a rising tide that lifts all boats

Virtually no one in AA would outright bar atheists and agnostics from becoming members, but there is more to actually including us than begrudgingly accepting our right to be members.  Anyone who has ever been in a typical AA meeting knows that there is plenty of de facto exclusion.  All the god talk and the frequent assertions that it is impossible to get sober without a higher power represent significant obstacles for atheists and agnostics.  It is not enough to be able to sit meekly and silently in the back row. 

The overall environment that greets nonbelievers is replete with mixed messages at best.  A common response in AA to persons who have difficulty with the religious ambience is to say that AA is “a spiritual not a religious program.”  Unfortunately that ultimately exacerbates rather than solves the problem.  It is based on the illusion that AA's so-called spirituality rises above the limitations that characterize religion as we know it.  The implicit message is that, while “their religion” is obviously flawed, “our spirituality” is unassailable. 

Buying into AA’s open-ended concept of a higher power can at times feel like sort of a halfway house on the way to fully believing in God the Father and Jesus His Son.  While AA’s ecumenical approach to theology may well make it possible for atheists and agnostics to carve out niches for ourselves in AA, actually inhabiting the space can feel fairly tenuous.  One of the first things atheists discover is that the reason AA is so tolerant of atheists is so that we will eventually find God.  It is obviously insulting to be magnanimously tolerated if it comes with being told, “Keep coming back.  Eventually, you will either recognize the necessity of having a higher power or you will get drunk.” 

When it comes time to actually working the AA program, it becomes clear that the problem goes deeper than can be fixed by linguistic and theological sleights of hand.  While empowering each recovering addict to craft her own understanding of a higher power promotes a roomy and welcoming space and even encourages creativity, changing the terminology from “God” to “a higher power” is merely cosmetic.  The terms are entirely interchangeable in how they are used in actual speech.  

Nonetheless, whatever its shortcomings might be, AA actually gets a lot right.  Its most significant assets are not inherently religious: refuge and encouragement for the hopeless, in-depth identification, community, practical wisdom about addiction, and sometimes just having something to do that doesn’t involve using alcohol or other drugs. 

There is, not surprisingly, a proliferation of books on how to recover from addiction without God; however, these books generally either disdainfully reject AA or they present a rather superficial approach to fitting into AA and offer advice on how to work the AA program, often including a neutered version of the Steps.  For most atheists and agnostics, the problem with AA goes deeper than the god talk.  By the same token, many of us still want much of what AA has to offer.  Merely ridding the Steps of their overt religious language in order to make them available to atheists and other non-Christians are inadequate at best.  There is more involved in being a full participant in AA than getting around the god talk. 

What is missing is an appreciative assessment of AA’s strengths accompanied by an uncovering of deeper principles of recovery that can work for believers and nonbelievers alike, an approach that is neither a knee-jerk rebuff of AA nor a tepid translation that invokes some sort of vague "nontheistic" spirituality, an approach that lies somewhere between the extremes of, on one end, expecting atheists to meekly fit in and not rock the boat, and on the other end, generating unnecessary and counterproductive controversy, an approach that goes beyond the question of how to get the most out of an extant AA experience, exploring the question of how an atheist or agnostic alcoholic can creatively intersect with AA and in so doing maybe even evoke a greater spirit openness and thereby enhance the recovery experience for everyone. Atheists and agnostics who struggle with addiction to alcohol and other drugs need recovery resources, but AA also needs to look at how to be more inclusive and more effective.    

There is more at stake than wanting to do what it takes to save the lives of alcoholics who happen to be atheists or agnostics.  The presence of nonbelievers can play an important role in making AA a truly hospitable place for a diverse set of religious and nonreligious beliefs.  A lot has happened socially and culturally since the big book was first published in 1939.  AA now has global reach.  Cultural pluralism is a far more of a mainstream experience.  Given rapid expansions in communication and mobility, seemingly incompatible worldviews are constantly in collision with one another.  Intense polarization around religion and politics has reached a point where it undermines basic human decency and social cooperation.  Achieving universal agreement on anything seems impossible.  By the same token, our lives inextricably overlap, and that means finding common ground when we can.  In the world outside AA, a secularist framework is absolutely necessary for purely pragmatic reasons.  It is no less so within AA.  We don’t get to decide who walks in the door or what particular issues they bring with them.  We need to build a robust culture that can accommodate monotheists, polytheists, pantheists, pagans, agnostics, atheists, “nones,” and anyone else who has a desire to stop drinking.  There are a lot of people who fall through the cracks. 

Atheists have a significant contribution to make.  At first, we can just “take what we like and leave the rest,” but eventually, if we are going to fully participate in the recovery experience, we have to have a strategy for sharing our own “experience, strength, and hope” in meetings when the topic is about God.  It is not particularly productive to angrily challenge what is being said by the theists in the meeting; however, there are two significant assertions that sober atheists bring into the discussion.  First, we can offer credible direct evidence in our own persons that the god question need not get in the way of finding lasting sobriety.  And second, we can model the discipline involved in talking about the solution without taking the shortcut that relying on a higher power can represent.  This shifts the center of gravity to a solution that can work for anyone.

We need to carve out for ourselves a habitable space where we are not “over against” but are instead “together with,” where we can come from a place of security, lead with strength, refuse to be marginalized, fully embrace the role of gracious hosts operating on our own home turf, and become a prototype for extending hospitality not only to those like us, but also to those who are radically different.  Ideally, a time will come when nonbelievers are not a subgroup that is somewhat begrudgingly tolerated, but instead embody a new definition of mainstream AA, an AA that is more concerned about being truly effective than about preserving AA orthodoxy.

AA’s basic formula for success, though often neglected, very much depends on the idea that being united around a shared mission is more important than striving for correct beliefs.  AA openly acknowledges that the very possibility for anyone finding sobriety depends on finding common ground around one primary purpose – carrying a message of recovery to alcoholics.  There is a need for a deeper understanding of what constitutes a solution even when the solution for a given addict will not involve participation in AA.  Carrying the message should not be reduced to membership recruitment.

Actively and boldly leading the way toward a “big tent” AA is a rising tide that lifts all boats, but the right to be protected from being forced to adopt someone else’s religious beliefs cuts both ways.  If we expect tolerance, we need to work for tolerance rather than work against religion.  The fact is that, for many AA members, having a higher power is central to their recovery experience.  It is what works for them and what is meaningful to them.  To deprive them of their own truth or to expect them to keep it to themselves would clearly violate the very spirit of tolerance that we ourselves expect with regard to our own differences from the mainstream.  If we are condemning of other people’s beliefs and practices, we feed the claims that atheism is just another religion whose values get imposed on everybody else and that secularists are more dogmatic and intolerant than most Christians. 

Putting up with a certain amount of religious trappings isn’t just about picking our battles.  It is a piece of a larger strategy with regard to the end game of advancing a vision of AA that fosters freedom, creativity, intelligent dialogue, and peaceful coexistence.  It’s about rising above the fray and placing the focus on a bigger issue than the personal demand that our sensibilities not be offended and that we not have to endure the indignity of other people’s insensitivity to our needs.  It transforms the whole conversation.  A robust commitment to broad-mindedness would redefine mainstream AA culture, reframe AA’s basic message, and offer a viable alternative to AA’s current default settings. 

A true understanding of secularism doesn’t exclude religious points of view nor deny their inevitable influence in public life.  The true goal of secularism is not for everyone to be magnanimous and “politically correct,” but is instead to create a cultural space where it is OK for everyone to be true to themselves.  Minority positions have special importance because their voice being in the mix provides the opportunity to transform tolerance from a mere abstract commitment into a concrete reality.  It is as important for minorities like atheists to put skin on diversity as it is for the majority to accept the minorities’ right to claim chairs.  

doesn't AA's success prove that there is a god?

Even the most hard core atheist has to admit that AA works enviably well for a lot of people.  There are millions who were hopelessly addicted to alcohol and/or other drugs for whom AA was absolutely the last resort and who not only are now sober.  They are not only free of the negative tendencies that formerly set them up to fail; they have embraced a whole new way of life and have become remarkably productive, generous, loving, serene, and happy.  There is something there worth emulating.  The problem for atheists and agnostics though is that AA members commonly attribute their success to a higher power. 

If there is no god, how do we account for AA’s success?  That can either be troubling question or an invitation to enlarge and deepen our understanding of the recovery process.  If we can satisfactorily answer the question, we are free to relate to AA on our own terms.  And when we are told point blank by AA members (as we undoubtedly will if we are open about our lack of belief) that if we don’t find a higher power, we will eventually get drunk, we can just graciously decline their offer to help us with that.  We can maintain a position of strength and security, refusing to be marginalized.  We can see what they are saying for what it is, an opinion.

This turns the tables on the advocates of a religious approach.  The message we have to carry represents a better understanding of AA’s core principles and a more robust solution than what is commonly espoused by AA members.  It is a more realistic and straightforward accounting of AA’s success than “God doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.” 

AA’s Twelve Steps place much of the recovery process in a black box, or if you will, a sort of an imaginary “God box.”  The really hard stuff (i.e., my unruly will, my unmanageable life, the dilemma of my powerlessness, my need to be restored to sanity, and my stubborn character defects) is just “turned over.”  If many in AA get good results from that, it is because, first, surrender can break the vicious circle that occurs when our ideas about correcting a bad situation are only making things worse, and second, letting go of what hasn’t been working gives other possibilities a chance.  Ultimately though, even believers need a more precise understanding of the solution than "Let go and let God."  AA as a whole can benefit from greater clarity regarding down-to-earth strategies.  For many, belief in God is a catalyst in a process that makes sobriety possible, but all the ingredients are contributed by ordinary mortals.  Explanations do not have to rely on anything magical or supernatural.  

beyond orthodoxy

There are two questionable ideas that are fairly frequently espoused in AA – first, that AA will work for anyone who is “willing to go to any lengths” and “thoroughly follow[s] our path,” and second, that the prospects for recovery outside AA are hopeless.  They are both fear-based ideas.  Those who hold them are desperately clinging to what they believe got them sober and cannot abide anything that contradicts that.  However, a more inclusive AA community wouldn't hurt anybody.  And appreciating the successes of other approaches would only strengthen AA's approach.

Measured objectively, AA’s success rate is fairly dismal.  AA is often ineffective even with those who firmly believe in a traditional god.  Hard core “Big Book thumpers” acknowledge the grim numbers but use it to bolster their claim that anyone for whom AA doesn’t work is clearly unwilling to do what it takes.  It’s somewhat strange that what ought to be an obvious concern, the concern about possible flaws in AA’s assumptions that its poor track record might reveal, is almost never voiced within AA.  After all, how to more effectively put into practice AA’s commitment to carrying a message of recovery to anyone who wants to quit drinking is a very pertinent question. 

A more reality-based understanding of what it actually takes to get sober would take AA’s success into account but would also honestly examine why it doesn’t work for so many.  The smug dismissal that they have not thoroughly followed the path is insulting and less than helpful.  Someone not being willing to go against their own values, beliefs, or lack of belief doesn’t equate with unwillingness to do whatever it takes.  It might just be that they have integrity and dignity. 

Platitudes about what it takes to recover never got anybody sober.  AA orthodoxy does not automatically lead to lasting sobriety nor does it represent the only approach available.  No matter how helpful certain beliefs may be for some, those same beliefs can present an insurmountable stumbling block for others.

Why do so many AA members deem it more important to push God than to offer an understanding of sobriety that anyone can use to get sober?  It seems to go against AA’s principle of “attraction rather than promotion.”  Wouldn’t it be better to follow AA’s basic rule of thumb – offering our own “experience, strength, and hope” in a way that leaves open the possibility for other approaches?  After all, that’s what AA's Preamble says AA is about.  An apt introduction to any communication of the AA message would be, “I want to share what has worked for me, but I am confident that anyone who is honest, open-minded, and willing can get sober.” 

