Click on the pic to follow the album cover to the twilight sad’s myspace page. It’ll open in a new window and the song that goes with this album cover, cold days from the birdhouse will start playing. An apropos image and song for this post.
I am sick, sick, sick of all the god shit that I hear in recovery. It’s like being in an office where everyone is laughing at a dirty joke – a sharp reminder that you’re different.
Because I’m an atheist in recovery I feel a responsibility to bear witness to the fact that belief in God is not necessary and that despite all appearances to the contrary, atheists are welcome. I want them to know that recovery is freedom, not brainwashing and that you don’t have to self lobotomize to get better.
I spend a lot of time with this. I’ve written a booklet about atheists being welcome, I explain ad nauseam that it’s a spiritual program, that the steps are a way of changing. I’ve submitted articles for publication and offered my two cents to other atheists whenever the subject of addiction comes up. I even have a little form letter that explains how I work step 3, steps 5-7 and step 11 for the mildly curious. I write in much greater depth about how I reconcile the spirituality of recovery with the reality of my atheism for those addicts who are truly frightened that they’ll have to drink the kool-aide to recover. There is a group that keeps something I wrote on hand in case an atheist comes to them seeking recovery. How cool is that?
But as I type this, I think there’s a very real chance that I’m completely full of shit. I’m at the water cooler but instead of dirty jokes, it’s god talk. Maybe it’s time for me to stop pretending that I fit in. After all, as I just read in an article, the fellowship of recovery is not for everyone.
And about that, I feel very sad. And I hate crying over something so incredibly stupid. I know that crying is a necessary part of life and that it’s important to acknowledge feelings, but . . . but it feels weak to cry and pathetic to want to be in a club that doesn’t really want me.
Now if things follow true to form, I’ll feel sad for awhile. By the time I upload the illustration for this post, I’ll feel better. I’ll log off, go wash my face, and things will be fine. Later, I’ll be cranky. I’ll notice that someone left a half empty can of soda on the floor by the couch. Maybe the dog will bark. My husband will definitely do something to pluck my nerves. But eventually I’ll remember that I’d rather feel strong and angry rather than weak and sad.
I want to really belong and not wince every time somebody goes on a tirade about how the original edition of the Big Book didn’t shy away from using the word God or whatever anti-atheist shit they’re spouting at the moment. I won’t act out. And I don’t need to figure this out today; after all, it’s been an ongoing theme for me.
Time to upload the pic and wash my face. That’s the next right thing: putting one foot in front of the other on the path of Happy Destiny.
Tags: atheist in recovery
May 26, 2009 at 1:08 pm |
Agreed! Great blog.
May 26, 2009 at 3:33 pm |
Gentle Path, (I spelled it out because we don’t need no shorthand when we’re feeling invisible!)
There’s a problem with the song, but I was able to hear some of it. Please know that whatever your beliefs, I, for one, would be losing out, and soasking you to stay, if you were no longer part of my metaphorical meeting. You have made it your own, you’ve made it our (as in group of followers) own. You are one of the most sober voices I’ve ever encountered, and you’ve done it without God. You are a testament to that possibility, for those who are afraid.
My beliefs and confusions surrounding God are such that the word itself is shorthand because who’s got the time to listen or cares, so it’s like the term “that guy”, the inference being–so you know what I mean. When I write privately I use the term HPs, plural, because I sense, but I’m not sure about, a multiplicity of sources of strength. You, at least, know where you stand when it comes to God.
I still pray, still experience moments of “grace”, but a lot of it is simply “acting as if”, because with addiction and coaddiction, we are definitely in a foxhole! You disprove the aphorism.
I see you. I hear you. And I’m listening.
May 26, 2009 at 3:33 pm |
You know, I have to admit that I feel uncomfortable and guilty using the word God, because I used to identify as an atheist or agnostic, depending. And I don’t feel my beliefs have changed. I still don’t believe in the kind of God that I think people mean when they say God. I feel like I’ve let down atheists by jumping on the God wagon and appropriating the word for my spirituality. And I think I’d make the old me distinctly uncomfortable in meetings. But at the same time, it’s working for me right now, and I have to remember that that’s my focus. Bleh.
