AA and the God Thing

Marya Hornbacher wrote a book titled “Waiting” that deals with the problems atheists or agnostics have when they encounter AA and the God thing. Here’s a quote from Hornbacher:

The official preamble Alcoholics Anonymous states: “The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking.”

And millions of people want that and find a way to do it in this program. I’m one of them. I was, not to put too fine a point on it, a raging drunk. Now I’m not.

It wasn’t magic; it was brutally hard work to get from point A to B. I do believe I’d be dead without the help of the people and the structure of the steps in AA.

But I don’t believe in God.

And this can be something of a sticking point when you’re sitting in a meeting room, desperate for almost any route out of hell, and someone cites “the blood of Jesus” as the only way to go. Or when you realize that six of AA’s 12 steps explicitly refer to God, a Higher Power, or He.

But this shouldn’t be a deal breaker. I’m going to make a lot of old-style AA’s cranky with this, but it’s perfectly possible to sober up, sans belief in God.

…

People told me their stories — of God, the divine, the power of love, an intelligent creator. Something that made all this. Some origin, some end.

I told them I believed in math. Chaos, I said. Infinity. That sort of thing.

They looked at me in despair.

And not infrequently, they said, “So you think you’re the biggest, most important thing in the universe?”

On the contrary. I think I am among the smallest. Cosmically speaking, I barely exist.

Through the years Alcoholics Anonymous has evolved, but the basic principles of recovery are rock solid and most people who’re sincerely seeking recovery find a way to apply the principles. Even in the beginning of AA there was controversy over the “God thing” — the two major groups were in Akron Ohio, home town of co-founder Dr. Bob Smith, and the NY groups, hometown of the other founder Bill Wilson, and the Akron group heavily promoted talk of God, while the NY group was wary of being associated wit a religion. The NY group was afraid that being too God focused would drive many people away and inclusion is a main principle of AA. AA states in it’s traditions that the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. So, the controversy of AA and God thing is nothing new.

Although it wasn’t a highlighted historical fact within AA, atheists and agnostics did find sobriety and recovery from the inception. Today, in many regions, AA is more secular than God focused — the emphasis is more on a higher power than God as a source of spiritual strength. Many AA members rely on principle such as honesty, helping others, humility, etc,, more so than religious tenets. In the south, especially in smaller towns, there’s more of a religious flavor to AA, but, as far as I know, there are no groups who reject atheists or agnostics.

There are specialty groups that address AA and the God thing, such as Free Thinkers meetings that exclude mention of God. The principles of recovery are still the same, and AA appears to be deep and wide enough to accommodate all types of believers and non-believers. AA is now worldwide, even in Russia and the Far East. Principles travel well.