OKaysez

 

Made a Decision 

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              Religion vs AA

             Churches are hospitals for sick souls. 

                        AA is the hospital for sick alcoholics. 

In our Big Book it clearly states that during a Twelve Step call on an AA prospect we should not push the God idea too much. 

And why is that?

Because we drunks arrive in AA with all kinds of baggage; religious beliefs (or none at all) often being the biggest suitcase in the pile. 

For starters, many wet drunks were brought up to believe in a God of Judgment and Doom. They sure as Hell don't want to think about their own score sheet with that kind of God. They've spent years trying to drink those thoughts away.

Others grew up believing in a Santa Claus God. When He didn't deliver all the things they had hoped for, they tossed that baby right out with the bathwater. 

"There is no God," they cried. 

Or even, "God is dead."

Secular Jewish friends of mine on arrival into AA found the whole idea of a personal God as nonsensical as believing in Faerie Tales. 

 I had my own huge problem with Christian terminology. All that wine turned to blood (then DRINKING it), bread becoming flesh (then EATING it), getting washed in "the blood of the lamb" - it was a bloody bloodbath, and I wanted no part of it! 

And the very word Jesus (often pronounced in three syllables back home, as in: "Jaw-ease-us") made me want to stick my fingers in my ears and chant "lalalalala" to drown it out.

(My favorite bumper sticker remains, "Jesus, please protect me from your followers.")

Had I attended my first AA meeting where a member started praising Jesus (which I have actually heard in meetings and - trust me - I call them out on it, too) I'd have left and never returned. 

Finding Jaw-ease-us in AA would have killed me.

Part of all the great wisdom found in AA is in letting new members develop their own concept of God. They can rely on an AA group itself for their Higher Power, return to the church of their Childhood for spiritual teachings along with the spiritual guidance found in AA - and to just about everything in between. 

What we don't do inside AA is proselytize about our religious or spiritual activities outside of AA. That's our personal journey. In AA we share our experience, strength and hope in remaining sober, as built upon the strength we receive from "the God of our understanding."

Period.

Our Founders were members of the Christian faith and some of the terminology in the literature reflects it, but they emphasized over and over again the importance of having "a God of our own understanding." They supported making use of what all the religions had to offer, but gave us perhaps the broadest spiritual concept of them all. 

In a letter written in 1954 by Bill Wilson, he said: 

 

"While A.A. has restored thousands of poor Christians to their churches, and has made believers out of atheists and agnostics, it has also made good AA's out of those belonging to the Buddhist, Islamic, and Jewish faiths. "For example, we question very much whether our Buddhist members in Japan would ever have joined this Society had A.A. officially stamped itself a strictly Christian movement. "You can easily convince yourself of this by imagining that A.A. started among the Buddhists and that they then told you you couldn't join them unless you became a Buddhist, too. If you were a Christian alcoholic under these circumstances, you might well turn your face to the wall and die." And in the book "Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age" you'll find more of Wilson's thoughts in a footnote on page 232: "Speaking for Dr. Bob and myself I would like to say that there has never been the slightest intent, on his part of mine, in trying 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 AA member. Nothing, however, could be so unfortunate for AA's future as an attempt to incorporate any of our personal theological views into AA 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." We in AA put no pressure on members about God. If they stick around long enough they'll find their own concept of a Higher Power to reply upon. There's no timetable on this, no demands, no "shoulds" to achieve. We don't should-on-ourselves, or others, in AA. Even our all-important steps are but suggestions only. I've noticed that God - by whatever name we choose to call God - will show up for each and every one of us when the time is right, as long as we "keep coming back." In my favorite AA book, "The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions" (the12&12), there's a lovely bit about a newcomer's struggle to find God. He's sharing with his sponsor about it and is reassured with the following: "Take it easy. The hoop you have to jump through is a lot wider than you think. At least I've found it so. So did a friend of mine who was a one-time vice-president of the American Atheist Society, but he got through with room to spare." Finding God was a problem for me in early recovery, too. My sponsor finally (and probably in exasperation) asked me to write out a list of all the qualities I'd want to see in a good friend. My list included "a sense of humour, intelligence, empathy, compassion, courage, a sense of fairness, love for our planet, and much more." She studied the list and then said, "OK, there's your God for now. Your Higher Power has every one of the traits on your list. Rely on that God." I did as I was told for once. I relied on that list to design my own personal trustworthy God, and I'll always be grateful for her wisdom in suggesting it. We all have our own needs for a Higher Power, after all. Those who are weak, need His strength; stronger people need God's tenderness; Self-righteous people need a view of others through God's eyes and not their own; lonely people just need a Divine friend; those who fight for justice need God to lead them ... feel free to supply your own needs here. God delivers. By remaining on a spiritual path our wants are not always supplied per our desires, but our every genuine need is met. That's something I've learned along the way in my own journey and now know for sure. In AA we get to design our own God. But it takes time, as it does in any relationship, to build trust in a Higher Power, to learn He's always got out back. Patience, and continuing to do-the-doing in AA, is called for. We must not be too hard on ourselves while learning to find our way along the spiritual path. It can get confusing out there sometimes, but our Higher Power is always available with the suggestion: "Please return to the highlighted route." And, when I hit my own bumps in the road, I remember these words from a fellow AA member who also happens to be a Catholic priest: "The shortest prayer," he once told me, "is 'Fuck it, because that's when we're truly ready to turn it over."