How One Secular AA Group Got Started

By Jason W.

When I attended my first AA meeting in 1987 in an attempt to lessen the consequences of my 2^nd DUI I was shocked at all the “god stuff”. It was on the walls, the meeting started with a prayer and ended with a Christian prayer, and most of the people who spoke at the meeting mentioned God.

I walked away shocked that AA was nothing but a religious cult.

After that first meeting, I’d sit in the back of the room and when they stood to join hands and recite the Lord’s Prayer, I would walk out. Before a subsequent meeting, a member asked me why I left during the prayer. I said that I’m not a Christian, so it doesn’t seem right. He said “Put the god stuff on the back burner and keep coming back.” My cynical thought was that he wanted me to keep coming back until I joined the religious cult. Nice try.

After my court date for the DUI, I quit going to meetings, went barhopping sober most nights because that was all I knew, got a 2^nd job as a bartender, tried weed (didn’t like it), but my life got better – externally.

It’s still amazes me how much time being an active alcoholic takes. It’s not just the time wasted during a black-out, but the couple of days after a good binge to recover, and all the planning gearing up for the next spree.

Being alcohol-free increased both my time and money. I bought a little starter home, a new used car, and I had more money than I was used to thanks to working two jobs to fill in the many hours I used to drink with.

If someone would have asked me back then how I was doing, I would have said GREAT! Look at all I’ve accumulated – house, car, etc. The reality is that inside I was miserable. I remembered what I called the “glassy-eyed smiley people” at the AA club I used to attend, and some of them seemed genuinely happy and their lives were getting better.

So I took the advice of the member who told me to set aside the god stuff and started attending meetings with a vengeance – 12-14 a week. I was definitely a “meeting maker” but not a step-taker for quite a while.

After doing what those who are successful in AA suggested, I got a sponsor, worked the 12 steps, helped others, etc. I saw the power of not only the fellowship aspects of AA, but the results of the program of recovery.

Being an atheist my whole life, I spent my first 20 years in AA hiding this fact.  Such is the desire to belong to the tribe. But then I started wondering how many people are like me that attend one AA meeting to never return?

At around 25 years sober I decided to do something about it in my area.

I had a friend in AA who was sober for 24 years and an avowed agnostic. I suggested we start a “We Agnostics” secular AA meeting. I rode my motorcycle to the closest secular AA group which was about 50 miles away in Columbus to learn how they did their meeting. I borrowed what they read at the meeting and made some changes to make it more meaningful to the purpose of our group.

The local AA club was the ideal space, and I had to present to the board of directors’ details about this new meeting. I came armed for bear in preparation for those board members who would argue that secular AA isn’t real AA. I had many quotes from Bill W. from his later writings (most from the AAAgnostica.org page). It turned out there was no pushback (at least publicly) and we had to commit to support the meeting for 12 months.

Not knowing if anyone would show up to the meeting I asked my agnostic friend if he would be willing to meet with me every Saturday morning at 10:00am for coffee for the next 12 months, to which he agreed.

To my surprise, there were about 8 people at the first meeting due to several people promoting it at other meetings and some flyers we made up. I also had an article announcing the new meeting and its’ purpose in our local AA newsletter. It seems the editor of the newsletter took my article as motivation to write her own article about AA being self-regulating including the quote: “Different flavors or offshoots of A.A. appear and disappear as their effectiveness is measured by experience of their adherents.”

For about 2 months it was not a great meeting. Most people used it as a forum to disparage religion, God, and those who believe in a god. I told my agnostic friend that if this didn’t change, I was pulling the plug on the meeting.

This was almost 11 years ago. After the early members got the frustration of traditional AA off their chests, the meeting started getting better and more people started showing up. Today we have between 30 and 40 attendees, and we are officially an AA group rather than just a meeting. Many non-believers have made this group their home group. Even one self-avowed Christian has made it his home group because of the depth and quality of the discussions.

The club we meet at takes 60% of the basket income for rent. Last year our group was the 2^nd largest rent paying meeting at the club.

I encourage people to start and support secular AA groups and meetings. Being that the founder of AA seemed to put the sobriety of alcoholics above all else, I’m sure he would approve even if some AA members don’t.

I gave a lead about 5 years ago and a young man approached me and asked how I was doing. I didn’t recall how I knew him, so I asked. He said “I met you at the We Agnostics meeting. That was the only meeting I felt comfortable at when I first got sober. But then I found God and now I get to go to all the meetings!”

“I use this example to explain to traditional AA’ers the value of secular AA meetings. It may not happen very often, but the young man who approached me found a welcoming place to learn about AA and meet other sober people without all the “god stuff” which at the time made him think AA was not for him. His path was just different than most secular AA members in that he followed the path outlined in the very condescending “We Agnostics” chapter.”

“Given that I value the principle of open-mindedness, I’m OK with this.”

Jason W. has been sober since May 30, 1988. He credits getting sober at an early age due to experiencing the effects of alcoholism growing up and developing the “phenomenon of craving” from his first drunk. While admitting to another person that he was an alcoholic at 18, in his 18 year-old brain this meant he would probably have to quit drinking in his 50’s. The thought of not drinking was out of the question. Consequences caused an early surrender at 23. Always an atheist, AA didn’t seem like an option due to the “god stuff”, but the people he met in the early meetings he attended seemed happily sober and their lives were improving so he kept coming back and found a path to sobriety. He started the first We Agnostics meeting in Dayton, Oh in 2014, and another secular AA meeting in 2022. Thanks to sobriety and the wisdom he garnered in AA, he has been able to become a successful entrepreneur, a father of two, and a friend to many.

For a PDF of today’s article, click here: How One Secular AA Group Got Started.