I don’t see how you can describe a “higher power” as it’s defined by AA in any manner other than religious terms. It doesn’t matter if you’re calling God or a tree a higher power; if you’re saying a tree has the ability to help you stop drinking, you’re saying that tree has supernatural powers that have no objective factual basis but which you believe in as a matter of faith. And to me, this is religion.
Suppose I go to Catholic Mass every week. But I also have no belief in Catholic Dogma. Does that mean Catholicism is not a religion because I can attend its meetings without believing in its articles of faith? The religious beliefs exist even if not every attendee at the service subscribes to them.
I don’t know why I even entered this debate. What do I care what a bunch of people who have never been to an AA meeting or really studied the program think?
Can you deny the dogma of the Church to the hierarchy and remain a Catholic in the eyes of the Church or be allowed to participate in the rituals such as communion?
David, if you aren’t interested in the debate, then you really shouldn’t participate. You’re mostly being evasive anyway.
I’m no expert on AA, but my impression is that they are deliberately non-sectarian. The AA belief system deliberately leaves “higher power” undefined because they want the program to be open to people of different religious backgrounds. This non-sectarianism - the distinction between spiritual belief and religion - looks non-religious to religious people. To me, however, an atheist whose beliefs are grounded in materialism, the idea of turning my life over to some non-specific higher power is just as absurd as if the higher power were well-defined.
The claim that the higher power need not be supernatural is a transparent dodge. Some claim that the higher power could be almost anything - for example, in the GQ thread that spawned this one, someone cited an example of a guy whose higher power was a KMart sign. I would like to know how one can turn his life over to a KMart sign in any meaningful way. The sign cannot make any decisions - whoever uses a KMart sign as a higher power is simply attributing his own decision-making to the sign, the same way that (as I believe) someone who prays to Jesus is only looking into himself for insight and falsely attributing any revelations found that way to a person who hasn’t existed for about two thousand years.
Let me draw an analogy to the experiences of a vegetarian friend of mine. More than once he has been assured by a waiter that some dish in a restaurant contains no meat, only to find something that looks like meat in the dish once it arrives. When this happens he asks the waiter to tell him what the stuff really is, and the waiter will say something like, “Uh. . . chicken?” Well, chicken may not seem very meaty to someone who’s used to eating prime rib, but it’s still meat, and AA’s requirement of a belief in a higher power is still religion regardless of how it seems to a church-goer.
Post snipped.
I am a recovering alcoholic. I am an atheist. My ‘higher power’* is biology. My body and brain react differently to alcohol than the average person. There is nothing religous about it at all. ‘Turning over’ my life to a higher power, for me, just means that I realize that my body doesn’t deal with alcohol like most people. If I drink, I cannot control it. The only solution is to not drink. AA has a series of steps that allowed me to stop drinking. AA gave me the tools I need to not drink.
I am not the only alcoholic who thinks this way, I have talked to many other athiest AA members.
Slee
*Higher Power isn’t my favorite term but it fits. Biology is a fact of nature that I cannot wish my way around.
THANK YOU! Finally someone who answered the question. I am most decidedly NOT a religion hater, nor do I think it’s a bad thing for people to use religion to conquer their demons. But it was brought up by someone else, and I’m just trying to understand a non-religious (or non-spiritual) “higher power”.
And I get it. Very nice. It works for me.
Biology as a ‘higher power’ works fine on it’s own, but when you actually try to fit biology into the 12 steps as defined by AA it kinda falls down a little.
How do you ‘admit’ to biology the exact nature of your wrongs?
And i’m not even going to start on this one:
"Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. "
I have no problem with anything that works for people, but i seems obvious to me that the nature of AA meetings being discussed here vary quite considerably. Frankly, no real atheist could attend a meeting like the one i went to and feel comfortable no matter what definition of ‘higher power’ you subscribe to.
So I guess this would be a bad time to mention that I worked for eleven years in a substance abuse facility that used the AA program?
I’m not disputing that AA works for many people and I’m glad it worked for you. But claiming that “biology” is a higher power and you turned your life over to it diminishes your achievement. Biology was what was making you drink; turning “your will and your life” over to biology wouldn’t have been a solution. You didn’t turn over control of your life; you took control of it. You were the reason you stopped drinking - it didn’t happen because some outside entity took power over you.
That’s an excellent point - but it really doesn’t have a lot of relevance insofar as AA is concerned - because their driving, overall raison d’etre (I really wanted to use that phrase) is to stop drinking and stay that way. It isn’t saving souls or collecting money or anything else. That’s all they do, that’s their measure of success, so one is free to believe whatever one wishes. They have a template of steps that they have found works for them, etc.
