Posted on 02/20/2016 9:05:17 AM PST by rickmichaels
My name is Michele and I am not an alcoholic. But if I were, why does it matter whether or not I believe in God?
Talk about a lack of fellowship - non-believers battling the bottle have been booted from Alcoholics Anonymous in Toronto. Now Larry Knight is taking AA World Services and its GTA Intergroup (GTAI) to Ontario’s human rights tribunal, alleging discrimination on the basis of creed. Because members of his AA group are agnostic, he says they’ve been expelled from the local Toronto AA directory and have been denied the right to vote “on matters that are important to all AA members.â€
In 2011, Toronto’s two secular AA groups - Beyond Belief and We Agnostics - were expelled and “delisted†from the roster of local meetings because they’d written God out of AA’s famous 12 steps to recovery found in The Big Book, its proverbial bible. Five of the steps specifically mention the Almighty, including “(We) sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.â€
That may have worked for the majority when they were first penned in 1939, but many seeking recovery today were uncomfortable with the religious, church-like aspect of the program - so they formed new support groups that eliminated the God talk. On their website, AA Toronto Agnostics explain their philosophy: “Our only wish is to ensure suffering alcoholics that they can find sobriety in AA without having to accept anyone else’s beliefs, or having to deny their own.â€
They adapted the steps to be more secular: Step 11 became “Sought through mindful inquiry and meditation to improve our spiritual awareness, seeking only for knowledge of our rightful path in life and the power to carry that out.â€
It all sounds pretty tame in these modern times. But the Toronto central office would have none of it - how dare they mess with the text in The Big Book? The rebels were summarily expelled for their sacrilege. There are now 11 weekly secular AA meetings in the GTA; none can be found on the GTAI listings.
Knight wrote to AA’s headquarters in New York asking for its intervention in GTAI’s decision not to list his agnostic group. He told the human rights tribunal that he “received no calls and no response from AA.â€
So he filed his complaint.
“The reason we went this way is because after three years of discussion, nothing happened,†Knight told the Sun. “The clock ran out and we’re still not allowed to vote. It’s important to feel that we are equal partners with an opportunity to speak.â€
GTAI argued that its members must be prepared to practise the 12-step program and have a belief in God. Knight’s agnostic group, they told the tribunal, is free to “follow its own process†- but not as part of AA’s Toronto umbrella office: “It is a bona fide requirement that groups that wish to be part of this intergroup must have a belief in the higher power of God.â€
Knight disagreed.
“The only requirement for membership in AA is this desire to achieve sobriety and to help others in this achievement,†he told a summary hearing last month. “AA was not meant to be presented on any religious terms and ... atheists and agnostics have been included as members in other parts of Canada and the United States over the years in order to promote an inclusive approach to AA membership rather than promote any religious perspective.â€
After a teleconference with both sides, the tribunal ruled this week that Knight’s claim of discrimination should go to a full hearing.
“The fundamental question,†the tribunal noted in legalese, “is whether the Code requires a religion-based charitable organization to accommodate other beliefs by altering the services they provide on the basis of a differing creed by an applicant seeking to use those services.â€
Should traditional Alcoholics Anonymous accept everyone, even those who choose not to look heavenward for salvation? The answer seems obvious: For God’s sake, yes.
If they don’t like it, take your bottle and go home.
It's enough to make me want to start drinking again.
AA states a higher power. It doesn’t mention God.
Fix your formatting.
Any bast’d who’s so asserting has NO INTEREST IN SOBRIETY.
Shut up and sit in the chair and maybe you learn a thing or two.
The word "tribunal" has such an Orwellian aspect to it. Rather apropos.
I want to go to church, but I don’t want them to talk about God or religion, I am going to sue /s
When are the people going to have enough of these petty tyrants? You do not like AA and their approach, find another self help group. Or start your own.
People who are going through life as victims, who feel that the world is persecuting them, are probably going to have a hard time kicking the alcohol thing.
Personally I never understood why an atheist would want to go to AA anyway. The higher power is kind of like, right front and center. It’s like going to church and being mad that everyone isn’t an atheist.
There are secular alternatives to AA. People shouldn’t be such whinebags and attention whores about everything they don’t agree with.
Why can’t FR fix this? One way to start would be for FR to use the straight commas and apostrophes. That way we could at least quote each other.
My takeaway from AA.. the one that really put me off..
was it seemed like they were intent on getting me to believe I was a dirtbag.
I’m not a dirtbag, wasn’t a dirtbag and feel it would be detrimental to believe I am a dirtbag.
Granted, I’ve done some dirtbaggy things but it isn’t a major theme of my life.
I am an alcoholic and have attended AA for all of my 22 years of sobriety.
Usually these types of complaints arise from drunk drivers, sentenced to attend AA and finding fault.
Some kind of central authority keeping strict rules does not exist for AA, and local groups can do as they like, within guidelines.
I have met people that were atheists with long term sobriety, that do not complain.
If you have a drinking problem, or know somebody that does—keep an open mind and give AA a chance.
It has saved many lives, families, marriages, careers, and possibly most of all minds.
Atheist Alcoholics Anonymous and Agnostic Alcoholics Anonymous!
Atheist Alcoholics Anonymous and Agnostic Alcoholics Anonymous!
Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who
share their experience, strength and hope with each other that
they may solve their common problem and help others to recover
from alcoholism.
The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.
There are no dues or fees for A.A. membership, we are self supporting through our own contributions. A.A. is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution, does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.
Started working for me in April, 1980. Still sober. The writer can go jump in a lake. The only reason it attracted me is that I think the same way and I met some guys who had been through and in some of the God awful places I had and laughed and joked and helped each other get going and stay on their feet. I have friends all over the world and can walk into a meeting anywhere and come out having made more. Yeah, I can see why someone would attack this organization. Anyone that can take ex-cons, thugs, junkies, old ladies and kids and help them pull their shit together with no funding, no apparent bosses and no egoes to stroke is DANGEROUS. There’s no head drunk.
AA doesn’t say you are a dirtbag. But people come to AA in dirtbag mode a lot.
However, if you cannot stop drinking, and drinking is causing problems in your life, AA can help.
I went to PBA, Peanut Butter Anonymous, because I could not stop shooting peanut butter into my veins.
What a jerk. AA works for many people whom the psychiatrists, the Social Workers, and the government clinics are unable to deal with.
Don’t like it? Then found a group called Atheists Anonymous, maybe, and see how that works for you.
I was a pack-a-day smoker from the age of twelve. After about twelve years, I decided it was bad for my health.
But it was VERY hard to give it up. Only one thing worked for me. I made a solemn oath to God that I would never again smoke a single cigarette.
That proved unbelievably painful for years—but it worked, because going back on that oath would have been far worse. I haven’t smoked a single cigarette since 1965.
From How it Works:
“Remember that we deal with alcohol-cunning, baffling, powerful! Without help it is too much for us. But there is One who has all power-that One is God. May you find Him now!”
If ya change it, it is no longer AA. Call it something else, take your coffee pot and move on.
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