The hostility in AA toward anyone who questions AA’s theology goes beyond the natural human tendency to protect “the herd” by attacking anyone who seems to be a threat to its wellbeing.  It is hypocritical and disingenuous.  On the one hand, “honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness” are supposedly indispensible spiritual principles, but on the other hand, anyone who draws conclusions that are different from the straight and narrow is scorned.  Ostracizing people because of differences of belief is regrettable for reasons that are deeper than the indignity of it; it represents a gross misunderstanding of what a real solution to the problem of addiction consists of, the greatest part of which is usually large doses of unconditional acceptance. 

The way the message of AA is often articulated can feel like a full court press, much like the threat of Hell functions for proselytizing Christians.  The Twelve Steps and belief in God are presented as a do-or-die proposition.  The implicit belief seems to be that atheism represents a pernicious threat to AA’s effectiveness, as though leaving the back door open would be too inviting and lure many addicts to their deaths. 

Attributing successful sobriety to God conveys the idea that getting God is a turnkey way to get sober.  There are two problems with that.  First, there is the theological question of what kind of god would chose to render some people sober and not others.  And second, it underplays the role that the individual addict plays in her own recovery.  

claiming a seat

As atheists and agnostics in AA, we can feel like we are in a fishbowl.  How the message is carried to us and how we are treated often relies on default settings that come out of the kind of thinking that is found in Chapter 4 in the Big Book (i.e. that we need to be tolerated in order that we will eventually find God).  It is up to us to signal that we expect to be treated with respect.  In general, things will go better if we:

• Establish a receptive yet confident posture
• Claim the high road
• Maintain a positive, friendly attitude and stay focused on the solution
• Gently redirect discussions about God
• Temper honesty with discretion

It helps to have some talking points handy:

• According to AA’s third tradition, anyone who has a desire to not drink is entitled to all the benefits of AA membership. 
• AA is a volunteer organization in two senses.  Like all other volunteer organizations, its work is carried out primarily by volunteers.  But in addition, AA’s very character is by design fluid, transient, and amorphous, the product of countless individual choices that are not only wholly voluntary but are unplanned, unmapped, and uncoordinated. 
• The concept of “attraction rather than promotion” from the eleventh tradition is about AA’s public relations policy, but it is also a good general guide for carrying the message.  One of the implications is that individual members have the right to resist being told what to believe.
• At the heart of AA’s own message as spelled out in its literature is a clear denial that belief in a god, submission to AA orthodoxy, or even working the twelve steps is indispensible to getting sober. 
• Even though there is broad consensus in AA that certain spiritual ideas are indispensible, they are optional, no matter how mandatory almost everyone considers them to be.  What is always more important than the preservation of AA’s orthodoxy is the imperative that the solution be made available to anyone who is willing to do what it actually takes to get sober, irrespective of what they believe or don't believe.  And besides, AA wouldn’t work for anyone if it was about being told what to think. 
• Deeper than the consensus around some of the more prominent ideas that are expressed in meetings and in the literature is the single, central idea that our unity is our strength and that that unity is larger than the ways we go about trying to make sense of it. 
• The very fact that we can disagree about almost everything and yet defend each other’s right to be included is what that unity is about. 
• The very power of AA’s solution is that it bridges seemingly insurmountable gulfs between cultural experiences, value-systems, and worldviews. 
• AA unity is stronger for the very fact that it operates at a deeper level than the ways that we are almost totally different from each other, different in every respect but one. 
• An atheist who can overcome prejudice against the messenger and get to the real heart of the solution has a better chance of staying sober than a theist who can’t.
• There are many ways to clothe the message, but whatever doesn’t directly advance the singular imperative to focus on getting the core message right is superfluous.
• A common metaphor in AA is the notion that a recovery program is like a tool chest.  One of the implications is that a variety of tools are available to be used if and when they are needed.  Not all tools are helpful to a given addict at a given point in time.  Just because a tool is available doesn’t mean we have to use it. In fact, that there is an abundance and a variety of tools is a good thing.
• Atheists and agnostics not only have the right to participate in the process that defines what the AA experience is about; we have the duty to bring to the table what we uniquely have to offer.
• Being true to ourselves represents the greatest contribution we can make to the greater recovery community.

Most of what we communicate comes through our affect.  Some or all of the following might be helpful:

• Use humor, especially self-deprecating humor, to put people at ease.
• Share a positive message of recovery that even religious believers can relate to.
• Share your own experience, strength, and hope in a way that invites an empathic understanding of how atheists and agnostics experience AA.
• Build relationships with other members of the group, focusing on similarities and responding to differences graciously.
• Establish strong interpersonal boundaries.  (Don’t argue when being accosted, but do push back or just walk away.  We are standing on solid ground when we insist on being respected not only as equal participants, but also as contributors.)
• Don’t read silence as disapproval or distancing.  (They may just not know how to respond to what they don’t understand.)
• Always assume that there is someone in the meeting who needs to hear that they are not the only one who feels the way they do.
• Reach out to individual newcomers (or anyone who is struggling) after meetings, taking care to avoid ambushing them with an agenda, but instead assuring them that, however different they might feel, they are not alone.
• Introduce topics like “Live and let live” and topics from the Traditions like the necessity of keeping the focus on a solution that includes everyone who has a desire to stop drinking and the importance of staying away from outside issues and affiliations.
• Participate in the group conscience (and don’t just focus on your pet issues).
• Prove the detractors wrong not only by staying sober, but also by embodying an attractive version of recovery.

going to any lengths

Newcomers to AA who wince at what they hear in the rooms of AA are often told “take what you like and leave the rest.”  These words can become a veritable mantra for an atheist in AA.  Obviously, it isn’t license to reject everything that makes us uncomfortable, but it tells us that if there is anything about AA that we find useful, we don’t have to adopt an entire belief system before we begin receiving the benefits of membership.  We can even remain on the periphery and cherry pick what we need. 

But there is more involved in sobriety than treating AA like a cafeteria.  To a great extent what constitutes AA is in the eye of the beholder, but unless there is some deep and stable consensus as to what it is that holds AA together, the very basis for AA’s effectiveness is jeopardized.  If AA loses the common ground upon which its solution is based, the result will be conflict, confusion, and bad feelings.  That is to say, it is not enough to just encourage everybody to do their own thing. 

If the main strategy involves filtering out everything that is objectionable, what’s left may not be enough for anybody to get sober on.  What an addict most needs from AA might not be the lowest hanging fruit.  What gets offered most freely and forcefully is not always the most helpful and user-friendly.  The addict might have to put some strenuous effort into finding what is really going to work for her – sifting through and sorting what is presented, actively mining the resources she needs, salvaging what is useful, and maneuvering around what is not so useful.

There are three challenges in the just-take-what-you-like approach.  We need to:

• avoid using “take what you like” as an excuse for pursuing “an easier, softer way” and maintain clarity about what the bottom line is, what it actually takes in order to stay sober 
• become at home in the often uncomfortable space where it is simultaneously OK for others to take or leave particular details of the program and for us to hold fast what works for us, which may be very different
• Strengthen, amidst radically disparate approaches, the unity upon which personal recovery depends

Putting together a mindfully engaged program entails being doubly vigilant.  Not only must we work hard at sobriety just like anybody else, but we also have to embrace an understanding of responsibility that goes beyond blind obedience.  It is at least as important that we be “willing to go to any lengths” if we question authoritarianism as it is for those who just “turn their will and their lives over to the care of” a strict, old-school sponsor.  We need to be especially honest with ourselves about whether our intellectual scruples are but sophisticated rationalizations.  We need to not allow the freedom to find what works for us to be license for seizing upon “an easier, softer way.”  Getting sober demands rigor, and we have to follow through, especially when it’s hard. 

The prospects for the atheist addict shouldn’t be just having to endure the god talk in order to have access to a few coveted crumbs under the table; she should be able to get what she needs to thrive.  An atheist approach to recovery needs to be at least as productive of good results as anything theism has to offer, thus enabling atheist addicts to live lives of integrity, achieve a sense of wellbeing, and maintain viable atheist lifestyle. 

For most AA newcomers who are actually ready to get sober, the only thing worse than being told what to do is not being told what to do.  It is a natural human tendency to want to eliminate ambiguity.  The experience of active addiction leads many addicts to a palpable longing for a clear set of directions.  They are often fairly desperate for some ideas about what to do differently.  As the big book puts it, “alcohol was a great persuader.  It finally beat us into a state of reasonableness.”  Once an addict is ready to get sober, the burning question she has is what does sobriety require?  Step twelve says to “practice these principles in all our affairs,” but what are “these principles”?  We need to look not only to the Steps, but also to the Traditions for guidance. 

breaking out of the AA bubble

If you were to go into an AA meeting and offer a calm, rational critique of belief in God, you would certainly be cut off and probably be fiercely jeered by many in the room.  If you were to go into that same meeting though and contemptuously mock researchers who are “wasting their time” seeking a better understanding of the problem of alcoholism, the response would probably be approving nods and self-righteous chuckling.  Many in AA consider it self-evident that everything they need to know about recovery from addiction is in the first 164 pages of the Big Book.  Even those who might silently disagree with the sentiment would probably just nervously laugh along with everyone else.  That there are so few in AA who find this situation strange bears looking at. 

The point I’m making is not that bashing religion would accomplish anything.  The problem isn’t that AA includes people who hold religious beliefs; the problem is the overt hostility on the part of many toward the whole idea of using science as a test of truth claims.  AA meetings are not the place to debate science or religion or to pit one against the other.  By the same token, those who value science and critical thinking should be able to feel just as at home in AA as religious believers.  Being hostile toward science is not a neutral position.  We shouldn't go to an AA meeting to convince others to embrace a scientifically informed approach to addiction, but at the same time, we shouldn’t have to be on the defensive just because we are interested in an honest appraisal of the facts. 

It is useful to know whether research shows that a particular approach is more effective than a placebo solution.  AA claims that its spiritual solution to addiction works.  Much of the solution’s effectiveness is in its visceral quality, but that doesn’t mean that AA should hide from what a more intellectual examination might reveal.  If AA works, it has nothing to fear from scientific scrutiny.  If a rigorous evaluation of AA’s approach leads to clearer understanding of the actual nature of the solution, AA would be one of main beneficiaries.  While AA meetings aren’t the place for technical discussions of scientific research into addiction, being open to scientific evidence ought to be perceived as a good thing rather than as a threat.  Unless AA is a religious cult, it shouldn’t be out of place for someone new to AA to want some assurance that the solution that is being presented isn’t just based on superstition and magic.  While getting sober might involve more than what science can explain, if aspects of the solution are placed above scrutiny, the credibility of the entire solution is undermined.  

the twelfth step and the nonbeliever

Carrying the message to atheists and agnostics is not substantively different from carrying the message to anyone else, except that there is more at stake.  AA has always been better for the presence of atheists and agnostics in its midst.  Jim Burwell, who was the main instigator behind the softening of the god language in the steps, is sometimes referred to as the third founder of AA because his insistence that AA not be so religious proved to be so crucial in AA’s success among the many who don't share the Protestant beliefs at the core of AA's original format.  Some years after the publication of the big book, Bill Wilson expressed deep gratitude for those early AA members who resisted the strongly religious influences that AA inherited from The Oxford Group.  Because of those courageous alcoholics, AA became a much more hospitable fellowship. 

That AA is not more inclusive of atheists and agnostics is AA’s loss for three reasons. 

