Empathy for Atheists

Even with my newfound theism, I do want to say that since coming into AA I have developed and nourished a strong and passionate empathy for those who do not share a belief in a God, however defined.

My empathy for atheists is usually expressed by me when I talk with an professed atheist, usually after an AA meeting where one or more AA member's have shared much details about their Higher Power, including their Higher Power's name (i.e., Jesus, God, etc.) and what they believe to be the important characteristics of their Higher Power (e.g, He is male, He has a plan, He wills specific things to happen (including that some people get sober and some people do not, or when people die...).    Sometimes these shares are phrased in such a way that the speaker, probably unintentionally, talks for the group rather than just for themselves.  Sometimes, they state their beliefs as though all or most of us in the room share their beliefs.  When that happens, I am always on the lookout for any wincing or pained looks --- or for people walking out the door (or seeming to be looking in that direction).  I try to either say something a group level that gives a counterbalanced view (delicately avoiding the proscription against crosstalk...) that these sorts of issues are very personal and no one speaks for anyone but themselves on this issue. 

And when I actually get to talk one on one with a professed atheist, I eventually like to ask them, "So tell me, describe for me the "God" you don't believe in?  What is it that you don't believe in.  What's behind the label "God" for you?"  Inevitably, the God that they don't believe in is a God that I don't believe in either.  If so, I smile and say then, that well, maybe I'm an atheist also because I don't believe in that God either!  I don't go on to prove or argue for the God that I might happen to believe in that day (it changes frequently!).  That's really none of their business and I don't need to share it with them unless they are curious or interested in talking about it.

Ultimately, in the context of recovery, I basically advocate the philosophy of an apatheist:  I really don't care what another person believes and don't feel any one view or theological position is required for AA membership or sobriety.  The atheist has a wide range of options for developing a sense of a higher power in their lives that does not entail a personal God:  "Truth" can be a very effective Higher Power for a recovering alcoholic!  The agnostic can be comfortable with a lifetime of investigation and waffling if they are so inclined and they can take pride in the fact that the Big Book named a chapter after them (We Agnostics) and that there is no chapter called "We Theists" or one called "We Atheists" or one called "We Apatheists".

To each their own.  "Above all else, to thine own self be true." (Shakespeare)

Take care!

Mike L.

Hi, My Name is Mike and I'm a Theist.

I have recently entered headlong into the strange world of Facebook.  And I think I agree with Carl Jung: "If there is fear of falling, then the only safety is in intentionally jumping!"  I've jumped into Facebook, ready or not.  Here's what happened:

The other day, I received an email from a long lost friend: an ex-Jesuit priest who was my novice master when I first entered the Jesuits over 30 years ago.  After I left the Jesuits almost four years later, met my future wife and then became engaged to marry her, Bob welcomed the chance to marry us.  We did various things with him in the early years of our marriage, camping trips, playing stupid poker games, etc.  He eventually left the priesthood, married and we lost touch soon after that.  Life got in the way I suppose.

Anyway, a few days ago, he extended a "friend" request to me on Facebook and I welcomed him to my lonely Facebook page.  You see, I had reluctantly created a Facebook page some months ago so that I could bond with my wife and kids, all of whom were very active and enthusiastic Facebookers.  But I immediately got scared of the whole Facebook experience, locked down my site so tightly that no one in my family ever found it and I never volunteered to any of them that I had a Facebook page.  Much of that fear was due to the fact that I've always kept my recovery life quite separate and apart from my other life, my life with family, friends and work.  And I couldn't see how I could possibly post things on Facebook that would have any real significance without bringing "out" the important aspect of my life called "recovery."

After Bob's request and agreeing to let him be my friend, I made the mistake of telling my wife that I'd heard from Bob -- and that it had been via an request to be my Facebook friend.  "You have a Facebook??" she asked and accused all at once.  I tried to explain what had happened and why I really didn't want to do Facebook, but she wasn't listening.  She was already pulling up Facebook on our computer and having me login to my page so that she could start helping me figure out how to invite others into my life, including her, my kids.  Within in minutes, I was drowning in Facebook family and friends.  And within a few days, my life as I knew it started falling to shit in a hand basket.

