April Articles Online
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Still Agnostic After All These YearsSteps, service & fellowship keep a long-timer sober.
When I got sober in 1975, I had, many years before, decided that: 1) There was no God and 2) Even if there were one, he sure wouldn't want anything to do with me. So I found it very difficult in meetings when I kept getting told
I had to believe in God or I would drink again. When anyone talked about his or her relationship with
God, my internal switch immediately went to "off." I couldn't believe that sane, sensible humans could
believe such drivel!
I endured a number of months of utter misery, saying a prayer each night that I wouldn't awaken in the
morning, and crying each morning because I had awakened. (More proof that prayer didn't work,
as far as I was concerned!)
I didn't feel at home in AA for a long time. If I walked into the meeting and two people were
laughing across the room, I knew with a certainty that they were laughing at me. The old-timers
kept telling me "I spilled more than you ever drankÑyou're not a real alcoholic." (It
was probably true that they spilled more than I drank!). Somehow, I kept getting asked to read
the Traditions at meetings, probably because I could pronounce "autonomy" and "anonymity"
without stumbling. I probably read them 20 times before I got that Third Tradition that
tells me the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. I began to feel just
marginally less of an outsider.
Around a year of sobriety, my first Christmas rolled around and I was at a meeting. After
we had cleaned the cups, saucers and ashtrays, some of us gathered around the piano and began
to sing Christmas songs. As we sang, "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas," it dawned on me how much
I was enjoying singing the song with everyone, despite my hatred of cold and snow and
ice. So I realized that I could enjoy saying a prayer with everyone without any belief in it.
At around two years of sobriety, my husband sued me for divorce. I was devastated,
and out of sheer despair, started saying "Thy will, not mine, be done," over and
over. I began to feel some relief. This was my first experience that I didn't have to
believe to get results from prayer.
Now, some 33 years later, I'm still an agnostic. I still don't know what there is or isn't.
When it says in the Third Step, "God as we understood him," I know I probably will never really
understand. That's okay. For me, prayer and meditation make me feel much better, and help me live
a much saner, happier, more contented life. Working the Steps has been a miracle for me. Going to
meetings keeps me feeling a "part of," as does service work. So I plan to keep on doing what
works best for me.
Ann M.
Phoenix, Ariz.
As a newcomer, the author of "A God of my understanding" struggled with faith and felt bombarded
with other AAs' personal views on faith. "I want to hear how God, not someone's religion, keeps him or
her sober," she writes. Eventually developing a spirituality, she does not share about it in meetings.
What do faith and spirituality mean to you? You may use this topic at a discussion meeting or share your experience on the i-Say bulletin board.
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