• Atheists and agnostics aren’t the only ones who are put off by the religious feel of AA.  The unconditional acceptance of nonbelievers would provide an important reminder that AA does not endorse religion. 
• AA is poorer for not fully benefiting from all the resources we bring to the table. 
• AA is a smaller community than it could be were it to actively make room for us. 

The question of whether to give AA a chance is not unique to atheists and agnostics.  All newcomers have to come to terms with what AA’s solution actually entails and whether it will work for them.  The choice is usually not based on a calm, circumspect consideration of the facts.  Most people who end up in AA, whatever their belief or lack of belief might be, are there because they resonate with the sentiment behind the trope that refers to AA as “the last house on the block.”  Virtually no one joins AA because they like everything about it.  There are plenty of reasons to not like AA.  Ultimately, the willingness to give recovery a chance is usually based more on a blend of blind desperation and slender hope than on any sense of certainty that it will actually work. 

For atheist and agnostic newcomers, the situation is compounded by the fear that AA requires belief in a higher power, which can be heartbreaking if they are already at a point of despair at not having been able to get sober on their own.  Most atheists and agnostics naturally assume that AA is not for them and dismiss AA based on what seems obvious, i.e. that AA is a religious program. 

The first step toward creating a basis for carrying the message to nonbelievers is establishing the fact that our presence does not constitute a threat.  That we might actually succeed in getting sober is not a dangerous idea.  AA has far more to celebrate when even one addict overcomes whatever obstacles might stand in the way of sobriety than it has to lose from the erosion of presumed certainties.  Wanting atheists and agnostics to get sober is a sign of strength and maturity.  Coming from a place of security and stability rather than fear gives AA members the ability to be open-minded and to offer a positive message. 

Twelfth-step work with atheists and agnostics comes with unique challenges.  Even though carrying the message to non believers is not qualitatively different from reaching out to anyone else, there is more to it than just glossing over the god question.  Even if newcomers can somehow filter out the platitudes and dogma they encounter in AA, they still have to deal with the looming question regarding whether there is enough left to stay sober, once AA is stripped of its religious content.  If what we present to nonbelievers is to be attractive and translatable into a vision of themselves actually thriving, it has to be more than a version of the standard message which has been purged of god talk and the expectation of supernatural intervention. 

Even if a newcomer can reach a point of believing that it is theoretically possible to get sober in AA without some sort of belief in a higher power, there is still the pragmatic challenge involved in cobbling together the day-to-day particulars of a sober lifestyle.  What they end up with may not be tidy and comfy, but if they want recovery badly enough and believe that AA is a valuable resource, having to put up with the god talk, the evangelistic fervor, and the moralistic tenor, even though that is still annoying, becomes but a nuisance rather than a deal-breaker.  It’s easy enough to appropriate what AA has to offer by means of the slogan, “take what you like, and leave the rest.”

There shouldn’t be two separate messages, one for us and one for everybody else.  The entire AA fellowship needs to actively include us in its general understanding of what it means to do twelfth step work.  And that involves doing what it takes to actually make room for us in AA.  Working with nonbelievers introduces a whole different aesthetic into the equation.  Most atheists and agnostics find more problems with AA’s ambience than the god talk.  It’s not that we are hypersensitive; we have a point.  We are like the canary in the coal mine. 

AA could stand to be a lot less disdainful of intelligent questioning in general.  Telling newcomers “your best thinking got you here,” with its not so subtle suggestion that their thinking is incapable of doing anything but making things worse, is insulting.  Many newcomers are not lacking in insight.  Expecting them to simply be docile is not a reasonable position.  It is normal to have and express legitimate reservations.  AA could stand to be a lot less condescending, more tolerant, less insistent about orthodox approaches, more respectful, and more cognizant of existing integrity, personal assets, and moral character.  Not everyone has been reduced to a bestial state. 

A Pandora’s Box of doubts, questions, and inconvenient truths threatens the most prominent tenets of mainstream AA’s conventional wisdom.  But fully honoring the principles of “honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness” entails acknowledging the wrinkles in AA’s veneer that are in plain sight for the average thinking person:

• The first 164 pages of the big book are not incontrovertible and do not “contain everything necessary for sobriety.”
• What AA literature documents is not a divinely-inspired permanent revelation, but instead a historically-situated, unfolding process that has involved discovery, speculation, invention, experimentation, and erosion of certainties.
• When dissenting views are not welcome, the truth gets lost.
• Any version of the truth that is unnaturally smooth and neat is suspect.
• Complete consistency is unattainable, especially when we are dealing with the complexities of real life.
• Forced consistency dulls intellectual curiosity, stifles the imagination, and buries everything that isn’t orderly.
• Referring to a particular understanding of the program as “the solution” ignores the fact that there are radically disparate conceptualizations of what sobriety looks like.
• AA unity is about being inclusive rather than demanding conformity to a particular norm.  AA is unified by the experience of addicts identifying with each other in spite of incommensurable differences in beliefs, values, and lifestyles.
• A reasonably accurate verbal representation of AA is not possible without some incongruity.  There are many different experiences within AA, together composing an aggregate that is larger than anyone’s ability to put what it is into words.
• The only responsible way to deal with contradictions is to honestly acknowledge that they exist and to pay attention to what they suggest about realities that are deeper than what direct perception can illumine.

One of the more annoying slogans in AA is “Keep coming back,” especially when it feels like what is really being said is “The only hope for someone as sick and misguided as you is prolonged exposure to the AA program.”  Frustratingly, “keep coming back” is a frequent response to what seem like obvious questions for which straightforward answers would not be too much to ask.  Nonetheless, it is preferable to what is often a more tempting alternative – earnest attempts to offer a comprehensive overview of the program, resulting in glazed eyes, listless demeanor, and furtive searching for the exit. 

It is all too easy to try to download too much too soon onto the hapless newcomer or to sternly stipulate too many burdensome musts.  Seemingly well meaning efforts to offer overly helpful answers can be driven by a need to reduce our own anxiety or by a need to be needed.  Frequently the questions newcomers have are purely the result of impatience or a desire to distract themselves from the mess that their lives are in.  The confusion and chaos in early recovery can be excruciating.  It is natural to want relief from that, even if the relief that is sought would come through jumping through arbitrary hoops.  “Keep coming back” is a way of encouraging patience, an enlarged perspective, and radical questioning of the assumptions upon which addictive thinking is based.

when someone else's addiction is a problem in your life

The most important assertion behind AA’s notion of attraction rather than promotion is that the autonomy of the addict needs to be respected and enhanced rather than trampled upon.  For one thing, it’s a matter of basic human dignity.  Wanting to control the addict’s behaviors and to force her to take responsibility is a natural response to addiction, but abstinence under duress is not a sustainable basis for sobriety.  And having to be the enforcer is not a healthy situation for anyone to be in.

The only decision that can turn the key is a decision on the part of the addict herself.  To not honor the intrinsic autonomy of the addict is to exacerbate the problem.  Trying to get other people to do what we want them to do often backfires.  On the other hand, accepting people for who they are tends to bring out the best in them.  This is especially true with addicts who are often already feeling unacceptable.  Adding to that already crushing burden will only make things worse.  Detachment and unconditional love are two sides of the same coin.  If we really get what detachment is about and diligently practice it, we will come out on the other side and find within ourselves the capacity to love maturely and unconditionally.  Tough love only gets it half right (i.e. the not enabling part).  If our tough love is fueled by anger, we’re not detached.

Acceptance begins with self-acceptance.  We can understand something intellectually yet be unable to accept it.  We can even recognize the blind spots created by our own denial and yet still be unable to get rid of our own defense mechanisms.  Getting to acceptance is a process that often involves working through the emotions associated with grief.  It takes time.  Being in a hurry tends to only slow things down.

Many families find themselves having to endure the ravages of addiction for years.  Sprinting to the solution doesn’t work.  A pace has to be found that is about conservation of energy, maintaining a non-anxious presence, and not allowing ourselves to become so depleted that we’re not ready to act whenever the window of opportunity opens. 

Addiction is a force of nature.  If we find ourselves in the path of a hurricane, it never occurs to us to try to persuade the hurricane to treat us with respect, to not disrupt our lives, and to leave our stuff alone.  It’s not about us.  Hurricanes are incapable of taking our feelings into consideration.  Believing otherwise is superstitious.  It may be an affront to our sense of self-importance, but we don’t matter to the hurricane.  By the same token, our feelings, wants, and needs matter about as much to a using addict as they do to a hurricane.  It’s not personal.

looking under the hood

Much of the AA experience is composed of rituals, activities, and time occupiers whose main purpose is to meet the need of having something to do and a place to be.  AA, however peculiar its culture might be, can provide a way to reconnect with the human race when no other avenue presents itself, but it is a blunt instrument.  Beyond the clichés and religious bromides, there is a lack of straight answers about what it actually takes to get sober.  Many want a cleaner approach that more directly gets to the nuts and bolts of recovery, an approach that is free of the mystification and of the religious and moralistic baggage that comes with AA's Twelve Steps.

We can reduce the recovery process to four steps:

• Develop the resolve to quit using and stay quit
• Identify and employ other ways to find immediate relief besides alcohol or other drugs
• Face problems and adopt a sound approach to problem solving
• Attain and maintain a viable drug-free lifestyle that is viscerally more attractive than using

Of course, the devil is in the details.  How to accomplish these four steps, with or without participation in AA, needs to be broken down into bite-sized, concrete actions.  

the baby in the bathwater

While there is a proliferation of books about the intellectual dimensions of atheism, there is a shortage of resources that are about actually shaping a life around atheism.  There is little value in intellectual consistency if it is accompanied by an inadequate set of skills that contribute to a successful life.  While we may find it useful to be able to defend our intellectual commitment, even more useful are strategies for living that are both consistent with our beliefs and productive of lives we want.  At the end of the day, we don’t actually have to convince anyone that our beliefs are not ill-considered or crazy; the quality of our lives doesn’t ultimately depend on what other people think of us.  What does matter though is whether we can put together a good and reasonably happy life on our own terms. 

The vast majority of Christians believe, not because theological arguments make sense to them, but instead because they have never had sufficient reason to reject what they have been taught, because they want to continue enjoying the benefits that come with being a part of a community that happens to be religious, and/or because it is easier to just go along with the crowd.  Intellectual arguments are largely inconsequential.  Embracing atheism does not depend on disabusing anyone of beliefs that they find helpful.  The reason most atheists reject belief in God are not that we are just defiant or arrogant, but instead because we find such belief to be implausible.  It is simply not possible for us to accept what would be a lot more convenient, comfortable, and sociable to believe.  Many of us used to believe and remember the emotional and social benefits that came with religion.  On the other side of a deconversion, former believers often find their social environment to be suddenly inhospitable.  Much of what they previously took for granted is no longer available to them.  They have to find other ways to intersect with the human community and to get what they need out of life. 

There are significant and very real benefits associated with religious belief and practice.  For millions of years, religion has been a vessel for the transmission of important understandings about living fruitfully.  Many of those understandings evolved organically and have stood the test of time.  We need to not throw the baby out with the bathwater.  A godless approach to recovery needs to be at least as productive of good results as anything theism has to offer.  We can identify what it is about the religious approach that works so well for some people and find sounder ways of getting the same or similar benefits. 