On Facebook, they have a thing where you enter some sort of short statement called your "Status" -- this statement is an attempt to let your friends know how you're doing at that moment in time or sharing some interesting (or not) thought.  My children often post some obscure lyric from a song and everyone else is supposed to guess (we are a competitive group...trust me on that!) who wrote the song.  Well, I started trying to connect with my wife and kids (and the ever growing world of extended family and friends..) by posting various status statements.  Within minutes, they were making fun of me and my ways: philosophical to an extreme (I think I even quoted Cicero in one of my status statements) and serious about what I consider meaningful insights into myself and my world.  It was all light-hearted ribbing and laughing...until I made the mistake of saying some things about God and my beliefs or non-beliefs.

In one status statement is said something to the effect that sometimes I consider myself a theist, sometimes an atheist, sometimes an agnostic and sometimes, in the dark corner of my soul, an apatheist: someone who really doesn't care.  That's something that I had sometimes said in an AA meeting and there was a specific intent for saying that in that context: I was trying to convey, especially to the newcomer, that this was not a religious program (even though it appears that we act similar to some particular religions when we begin/end meetings with Christian prayers...) but a spiritual one.  That we were encouraged to come up with our own concept of a Higher Power and that that concept was purely a personal one and not something that they needed anyone's approval or validation. 

But in the contest of Facebook, this statement took on a whole different context, particularly when it was read by my wife of 28+ years.  She read the comment and was deeply upset by it.  She felt that I was portraying myself as being someone totally different from the person she had married 28 years ago.  At one point, she told me that this was like waking up and looking across and the man in bed with her and realizing that he was a Republican!  [No offense to those of you who are Republicans!  She meant only offense toward me, a life long Democrat.]   Someone who she had always seen as deeply spiritual and one who believed in God's existence and who thought often and deeply about theological issues. 

Who then was I now if I was an Atheist, Agnostic or whatever in the hell an Apatheist was??  We got into quite an argument about this one night that ended up with her walking out of the room and sleeping in another room.  I initially reacted to her reaction as though she was trying to control me (I often misinterpret her in that way!) when in fact, I was reacting to her anger in such a way that disclosed that I was really the one with the control issue: I didn't like her reaction and wanted her to stop reacting to me. 

I didn't sleep well at all that night.  I couldn't bring myself to apologize but I knew something was wrong.  Eventually, the next morning I remember something that David Richo wrote about "If something upsets me and it keeps gnawing at me, I do not attribute my reaction only to what the person said or did.  I take my reaction as a signal that something has been triggered in me.  As a signal to look at myself."  I then realized that I was the one with the control issue and that, in fact, it was this very control issue that I been beneath my intentional separation of my life into two parts for the last 8 years: my recovery life and the rest of my life.  I never let my wife into my "recovery life" because I didn't want to deal with her reactions and feelings about whatever was entailed in that life of recovery.  I didn't want to hear her opinions or feelings related to how many meetings I went to or how many sponsees I might have.  I felt justified in doing this for all this time because I thought she was the controlling one.  I was wrong.  I was the controlling one.

As soon as I realized that, the sun came up and I went to my wife and asked her if I could give her a hug and I apologized for being an ass the night before.  I explained why I had reacted so poorly and we talked about this off and on for the next couple of days.

What happened next surprised me.  I went to an early morning and the topic was the 2nd step and as I was sharing I realized that my prior statements about being Theist, Atheist, Agnostic and Apatheist all rolled into one was not true.  And it's never been true:  I am a Theist.  Plain and simple.  Always have been since whenever I struggled with these issues when I was in my late teens.  I have grown and matured in terms of what/who I believe God to be, but I've never had any doubt about the essential presence of some Ever Present Goodness in the world that goes beyond some moral tenant. 

