How do you use AlAnon as an agnostic

I'm an atheist. Giving up my will simply means that I don't arm wrestle with the impossible. When I want something to change and I can't make it happen, I have learned to let go. It is called acceptance. It is wonderful and brings about serenity and peace.

Even though an atheist, this has been a mantra of mine for my decades of sobriety. It helps me figure out stuff.

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 the Serenity Prayer, only I don't pray.

Agnostic here. My higher power is the strength in numbers. The group of people in my Alanon group.

You're quite right, I think.

I have figured out a way to understand HP that makes it work with my atheism. However the surrender and passivity of the steps still feels infantilizing, to me. I haven't been able to pursue the steps in good faith, and have no sponsor.

What I do is this: I take what I like and leave the rest, in the rooms and with the literature. 9 times out of 10 I can identify with and learn from the experience of those who happen to have surrendered their will. There is real wisdom there in spite of the religious trappings.

Knowing that I cannot do the steps, I'm seeking the same self-awareness and inner reconciliation as the steps deliver, through therapy. AlAnon is a gentle programme, with no obligations.

I might feel a little self-conscious in the rooms now and again when the god-bothering gets carried away with itself, but the way I look at it is this - if I am honest with myself and others there, I can help those others remember the restraint that recovery demands - without me there, there would be no "backstop" to the lure of obsessive religiosity.

Why does a higher power need to be a god?

I see nature, the universe, and humanity's love as my higher powers. No christian god needed.

I understand what you’re saying. I’ve been having a hard time understanding certain religions too. But they just use the term God as they see him. I like to use the term Higher Power rather than God. Try not to personify the image of God and have that higher power be the energy in the universe. If you believe there is a power greater than yourself use that. This is supposed to be a humbling yet spiritual experience. There’s also a chapters written by an atheist and an agnostic in the big book of NA. Find your own loopholes to get passed your blockage. There’s no right or wrong with how you perceive your Higher Power.

I found Al-Anon principles online restated in ways that are consistent with Buddhist practice, and as an agnostic, it helped me find a way to let the program work and define for myself a higher power that makes the most sense in my life,

"As we understood Him" is rather Christian centred but in a 12 Step Group "as we understood it" can be not understood.

As in, you don't HAVE to define it Him Her whatever.

What you will have to do is let go of ego. If you genuinely and truly believe that your opinion is the ONLY one this program won't work for you.

If you’re uncomfortable but also not to the point you want to go looking for a more agnostic/atheist meeting, is there anyone in your group you’d feel comfortable talking to about this or even sharing this during a meeting?

One of the folks in a meeting I used to attend regularly would say “he or she or whoever” when God came up while reading aloud from literature. That self edit always made me feel more comfortable. Another al anon line, “Take what you like and leave the rest” has also gotten me through some meetings that didn’t entirely speak to me.

I tend to alternate my understanding of God and a Higher Power between the Universe and my Higher Self—that part of me that is totally honest and loving and capable, the part that took the wheel when I decided to leave my ex.

I hope you find some clarity and a solution to this—you deserve a path to recovery that feels right.

Through AA (I’m a recovering alcoholic also), I’ve come to accept that there is something out there which wants me to live my best life, I guess is the best way to put it. At first, I felt like you-i refused groups because I was uncomfortable with the God aspect. My therapist had 20 years and held similar beliefs when she started. She suggested a few things. GOD can stand for Group of Drunks (or Group of Desperate people), GOD can mean Good Orderly Design, or her take on it, God is nature, the universe, etc. For me, my dad had passed away, so I looked to him as a type of guardian, watching over me and taking on my troubles when I could no longer bear them. I didn’t refer to him when he was alive, as a living person is fallible and cannot help in that sense, but put the concepts of a Higher Power into a form that looked like him, if that makes sense. Eventually, just being at meetings helped me to see the ways that a higher power had worked in my life, and showed me that there is more than what I can see, which helped me to become more openminded and willing.

Don't give up on it! I saw your exchange about God and Al Anon. All I can say is that if anyone at the group you are going to is making you believe that the God of our understanding is somehow at all connected to a religion, be it Christian or anything, that they are not a good meeting. I recommend finding a meeting where you are made to feel very welcome and that makes you feel hope. There are enough meetings so that you should never have to go to a bad group if that makes sense.

Also, if it helps., At the beginning I visualized/perceived my higher power as an ideal version of myself, like the version of me if I only made great decisions and lived in the present with love and calm thoughts etc.

My ideas about my higher power have since evolved to something else, but it was entirely within my own safe spiritual place. So do know this: it was part of my spiritual journey and no one told me to believe it or suggested it. If they had I would have shoved it back in their face.

