The First Secular AA Meeting in Canada
By Michael D. Around 2 or 3 am the morning of my 37th birthday – January 20, 1979 – I was in a serious car accident. Like many other alcoholics, I had reached a...
Tagged: Alcoholics Anonymous
Critique of Chapter 8 – To Wives
By Clara M. Intro Even Big Book Thumpers have a rough time with “To Wives.” In the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, chapter 8 may be the least-thumped, and most skipped, so my first...
Blowing the Gate Away
By Tom L. The gates restricting access into AA are being essentially blown away with explosions in recent years of secular literature, meetings, websites and conferences. Detonations in North America and beyond make this...
Critique of Chapter 6 – Into Action (Steps 5 – 11)
“If something is true, no amount of wishful thinking will change it.” (Richard Dawkins) Conversely, “If something is false, no amount of wishful thinking will change it.” By Paul W. Introduction Chapter 5 of...
AA struggles to stay relevant as secular programs gain momentum
By Eliza Radeka Originally published on December 21, 2017 in the Boulder Weekly On Wednesday nights, the basement of Boulder’s Pine Street Church fills to capacity for the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) open meeting. Facilitators...
Critique of Chapter 5 of the Big Book – Step 4
An unexamined life is not worth living. Plato’s Apology Part Two: Step Four (Pages 64 – 71) By Paul W. Prelude As life-J so aptly points out in his November 23, 2017 article, Standing...
Critique of Chapter 5 of the Big Book – How It Works
To reason effectively, we must have a feeling for the truth. Sam Harris, The Moral Landscape Part One: How It Works and Steps One through Three (Pages 58 – 63) By Paul W. Prelude...
The Secular Wing of AA
By Bill White Originally published on March 2, 2018 on the William White Papers AA is so decentralized that in a very real sense, there really is no such single entity as “Alcoholics Anonymous”...
Appendix I – Secular Versions of “How It Works”
“How It Works” is Chapter 5 of the Big Book. The beginning of it (from pages 58 to 60 in the Fourth Edition) is often read at the beginning of traditional AA meetings. This...
Chapter 16: A Growing Secular Movement
Riding the Tide We are a rapidly growing and evolving secular movement within Alcoholics Anonymous. Our “godfather”, if you will, was Jim Burwell, back in the 1930s. That’s where we all – I trust...
Standing on the shoulders of giants?
By life-j Isaac Newton said “If I can see farther, it is because I’m standing on the shoulders of giants”. I want to look at whether that’s the case with us in AA, too....
Chapter 15: Austin Convention
by life-j I missed out on the Santa Monica Convention, and I almost didn’t make this one either, but the tooth fairy came through at the last moment. And now I’m really stoked. I...
Critique of Chapter 4 – We Agnostics
By Paul W. Allow me to set the stage, so to speak. I love Alcoholics Anonymous. I want AA to succeed and to continue its good work. I know that the secular AA groups...
The Search for Self-Esteem
By Bob K One needs to be a certain age, I expect, to be familiar with the 1964 Dobie Gray classic The “In” Crowd. Perhaps younger folks have heard it on the oldies station....