Some of the most obvious benefits of religion that can be arrived at through other means are:

• Not feeling alone in a cold and capricious universe
• Having a perspective that is grounded outside the self and that operates independently from the ego
• Finding meaning, purpose, inspiration, fulfillment, satisfaction, and happiness
• Believing that I am loved, appreciated, and accepted for who I am
• Finding relief from feelings of affliction, fear, bondage, and oppression
• Doing together what we can’t do by ourselves
• Having the strength and courage to do what needs to be done no matter how difficult or frightening
• Having a common point around which community can form
• Letting go of what can’t be controlled
• Accepting what can’t be fixed
• Feeling reasonably optimistic about the future
• Peace
• Humility
• Removal of the desire to use

community

Community is central to the AA experience, but AA as we know it could stand to be enlarged and extended by:

• Fostering a more inclusive AA community
• Finding community that is supportive of recovery outside of AA
• Envisioning a robust and cohesive recovery community that includes AA but is larger than AA proper
• Identifying ways to participate constructively in the global human community

Most addicts need some sort of people connection.  The quality of the experience of community is contingent upon the quality of the participation.  Community isn’t just something we find already completely formed; it’s what emerges interactively through our own participation.  Human community can come in many forms, but all experiences of community are composed of a complementary blend of, on the one hand, having our present social needs met and, on the other, being challenged to reach down more deeply for that within ourselves that needs to come forth and become part of everyone else's experience.  That is to say, each of us has to cobble together an experience of community by not only finding satisfaction through what is, but also being creatively dissatisfied to the point of needing to bring something new into being.  It is the latter that can be the most crucial ingredient in sobriety. 

There are a number of obstacles that a newly sober addict might encounter:

• Intolerance with regard to addiction
• Having used up the patience of the people around us
• Our own trust issues
• Being shut down emotionally because of the brutality of the experience of addiction
• An inability to relate to other people due to self-absorption
• Poor social skills
• Being needier than the people around us can accommodate
• A scarcity of social opportunities that could provide a sufficient sense of connection

The individual receives significant benefits by fully being a part of community:

• Having a sense of belonging that satisfies a deep, primal need
• Access to the sublime pleasures involved in cultural experiences like art, music, and literature
• Reaping the fruit of the knowledge and experience of others
• A safe and nurturing environment in which to develop organically into a whole person
• Being empowered to participate in such a way that can change the community for the better
• Providing a platform for joining with others to do what can’t be done by isolated individuals

It is easy to see how religion can suck all the air out of the room, thwarting alternative models for community, but atheism is an unstable basis for community.  It doesn’t represent anything positive around which an identity can be formed.  It is defined by what it is not rather than by what it is.  By the same token, humanism and secularism provide a positive identity, and they also do not box us into a ghettoized social space that isolates from others, but instead allow us to join together even with religious believers.

Spearheading an effort to build community doesn’t require any special talent for leadership or organizing.  Genetics is on our side.  Human beings are designed psychologically and emotionally to long for, look for, and gravitate toward community.  When community is not happening, often all that is required is for one person to risk being thought weak, naïve, or sentimental by voicing a simple desire for people to come together.  There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.

Somewhere on the continuum between pure self-interest and absolute altruism is a viable, life-enhancing position.  We neither need to feel guilty for not being altruistic enough nor foolish for being too altruistic.  We can find an optimal point somewhere between selfishness and self-sacrifice which represents an ideal blend of challenge and comfort. 

In a society where lifestyle, personal identity, and cultural commitments are often reduced to consumer choices, what we expect of communities is skewed.  Sometimes, community as we actually find it is closer to what we need than anything we would have asked for.

why bother?

Getting sober in AA is more embarrassing than being a drunk.  Many alcoholics who never worried about being spotted in a bar shutter at the thought of being recognized in an AA meeting.  Part of that is the fact that no one likes admitting the kind of defeat that ending up in AA represents, but to be perfectly honest, it’s also that AA turns a lot of people off.  The unadorned frankness of AA’s solution is inherently unpalatable, and the smug and strident way it is often presented makes it even harder to take.  An addict doesn’t have to be an atheist to find all the earnest god talk and dogmatism in AA to be decidedly unattractive. 

And that’s not all that is off-putting.  Pretending to laugh at the sometimes cruelly self-mocking humor in AA meetings can be uncomfortable.  There are also the many hackneyed slogans and pat formulas for sober living that get strung together in response to any crisis, large or small, as though something profound is being said.  “Just keep it simple, take it one day at a time, do the next right thing, and let go and let God.”  AA can feel so indecorous.  There are in fact worse fates than dying a drunk.  The prospect of marching mindlessly into a boring, glum, and unimaginative existence is one of them.  Not wanting to join AA can be a little like the sentiment behind the graffiti I once saw in a bar restroom, “I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.”  How is it that a program that is supposedly about finding freedom and coming into possession of a sound mind can at times be such an obstacle to real freedom and sound thinking?

It’s not entirely surprising that many AA members fall short of intelligently pursuing the ideals of freedom, retreat into fear-driven legalism, and become belligerently intolerant of the freedom they see in others.  The mental and emotional patterns that go along with addiction don’t go away overnight.  The experience of addiction has crushed their imagination and impoverished their sense of what is possible.  That can easily lead to a fairly rigid adherence to conventional understandings of AA’s solution.  The best some people can do is to adopt a clear set of guidelines that provide a clean departure from everything associated with their former way of life.  While I have no desire to interfere with something that is already working for many people, not everybody who arrives at AA has been reduced to a brutish state.  The hard-line paternalistic approach that is in abundant display in AA can feel like an insult to the intelligence and sense of dignity of many who would otherwise find help in AA. 

But suppose I am addicted to alcohol or another drug, and I truly want to get clean.  I’m impaired by my using, but I’m not stupid.  I’ve looked into the science of addiction.  I am capable of observing my behaviors and of understanding that there are some strong, primal tendencies in my brain and in my general biology that can overpower the higher order thinking of my brain’s frontal lobe.  I conceive of some ideas about what a solution would look like.  I am willing to do anything except two things – embrace a belief in a higher power and join a twelve step fellowship.  I can’t stand all that god talk and the glib references to powerlessness, and besides, I just don’t indentify with low bottom junkies and drunks.

Let’s say then that I’m doing everything in my plan, but I am still plagued by feelings of isolation and a sense that no one understands me.  And I can’t stop using.  Where do I find a human connection that can break down my isolation and dissolve the stigma that my using has likely created?  In a perfect world there would be a vital recovery community to plug into that includes, but is bigger than, AA and that offers pockets away from god talk, from abject worminess, from moralistic smugness, from stupid hazing rituals, and from the implicit promotion of what feels unmistakably like an AA creed.  But none of us lives in a world where that ideal community is available on demand.  There are other programs besides AA, but they are not as widespread as AA.  Ultimately many of us just reach a point of finding the intolerable and embarrassing prospect of joining AA more palatable than continuing on the course we’ve been on.

Thus the dilemma many atheists and agnostics addicted to alcohol or other drugs face – while it is theoretically possible to quit using without participating in AA, they may find the actual prospect of having to go it alone to be even more daunting than just enduring the god talk and all the other indignities that come with AA.  There are plenty of examples of addicts who have been able to get sober without AA, but one of the most valuable ingredients in successful sobriety for many addicts is being able to identify with and connect with other people who have experienced the ravages of addiction, especially those who have found a way out.  AA might, in many cases, be the only reliable place to find that. 

As often as AA is scathingly satirized or reduced to a cartoonish stereotype, most people still tend to view it as the most effective solution to the problem of addiction.  Even the existence of all the books on how to recover without AA is evidence that AA is the 800 pound gorilla in the room that has to be contended with.  There are other recovery programs, but because AA so dominates the scene, achieving a critical mass outside AA is difficult.  Those other programs are not available in every community, and even when they are available, they might not feel like home any more than AA does.  The question of whether to join AA is unavoidable for anyone who wants to overcome addiction.  The decision often hinges on how the addict feels about the religious tone that AA sets or about AA dogma in general. 

Even if an atheist or agnostic is willing to put up with AA’s god talk, dogma, quasi-religious rituals, and rampant anti-intellectualism, she might still find herself at a loss when it comes to actually adapting the AA program to her own needs.  She might hear people in AA say, “Take what you like and leave the rest,” but there is more to recovery than treating AA like a cafeteria.  What an addict most needs from AA might not be the lowest hanging fruit.  What gets offered most freely and forcefully is not always the most helpful and user-friendly.  The addict might have to put some real effort into finding what is really going to work for her – sifting through and sorting what is presented, actively mining the resources she needs, salvaging what is useful, and maneuvering around what is not so useful. 

If the only strategy is to filter out what is objectionable, what’s left may not be enough to get sober on.  The prospects for the non-believing addict shouldn’t be just having to endure the god talk in order to have access to a few coveted crumbs under the table; she should be able to get what she needs to thrive.  A godless approach to recovery needs to be at least as productive of good results as anything theism has to offer, thus enabling atheist and agnostic addicts to live lives of integrity, achieve a sense of wellbeing, and maintain viable sober lifestyle. 

Realistically, it is inconceivable that the prevalence of god talk in AA is going to go away any time soon, but neither is the dilemma presented by atheists and agnostics seeking sobriety.  The only real solution is to work toward building a culture within AA that can accommodate the needs of both theists and atheists, and everybody in between.  It is not enough to give lip service to the ideal of inclusivity.  The heart of AA’s solution may be unconditional acceptance of everyone who wants to quit drinking, irrespective of what they do or don’t believe, but if the cultural norms, expectations, and cues are inextricably connected with belief in a higher power, the message to atheists is that they don’t belong, will never fit in, and are thus deprived of the most important element in the AA recovery experience, in-depth identification with other recovering addicts. 

The idea that atheists and agnostics have the right to take part in the AA experience is not a subtle or abstruse argument.  AA’s third tradition explicitly says, “The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking.”  Virtually no one in AA would outright bar an atheist or an agnostic from becoming a member, but there is more to actually including someone than begrudgingly accepting her right to be a member.  Anyone who has ever been in a typical AA meeting knows that there is plenty of de facto exclusion.  All the god talk and the frequent assertions that it is impossible to get sober without a higher power represent significant obstacles for atheists and agnostics. 

Greeting atheists and agnostics with open arms would be good for AA.  It would prompt more probing reflection on the nature of the solution.  The presence of newcomers in general is a challenge that keeps veteran AA members focused on “the solution;” when the newcomer is an atheist or an agnostic, that challenge extends further and deeper.  The ideal approach lies somewhere between two clearly undesirable extremes at opposite ends of a spectrum – on one end, expecting atheists to meekly fit in and to not rock the boat, and on the other end, generating counterproductive controversy by angrily challenging the status quo.

AA has always been better for the presence of atheists and agnostics in its midst.  Jim Burwell, the AA member who, together with Hank Parkhurst, was the impetus behind the softening of the god language in the steps, is sometimes referred to as the third founder of AA because his insistence that AA not be so rigidly religious proved to be such a crucial piece in AA’s emerging identity.  Some years after the publication of the Big Book, Bill Wilson expressed deep gratitude for those early AA members who resisted the strongly religious influences that AA inherited from The Oxford Group.  Because of those courageous alcoholics, AA became a much more effective program.

While the most noticeable attribute of AA might be its explicitly religious character, the greatest part of AA’s solution has more to do with its having positioned itself, however precariously, atop a continental divide that runs between religion and secularism.  The god talk is what stands out, but the back story is that AA, by refraining from officially endorsing any particular set of religious beliefs (apart from the de facto endorsement through practices like the use of the Lord’s Prayer to close meetings), comes down more on the side of secularism than sectarianism (just barely).  AA’s Twelve Traditions seek to eliminate any political or religious doctrine that would get in the way of anyone finding a solution; instead, they support the proposition that each member is free to decide for herself what to believe.  That is an inherently secular move, and it was an eminently practical move.  Because of it, AA became able to welcome many who would have been turned away if there were a narrow definition of what a member had to believe. 