Also, check out some great Al-Anon speakers on YouTube. It's another way to learn about the program, and it will allow you to listen and learn without feeling an obligation to do/say/be anything.

I highly recommend reading the chapter "We Agnostics" for both you and your partner in AA's Big Book. It really helped me stay super open to even just the /possibility/ of other. I think it would be a helpful stepping stone !! Will definitely be a chapter I reread when feeling doubtful

My first meeting was great for this. Lots of people there who just refer to their higher power as whatever the hell they want. One woman had many gods, one woman said her higher power was her dog. I go and use myself as a higher power. I'm my own deity. Or sometimes it's just giving it up to nothing, which works for some people.

I am an athiest member of AA, NA and AlAnon. I have worked the steps in AA and NA, but not in AlAnon.

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That said, my higher power are the people in the rooms - the group consciousness. I knew when I walked through the doors that there was a group of people there who had serenity in thier decisions and life - and I wanted that for myself (my first meeting ever was AlAnon). I couldn't get it alone, and these people could do it together. Basically they as a group are a power greater than I am alone.

There are 2 prayers used in meetings usually - the Serenity Prayer (which I love and say, just without the God at the front) and the Lords Prayer (which I do not say, but I do participate in the hand-holding and sense of togetherness it gives me).

The only other roadblock that I've come up against is the praying - which I do not do (makes me feel icky and dishonest) - so whenever anyone says "pray", I hear meditate.

I don't even always think of higher power as "higher;" I think of it more as "additional power" if that makes sense. So for me HP = That which (in addition to and outside of myself) keeps me sober and healthy. I think someone may have sent you the Agnostic 12 steps, which I use. My "higher/additional" powers include connection (to others), service, the support of the group, etc. I think of "surrendering" as simply accepting the fact that I can't do this alone and need the help and guidance of others.

During meetings, I think of my higher power as the "collective wisdom of the group" and it works for me. I am simply exploring my highest potential for living a better life. A willingness to follow the alanon principles is helping me make better choices. No, it is not always perfect, but the fact is that alanon has helped me more than anything else I have tried.

If you have the opportunity to visit more than one group you may find one that has more agnostic/atheist members. As a Jew, and a fairly secular one, my first groups’ recitation of the Lord’s Prayer made me deeply uncomfortable but another group I attended did not read this prayer. Hearing “take what you like and leave the rest” helped, too. Some parts of AlAnon can frustrate me. Sometimes I need more support than the philosophy is equipped to give. I’m hoping in my new city that I can connect with a sponsor who can do that and that I can connect through some individual counseling because I think that will work for me. You’ll find what works for you because you want it to work!

One of the SPIRITUAL speakers at the Baltimore International Convention is an ATHEIST.

The program is for people of all religions or of none. If the word GOD bothers you. Feel free to use an acronym of Good Orderly Direction or the group, literature or anything else.FR

I had/have a problem with the 'God stuff' but here's something that has helped me. I replace the word God with 'Good'. In much of the Al-Anon literature there's made reference to the importance of having conversations with God or talking to God. I don't believe in a personal deity but I can 'talk to good'.

Additionally, I try and filter all my troubles through Step 3 by asking; what would the caring thing to do or attitude be in this case? I find the idea of a 'personal God', who has somehow chosen me to find this wonderful program, while many others have not and continue to suffer, meaningless. Much more the idea that 'nothing happens in God's world by mistake'. Child abuse, domestic violence and poverty? Many life lessons, however tragic, can be used for good and for the benefit of others. Just a few thoughts. Thanks for starting this thread.

From the website AA Agnostica

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A poignant story comes from the book AA Comes of Age*. In the mid 1950s AA’s reach extended to alcoholics around the world.  Bill Wilson, co-founder of AA, was quite clear about liberty for individual AA groups in his “Chapter on Unity” from* A. A. Comes of Age*.*  On page 81 he talks about Buddhists who said that they would like to be part of AA, but also would like to replace the word “god” with “good” so that the practice of the Steps would be compatible with their atheistic belief. In 1957, Bill Wilson writes:

“To some of us, the idea of substituting ‘good’ for ‘God’ in the Twelve Steps will seem like a watering down of A.A.’s message. But here we must remember that A.A.’s Steps are suggestions only. A belief in them, as they stand, is not at all a requirement for membership among us. This liberty has made A.A. available to thousands who never would have tried at all had we insisted on the Twelve Steps just as written.” Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age pg. 81, reprinted with permission of A.A. World Service Inc.