I think you’re missing the point. You’re criticising AA in some sort of intellectual or aesthetic sense, when plainly AA is at least partly successful at keeping hard-core alcoholics from drinking, literally saving lives, and those around them even. There are plenty of atheists, agnostics, and golly knows what else who utilize AA to great benefit, and helping people stay sober is the litmus test, not whether one or more members find solace in neon signature.
First of all, Alcoholics Anonymous’s theology is partly rooted in the Oxford Group, an organization that claimed to follow early Christian theology, and also from the religious experiences of its founders. Bill Wilson and the other early members also claimed to have been “saved” or “born again”. In fact, the 12th Step says, “Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry the message to other alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.” (emphasis mine) Moreover, steps 3, 5 and 11 also specifically mention God, and step 2 mentions a “higher power”. Although members are told they don’t have to believe in a god, per se, there is often heavy peer pressure to do so; in 10 years of meeting attendance, I did not find a single group that respected overt atheism and a handful did not believe that religions other than Christianity could believe in a “God” as the group understood the term. Many groups also begin and end the meeting with prayer; again, participation is technically “voluntary”, but there is a huge peer pressure to comply. Finally, if you read Chapter 4 of the Big Book, “We Agnostics”, the narrator opens the chapter claiming to be an agnostic, but describes the “spiritual awakening” he’s had and ends the chapter all but professing a belief in God, which would strongly imply that part of AA dogma is to bring people to God, and that belief in God is a necessary component of the program. (The history of AA, including its early roots in the Oxford Group, is available through the organization itself. Getting Better: Inside Alcoholics Anonymous by Nan Robertson is fairly pro-AA, but is a well-researched independently-written book about AA that goes into the history. The peer pressure to conform is also described here. It’s an atheist article, but it’s pretty well-cited.)
Second, in the US, there are numerous court cases in which AA is described as a religious organization, and at least one of these decisions (Warner v. Orange County Department of Probation) said that the county was “coercing the plaintiff into participating in religious exercises, an act which tends toward the establishment of a state religious faith.” (The Warner decision can be found here; another is Griffin v. Coughlin, in which a prisoner’s visitation rights cannot be predicated on participation in a rehab program with a religious component.) There are several other cases in which AA’s status as a religion has been upheld by the courts; none of these has gone to the Supreme Court, which has traditionally denied certiorari in this matter. Consequently, anyone who wants to challenge mandatory participation in AA on religious grounds may do so, as the case law is fairly strong on that issue.
Legally, in fact, at least one court has held that the distinction between “spirituality” and “religion” is meaningless. In Grandberg v. Ashland,
(From this site.)
Third, and this is to directly refute According to Pliny’s statement, Alcoholics Anonymous does not solicit or accept contributions from sources other than its members and from the sale of its books and other merchandise. It does not apply for nor accept grants from private or public sources; rehab centers do not pay a royalty to use AA’s program, although they do purchase books and other merchandise from AA. This past semester, I examined AA-related organizations’ Form 990, the IRS form that 503(c)(3) groups must file, and even though the form specificially requests information about grants and government-derived income, no AA-related organization listed any. (For the record, there is no national “Alcoholics Anonymous”, at least not for financial purposes. There are separate but inter-related organizations that oversee various aspects of AA operations.) So if they are taking money from other groups or from the government, they’re lying to the IRS about it. I can’t find a quick-and-dirty link to the 990 forms, but they are public record. I obtained them from a proprietary database, Guidestar, which is free for limited access.
I am not trying to be critical of AA. If it works for you, that’s great and you should continue. However, as I was reading this thread, I found a lot of unsupported allegations and anecdotes and thought some cites were in order.
Robin
Actually, they ask you to “turn it over” (meaning your will) to god. Not necessarily a christian god, but a higher power. They use the term god repeatedly and give the responsibility of recovery to a higher power; not to the person, as they believe you are powerless and always will be. They ask god to remove their shortcomings. Sounds pretty goddy to me.
I haven’t seen anyone in the thread do that.
Pretty lousy track record a that – and certainly no better than alternative non-religious medical treatment of alcoholism:
Works for you? Great. Is it a faith-healing, self-deceiving method? Absolutely. Not much to do with modern medical practice other than the group therapy sessions…with heavy gollops of GOD sprinkled all over the place.
Might want to read the rest the linked page for additional facts.
I am an alcoholic and an atheist who has been completely sober for 16 years. Before AA, I was unable to go without drinking for more than a day or so over 25 years. I will not attempt to answer your question as to whether AA is a religion, because I would have to know exactly what the OP means by religion.
All I can offer you are the following facts and conclusions gleaned from attendance at some 2000 AA meetings all over North America.
