Is that Pascal’s Wager again?
Most atheists (I am willing to bet) just don’t like people being deluded (and to qualify that in case it isn’t implied: The fact that we are atheists means we believe those who believe in god are mistaken/deluded). Isn’t it human nature to want good things for your fellow man? and not being dellusional is considered a good thing by Atheists. We place a lot of value on knowing what’s true even if what’s true isn’t comfortable and soft and sweet. It trumps those things by being true. By being what IS.
But to be more specific to your post: I am going to try to ignore it. The posts in this thread have been a great help because I know what to expect much more than if I hadn’t posted this. And I’m hoping the idea of assigning ‘higher power’ to something that I believe exists works out for me.
I haven’t posted here in years–because I was too drunk most of the time to coherently type. Nearly 7 years ago, HP was explained to me like this by a counselor in detox:
"If I grabbed a random person off the street out there, do you think he could run your life better than you?
If I grabbed ten random people off the street, could all ten run your life better than you?
How about if there were a room full of people who not only could run your life better than you, but had learned how to do it from just where you are right now?
Don’t you think that’s a power greater than you are?"
I couldn’t argue with that. I became open to AA being a power greater than my own will. That’s all it took for me. My sponsor and the sober (not just dry) people in the rooms could run my life better than I could, and I’ve used them ever since.
With respect, and I don’t mean this in any sort of snarky way, this exactly misses the point (at least according to my own understanding of the situation). See my previous posts. Sometimes people who have an addictive or a self-destructive behaviour tend to take a view that might be called either arrogant or ‘delusionally self-sufficient’. They say things like, ‘I can handle it’, ‘I don’t need any help’, ‘I could stop any time I want’, ‘I have this thing under control’.
For many people, it’s a big step to acknowledge that they themselves cannot, as a matter of fact, handle it, and that they do need to reach out to someone or something outside of themselves and their own resources. A big step, but an important one. It involves, as I said before, an appropriate and measured degree of humility, of recognising that getting some help is going to be a good idea. I think this is what is embodied in the ‘higher power’ idea.
Bottom line: Go to meetings, call your sponsor & be honest with him, work the steps to the best of your ability, and you’ll find you no longer have to drink.
Everthing else sorts itself out once you do the above.
In my experience, anyway.
Good for you for taking this step. Your life is going to get a lot better.
I am fortunate to have one of the most non-addictive personalities ever but I have a few addicts as friends. As others have said, you have a couple of choices. The first is looking into Rational Recovery as mentioned by Alice the Goon upthread. It’s AA without the spirituality and they even make a little good natured fun of AA. It really helped a friend of mine.
The other, and this seems like what you are doing, is to define “higher power” in such a way that it makes sense to you. There are lots of atheists that have been helped by AA and that’s exactly what they have done. You’ll end up with a sponsor and you should probably choose one who shares your atheistic views. That person would be the one to have more detailed discussions about this.
Again, congratulations for doing this.
I was told by one of the people I’ve spoken to so far that there is at least one current member who is an Atheist.
Do you get to ‘choose’ your sponsor? I guess that question will be answered tomorrow anyway.
Again, thanks for all the supporting replies. It is really encouraging 
There are lots of atheists and agnostics in the groups I go to. It’s no big deal in these parts.
And yes, one gets to pick their own sponsor, and fire them at need, too. I tell newbies to look around, find someone who has what you want (like ongoing sobriety, a sense that they’re enjoying life, and a commitment to continuing to be sober) and ask them to be a sponsor. Or even ask them to be a ‘temporary sponsor’ until the newbie gets his feet under him and gets a better sense of what they need.
But don’t wait too long to choose a sponsor. It’s better to get one sooner, then change if need be later, than to not have one during the early times.
I changed sponsors after about two years of sobriety, as we were just going in different directions. I’ve been with my current sponsor for over 17 years now.
Sorry, but if you aren’t arguing over which way to hang TP, then you ain’t livin’ right.
[/highjack]
I knew a guy with a Phd who was getting sober on the mean streets of NY, he saw where a tree was growing through the sidewalk and said ‘whatever power can make a tree break through 4" on concrete can help me recover,’ he never looked back.
Another guy I know was a surfer, said he’d been tumbled by the ocean enough times to know that it was a power greater than himself, he never looked back either.