May 26, 2009 at 5:55 pm |
GentlePath … Forgive me for making a judgment, but I fear the only person who is not at peace with you is you. In this post I see you giving away your power and maybe even your recovery program because of words that other people use. I definitely hear your frustration, and I know all too well what it is like to feel like I don’t fit in. But I hope these feelings pass and you find the peace and acceptance you are looking for.
Like Mary, I use the word “God” because it’s easier than typing out or saying Higher Power. But that doesn’t mean that I believe in the God of everyone else. I have a Higher Power of my own understanding, and I’m grateful for it.
I believe strongly in the literature of AA, and it’s true that the Big Book in some instances refers directly to the evangelical Christain God. But it also contains passages like the essay on acceptance that speak directly to my heart.
I quit going to church — any kind of church — because I would get mad that people were trying to tell me what to believe. I finally recognized that they only got to bother me if I let them. So now, whenever I feel like it — usually two or three times a year — I’ll pick a church and go and sit in it on a Sunday morning, because it does my heart good. I take what I want and I leave the rest as I walk out filled with a spirit of renewal.
May 26, 2009 at 6:20 pm |
Okay, this prompted a rant.
You always make me think. Thanks.
May 27, 2009 at 4:29 am |
Not only the Big Book doesn’t shy away from the word God. From what i read – believing in higher power was central to the recovery of all these people. Its the only thing they say that prevents them from drinking.
I like your blog very much. I dont want to come here and parade my belief or offend you in any way. I just dont believe that you are really an atheist. Maybe you want to be one, but then why the struggle? You still cling to this program and say the support you get from the people there is what keeps you sober. But the people there are loving helping and supporting because this goes together with their belief in higher power. Its interesting how one can walk in water and insist to stay thirsty.
May 27, 2009 at 3:45 pm |
Hello GP, I hope you don’t mind my commenting on this topic. I’ve been following your blog for a few weeks now, but have yet to comment on the prior posts. I felt it necessary to say that your point-of-view in recovery is greatly appreciated, but most importantly – very necessary! My husband is working the 12 steps and is also an atheist. If recovery were only possible in a religious framework, then my husband (along with hundreds of others) would be denied the wonderful gifts of sobriety. Please don’t ever feel that your experience, beliefs, pov is not welcomed. It is exactly what we need! Thank you for sharing YOUR story with us.
May 28, 2009 at 4:28 pm |
i’ve been spiritual since I was a small child but my sense of “God” is not at all the conventional view. when i say “God”, i mean my experience of that. funny thing is that i have trouble using HP because it is a 12 step thing. i don’t want to use it because i’m supposed to. i think God is the deep inner knowing within us all. i don’t believe there is any Big God floating out there in the heavens looking down on us. i sense it as an energy – spirit from within that separates us from our ego and connects us directly to our core that gives us all our answers. for the most part i think humans tend to create God in the likeness of ourselves. if we are judgmental we see a God that is judgmental. If we are accepting, we see a God that is accepting. i agree with everyone else here – most of us do not care if someone is an agnostic or atheist and most of us have many of the same challenges about God being defined for us. i even refused to do the serenity prayer when i first started going to meetings.
at the base of the steps for me it is about raising us up to our highest thinking and feeling about ourselves, reaching for that greatness that we all hold. most people just don’t know how to access that w/out feeling something greater than themselves first.
i love the honesty and courage you display through your blog.
thank you.
May 29, 2009 at 8:15 am |
What a great blog. Here’s what I don’t understand about those of us who for whatever reason feel uncomfortable in the existing recovery paradigm: why do we try and try to fit in instead of going out and creating what it is we think we need? It’s not conducive to mental health to spend time constantly hashing over things that you simply don’t believe in. The 12 steps are religious and patriarchial in nature – some of us aren’t looking for god or daddy – we just want to be sober.