I was mistaken in thinking myself an Atheist.  What had happened on this issue is that I had often asked the atheists that I had encountered, "Please share with me the God that you don't believe in..."  When they did, I inevitably concluded that I also didn't believe in "that" God and then laughed and told them that I guess then that I too was an atheist like them because we didn't believe in the same God that didn't exist!  I neglected to tell them that I actually still retained a belief in a God who did exist!  Usually, I didn't think they would be all that receptive to that....

I had similar experiences with Agnostics.  I've never met another Apatheist.  I do sometimes talk about the option of being Apatheist in the context of recovery though as I think that's a helpful concept for those, especially newcomers, as they struggle with the God issue in AA/recovery.

OK, that's enough for tonight.  Going home for family game night and some Facebooking.

Take Care!

Mike L.

3rd Step without Kneeling, without Prayer

99.9999999% of the time when I hear people talking about their "working" of the 3rd Step, their story inevitably seems to include the acts of kneeling and then saying the 3rd Step Prayer. The other .0000001% of the time? What I hear is lonely ol' me talking about my being worked by the 3rd Step without kneeling, without prayer. When I was worked by the 3rd Step, it did not and does not involve me kneeling down. Neither did it nor does it involve saying or praying what other people refer to as the 3rd Step Prayer. No step has me feeling as lonely and as isolated as the 3rd Step. And it's been that way since the beginning of my recovery in AA.

My very first sponsor was someone who took people through the book page by page. I didn't seem to mind that much at all, until we got close to the 3rd step. As we did that, he began talking about his experience of the 3rd step with his sponsor: how they walked up to the top of some hill in Pleasant Hill, California and then they both knelt down in front of a bench and together prayed the 3rd step prayer out loud. From the very first time he told me that story, I knew one thing for certain: there was not a way in Hell that I was going to kneel down with him or anyone else and pray this or any other prayer together. Not surprisingly, this sponsor was long gone before the 3rd step ended up working me.

For me, this sponsor's plan for me seemed totally contrary to everything I had been taught and had read in AA literature. What I had taken from the readings and the meetings was that we were free to come up with our own concept of a higher power, or not. We didn't have to accept anyone else's concept of God nor did we have to accept existence of God in order to stay sober or to be a full fledged member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And if that was true, then why were we expecting (or even suggesting!) one another to take on a specific practice common to some, but not all religions or spiritual traditions, involving kneeling before one's God in prayer. If the words of the 3rd step prayer were really suggested as it is written in the Big Book, then why is it everyone seems to follow like sheep and use only those words of prayer to express their "decision to turn their will and their lives over to the care of God, as they understood him."

Nope. There was no way I was going to do that. To do that would make me a member of a cult. And to assure myself that this was not a cult, I was going to make sure that I could stay a full fledged and sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous without kneeling and without saying the 3rd Step Prayer. And I have done just that. [Thank you Dr. Earle!]

For me, my decision to turn my life and my will over to my higher power involved and still involves the simple and repeated daily acts of letting go. Letting go of the deep seeded but mistaken belief that I am God. Or at least God-like. The very act of my drinking was the clearest example of my learning to play God. With alcohol, I found a powerful means of changing myself, my feelings, my surroundings, my past. Everything. God could create the world. And in effect, with alcohol, so could I. Until I couldn't. Eventually, what I thought was a solution turned on me.

I was a flea on the tail, thinking it was wagging the dog.

All this said, I do not want to leave anyone with the impression that I do not kneel or that I do not pray. I do. I kneel most mornings when I do several stretching movements (based on a book, 3 Minutes to a Painfree Life). I also kneel when I meditate: I use a sitting stool which allows me to kneel down and sit on a stool just above the back of my heals. This meditation stool helps me kneel in meditation without any pain in my knees or legs and it allows me to keep my back/spine straight and my breathing slow and natural. I'd done this several months before I realized I'd broken my vow never to kneel before God or anyone else! Kneeling in prayer never made sense to me after I had the feeling that God's response to my kneeling was something along the lines of, "Hey, Mike? What are you doing down there?" And then we laughed at the silliness of it all.