– In my experience of trying to explain it to others, the need to recognize a “Higher Power” is one that cannot truly be understood by non-alcoholics because their minds do not work like ours. It is possible to make an alcoholic understand it, but those alcoholics who are still in denial are likely to reject your explanation. For what it is worth, it simply means that the alcoholic isolates himself inside his own skull and unknowlingly makes himself the centre and definition of the universe. The recognition that he needs the help of a “higher power” to climb out of this prision inside his own skull is what is needed here. If this makes no sense at all to you, maybe you need to be an alcoholic to understand.
– I am an atheist or at least an agnostic (I have never been exactly sure) but I have no problem with AA. There are several other atheists in my group. The word “God” is used because the movement was started in the 30s when most people would have defined their higher power as “God”. People who have problems with this are invited to consider the AA group as their higher power. (G.O.D. = Group Of Drunks) 
or G.O.D. = Good Orderly Direction. It works fine for me and others this way. I have NEVER, EVER, in 2000 meetings, had anyone tell me I could not be an AA atheist. Never, never, never. My opinion has been treated with respect in every case.
– Spirituality is NOT the same as religion, believe me. Atheists with Skeptic Magazine have held workshops on atheist spirituality.
– AA does not have any doctrines. Everything in AA is a suggestion. Even the acceptance that you need a higher power is a suggestion. The only condition for membership is a desire to stop drinking. In theory, a guy could show up drunk at every meeting for 20 years (or as long as his liver holds out) and tell us he has no need for a higher power, and we would sit there quietly and let him say what he wants at one meeting after another. I guess we would draw the line if the guy became a violent, noisy or abusive drunk, but otherwise he is free to attend. In practice, this person would after a while stop coming or else make an attempt at becoming sober.
– The poster who said that AA avoids calling itself a religion for financial reasons is **100% wrong. ** AA is one of the poorest, most self-sustaining organizations in the history of the world. We are self-supporting through our own contributions. The contributions are voluntary and anonymous. We just take a little collection, usually with a bag into which people drop what they want. We have no dues or fees and we have no idea who gives what. Non-alcoholics who sometimes attend an AA meeting to congratulate a member on the anniversary of his/her sobriety are asked NOT to give to the collection, because we must be self-supporting.
If anyone knows an instance of an AA group receiving government money, I beg you to please point out where and when this happened, because it is a serious violation of our tradition of self-sufficiency.
I seriously, seriously doubt this. Wouldn’t decades of alcoholism research have uncovered this fact?
Depends on your definition of both terms. I know of no difference meaningful in this discussion.
You may not throw people out for not agreeing, but don’t tell me there aren’t doctrines. Very powerful, solid phrases outlining a specific outlook on life are ritually recited at meetings.
Is probably the best known.
First, a quote from A New Comer Asks from AA:
Second, there are all types of meetings with all types of people. I have been to one highly religous meeting where there was a large amount of talk about God. I went to that meeting once and decided that it didn’t work for me. There are many other meetings. Most of the time, at the meetings I go to, there is very little talk of God*.
Third, there is a quote that I cannot seem to find (and I am feeling too lazy to do a serious search right now) that basically says ‘These steps are suggestions, take what works for you and leave the rest’.
I did not admit to biology the exact nature of my wrongs. I admitted, that due to my particular biology, when I drink I am out of control, an asshole who hurts myself and the people I love. I then admitted the exact nature or my wrongs to my sponser.
For the record, there are agnostic/atheist AA groups out there. Their version of the 12 steps. I didn’t realize that there were specifically atheist AA groups out there until I did a google search. Anyway, that version of the 12 steps is basically they way I read the steps when I started going to AA.
Slee
*If someone is a hardcore atheist who freaks at any mention of God, then the average AA meeting isn’t going to work. Then again, a hardcore atheist who freaks at any mention of God is going to have problems everywhere. The average atheist, like me, who just ignores the God stuff shouldn’t have any problems.
Alcoholics Anonymous isn’t that poor. In 2005, the General Service Office cleared almost $12 million; AA World Services cleared a little over $8 million. Granted, these numbers were from 2005, so they reflect additional income from the International Conference, but even in a non-International year, they still earn several million dollars. Heck, the general manager of GSO earns over $200,000 per year.
That said, much of the money you throw into the basket actually stays at the group or local level. A large city like Chicago or Cleveland can bring in a few hundred thousand dollars and a well-attended group can bring in tens of thousands of dollars. Of course, there are small groups that might get at most a few thousand; these don’t have to file paperwork for designation as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, nor do they have to file a 990.
So “poor” is not a word I’d choose to use to describe AA. By comparison, Narcotics Anonymous netted $5.6 million in 2005 and Overeaters Anonymous netted $1.4 million. Just food for thought.
Robin