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.