I use a variety of prayers that I've memorized to help me become focused on positive and loving thoughts. You might even be surprised that I even use a version of the 3rd Step Prayer, which I call "My Version":

God, I offer myself to you to build with me and to do with me as you will. Take away my difficulties, or not, that victory or defeat over them may bear witness to those I would help of your power, your powerlessness, your love and your way of life. May I do your will always.

As you can see, my version takes out all the Thees and Thous and replaces them with today's English. And as I ask my God to take away my difficulties, I also add that "or not" to express that I don't have a big investment or desire to have my difficulties taken away: some, if not all, of my difficulties have been my biggest gift in life! Alcoholism being the greatest difficulty/gift! Victory over difficulties is nice, but defeat over difficulties has oftentimes been far more important: my 30 year attempt to "not be an alcoholic" has been my most important and life-saving defeat. God's powerlessness: as I see it, God is just as powerless over my alcoholism as I am. I'm an alcoholic whether God likes it or not. I don't subscribe to the view that God made me an alcoholic and/or that God had some sort of "purpose" in mind by making me an alcoholic. The God of my understanding doesn't seem to get involved in that sort of day-to-day stuff or to intervene in the ongoing creation process that was begun bzillions of years ago from a simple and complete act of love. And that commitment to do God's will always? God's will is nothing more or less that same simple and complete act of love. May that Love be the source of my will, my acts, my thoughts, my words....always.
Turns out then that neither the acts of kneeling or praying were part of the commitment or decision I made in the 3rd step----but they are tools I can use on a daily basis to maintain my commitment to let go of the idea that I am God-like and to accept myself as the particular human being I am today.
Mike L.

A 4th Option for the God Question...

Typically, members of AA (and others) characterize themselves as being atheist (they believe no God exists), theist (believe God exists) or agnostic (not sure if God exists). I've been all three over the last six years of recovery, oftentimes on the same day, and as a result, this vacillating spirit most often leads me to identify myself in meetings as an agnostic, one who just doesn't know if God exists. I realized this last week that this Agnostic ID has never really felt comfortable to me and I've come up with a 4th philosophical position on the question of God's existence.

Before I go on to describe a 4th alternative to the God question, I do want to mention that these three belief characterizations of myself or others really don't mean much at all to me. What I mean by that might best be explained by example: one of my sponsors characterizes himself as an atheist, but when I ask him to describe in more detail the "God" he doesn't believe in, I find that he and I agree on "that" God's non-existence --- and he's still an atheist and I might very well on that day still be a theist.

How can that be? I think it's because the word "God" means something different to each of us. It's possible for you and me both to say "I believe in God." AND both be in utter and absolute disagreement about who God is. And it's possible for one person to say he doesn't believe in God and me to say that I do believe in God and the two of us can very well be believers of the same thing.

All that said, I decided this last week that I'm no longer going to characterize myself, at least in recovery settings, as atheist, agnostic or theist. They don't work for me anymore. I have decided that I'm an "apatheist". Not sure if that was a word before just right now. If I'm defining this word though (guess I can do that on my own blog!) it means "one who simply doesn't care if God exists or not."

And, in the context of my recovery, I really don't care if God exists.

I'm an Apatheist because I did not find or keep a freedom from the obsession to drink by way of a belief in any sort of God or Deity. My higher power in recovery, oftentimes in life, isn't God. It's Truth.

What freed me from this horrible obsession was when I woke up the morning of October 20, 2001 and realized that my inability to stop drinking was a result of the simple fact that I was an alcoholic. That alcoholism was a disease and I had it. That Truth, which I then shared with others, set me free.

There was no God part to it. You may see God in there, but I didn't.

