never stop praising me during and at the end of every meeting for keeping all of you moral misfits sober. God rules!

My bold prediction is that if A.A. doesn’t accommodate change and diversify, our 100th anniversary will be a fellowship of men and women with the same stature and relevance as the Mennonites; charming, harmless and irrelevant. (Joe C., Jan-2012, The Don’t Tell Policy in A.A. Retrieved from https://aaagnostica.org/2012/01/05/the-dont-tell-policy-in-aa )

Oh Joe, don’t be such a Debbie Downer. A.A. has successfully resisted any meaningful change for almost eighty years, so the next twenty won’t be too hard.

Even if A.A. membership continues to drop because of A.A.’s religious prominence, the New York office will just jack up the price of the Big Book that it sells mostly to rehabilitation facilities, and A.A. will blindly trudge on as before.

As long as there are desperate and delusional alcoholics out there that have faith that I, God alone, will keep them sober, and as long as they continue to hold hands regurgitating my Lord’s Prayer and chanting my glory, A.A. will survive.

Come on now, circle up, hold hands and recite along with me:

Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those that trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

GOD’S RULES

GOD’S TWELVE STEPS

Many people in A.A. credit both the Big Book and the Good Book for their sobriety, and give thanks for the encouragement of their two physicians: Dr. Silkworth, The little doctor who loved drunks, and Jesus Christ, The Great Physician.

Dick B.’s The Good Book and the Big Book: A.A.’s Roots in the Bible, discusses the biblical sources from which A.A.’s founders said they obtained their recovery ideas, focusing particularly on the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), 1 Corinthians 13, and the Book of James. (Retrieved from Dick B., The Good Book and the Big Book at www.dickb.com/goodbook.shtml )

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.

I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. (Romans 7:18)

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose. (Philippians 2:13)

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. (Romans 12:1)

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord. (Lamentations 3:40)

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. (James 5:16)

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up. (James 4:10)

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

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