The basis for AA’s success is very much about embracing the essentially secular idea that finding common ground is more important than whose version of ultimate truth is affirmed.  It wasn’t until AA began distancing itself from the dogmatism of the overtly religious Oxford Group (in whose debt AA was for the seminal ideas that led to its birth) that a not insignificant number of alcoholics would even have access to AA.  Being aligned with the explicitly protestant, evangelical Oxford Group ruled out the involvement of non-Christians and even Roman Catholics.  Obviously, AA didn’t reject all religious dogma.  Since its beginning, there has been a relentless tug-a-war within AA between the more religiously inclined status quo and the more secular minded minority.

AA explicitly aspires to provide a solution that will work for anyone who wants to stop drinking, but there is no one-size-fits-all formula that can achieve that.  There’s a saying in AA, “For every nut who walks in the door there’s a wrench that will fit them.”  If I expect to find the right wrench for me, I owe it to AA to not get in the way of any other nut finding a wrench that will fit her.  Since I can’t be all things to all people, I should be grateful for rather than condemning of those who bring to the table wrenches that are different from mine.  In other words, I need to not interfere with anyone else’s prerogative to carry the message in a way that makes sense to them (as long of course as they aren’t undermining the efforts of other AA members or AA as a whole.)

We inadvertently and unnecessarily alienate some of those who most need what we have to offer by insisting on a narrow understanding and by being blinded by our own prejudices.  Most addicts are already sensitive to being stigmatized and condemned.  They are used to being held in contempt and being talked down to.  They won’t push back; they’ll just become resentful or demoralized and retreat into a permanent, insular (and sometimes fatal) state of hopelessness.

The addict who comes into AA looking for recovery brings to the fore the only real focus that matters – the question of what it takes to get and stay sober.  We don’t get to decide who walks in the door or what particular issues they bring with them.  That each of them brings unique challenges is what keeps the experience of recovery fresh for everybody else.  The vitality of the fellowship is fed by trying our best to help addicts get sober rather than by meeting some test of purity, orthodoxy, or correctness.  What holds the effort together is not an ideology, a belief system, or “brand loyalty,” but is instead a commitment to do whatever it takes to provide crucial, needed resources to addicts who are seeking a solution.

The actual experience of carrying the message to addicts with whom I have nothing in common except addiction confounds attempts to conceptualize AA unity in terms of any monolithic version of recovery.  Joining together with people whose political views and social values might well be abhorrent to me demands a somewhat enlightened perspective, in other words, an ability to embrace an approach that is larger than what is produced by my own limited conceptions.  As in the old folk story about blind men trying to understand what an elephant looks like based on each of them being able to sense by touch a different part of the elephant, each individual is only able to perceive a small piece of the whole picture.  The coexistence of radically different stances with regard to everything except one common goal, staying sober and helping others find sobriety, gives us a glimpse into the complexities involved in the question of what unity is about. 

The paradox of AA unity is that it is strengthened rather than imperiled by the fellowship’s heterogeneity.  The only two things that everyone who finds sobriety has in common is that they have all experienced addiction and they have each put together their own particular approach to recovery that works for them individually.  “We are,” the Big Book says, “people who normally would not mix.”  The reality of radical diversity unseats the artificial, brittle unanimity of fearful conformity.  When everyone is welcomed, honored for who they are, and encouraged to pursue recovery in a way that is consistent with their own highest values, the result is a vital and true community whose unity is deep and robust.

In the effort to establish common ground, it is fairly typical (and understandably human) for AA members to pursue unity by impatiently demanding that everyone conform to a certain set of beliefs and practices.  In AA, this often involves insisting that everyone acknowledge the necessity of having a higher power.  That is unfortunate – and not just for atheists and agnostics.  Theological affirmations are notoriously divisive.  Whatever we might base unity on, it obviously can’t be about God.  Besides the obvious fact that not everybody believes in a god, there is little or nothing about which even religious believers can agree.  Any assertion about who God is and how “He” operates is guaranteed to create controversy and division.  In fact, there are not many sources of conflict that are as destructive as controversies around the god question.  Discussions about religion are quite commonly volatile.  Religion is a topic that is considered too hazardous for polite conversations.  People go to war or commit acts of terrorism because of religion.  Clashes between disparate religious beliefs hook primal emotions, threaten personal identity at the core, and rock people’s worlds at the very foundations.  

The concept underlying a secular approach to recovery is not about excluding or neutering religious points of view, but is instead about ensuring that no one religious point of view is allowed to suck all the air out of the room and that any point of view, including atheism, is acceptable, welcome, and included, as long as the devotees of the points of view in question are sufficiently respectful with regard to proponents of other points of view.  Living by the slogan, “to thine own self be true,” is meaningless unless I allow others to do the same.  The idea that no particular set of beliefs is necessary for sobriety needs to be implicit within any attempt to carry the message.

The whole basis for AA’s success is in the idea that actually wanting other addicts to get clean is more important than being right.  In the spirit of its eleventh tradition, AA is a program of “attraction rather than promotion.”  Modeling what worked for me is attractive.  In contrast, promoting my beliefs just gets in the way.  Insisting on a correct understanding of the program is a turn-off.  If AA works, it’s not because an infallible understanding of the solution is spelled out in the first 164 pages of the big book, but instead because addicts with a wide variety of worldviews and cultural values are able to find connection and in-depth identification with other addicts.

The sole purpose of AA is to help alcoholics get sober.  That is not the same as membership recruitment.  Fulfilling AA’s mission entails making resources available which anyone can use to find sobriety, whether or not they choose to join AA.  That would involve:

• Remembering the principle of “attraction rather than promotion”
• Removing needless obstacles to AA
• Extending what AA has to offer without strings
• Practicing unconditional acceptance
• Being open to and encouraging of other possibilities besides AA orthodoxy
• Finding unity in the common cause rather than being put off by differences

twelve suggestions

The Twelve Steps were first published in 1939 in Alcoholics Anonymous, the book that would come to be called “the Big Book.”  They are introduced with the words, “Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery.”  While there are some in AA who say that the steps are suggested in the same spirit that it is suggested that skydivers open their parachutes after they jump out of an airplane, there are compelling reasons for offering the steps as suggestive only.  Sharing “experience, strength, and hope” works a lot better than telling people what to do.  There is no recipe for a sober life anyway.  The main point of recovery is freedom.  It’s not about replacing one form of compulsion for another.  The form and content of the steps represent a particular worldview and are replete with cultural baggage.  Insisting on the adoption of the steps exactly as they are worded smacks of moral imperialism.  The steps’ implied requirement that there be a belief in a higher power is an unnecessary barrier to many.

I’m not an advocate of replacing the steps, at least not immediately.  Any conceivable process that would lead to the steps actually being changed is not currently within reach.  Besides, what we would end up with would not necessarily be an improvement.  No matter how respectful of diversity we are, there are always going to be some who will feel alienated, excluded, out of sync, or ignored.  Rewriting the steps might be helpful to many who can’t relate to them in their current form, but there are at least as many who like them just the way they are.  A better solution is to acknowledge the limitations of language and invite individuals to look beyond the exclusivity, the presumptuousness, and the heavy-handedness of the steps as they are written.  There is even value in preserving the original, historical version of the steps, if for no other reason, so that the archaic language can continue to remind us that the particular form that recovery takes is culturally contingent.  There is no universal formula that can guide everyone.

So we’re back to the steps as suggestions.  That they are suggestions means two things.  First, they are quite optional.  It is possible to stay sober without them.  Many people do it every day.  And second, each of us has considerable warrant to be flexible and creative, to be openly questioning in how we interpret their meaning and intent, to zero in on core principles that we infer from them, to personally tailor what we actually do to put them into practice, and even to rework their language.  If it is OK to dispense with them altogether, it is surely OK for individuals to modify them.  The spirit of the steps as suggestions offers each of us permission and even encouragement to adapt the steps to our own beliefs and circumstances.

In fact, the whole point of working the steps with a sponsor, a recommendation so strongly emphasized in AA, is that there is more involved in understanding and working the steps than reading the words on the page and interpreting them at face value.  We need the rugged, pragmatic wisdom that is the fruit of individual experience and of being a part of a diverse community that challenges the idea that there is only one path to recovery.  There is no one-size-fits-all approach to working the steps.  The steps represent a text that members of a living community share in common with each other.  How that text is interpreted and incorporated into real lives is informed by an ongoing conversation within the community and by each individual’s powers of honest evaluation and reasoning.  Literalist or narrow interpretations eliminate the most crucial ingredient, the ineffable human sensibility that has been proven to be so valuable.  The steps aren’t sacred; they are but a resource that is meant to be applied, adapted, and experimented with rather than enshrined or used as a magical talisman to ward off evil spirits.

The steps have an intuitive, somewhat familiar feel, at least to anyone who has been exposed to the religious ideas upon which they are based.  There is a magical, mythological aura surrounding their reputed divine inspiration and their supposed supernatural power to transform lives that is as cherished as the image of Moses coming down off the mountain with The Ten Commandments.  Whatever their limitations though, the steps do seem to offer a versatile solution.  They outline a process of healing and recovery that works for a lot of people – as the Big Book puts it, “‘a design for living’ that really works” – and not just for alcoholics.  The steps have famously been applied to every imaginable human problem. 

How do atheists and agnostics account for the apparent effectiveness of the steps?  To say that the steps depend on God would be to concede that God exists.  If it is the mere act of believing that is the crucial ingredient (and the object of the belief doesn’t really matter), the steps are nothing more than a trick people play on themselves.  But what is it they are tricking themselves into?  Can we get there using a more straightforward methodology?  Could it be that belief in God or “a Power greater than ourselves” is not so indispensible after all?  Can we identify in the steps specific principles that are inherent to the recovery process and that don’t depend on belief in a higher power? 

Demythologizing the steps entails understanding their genealogy, their foundational assumptions, and the context in which they evolved.  They represent a blend of elements, some of which atheists and agnostics can embrace, some not so much.  Four of the main factors that shaped the steps were:

• The religious legacy inherited from the Oxford Group
• Insights from psychology
• Limited understandings of the medical aspects of alcoholism
• The actual experience of early members of the fellowship that would come to be called Alcoholics Anonymous  

Early AA largely stayed away from undermining its credibility by stressing too much the controversial claim that alcoholism is a disease, but AA’s model is clearly based on the idea that alcoholism is a malady that requires treatment and involves recovery rather than simply being a moral failing that requires correction.  Dr William Silkworth in a prefatory section of the Big Book called “The Doctor’s Opinion” (BB pp xxv-xxxii), speculates that alcoholism is “a manifestation of an allergy.”  He wrote that working with alcoholics meant conveying a message that has “depth and weight.”  He says, “In nearly all cases, their ideas must be grounded in a power greater than themselves, if they are to recreate their lives.”  He goes on to say, “unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery.” 

One of the precursors of AA alluded to in the Big Book (pp. 26-28) was a conversation between Dr Carl Jung and Rowland Hazard III (unnamed in the Big Book account), a friend of Bill Wilson’s friend Ebby Thacher (the “school friend” who was instrumental in Wilson’s getting sober, the account of which is found on pp. 8-15 of the Big Book).  Jung declared Hazard an utterly hopeless alcoholic and said that the only chance for alcoholics like him was having “what are called vital spiritual experiences” that “appear to be in the nature of huge emotional displacements and rearrangements.” 

The question of how to foster “a personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism” (cf. BB p 567) was critical for the founders of AA.  They knew that there was a lot more about the solution that they still needed to work out, but they were convinced that recovery depended on “deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows and toward God’s universe” and that “the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous” was central (BB p 25). 

An explicit goal of the steps is to produce “a spiritual awakening.”  The twelfth step begins with a promise, “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps.”  The idea that some sort of conversion experience was necessary was directly related to the influence of the Oxford Group, but it was not a novel idea.  Religion has long been associated quite particularly with the kind of personal transformation that is often a significant piece in addressing the problem of addiction. 