Whether God was or wasn't part of that spiritual awakening, doesn't seem relevant to me at all. I really don't care one way or another. I found freedom from an obsession which had long been increasing it's death grip on me and which had led me the stage of this progressive disease where I could no longer stop by an exertion of will power.

As a confirmed Apatheist, I feel compelled to point out that I joyfully and repeatedly steal prayers and other spiritual practices used by others and use them to better understand myself and the world I live in. Many of these prayers I modify to suit my needs or beliefs. As you know, I don't pray in the context of AA meetings, but I do pray in my private life on a daily basis, sometimes as theist, sometimes as agnostic. It helps me with living.

As a friend of mine says, the name of her higher power is Whatever! That seems acceptable to me as apatheist.

Mike L.

Is AA a Cult?

When I began this blog, I forgot that I was publishing this log of thoughts and opinions to the wild of the Internet and foolishly allowed "Comments" to my blog. Within a few days, I was inundated with almost a dozen comments, all from a guy named 'MICKY'. Apparently, he does not share my love for the program/organization called AA and he's welcome to his own experience. I'm not sure how to accurately characterize his experience and while it's far different from my own, there were parts of his rantings that stirred up memories of my own and I couldn't help but feel some empathy for him.

When I first got sober a little over six years ago, I'd quickly gotten a sponsor who began taking me through the Big Book a page/chapter at a time, just like had been done with him by his sponsor. I didn't mind this approach at all, at least for the first two steps. But as we approached the third step, he started talking about what his sponsor had done with him and I got the distinct impression that he was fully expecting to do the same thing with me when my turn came to work this step: "Made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God, as I understood him."

What his sponsor had done with him was to take him up to a hill in Pleasant Hill, California and on top of that pleasant hill, they each knelt in front of a bench and recited the so-called "Third Step Prayer" together: God, I offer myself to Thee, to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt....etc." When they were done, the 3rd step was completed and they then immediately moved on to the next step.

Well, unbeknownst to my sponsor, there just wasn't a chance in hell that I was going up to any such hill, pleasant or not, to kneel down and pray this or any other prayer with him. No fucking way.

When I got sober, I was 48 years old. The disease had been very slow, but progressively worse nonetheless. Earlier in my life, I'd been a Lutheran---had even been the President of the goddamned Luther League! I converted to Catholicism when I was in my early 20's and entered the Jesuits shortly thereafter with the full intent of becoming a Jesuit priest... I had a bachelor's degree in Catholic theology and had thought long and hard about the issues surrounding the questions of God's existence or non-existence. Ultimately, I left the Jesuits: in part, because I got tired of trying to fit my experience of God into an acceptable framework of the Catholic Church or some local manifestation of that organization, but in larger part, due to my certainty that if I were to stay much longer in this celibate religious order, I would certainly become an alcoholic! I have a long history of reaching this exact same crisis point again and again and again: if I stay here doing "this", I will certainly become an alcoholic.

Anyway, back to my 3rd step issue: after getting sober, one of the things that made me feel most comfortable and safe in AA was the language scattered throughout the book and literature which seemed to say that within this organization, each individual was absolutely free to come up with their own understanding of God or a Higher Power. In fact, if the individual's understanding of God was that God did not exist, they were still a full member of AA in good standing. No better, no less than someone whose understanding was more theistic. I love the fact that the third chapter of the Big Book was called "We Agnostics" rather than "Those Agnostics" or "We Former Agnostics."

But I had already started to have this sense of safety become challenged by certain practices and language within the rooms of AA that seemed inconsistent with this fundamental principle of AA. Not only was there the talk of a 3rd step that involved reciting a very specific prayer with another person....which seemed to me to imply that these two folks were acting as though they had a common understanding of God, else why would they be saying the same prayer together. And if everyone in AA accomplished their 3rd step by reciting this same exact prayer together with another, was the talk of a God of my own understanding really a joke or ruse?