Neither one ever caught any grief for those positions. Of course, they also stayed sober, if they hadn’t, some suggestions would have been made.
I was at a meeting recently where a man said that his mom went a little crazy when his dad died, beat him with a rubber hose and took him to church. When the time came for him to get sober, he would have smacked any bible thumpers that tried to close on him, so a few who knew his story became bible-blockers, his sobriety was a hell of a lot more important to them than anyone else’s religion. His sponsor told him ‘we’re not in the business of saving souls, we’re in the business of saving drunks’
In my experience, some people who are still denying their problem will look to make mountains out of any molehill they can as an excuse to leave, the phrase ‘look for the similarities not the differences’ was coined for them.
Good Luck
Then I am really and truely out to lunch and I apologize to anyone I may have offended.
I just wanted to know if it was possible to be a “higher power” to one’s self.
I guess that is not the point and maybe anathema to the whole point of the exercise.
I am very sorry. If I seem to have made trivial of any of this, it was not my intention.
I will think more next time before I post.
After attending the first meeting. I have the unshakable feeling that the members and the literature are trying to make excuses for the organisation’s connection with or reliance upon a ‘higher power’. And it annoys me that the literature I’ve been given actually uses the word God (and not just ‘higher power’) many times.
Having said that, of the 12 or so people that spoke during the ‘share’ phase. Only one mentoned the word ‘spirituality’ and I took comfort in being with people who I shared similarities with. For that reason I’ll go again.
I am hoping the god/spirituality/higher power thing won’t continue to bug me and get in the way of my thinking as it is currently doing.
I will also look into alternatives that aren’t “Oh this isn’t a religious thing… but” and are specifically designed for Atheists.
I need help. But I will feel a bit of humiliation if it turns out I need to do or say things that even remotely acknowledges something I deeply don’t believe in. On a psychological level that humiliation is likely to get in the way.
If Assigning my ‘higher power’ to be the group of people works. Great! (Because the definition is - something other than my self that is better able than me to help me. And I think that is being with other sufferers - the group)
Will keep going and see how this progresses.
I think you’re being a little over-apologetic without needing to I understood the thinking of your post and I did think about the same thing"Can my own mind be my ‘higher power’". I was thinking from the point of view of Positive thinking being quite a powerful force when we employ it. Anecdote…
On days when I’ve had to refuse to drink that night, and felt like there was a hole in me/ or something missing (the drink) I would almost invariably fail.
On the other hand - If I had talked to myself positively about it, and told myself things like “Well actually, it’ll be a great weight off my mind not to have to drink tonight. And I’ll feel so good about having been able to make that decision” It’s on those occasions I have been MUCH more able to carry out the decision (No drink tonight)
My point being - my own thought process, utilizing positivity, is surprisingly powerful.
But I suspect it still goes against the ‘point’ of the higher power - something other than yourself.
Too late for edit: I think extreme tiredness is having an effect on my thought process. I had to get up at what for me is ridiculously early for this meeting. Had no sleep.
They are out there, but they aren’t common.
Anyway, congrats on taking this step. I know a few atheists that go to church (well, I’m Unitarian, I know a LOT of atheists that go to church, but beyond that, I’ve known a “social Catholic or Lutheran or two.” They go for the community. They go because they get a something out of it that makes them better people. They go because it makes the people they love happy. You seem to acknowledge that you need this…look at the good stuff you get from it. Focus there.
Lobsang, sounds to me like you’re looking for reasons to blow off AA. What happens if you stop assuming people are going to try to ram “God” down your throat, and instead listen to what they are saying?
twickster, sober for 24 years through the 12 steps of AA
Just so you know. I’m not assuming they’re going to ram God down my throat. They’re nice down to earth people. I’m just anxious about being an Atheist in a program that invokes a higher power.
(And yes I know ‘higher power’ doesn’t have to be God. But that concept still feels a bit ‘tagged on’ to a program that originally had God at its root. Because it feels tagged on I am worried it won’t work)
Tens of thousands (at least) of agnostic and atheist alcoholics have found that it does work. So you can relax about that part.
Ok I will. I’m still mostly confident about this
To be honest, I found the higher power stuff annoying. You know what they are talking about. It comes up frequently.