Abraham Maslow (years after the founding of AA) wrote about what he called “peak experiences.”  According to Maslow, peak experiences do not require a supernatural explanation and don’t have to be religious in nature.  They are natural phenomena that can bring about an altered mental state, a renewed sense of purpose, awakened compassion, feelings of being at one with the universe, reduction of the ego’s influence, freedom from fear, emotional healing, enhanced creativity, and a radical reintegration of the self.  Bill Wilson began his own sobriety with a “white light” experience.  Not every recovering addict has a dramatic conversion experience, but for most, some sort of internal personal transformation is crucial, even if it is what the Big Book, quoting William James, calls spiritual experiences “of the educational variety.” (p 567)  We might speculate that there is a fundamental, biological relationship between the human religious impulse and mental states induced by certain drugs.  Addiction seems to be driven by a deep hunger for a sense of connection with transpersonal realities, for experiences of joy, for what would give life meaning, and for real freedom.  Some of what religion is about springs from the same psychology.  Some religions even use drugs to produce ecstatic states.  

Presumably in order to understand his own “spiritual awakening” and to better formulate the solution, Bill Wilson read William James’ Varieties of Religious Experience.  James writes that some people are constitutionally “sick souls” and that the only cure is to be reborn.  Wilson would come to the conclusion – based on his own experience, his observation of other alcoholics, and his reading – that the starting point in recovery necessarily involves a degree of willingness that can only come out of an experience of defeat. He was convinced that the first step had to insist on the admission of powerlessness because “few people will sincerely try to practice the A.A. program unless they have hit bottom.  For practicing A.A.’s remaining eleven Steps means the adoption of attitudes and actions that almost no alcoholic who is still drinking can dream of taking” (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 24).

The admission of powerlessness in the first step is clearly meant to prepare the way for being saved by “a Power greater than ourselves” in the second step.  This formula of defeat, faith, and salvation is perhaps the key feature of the process outlined by the steps as they are written – in the words from AA folk tradition, “I can’t; He can; I think I’ll let Him.”  But while most addicts have to reach a visceral state of being thoroughly done with using before they have any chance of successfully quitting, there are other ways of appropriating the experience of hitting bottom than labeling it powerlessness and believing that the only solution is to find a higher power. 

It’s worth asking whether having a religious or quasi religious conversion experience is even the most important factor in sobriety.  Even if some sort of emotional catharsis or shift is necessary for recovery, there is clearly more to what it takes to stay sober than a wholly internal event brought about by the invocation of God’s amazing grace.  Overemphasizing the steps discounts the role other people and the experience of community play in the process.  The cult of the steps (i.e. the mindset that equates “the program” with the steps) obscures other, perhaps even more vital aspects of the solution.  In a chapter titled “A Vision for You,” the Big Book talks about “a fellowship in Alcoholics Anonymous” which becomes “a substitute” for the excitement and satisfactions of the drinking life and “is vastly more than that.”  It promises, “There you will find release from care, boredom and worry.  Your imagination will be fired. Life will mean something at last.  The most satisfactory years of your life lie ahead.” (BB p 152)  This parallels the language of the first tradition, “personal recovery depends on AA unity.”  If there is such a thing as a fit “spiritual condition,” the maintenance of which grants “a daily reprieve” from drinking (cf. BB p 85), there is clearly more to that than getting right with God through the steps.  Not only are the steps merely suggestions, they are meaningless unless they are part of a larger effort that involves doing everything it takes to build an entire lifestyle around being clean.  

While many understandably find nothing in the steps that is worth salvaging, surely it doesn’t hurt to examine them critically, filter out what is not helpful, and possibly learn from the process of recovery they outline.  They document the history of a search for a solution to the problem of alcoholism and the discovery of some principles that have proved to be of value to a lot of people.  Those principles can be applied, not rigidly, but perhaps more or less in order, by atheists and agnostics to their own lives.  There is nothing magical about the number twelve, but the already established, orderly pattern of twelve steps provides something of a template to work with.  The goal is to shape our understandings of the steps in ways that meet our personal needs.

There are a number of secular versions of the steps.  Roger C gives some excellent examples in his helpful work, The Little Book: A Collection of Alternative 12 Steps.  Most rewrites of the steps don’t go far enough though.  There are more problems with AA’s Twelve Steps than their religious language.  Merely removing references to God leaves big holes.  While some of the steps don’t require any substantive change in what is being suggested, others are based entirely on a belief system that includes God.  If we’re not counting on supernatural help, we need to ask what needs to happen in its place?  What follows is my attempt to reformulate the process that is outlined by the Twelve Steps.  Rather than attempting to rewrite the steps, I have tried to identify the core principle behind each step.  For purposes of comparison, each principle is accompanied by the respective AA step in parentheses. 

1. Face reality (“We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.”)

2. Trust the process (“Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”)

3. Move forward (“Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”)

4. Discover (“Made a searching and fearless inventory of ourselves.”)

5. Connect (“Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.”)

6. Divest (“Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.”)

7. Re-form myself (“Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.”)

8. Embrace responsibility (“Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.”)

9. Correct (“Made direct amends to such people whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.”)

10. Broaden freedom (“Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.”)

11. Make sound, informed choices (“Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for the knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.”)

12 Build a life of joy and satisfaction (“Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry the message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.”)

One of the things that should stand out is that godless principles corresponding with Steps 1, 3, 6, and 7 necessarily involve actions that are fundamentally different from what is suggested by AA’s steps as they are written.  The problems an atheist or agnostic will have with those particular steps go deeper than the fact that they assume the existence of God.  How the acknowledgment of powerlessness (Step 1) functions in recovery and how it is framed is slippery.  Experiences of powerlessness are part of life, but the ultimate goal needs to be to become empowered rather than merely surrendering to a permanent state of dependence upon a power outside ourselves. 

The main problem with AA’s Twelve Steps is that much of what supposedly happens occurs in a black box as if by magic.  God is expected to do all the heavy lifting, and what is required of us is often more about being passive rather than being about taking concrete action.  This is especially clear in Step 3.  The idea of passively turning our will and our lives over is obviously problematic.  I have shifted the emphasis to a need to take action.  Similarly, instead of asking God for the removal of character defects (Steps 6 & 7), I have embraced a process that involves second-order change, which includes radical disintegration of the old order and the eventual discovery of a new equilibrium. 

Steps 2 and 11, as I have reworked them, represent parallel paths to the same ends as those implicit in AA’s versions.  Trusting the process is not substantively different from coming to believe that some benevolent power can restore us to sanity, and making sound, informed choices has the same basic intent as seeking an understanding of God’s will.  The remainder of the steps, Steps 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, and 12, have not been radically altered, but my version gives them a different tone in hopes of eliminating or at least softening what feels religious or moralistic.

Obviously there is more to the recovery process than a few terse concepts.  So some commentary is in order.

1. Face reality – The problem of addiction is embodied in a conundrum.  The solution is to make a conscious and free choice to quit using, but the power of choice has been impaired by the addiction.  If I’m a real addict, getting clean is going to require a more radical choice than a casual resolution to not use.  If I can make a simple decision to not use, I’m not an addict by definition.  But AA’s notion of powerlessness is of ambiguous benefit at best.  On the one hand, getting a handle on addiction involves honestly recognizing the loss of the power of choice, but on the other hand, the ultimate goal has to be somehow restoring that power.  I’m not a puppet on a string.  To adopt the idea that I’m powerless and that the solution is the intervention of a “power greater than myself” shifts the focus away from personal responsibility and buries the most important element of the solution – regaining the power of choice.  Many sincere efforts to get sober go nowhere because of how limiting AA’s notion of powerlessness is.  Making a lasting choice to not use ultimately has to come from within me, even though I don’t have a handy lever by which I can immediately and directly will that into being.  The process by which I get there has to fully engage the intricate neurological and biochemical mechanisms that shape my choices at the unconscious level as well as the conscious.  I have to reach a point of being done with using and to be convinced of it at the very depth of my being.  Addiction is characterized by denial, which is not a conscious decision to hide from the truth but is instead an emotional and psychological impairment that compromises my ability to revise my beliefs, my perspective, my behaviors, my values, and my self-concept in light of the facts at hand.  The solution is increased awareness of the thought patterns, feelings, memories, relationships, conflicts, unfulfilled aspirations, unrealistic expectations, and triggers associated with my addiction.  When I bring into view the entire process by which I make the choice to use, I become free to make different choices.

• Honestly assess the consequences of addiction and ask what it would take to be “done” – Is my use of alcohol and/or other drugs creating problems?  Can I control my using?  Can I stop when there is reason to stop?  Can I refrain from picking up?  Is it possible that I am an addict?  Have I had enough?  There is no absolute “rock bottom” short of death.  Hitting bottom simply means reaching a point at which I am completely convinced that I am no longer OK with using and with everything that comes with it.  There is more to getting there than increasing my feelings of aversion.  Unless I can begin eroding the numbing bliss afforded by my denial, I will lack sufficient incentive to leave the cozy fantasy world that addiction creates.
• Identify with others who struggle with addiction – A big driver of addiction and denial is shame.  Shame is an insidious culprit.  It causes me to want to hide.  In order to gain the capacity to see my addiction for what it is, I need a context where it is safe to come out of hiding.  Nothing can penetrate denial quite like the experience of hearing “my story” in someone else’s account of their own using history.
• Abstain from addictive behaviors – Using is a choice.  Conversely, abstinence is a choice.  Only I can make the choice to refrain from using.  If addiction has robbed me of the power of choice, that doesn’t mean I’m powerless; it means that overcoming addiction is more complicated than the exercise of what is commonly called willpower.  Recovering the power of choice involves more than a simple resolve, but doing what it takes is ultimately my responsibility.  The vicious cycle of defeat and resignation is not a life sentence.  When I get sucked back into it, I can forgive myself, start over, embrace a more mature perspective, and get on with my life.
• Feel the feelings whose avoidance drives my addiction – The biological process that results in the decision to use is not under the control of the prefrontal cortex of the brain.  The pivot point has more to do with emotion than rational thought.  Buried feelings are set ups for relapse.  If I can face troublesome emotions and intractable conflicts, I can loosen the grip addiction has on me.  No one has ever died from an overdose of feelings.  By the same token, uncovering complicated emotional terrain is best done gently and patiently rather than through stiff doses of brutal honesty.  We need to find a reasonable balance between comfort and truthfulness.  Everyone can stand a certain amount of luxuriating in “pink cloud” obliviousness, but being unaware of emotional triggers is perilous.  
• Recognize denial for what it is – The ways I set myself up for failure are obscured by denial’s obfuscations.  The problem with denial is that, by its very nature, I don’t know when I have it.  Discovering what it looks like and how it functions is going to require some detective work on my part.  I have to be willing to actively examine where my beliefs don’t mesh with reality.
• Be accountable – One of the most significant defenses against using is the memory of having made, not only to myself but also to others with whom I am linked in mutual support, a commitment to stay clean.

2. Trust the process – Recovery may often have a specific starting point, but it’s not a single, irreversible, once-and-for-all decision.  It’s a process.  It usually calls for more patience than determination.  The most significant changes are incremental rather than sweeping.