Keep writing honestly. It is much appreciated.
June 8, 2009 at 3:04 pm |
One doesn’t need God to recover but it helps to have something to lean on.
Best of luck,
Kevin
June 26, 2009 at 12:28 pm |
Wow. I am so grateful that I found this blog this morning! I have been involved in 12 step recovery groups starting with “The Mothership”, ( otherwise known as A.A), since I was 20 years old. I am now nearly 50. I have been through treatment for alcoholism and drug addiction 3 times, sex addiction treatment and treatment for my codependency. In the past 30 years I have experienced many many short periods of sobriety, clean-time and abstinence. Also some longer periods of years, (1987-1997, 2005-2007-[2 day relapse]-2007-present). My shorter periods of “recovery” have been 30 days, 60 days, 90 days 6 months, 9 months, 7 months, 11.5 months, etc… During these years I have been a member of many different recovery 12 step groups. I struggle with substance abuse, eating disorder, sexual addiction, spending addiction, nicotine addiction and childhood issues from having grown up in an abusive and very dysfunctional family system where I was physically abused, molested, and treated like I was a person of little to no value by a raging drunk father and a mother who loved me dearly but was drunk, on many prescription drugs and who molested me many times under the pretext of either health concerns of punishment for bad behavior. Whew! This is a brief description of “How it was”.
“What happened?” I was forced into treatment at the tender age of 20 and taught that in order to recovery from my “disease” I had to “come to believe” in a power greater than myself. Anyone who has ever been to ANY 12 step group is immediately confronted with the word “God” in the steps. People SAY you can believe in whatever higher power you choose. “Why hell, you can even have a doorknob as your higher power if that works for you!” (A phrase I have heard hundreds of times and have even used myself).
BOTTOM LINE: I didn’t get much support in any of the 12 step groups I’ve been associated with for having a higher power that I did not “choose to call God”! Think about this. How demeaning is that phrase about choosing a doorknob as your higher power? I mean really! And it is always said in such a snide and dismissive way. This has been my experience at least.
Yes, attending 12 step groups had helped me to stay alive and even experience a modicum of success. Aside from some lengthy periods of being clean and sober I worked for about 4 years in a “world class” treatment facility here in Tucson with many celebrities and rich important people as patients. (Pay-tients may be a more accurate and descriptive term here!) I have a degree in chemical dependency counseling and I believe I have helped many many people find their path to recovery and connection to their higher power. Albeit my third marriage, I am very happy in my relationship with my wife whom by the the way does believe in God but sincerely respects my right not to believe.
What I have observed is that the people who do really well in 12 step recovery are people who have a devout belief in “God”. I however believe that god is an imaginary construct and I further do not believe in the supernatural at all. Oh I want to desperately at times so that I do not have to feel so alone. Over the years I have tried to believe is such things many many times. Until recently I would say that I did and talk about how grateful I was for “God’s Grace”. Within the last 6 months I have been saying that I do not believe in god or any other supernatural concepts openly in the 12 step meetings I attend. I get all kinds of weird responses to this declaration. People have actually cross-talked directly to me by name in meetings. I get all kinds of “sideways slams” in the shares of people in the meetings. Lost and lots of, “my higher power whom I choose to call God or Jesus or Lord!”, always with much angry energy behind it. People come to me after the meetings inquiring “if” I have a sponsor, (I wonder sometimes if their plan is to tell on me to my sponsor for not believing in god). Several have suggested that they become my sponsor. I often wonder if their plan is to engage some of the Spanish Inquisition’s techniques to create a conversion in me!
For the love of FRICK! (not the word I actually used but close enough to allow me to express without being offensive)
I just want to be clean and sober and not engaging in addictive behaviors. I believe that I need a group of other like minded people to accomplish this daily goal. Hence, my problem. Must I deny my true beliefs and rational reality to have a support group!?! I am hoping that this post will bring me some much needed support and love from people who are simply trying to live free like I am.
