A Higher Power of My Understanding

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By Gabe S.

I first encountered Alcoholics Anonymous when I found myself in rehab in December 2010. I had, after many months of resistance, followed the advice of my psychiatrist and my good friends and turned myself in. I had not known that it was a Twelve-Step rehab. I had no idea what the Twelve Steps were. I thought I was in for the best, scientifically-valid treatment for addiction in the world.

I very quickly learnt a little bit about it. It seemed to involve a bunch of rather trite touchy-feely sorts of therapies, readings from an absurd little book of starry-eyed design-stance banalities and fabrications, called The Promise Of A New Day, and readings from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. On the first day, when I met my therapist, I said to him: “I have to get out of here: it is the God squad!”

I attended for four weeks.  I looked at the Big Book. But I didn’t like it. I was horrified by the chapter called “We Agnostics.” This chapter seemed designed to convert atheists and agnostics to believers in God. A refusal to consider the possibility of such a Being, it was indicated, was vain and illogical. Atheists and agnostics who do not yet believe can begin to work on the Twelve-Step program of recovery using the group as their higher power, but in order to recover fully, a belief in God would eventually be necessary. The Big Book as a whole seemed to be riddled with God talk. And this put me right off.

I emerged clean and sober. I attended a few AA meetings. I had a sponsor but I never called him. I was fine. I had no cravings, no obsession. I needed no help. Then one day I became stressed out. With no mental defense, I had a drink to calm me down…  and  I did not stop drinking for about a month. I went back to rehab for a week’s detox. At the end of the week I was fine. There was no more problem with my disease. Every one of my peers at the clinic said to me: “Don’t leave. You are not ready”. I didn’t listen.

On the way home I bought a bottle of vodka. And I continued to drink as before, all the time. I descended into that pit of despair: the more depressed and anxious I became, the more I needed to drink to try to escape from the inner horror. The worse the horror became, the more I needed to drink: a pit of swirling blackness from which there was no escape.  A drunkard’s dream if I ever did see one.

A very good friend was looking after me. She would visit every day, for hours. Sometimes she would stay the night if I was afraid to be alone. She now reports that I resisted returning to the clinic mainly on the “God” grounds. I was not going to participate in what seemed to me to be a faith-based program of recovery. I looked at the Steps. If I were to participate then my higher power would have to be other people. But that would not work. Other people would give inconsistent advice and I would end up having to make my own decisions anyway. Nothing, existent or non-existent, could be My higher power.

But my psychiatrist was in my ear. I was at serious risk of brain damage. I had to go back to rehab. By then my anxiety was crippling. I was delighted to be given a huge dose of Librium to get me out of the withdrawal-drink cycle. I was delighted to be in a comfortable place where I could not get at any bottles of gin or vodka.

My disease had beaten me all ends up. I could not face alcohol any more. I did not know it, but at that moment I took Step One. I was in rehab. Perhaps these people could help me. That was Step Two.

I had known that I was insane for some time, although realizing just how insane, took me a long time. I decided that I might as well really give this recovery malarkey a good go. I would do everything my therapists said – as long as it didn’t involve talking like a believer or acting like a believer. My atheism runs deep, as does my integrity. I do not believe in any God and I will not represent myself as a person who does. So I will not talk or act like a believer. Some tell me this is pride, resistance to authority. Perhaps there is some element of unhealthy pride involved. But, however that may be, my integrity does not allow me to present myself as something I am not. So, aside from saying “God” in a manner that would misrepresent my beliefs, I decided to do to my best ability everything that my therapists recommended. That was Step Three.

At that point, other people became my “higher power.”  My love of language prevents me from calling them “God.” I made a decision to turn my will and my life over the care of my higher power. And it worked. I am experiencing a new freedom and a new happiness.

My atheist therapist gave me a secular version of the Steps when I started out. Since then I have collected others. Now I enjoy working from my own version, which reconstructs my route to a psychic change and maintenance of psychic good health. (Editor’s note: Here is a link to The Little Book: A Collection of Alternative 12 Steps, which includes Gabe’s version and his atheist therapist’s version. )

My higher power is very important to me. I have a large group of very wise people who know me well. Most of them are fellowship, but not all. All my life I have been self-reliant because I am oh-so-clever. I always knew best.  But in the end I could not manage my own life or my own mind at all. Now if I have to make any big decision, or just need help managing any aspect of my mind or my life, I just ask my higher power. In fact, the different components of my higher power very rarely disagree among themselves. And when they do, then it is ok for me to make the final call. My initial argument against the possibility of others being my higher power held no water at all. Now, when my higher power delivers a view, I follow its guidance without question. Collectively they are far wiser than I am. And turning over to them takes the load of stress and responsibility off of me.

The Big Book and Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions are part of my higher power too. All I had to do was remove all references to God and replace them, where this made sense, with references to a higher power. What remained was a wonderfully insightful description of the alcoholic mind, and a carefully crafted and targeted recipe for the development of good mental health.

Once God is removed, many aspects of AA’s program in the Big Book and Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions can be seen to be focused on stress-management: building a realistic self-image, boosting self-esteem and avoiding guilt. The approach echoes that of the Stoics. AA makes much of the Serenity Prayer: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference.” It is often remarked that the prayer echoes a central theme in the work of such thinkers as Epictetus, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. The Stoics are thought by some to have originated cognitive therapy. Both the Stoics and AA hold that problematic emotions can be dealt with, in part, by the application of intellectual analysis.