• Find sources of stability and health – Addiction distorts perceptions, beliefs, and values.  Even choices made with the best of intentions take place as if in an echo chamber that reverberates according to addiction’s own inner logic.  I need to ground myself in a social milieu and an approach to life that is outside of, larger than, and independent from my own addictive thinking.  I may not be able to immediately affect a completely sound mind and healthy lifestyle, but I can at least distinguish relatively helpful starting points from which to launch.
• Set my sights on constructive change – However shaky and tentative my resolve may be, I can still listen for and trust my own best judgment.  Even if all I do is let go of what hasn’t been working and awkwardly lurch into new and unknown terrain on spindly legs, a mere possibility for success is preferable to the certainty of failure.  I may not have a clear idea how to make things better, but I can at least decide to not do what I know will only make things worse.
• Welcome beneficent change agents – As they say in AA, I need to “get new playmates, playpens, and playthings.”  I may not be able to immediately transform my whole life, but I can exchange the people I surround myself with, the places I go, and how I spend my time.  As they also say in AA, “it is easier to live your way into better thinking than think your way into better living.”
• Ask for and accept help – The help I need may not always come in the form I want, but I can be open to it, gracious in receiving it, and grateful for it being available.  The goal is to actively cooperate with allies and benefactors rather than submit to the authority and direction of a higher power.
• Chill – One of the most crucial ingredients in recovery is being able to find nonchemical relief.  Sometimes, it’s a matter of just practicing good mental hygiene.  I need to remember AA’s acronym “H.A.L.T.”  (Don’t get “too hungry, angry, lonely, or tired.”)  Recovery can be arduous, but sometimes I just need to lighten up.  Laughing at life’s many absurdities or doing something fun might save my life when taking life too seriously becomes a black hole, as it very easily can for addicts.

3. Move forward – The emphasis in the third step as it is written is inverted.  The crucial question is not to whom or to what I need to surrender my will and my life, but is instead what I need to do.  What is the action that will propel me onward and without which I will slip back?

• Resolve to do whatever it takes – I don’t have to have a complete plan for the future, but as they say in Narcotics Anonymous, “more will be revealed.”  If I pay attention to what’s directly in front of me and “do the next right thing,” I will move in a generally forward direction.
• Let go of whatever would hold me back – Sincere efforts to change often not only come up against obstacles but can even generate a backlash effect.  Discouragement is inevitable.  I will probably find myself at times in a state of emotional resistance, not wanting to do what I know intellectually would be beneficial or just not believing it will make any difference.  I might become paralyzed with fears about making wrong choices.  Trusting the process entails feelings of insecurity and uncertainty and demands a larger perspective.

4. Discover – The inclusion of the word “moral” in the fourth step is somewhat regrettable.  While there is inevitably a moral component to self-examination, the goal is not to measure myself against some superego-driven moral standard, but is instead to promote the kind of mature awareness upon which freedom depends and to nurture psychological and emotional health and strength, which is the heart of recovery.  Anamnesis, the therapeutic process of recalling what has been forgotten, reawakens parts of myself that have become inoperable and thereby releases personal resources that have been previously unavailable.  There are many tools for self-discovery.  I need to find what works for me personally.  Some or all of the following might be helpful:

• Cultivate curiosity – Viewing myself as a multifaceted object of interest (rather than just defaulting to the comfortably familiar ideas I already have about myself) displaces oppressive thought patterns that are driven by judgment, shame, fear, neediness, and despair.  If I can develop an attitude of a detached observer, freedom grows, and addiction loses its grip.
• Write about what’s going on, what’s bothering me, and where I want to grow – Writing is a valuable tool that can clarify my understanding.  There’s something about seeing my thoughts on the page that allows me to perceive them more clearly.  Basic journaling or free-writing can bring to the surface buried feelings, unconscious longings, and unanticipated insights.  There are other methods or formats (like making lists, constructing charts, drawing diagrams, or producing illustrations) that can also be helpful.
• Pay attention to what bubbles up from within me when I let down my guard – We know more than we know we know.  We are constantly filtering what our unconscious minds would reveal.  Gently becoming aware of what we automatically suppress or smooth over can provide access to valuable insight.  Maintaining a receptive posture that is actively curious about the fertile darkness of the unconscious can enrich our understanding.  Dreams can provide a window into what’s going on in our lives that our conscious minds can’t readily process.  If we are not too intent on interpreting, assigning meaning, or viewing life through the sieve of our existing beliefs and perspectives and can just listen with a sense of relative immediacy, we can capture much helpful information.
• Recognize and scrutinize troubling feelings, concentrations of energy, and sources of discomfort – Pay special attention to guilt, fear, anger, resentments, obsessive thinking, emotional pain, sorrow, frustration, disappointment, and unfulfilled longing.
• Fearlessly and systematically illumine what I hide from myself – Ripples on the surface – beliefs that don’t make sense in the light of actual evidence, behaviors for which there is no rational explanation, occurrences that seem to come out of nowhere, repetitious patterns, troublingly contradictory commitments, inescapable inferences that dispute my direct perceptions – beg to be probed more deeply.
• Clarify my values – Are my stated values consonant with how I live my life?  What do my choices say about my actual values?  What values do I aspire to?
• Reflect – What does what I have unearthed mean?  How do all the pieces fit together?  What insights can I extract?
• Uncover motives – Why do I do what I do?  Why do I believe what I believe?  What am I hoping to gain?
• Identify blind spots – Just as, when I’m driving a car, I pay special attention to my blind spots to avoid unfortunate encounters with other drivers, I need to pay special attention to areas of my life from which unwelcome surprises just seem to come out of nowhere.
• Maintain a written record of my process of self-discovery so that I can review what I have learned along the way and extend my exploration – Some insights only come into view when they appear in black and white on the page in front of me.
• Discern patterns – An accurate assessment of my life is not simply a collection of isolated facts.  There is an inner logic to it.  For example, if event B always follows action A, there’s a good chance that A is the cause of B.  If every time I am in a particular situation, I find myself always reacting in a certain way, being aware of that is helpful.
• Establish a foundation for and build habits around ongoing self-examination – Paying attention to what is going on eventually just becomes second nature.

5. Connect – AA’s Step 5 is obviously derived directly from the Christian ritual of confession.  The main point of Christian confession is deliverance (via a divine act of absolution) from “a state of sinfulness.”  Besides the magical thinking involved in plying God’s favor through oblation, to make reconciliation contingent upon contrition (though a common and understandable tendency) gets the process backwards.  What is labeled “sinful” is actually a symptom of the primary problem, which is the loss of connection – connection with people, with life, and with oneself.  Addiction begins with a longing for an elusive sense of connection, which in turn leads to a vicious cycle that exacerbates and compounds the problem.  The solution is a social bond that is based on “unconditional positive regard” (cf. Carl Rogers).

• Allow myself to be vulnerable – No one is an island unto themselves.  It is not weak to need healthy relationships with other people.
• Share my secrets with at least one other person – As they say in AA, “we’re as sick as our secrets.”  The light of day takes away the power they have over us.
• Let go of shame – Shame not only keeps me isolated from other people, it provides fertile soil for addiction.
• Build and strengthen human ties – Human beings are social animals.  To be in a state of isolation is at least as detrimental to a living human organism as inadequate nutrition.  Social connections are especially crucial for addicts.
• Become generally transparent – While it is imprudent to be too public about everything, a public persona that is based on a basic “what-you-see-is-what-you-get” way of being is a lot less stressful than being duplicitous.
• Integrate – Embrace an identity that is consonant with the facts and with how others see me.
• Own “my story” – When others look to gain a sense of who I am, they are less interested in labels than they are in a fairly clean and straightforward narrative with some substance.

6. Divest – The problem most atheists and agnostics have with AA’s sixth and seventh steps is with not only the means by which character defects are expected to be removed (i.e. by an act of God) but also with the very label “character defects.”  Replacing the word “sin” with different vocabulary like “defects of character” or “shortcomings” is merely a cosmetic change.  The language is different, but we’re still basically talking about sinners who need God’s grace to be saved.  Unfortunately, many secularized versions of Steps six and seven, in their zeal to de-theologize the language, largely overlook the problem these two steps are meant to address, namely the problem of just how deep addiction’s roots are.  It is important to not minimize what is involved.  The goal here is not to become a less defective person but is instead to overcome addiction’s insidious grip on every aspect of my life.  Addiction’s convoluted internal infrastructure isn’t eliminated through a simple decision to be rid of it any more than an addict can quit using on a mere whim.  Creating a stable basis for a new life that is sufficiently different from the old life to foster sobriety entails “second order change.”  First order change is change by means of direct intervention.  It is typically only superficial change.  Nothing of any real substance or import changes.  Treating symptoms is an example of first order change.  Even if the symptoms are successfully removed, the underlying problem is not solved.  So if my efforts to eliminate undesirable behaviors have the quality of first order change, it is not unusual to find myself reverting back to the old behaviors or other behaviors that are as bad or worse.  The remedy, second order change, is qualitatively different from “rearranging the deckchairs on the sinking Titanic.”  There has to be a permanent disruption of the old homeostasis.  While many of my behaviors and beliefs that were previously useful will have now become dysfunctional and are in the way of the new life I am creating for myself, they are probably still a source of security, comfort, and identity.  Like a snake that sheds its old skin, abandoning old habits and beliefs leaves me vulnerable, but it is necessary to make room for the new.  The letting go in Step six anticipates the emergence of a new way of being that will come with Step seven.  While this whole process can be fraught with insecurity, fear, anxiety, discomfort, despair, and restlessness, in order to move forward, I need to loosen my grip on my:

• Attachments – What I do I believe I can’t do without?  What holds me back?
• Identity – If I’m no longer the kind of person who acts the way I used to act, why do I allow myself to still be defined by the past?  Do I see myself basically as a victim, a screw-up, a parasite, a social pariah, a “bad boy,” a mischief-maker, a hipster who can’t be bothered with anybody or anything that isn’t cool, an edgy romantic who is destined to die young, a loner, a loser, or a “rebel without a cause?”
• Expectations – The greatest enemies of my progress are the many plausible beliefs that are shaped by what I think I am entitled to and what seems quite reasonable.
• Security – How capable am I of living outside my comfort zone?  Am I paralyzed by a fear of the unknown?
• Control – What other people do affects me.  Can I accept their innate freedom, or am I threatened by it?  Does feeling not in control cause me to compensate by trying to control everything and everybody around me?

7. Re-form myself – Having radically questioned everything associated with my old worldview, I have set myself up for meaningful change.  Something new can now come up from out of the ashes.  But there is “some assembly required.”  The new doesn’t just appear ready-made and complete.  And there are no instructions enclosed to guide the assembly. What is required is a meta-cognitive approach, an ability to maintain a big picture view of the process.  The comprehensive construction of a perspective, an identity, and a lifestyle that are truly new can only be guided by some general parameters rather than by a specific understanding of what the end result will actually look like.  Any attempts to precisely predict or carefully control the actual outcome would necessarily be conditioned by existing understandings and thus not really be different from the old.  A viable re-formation of the self in the midst of the complexities of real life is emergent rather than being the product of simple, direct, and discernable causation.

• Reframe – In the light of new information and a new set of life experiences, I need new understandings around questions relating to identity, values, ethics, responsibility, goals, work, lifestyle choices, relationships, social affiliations, and family.
• Revise – A lot of change will just come naturally, but I also need to consciously modify my behaviors, my thinking, and the default settings that guide my decisions.
• Replace – Nature abhors a vacuum.  Where my old identity, behaviors, and beliefs used to be is now empty.  I need to fill the void with concrete alternatives.
• Rebuild – The emergence of a new self is about healing and getting stronger which involves forethought and effort.
• Grow – Immaturity is often simultaneously a contributing factor to and a consequence of addiction.  Much of what recovery is about involves doubling back and making up for what was missed along the way in the naturally unfolding developmental process involved in coming to fruition as a healthy human being.
• Renew – Keeping recovery fresh involves the cultivation of what Buddhists call “a beginner’s mind,” an attitude that is open to new experiences and insights.

