Step 1
This is a chapter from the pioneering book: The Alternative Twelve Steps: A Secular Guide to Recovery. It was originally written by two women, Martha Cleveland and Arlys G., and published in 1991. As valuable today as...
Tagged: AA
Alcoholics Anonymous, Without the Religion
By Samuel G. Freedman The New York Times February 22, 2014 Three floors above a Manhattan street of loading docks and coffee shops, in a functional room of folding chairs and linoleum tile, a...
Making a case for atheist/agnostic groups in AA
By JHG The idea that atheists and agnostics have the right to take part in the AA experience and fellowship does not involve either a subtle or complicated mental juggling act. The third tradition explicitly...
A Program for Living
This is a chapter from the pioneering book: The Alternative Twelve Steps: A Secular Guide to Recovery. It was originally written by two women, Martha Cleveland and Arlys G., and published in 1991. As valuable today as...
Is listability the new AA?
By Joe C. It’s January 2014 and Vancouver is in the news: the city is winner of the 2025 AA World Conference. Congratulations are in order. There is also controversy brewing in Vancouver, with two agnostic...
Big Bookism
By Don S. At a meeting recently, I heard a guy say: “You’ll hear a lot of crazy stuff in meetings. When you do, just ask them “‘Where is that in the Big Book?’”...
Young Bill Wilson – Part Two
By bob k The Prequel Begins It was the night before Thanksgiving when the pains of child labor drove Emily Griffiths Wilson from preparations for the next day’s meal. Emily’s pains drove her from out...
Young Bill Wilson – Part One
By bob k Part One (Prequel to a Prequel) War fever ran high in the New England town to which we new, young officers from Plattsburg were assigned, and we were flattered when the first...
An AA Pamphlet for Agnostics – The 1980s
By Roger C. In October, 1981, Ed S. wrote to the AA trustees’ Literature Committee and asked that the idea of preparing and publishing a “Conference-approved” pamphlet for agnostics and atheists in the fellowship...
Charles B. Towns
By bob k December 11, 1934 Bill Wilson should have been desperate, depressed, and beyond all optimism, when he arrived at Towns Hospital to undergo a fourth and final detox. Following his Armistice Day...
And when we were wrong…
By Frank M. I wanted to do this thing right. I wanted to do it by the Big Book. In fact I was pretty sure I needed to, because I appeared to be dying....
Six Shades of Nonbelievers
By Joe C. The nonbeliever world is a hexagon shaped world, according to a University of Tennessee finding. Christopher Silver and Thomas Coleman III derived their six types of nonbelievers based on an analysis of interviews across the...
A Buddhist’s Views on AA
The difficulty the program struggles with isn’t in its basic prescription. The trouble instead resides in the way that message is often presented. By Taiyu In Buddhism there is a myth about a hell-realm...
One’s religion is an outside issue
By Thomas B. Like many folks at AA Agnostica and elsewhere, I’m most disappointed by the decision of the General Service Board and Conference to again not publish the proposed pamphlet, “AA — Spiritual,...