With anger-management, for example, AA bids a member to consider how he himself contributed to a situation in which he became angered, and what it is about himself that fuelled his angry reaction. Seneca bids us not to dwell on a perceived wrong that has been done to us, and not to focus on a justification for revenge (letter to Novatus).  Seneca and AA differ in that AA accepts that in general a certain amount of emotion is natural, inevitable and a good thing, while the Stoics held that, with work, emotions could be entirely eliminated by intellectual means. Both note that in being angry, one allows another to disturb one’s serenity. Both want that particular emotion eliminated. In this context, Seneca writes: “human life is founded on kindness and concord, and is bound into an alliance for common help, not by terror, but by mutual love” while AA writes (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 93) “Courtesy, kindness, justice and love are the keynotes by which we may come into harmony with practically anybody”.

By following the advice of others and taking the Steps – understood from an atheist point of view – I found my higher power. With a higher power like that, who needs God?


Gabe S. lives in London, England.


6 Responses

  1. Eric T. says:

    Beautiful article Gabe, thanks for sharing! It took me ten years in and out of AA to find what you have. Let’s keep it.

  2. Ronald B. says:

    Thanks for sharing. Really is appreciated.

    When I got to treatment and AA I was so very lost. The God stuff really confused me for so long. I kept this to myself out of fear. I never believed but I was too scared to even let myself know. I gave myself to this program and my life took off into many wonderful adventures which were beyond my wildest dreams of before.

    Not until I heard of agnostic groups and was part of getting one started a short while ago was I able to widen my understanding of my higher power. Wrestling with this issue was no fun whatsoever. Thanks to the agnostic contacts and articles such as yours, I am getting at peace finally with this. I am nearly embarrassed by how slow and fearful this has been for me.

    So once again, thank you for helping me on my way. It is all about getting more real and that is the journey I believe.

  3. John K. says:

    It’s unfortunate that a rookie is introduced to just the 12 Steps in rehab. There are other ways, CAMH is one. It’s based on holistic principles of recovery starting with your physical health/mental health. As for the Sky Ferry-God, it’s not relevant. I am clean and sober and don’t give a S- -T about God or religion. It’s nonsense for people with IQ’s the equivalent of room temperature.

  4. John L. says:

    I like defining Higher Power as “other people”. For me also, some of the people who have helped me most are in the AA Fellowship, but some are not. For me, philosophy is also an HP of sorts, from Plato to Nietzsche.

    I have a somewhat less sanguine view of the Big Book and the 12&12, parts of which are toxic, even with “God” removed. The Steps themselves, even with “God” / “Higher Power” removed, still leave much to be desired. For one thing, they assume that we drank, and may drink in the future, because of our “defects of character”, rather than — and this is the biogenic approach, as expressed in the book, Under The Influence — that drinking caused our “defects of character”. Of course, this is a matter of emphasis.

    Click here to see my own Freethinker’s Steps For Recovery From Alcoholism.

    Gabe makes a very good point, which we should keep ever in mind: the “God talk”, the religiosity and moral righteousness in AA, repel the best, the most intelligent alcoholics. In fighting for a secular AA, we are fighting for the lives of those alcoholics who have not yet achieved sobriety.

  5. Ivan K. says:

    I am 81 years young, and in 1969 I retired from the greatest Airforce in the world with 20 years service, and Thursday August 30 at 2:00 pm, a day at a time, I will be sober 59 years.

    April 13 1953, coming off a 58 day drunk I woke up at 8:00 am, late for work, my underwear covered in blood. I had 12 bowel movements in one hour and urinated blood. Admitted into an Airforce Hospital at 21 years of age. Diagnosed 6 months from 6 feet under. I was released 33 days later and Dr. Doyal informed me that I had to quit drinking. My answer was I can have a couple of beers. He informed me that if I continued to drink I would be re-admitted in 6 months and taken out in a wooden suit.

    Stayed sober, and went on an annual leave in August. Started drinking and the 29th of August I am drinking and I heard no voices but Dr. Doyal’s message kept coming back to me. The clock on the wall said 2:00 pm. And these are the words that I said to myself. “Ivan stand up, drink up, walk through the door, and you will never drink again.” I stood up, drank up, walked through the door, and the rest is history. I stayed sober for 5 years without AA. April 1958, stationed at Cold Lake Alta, I went to my first AA meeting and I have been going ever since.

    Did you know there are only 3 days in a week. Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. Yesterday is a cancelled check. Tomorrow is a promissory note. Today is cash. Spend it wisely. Everyone have a happy sober day. Ivan K

  6. bob k. says:

    By the POWER vested in me by the great and mighty Toronto Intergroup, and all else that is HOLY – I delist the heathen Gabe (even though he lives in England). Now, let’s all hold hands, and join in the “We Delisted Another Sumabitch” Prayer.

    Seriously, I am delighted to see my friend Gabe participating in this forum. He has been a reader for months and his essay is evidence of a writing skill that I have been aware of for some time. The internet is a fabulous thing for those among us seeking that special companionship of the like-minded. Thanks again.

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