8. Embrace responsibility – Being responsible is inseparable from the kind of maturity and personal empowerment upon which long term sobriety depends.  I need to be thorough in my assessment of problem areas.  I am responsible for unintended as well as intended consequences of my actions.  By the same token, it is easy to err on the side of assigning blame where there is none.  Not every complicated situation is my fault or even anybody else’s for that matter.  I need sort out actual culpability from phantom guilt.  Sometimes pangs of conscience are merely an outgrowth of unmet, unrealistic expectations others have of me or I have of myself.  And sometimes stuff just happens. 

• Identify sources of interpersonal difficulties – What is my part?  What are the patterns and common denominators?
• Become willing to repair what is broken – Building a stable basis for sobriety entails overcoming childish avoidance of responsibility.  Avoiding responsibility for the harm I have done undermines any version of the kind of life I would want sobriety to lead to, a life that is characterized by integrity, freedom, general good will, inherent dignity, trustworthiness, relative harmony, fundamental fairness, and basic good sense.  Expecting others to bear the costs of my actions is stealing from them as much as if I robbed them with a gun to their head.
• Be the change – The obligations involved in being a member of the global human community are larger and more complicated than can be satisfied through legalistic adherence.  The benefits and liabilities that redound to us through the collective reality that we call society are the aggregate product of countless individual choices made by the billions of human beings on the planet now.  My tiny part in that huge, anonymous process might seem insignificant and imperceptible, but if everybody’s attitude was that our actions don’t matter, the situation we would end up with would be catastrophic.  What kind of social reality do my choices contribute to?  Am I generating or depleting social capital?  Being a good citizen means taking responsibility for my part and proactively seeking social justice.

9. Correct – If I want to live with my head held high, the fruit my ethical choices needs to be consonant with my core values.  The larger purpose of willingly making amends where they are needed goes beyond overcoming and uprooting negatives; it’s about doing what it takes to be pointed in a positive direction.  I don’t have to overtly be at fault to recognize that there is room for improvement.

• Make amends – Amends are not about eliciting a particular response from others.  The primary goals are: to do what I can to claim a reasonable degree of freedom from the burden associated with unresolved conflicts, to promote wholeness in my interpersonal life and within myself, to develop a healthy perspective on a necessarily sociable existence, and to find peace even in face of inevitable irreconcilable differences.  Success is not contingent upon anyone’s consent or cooperation.
• Get to the root of the problem – Use the information provided by an honest assessment of experience to identify recurring patterns and underlying causation.  Change what needs to be changed.  Try something different from what has been producing the unfortunate results.

10. Broaden freedom – Having made significant strides toward cleaning up the wreckage of the past, I will probably feel less encumbered by guilt, shame, fear, intangible and tangible debt, emotional baggage, and interpersonal friction.  Steps ten, eleven, and twelve are often called “the maintenance steps,” but there is more to sustaining sobriety than achieving a plateau.  These three final steps are more aptly called “growth steps.”  The question now becomes how to continue enlarging my new freedom.  If I’m not moving forward, I’m in danger of sliding backward.  The more opportunities and satisfactions life offers, the more complicated and tricky keeping up with the twists and turns can get.  Most of what is involved in living a truly virtuous life is not about right and wrong; it’s about what is the most beneficial and what most enhances real freedom.  Freedom is an appealing idea in the abstract, but it’s not always welcome in reality.  Living a full life requires agility and attention to detail.  I need to pay special attention to any tendency I might have toward self-sabotage as a way of avoiding the demands of a rich and interesting life.  I need to be free to break away from anything that would impair my progress, even when I’m not particularly at fault. 

• Practice ongoing self-examination – Doing what it takes to maintain a reasonably clear conscience and to offload emotional baggage sets me up for success.  By this point in the step work, I’ve already identified my points of vulnerability, historical danger zones, my emotional hot spots, telltale warning signs of impending trouble, my internal barriers, my shame responses, and my patterns of self-deception.  Simply being aware of my thinking process and my emotional tendencies increases freedom.
• Don’t let pride and stubbornness get in the way of seeing alternatives – Having to be right all the time is a crushing burden.  Having to get my way denies me of other more fruitful opportunities.
• Execute timely course corrections – A simple apology can go a long way toward clearing up a mess I’ve created, even if I am not entirely at fault.  And sometimes, the need to make adjustments is not even about being wrong; it can just be about things not working out like I expected them to.  I don’t have to throw good money after bad after I recognize I’ve invested valuable time and energy on a well-meaning but ultimately ineffective strategy.  I don’t have to be wed to doing things a certain way if a better way comes into view.
• Create – The supposed safety that comes with compliance and conformity is overrated and is often even quite illusory.  If I instead employ an intelligent, constructivist approach, I can assemble a life that is characterized by the kind of strength, health, resourcefulness, and agility that will enable me to successfully respond to challenges that would otherwise defeat me.
• Stay interested – Our brains are very responsive to new stimuli.  Neural circuitry and chemistry are physically and enduringly altered when we change our environment, our behaviors, our attitudes, our assumptions, our perspective, and our means of acquiring information.  It’s a slow process, but the good news is that it enables us to actually get a handle on troublesome, seemingly intractable personality traits.  Habitual ways of thinking and behaving are a function of physiological programming in our brains.  Our emotional matrix is the cumulative result of years of conditioning.  Viewing our own thought processes with compassionate curiosity, genuine interest, and benign neutrality (rather than allowing our awareness to be completely immersed in the reality our thoughts generate) grants us a measure of freedom.

11. Make sound, informed choices – The assumptions behind a conventional understanding of the eleventh step are: there is a loving god whose perfect will somehow wisely guides everything toward the ultimate benefit of each of us; our lives will only go the way they are supposed to go if we are in harmony with the will of that loving, yet somewhat jealous and possessive god; any other path is “self-will” and puts our sobriety at risk; what we need to do is to seek an understanding of what God’s will for us is and the ability to shape our lives around it; how we do that is to achieve, through prayer and meditation, something of a brain-meld with the all-knowing mind of God.  Anyone with humanist leanings will question at least some of these assumptions.  A central tenet in humanism is the belief that we cannot afford to neglect the innate talent of human beings to solve problems through an honest and well-reasoned consideration of the available facts.  While human decision-making is always impeded by imperfect information and human foibles, being as intelligent and as attentive to detail as we can be is our best chance at producing good outcomes.  If we are not ultimately responsible for our own choices and the details of our own lives, who or what is?  The fond hope that, even if there is no god, there is still a grand cosmic plan and “an invisible hand” that knows what’s best can be a hard dream to let go of, but there are good, scientifically-informed philosophical reasons to be skeptical about it.  The deeper principle underlying the eleventh step is that the chances for staying sober are improved by avoiding messes that bad choices create, by being empowered to make good choices, by taking responsibility for those choices, and by freedom from learned helplessness.  I am not a victim.  I may not have total control over every detail of my life, but having a stake in my own success promotes strength, health, and soundness of mind.  Being a responsible steward of my own life gets me out of the blame game.  Being more interested in thriving than I am in being right (or in having a good excuse to fall back on if and when failure occurs) provides a solid basis for lasting sobriety.

• Be reality-based – Denial and cognitive dissonance prevent me from seeing situations as they are.  Superstition, magical thinking, clinging to fantasies, and avoidant behaviors create a cozy alternate reality that unfortunately is at odds with the facts.  Keeping my eyes wide open to the truth requires discipline and courage.
• Cultivate wisdom – If I am willing to learn from my experience and critically examine my values, my worldview, and my ways of doing things, I can improve on my decision-making abilities.  Disciplined reflection on the philosophical and ethical dimensions of my life can yield valuable insights.
• Develop perspective – Consciously working on seeing the big picture and adopting an independent point of reference counters the natural and inevitable solipsism that comes with being human.  The common tendency, especially when immaturity is an issue, to view everything through the lens of self-centeredness and self-absorption distorts perceptions, proportionality, and valuation.  
• Infer – Young children have trouble with object permanence, the implicit understanding that what is there doesn’t lose its existence just because they can’t see it.  Even adults often fail to recognize that there is much they haven’t seen with their own eyes but that is nonetheless very real.  Decision-making that does not take into account information that cannot be acquired through direct means and can thus only be inferred is leads to unfortunate outcomes.
• Maintain objectivity – Personal biases, likes and dislikes, attraction and repulsion, wishful thinking, emotionalism, and willful distortions insidiously corrupt sound judgment.
• Take other people and the common welfare into account – One of the attributes of God’s will would presumably be that it is generally beneficial, in other words, that it is concerned with the greater good and is guided by an impartial love for all of creation.  There are ways that doing the right thing strengthens sobriety besides believing that being in God’s favor is going to keep me sober.  Having a reasonably clear conscience removes the burden of guilt and simplifies my life.  My actions can be a vote for a society that embodies the greatest good for the greatest number.  And even from the point of view of my own self-interest, playing fair is a good long term strategy.  Win-win approaches provide a stable base of operation and generally yield the best results.
• Take chances – . . . and then let it go.  I can look back and learn from my experience after the fact, but second guessing or hedging my bets at a fork-in-the-road moment when I have to commit to one direction or another only creates confusion and robs me of the resoluteness I need.  The key to a life without regrets is not to avoid failure but is instead to seize each moment and wring every bit of wonder and opportunity out of it I can.  If my roll of the dice doesn’t turn out the way I wanted it to, that doesn’t mean my gamble was reckless.  Even options with ninety-nine percent favorable odds fail to produce the desired results one percent of the time.
• Accept – Life is full of ambiguity and disappointing results.  I need to know how to cut my losses and move on.

12 Build a life of joy and satisfaction – Maintaining a sustainable basis for sobriety involves building an attractive life, a life that is clearly preferable to using.

• Acknowledge progress – It is as important to recognize what’s working as it is to get rid of what’s not.
• Celebrate gains – Having a sense of reward is crucial.  The experience of joy increases dopamine and endorphin levels in the brain, thus reducing the dysphoria that can contribute to the danger of relapse.
• Adopt a confident stance – I don’t have to be perfect to make a constructive contribution.  Creating solid ground to stand on and a sense of stability in my life strengthens my resolve to stay sober.
• Share – The twelfth step says, “we tried to carry this message.”  There is more to that than preaching, lecturing, or imposing my beliefs on others.  Unless my efforts to carry the message are inspired by a spirit of generosity rather than being based on a need to feel superior or laudable, no one benefits, especially not me.  There are tangible benefits that come with giving.  It gets me out of my self, produces a general sense of wellbeing, reduces the feelings of uselessness and self-pity that are the frequent residual of addiction, and boosts self-esteem.  With regard to the particular act of passing on the message of recovery to other addicts, the teacher almost always learns more than the pupil.
• Be ethical – It’s not entirely clear what principles are being referred to when the twelfth step says “to practice these principles in all our affairs.”  The implication seems to be that certain principles can be inferred from the preceding eleven and two thirds steps, but surely that doesn’t mean we need to limit our focus to the ethical principles that are communicated through the steps.  In general, a principled life is a life well lived.  Greek philosophers talked about what they called “eudemonia,” a way of life that is based on the idea that practicing sound ethics is good for the individual because it is productive of goodwill, positive outcomes, a general sense of peace, and a stable state of happiness and wellbeing.
• Pursue what brings real satisfaction – The chronic restlessness and free-floating feelings of discontent that addicts frequently experience can be a vicious circle.  They all too often lead to choices that exacerbate the problem which in turn increases the likelihood of still more bad choices.
• Enjoy life – If we don’t make conscious choices to pursue activities and involvements that bring joy into our lives and to find delight in the living of our lives, our brains will override our best intentions and set us on a course of seeking experiences of immediate gratification that may not be good for us in the long run.