If you are a non-believer, you are welcome in recovery too. I still consider myself agnostic most days. It doesn’t really matter. Self applied labels have only made me suffer in the past.
We just ask that you want to quit alcohol, drugs, or whatever your addictions are. But yes, the word God is thrown around a lot in recovery and there are members that beat the drum of their religion. It can drive some people away, which is shameful in my view.
You don’t need to have a traditional religious view to be in recovery either. Spirituality and opinions about reality take many forms. If it helps, you can consider G.O.D. as an acronym to sidestep the issue. Here are some I’ve heard:
- Good Orderly Direction: coming into recovery, we start to take suggestions about how to act and what to do from people with more sobriety. Our internal guidance has failed us for a long time and now we need to take direction from outside ourselves.
- Group Of Drunks: it was the first time I felt a sense of belonging when I came into the rooms of recovery. I keep saying that because it’s true! Let us sober drunks and clean addicts be a higher power for you to rely upon. Learn to set your self aside and join the group.
- Great OutDoors: nature, the environment, and the planet are certainly powers greater than us since we come from them! Many in recovery take this approach to their spirituality. We can connect daily through outdoor activities such as hiking, sports, gardening and many other things. Pondering nature and the Universe gives me a sense of humility and boosts my feeling of connection with everything.
- Gift Of Desperation: if I wasn’t completely miserable and broken when I joined AA I would not have stuck with it. I keep that desperation foremost in my mind as the reason I keep going to recovery meetings and reviewing my steps. We don’t ever have to go back to our suffering if we stay consistent with the group and help others.
- Gratitude Over Despair: an “attitude of gratitude” aids my recovery. This has been a huge shift in my perspective and outlook. I feel immenses gratitude for what I have, all the negativity I have lost, my sobriety, and the little things today. While in addiction, I wasn’t grateful for shit and wanted to die at times. What a turn around!
So my major point is that recovery is personal and allows flexibility for the spiritual and non-spiritual people alike. Atheists, agnostics and followers of every type of philosophy are all welcome in recovery. You get to interpret the steps based on your life and outlook as long as they are helping you stay sober and clean.
There are also 12 step programs that are adapted to be secular focused if the God talk is too much for you. Many have written their own 12 steps without the higher power stuff. That is a growing community worth searching on Youtube and Google. Plus, 12 step programs are not the only recovery programs out there. I will cover the various alternatives in the next section.
As long as our self obsession and self wills are diminishing, that is a good trajectory for sobriety. So, if you are a non-believer or have other spiritual views, keep coming to recovery or seek out alternatives. Find the similarities you have to others in the rooms and discard what doesn’t help you. Don’t let this part of the program drive you back to misery, sickness, and an early death. It is a poor excuse.
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