“How it is today.” Or what i term…
Todays Score: I am not in some park bathroom today using toilet water in my needle to shoot dope. I am not drunk or drinking. I have not had a cigarette today, (interesting to me how many people claim to be totally clean while still sucking 30 to 40 cigs a day). Not acting out sexually today. Not engaging in eating disorder behaviors today. Managing my life long depression without the use of pharmaceuticals today, (perhaps having a support group where I was not punished for my beliefs would help… Hmmmm.)
I hope that I have shared some thoughts that others might identify with and that perhaps we can engage in a respectful and loving dialog about these ideas. Looking forward to the thoughts of others.
Thanks for letting me rant a bit.
Much love and respect to all. Buck
September 22, 2009 at 12:02 am |
Dear Buck,
Thank you for the great post! I am in the process of looking for more people that would be interested in a recovery group that does not involve the “Higher Power” concept. I am convinced that for many it is detrimental to attribute their success at recovery to a supernatural cause, while their failures tend to be put down to “self will run riot.” In both cases, my belief is that the actions resulted from the decisions of the individual, not an outside force. I am tired of attempting to make my beliefs about the way the world and myself work mesh with the AA format. It just isn’t going to happen without a loss of personal integrity. And, no matter what anyone says, people CAN and DO stay sober outside of AA… and without the nasty “dry drunk” tag. Let me know your thoughts — perhaps there are already online groups like this. An excellent book with much to recommend it for use to athiests in recovery is “The Atheist’s Way; Living Well Without Gods,” by Eric Maisel, although it is not specifically about recovery.
Best,
Anna
September 22, 2009 at 4:57 pm
You’re quite welcome, although I’m not sure who “Buck” is! I agree that people can and do recover from all sorts of isms without a 12 step program. And finding a way to reconcile atheist beliefs with AA philosophy can be extremely difficult. To thine own self be true, right?
June 28, 2009 at 10:29 am |
Hey Gentle,
I hope you’re not too sad that 12-step recovery is not for everyone. People find different paths, but I think you’ll agree that as long as they find the way, everything is fine.
I’m one of the people that left the rooms because of god, but I’m fine, and haven’t touched meth since I quit in the rooms in 2002.
I love your posts and their honesty.
Keep on.
July 12, 2009 at 2:32 pm |
Thank you for this blog entry..I was searching on-line for articles or discussion about reconciling working the steps with being an atheist. It amazes me how threatened so many people find that word ‘atheist’ as though I’m somehow dangerous. I just don’t find the existence of the god we hear about, christian, muslim or any other religious description of a higher power to be plausible.
It doesn’t mean I don’t care, love or have decent values…I have been struggling in the program for many years (almost a decade now) frequentlyt relapsing. This morning I went to a meeting and when I hear people talk about how their higher power or god was ‘looking after them’ I get so angry…they got home safely when they were driving drunk and that was their higher power looking after them. Well what about the people who didn’t make it home safe? What about the people who are living in refugee camps all over the world starving to death? Where is their higher power? No thank you I can’t swallow that, I’m damn lucky I haven’t killed someone while driving drunk, and I’m damn grateful for it…
so now the question that I wrestle with is can I let go of the ‘god’ part of the program enough to see the value in essentially taking responsibility for my mistakes in the past, allowing myself to live in the now and make sure I don’t create a whole bunch of new baggage to haul around with me? I can be an atheist and still strive to be a loving, caring and responsible human being…and I do try, what I find though when I go to meetings is that I’m just frustrated because it seems so fake sometimes…who am I to judge, maybe people are really as happy as they say they are, but I haven’t felt it by going to the rooms. It’s a bit like before I came out as being gay…I feel like a fraud, like I’m faking and I don’t belong, not because I’m better, I just don’t fit in…but that feeling has deadly consequences in the case of my addiction.
it helps so much to know that I am not alone in this struggle regarding god and spirituality in the program. It’s not something that I hear actually in the rooms very often. thank you for sharing and for allowing me to share.