There was also the practice of opening and closing most AA meetings that I had attended to that point with either the Serenity Prayer or the Lord's Prayer. Both prayers are Christian prayers or at least "rooted" in the Christian tradition. If I didn't have an understanding of God that fit in with that tradition, was I some how "outside" of the fellowship if I did not hold hands with other members at the end of meetings and participate in this apparently Christianized AA ritual? Could I stay in AA if in fact it was a Christian cult or required belief in God as a condition of membership or a condition of longer term sobriety?

Luckily, at this time in my sobriety, I met Dr. Earle Marsh (deceased 1/13/03). Earle had gotten sober June 15, 1953, two days before I was born. His story, Physician Heal Thyself, was published in the 2nd edition of the Big Book and he was something of an icon around here where I was getting sober. Anyway, my first sponsor unwittingly directed me to have my path intersect with Earle's. This sponsor had encouraged me to go to a big men's meeting because they really did things right at this meeting. Well, I hated it. While the chairs (what some places refer to a "leads" where you tell your story...) were usually very good, they did not ask for volunteers to talk/share---the chair would only call on people he knew and none of them knew me. The fellowship was very strong in this meeting and there was a lot of positive energy flowing before, during and after the meeting. But I still hated it. I started to get the impression that they were all members of a AA cult and they were trying to draw me into the fold. If only I'd do what I was told....and that included getting down on my knees and praying the 3rd step prayer with my sponsor. No fucking way.

Anyway, one night---I'd already decided that it was my last visit to this meeting---toward the end of the meeting, this little man I had only known as an oldtimer who had his story in the book (when talking to others after the meeting, I referred to him as the Joker, because while he rarely got called on to talk, when he did talk, he had a wonderful way of telling stories and to make me laugh)....this little old man raised his hand and didn't wait to be called on, and simply said, "My name is Earle and I'm an alcoholic." Everyone welcomed him with a roar, "Hi Earle!". He then continued, "I've heard everything that you men have said tonight and to be honest with you, I think it's all a bunch of bullshit!" At first, there was complete silence in the room of 100+ men. And then everyone broke into laughter.... Earle looked at them with a half-smile and then said, "No, I'm serious! I think what's been said tonight is a bunch of bullshit." Well, this time, they didn't laugh so hard.

Earle then went on to tell a brief version of his story and it dawned on me that he'd gotten sober two days before I was born. He'd been sober every moment of my entire life. More importantly, this iconic figure with 48+ years of sobriety, friend of Bill Wilson himself and writer of one of the stories in the Big Book, had told an entire room of AA members that they were full of shit. And he didn't get kicked out. Now, he may very well have pissed off a few or a bunch of folks, but nonetheless, he was still allowed to have his say and to return the following week!

That's when I learned that while there are "cultish" aspects to this weird organization called Alcoholics Anonymous, that given our freedom to believe and do as we wish and remain full members in good standing, it's not a cult. At least for me. It's also where I learned that my third step didn't have to involve praying any prayer with another person. In fact, it didn't have to involve prayer at all. For me, the third step involved me coming to an understanding that much of my life had been spent "playing God" --- and, in particular, by using alcohol as a means of playing this role of God: He (me) who could change reality to fit His (my) wants and desires. My third step didn't involve a commitment to any sort of god, it was more of a resignation on my part from playing the role of God. It meant letting go and just being me. And being me, involved among other things, being an alcoholic who simply couldn't "stop" drinking...but who could stay sober, one day at a time.

This is all not to say that Micky's experience is wrong or that his opinions are bunk. His experience is apparently far different than mine and he's apparently taken it upon himself to teach everyone the "truth" about AA, Bill Wilson, etc. That's fine with me. I don't particularly find his arguments persuasive and I'm not going to become a hostage to his voluminous (clearly "cut and paste" from a library of anti-AA messages and writings....) comments and diatribes.

For that reason, I've removed the "Comments" from my blog. I am looking for other alternatives to allowing people to respond/comment on what I share here, which do not subject me or others to abusive rantings. Until then, this will be a one-way communication tool. Sorry folks!

Mike L.