Do You Have to Believe in God to Get Sober in AA?

I came into AA agnostic and basically nihilist - totally indifferent to the idea of God. I wasn't a true atheist, since that requires a level of conviction I didn't have. But I'd always been seeking something - unity, connection, you might even call it transcendence - I just never really knew what that was. Carl Jung, one of AA's friends, says that the alcoholic's thirst for alcohol is equivalent to a religious person's search for God. Although I could have never articulated my feelings like that when I was drinking, it makes perfect sense to me now being in AA.

The first direction I ever got from my first sponsor was to go home and pray. Although I didn't believe in God at the time, I begrudgingly followed his direction because quite frankly I just didn't want to drink anymore. If these people were doing this, maybe there was a shot it could work for me too.

Here's what the Big Book actually says: "God as we understood Him." Those last four words do all the heavy lifting. Bill W. was smart enough to know that if AA required a specific belief in God, it would have died in Akron. The whole point of the book and AA as a whole is to connect you to this Power - the starting assumption being that you have no relationship with God, or at the very least an ineffective one.

The bottom line is you don't really have to believe anything in particular to get sober in AA. Most people, especially in Charlotte, probably have a Judeo-Christian centric point of view about God, and that's probably what you'll hear in meetings. This is really a very regional thing. In more liberal cities, the tendency will be towards less religious overtones, and in more rural areas, the tendency will be the opposite.

No one can or should try to compel you to believe in their idea of God. The purpose of working the steps is to help you build a relationship with a higher power of your own understanding. Though some people try to make that a really simple, cut-and-dry thing, my experience is that the idea of God is very flexible. If we're all being honest with ourselves, we all have a belief in powers beyond our control that influence our lives. If you just want to really get super vague about what God could be, I think those things helped me when I was new until I could formulate my own concept. Just knowing that you don't have to invent God or know what God is now, as long as you're open-minded to the idea.

What the Book Really Says

Chapter 4 is called "We Agnostics" for a reason. Nearly half the original members came in as atheists or agnostics. The book dedicates an entire chapter to people who don't believe in God, and nowhere does it say you're doomed if you don't find religion. More importantly, the chapter asks you to examine your life up to this point and how successful you've been living it on your current set of beliefs. It paints a picture of humanity that believes all sorts of things that aren't logical.

I think alcoholics are, by nature, religious. We believed in one solution for all problems: alcohol. It's the same way I was asked to treat God in AA. I believed without a doubt that alcohol would solve every one of my problems, which is why I drank. Why then is it so hard to believe that God will solve my problems if I stay sober?

My life up to the time that I had come to AA was a disaster. I couldn't keep relationships. I couldn't pay my bills. I was in and out of jail, and whatever I was doing out there was not working. I was in enough pain to accept the possibility that whatever there was that they were talking about in AA when it came to this higher power thing might be able to help me. Alcoholics never really become open-minded out of virtue, only in periods of duress.

The God Thing in Meetings

You're going to hear a lot about God in Charlotte AA meetings. Let's be real - Charlotte may be a big metro, but it's still the South. People can get kinda preachy. Which is fine with me today, but wasn't so much when I was new. I don't have to believe what they believe and no one has tried converting me (yet).

If you're allergic to God talk like I was, here's what worked for me: every time someone said "God," I heard "Good Orderly Direction" or "Group of Drunks" or just "Not Me." God is simply shorthand for the mysteries of the universe.

The Serenity Prayer? I said it even though I didn't believe anyone was listening. Turns out the act of asking for serenity, courage, and wisdom works whether you believe in God or not. The prayer changes your mindset regardless of your theology. Kierkegaard said "The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays." That Danish philosopher might have been onto something.

What About the Steps?

Steps 2 and 3 mention a Power greater than ourselves and God as we understood Him. Steps 5, 6, 7, and 11 also reference God. That's six steps out of twelve. But here's the thing - every single one says "as we understood Him" or talks about "a Power greater than ourselves."

I've sponsored atheists who worked all twelve steps. Their higher power was the universe, nature, the group, mathematical probability, whatever. The point isn't what you believe in - it's that you stop trying to run everything yourself. My alcoholism told me I was the center of the universe. The steps teach me I'm not.

Finding Your Meeting

Some meetings in Charlotte lean more spiritual than others. If heavy God talk isn't your thing, Big Book studies tend to stick to the actual program language. You've got options - try different meetings until you find ones that work for you.

The reason alcoholics don't like the idea of God - generally speaking, at least when we think of some czar of the heavens that's looking out over our lives and knows everything - is that if that version of God exists, then all of the bad stuff we've been doing is known. The worst fear of every alcoholic is being found out, even if it's by some imaginary deity. When I introspect on my resistance to the God thing, a lot of it was just rebellious bullshit, but also fear of being truly seen. My best thinking got me to AA though, so maybe my theological opinions weren't worth much either.

My Experience with the God Question

Today, I have something I call a higher power. Is it God? I don't know and I don't care. What I know is that when I try to run my life on self-will, things go badly. When I trust the process, work the steps, help others, and stop trying to control everything, life works better.

I've seen hardcore atheists get sober and stay sober. I've seen religious people relapse. Your conception of God or lack thereof isn't what keeps you sober. Working the program keeps you sober. The spiritual experience mentioned in the Big Book can be educational - a slow, gradual change - rather than some white light moment.

My observation is that anyone who honestly works the steps and does AA to the best of their ability has an experience. Some may call this a spiritual experience. I know I've had one. And my personal belief is that the 12 steps are a foolproof formula to produce the necessary spiritual change to bring about recovery from alcoholism.

The Bottom Line

You don't have to believe in God to get sober in AA. You need to believe you're not God. There's a difference.

No one ever told me to believe in God. They told me to carry out some actions and to see what happened. No one ever told me to believe in their idea of God - at least not anybody that was actually worth listening to. They only asked me to be open-minded to the possibility. People never told me who to pray to, just to pray.

I know some people think that AA is some sort of covert pipeline to Christianity, but I can assure you that for me it hasn't been, and if it becomes that for you, I'm happy for you. A lot of people do end up going back to the religion of their childhood. It hasn't happened for me yet, but I'd like to think that I'm open-minded today.

I remember complaining to my sponsor about some folks in the meeting who were very religious and definitely thought that I should conform to their idea of God. He said, "Well, they're wrong for carrying the message in that way, but if it's working for them, then you can't say that it's not working for anybody." He went on to say that if the only way to get and stay sober was to read the Bible and go to church and all this stuff, then he'd gladly do it because that beats drinking yourself to death and disappointing everyone in your life.

I'm glad today that reading the Bible is not a requirement for getting sober, but I totally understood what he meant. It really does underline the fatal nature of this illness and the requirement that we really be willing to go to any lengths to achieve victory over alcohol.

My sponsor told me to pray every morning and night for two weeks, even though I didn't believe in God. I said, "That's stupid, I'm talking to nobody." He said, "Good, then it can't hurt to try." I did it to prove him wrong. Fifteen years later, I'm still sober, so maybe there was something to it.

Come See for Yourself

Come to the Huntersville 164 Big Book Study on Monday nights at 7:00 PM. We read what the book actually says, not what people think it says. You'll find believers, atheists, agnostics, and people who just don't care about the God question anymore. What we have in common is that we don't drink and we work the steps.

Everything you want in life is just beyond your comfort zone. Even if that comfort zone includes your firmly held beliefs about God.