RE: Does religion belong at AA? Fight over God splits Toronto AA groups - thestar.com (Full Version)

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Musicmystery -> RE: Does religion belong at AA? Fight over God splits Toronto AA groups - thestar.com (6/12/2011 10:20:43 AM)

quote:

I'm not aware that AA insists on being the only way.


Quite the opposite: "If you want what we have......suggested as a program of recovery."




eihwaz -> RE: Does religion belong at AA? Fight over God splits Toronto AA groups - thestar.com (6/15/2011 9:39:59 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL:juliaoceania
but the 12 steps are based on the entire "Give my life, my will over to Jesus and repent of my sins because I am a lowly scumbag in a meatsuit" view of the world.

Are you ascribing this dreary view of humanity to AA philosophy?  To the contrary, numerous passages throughout the AA literature, such as the AA promises quoted by MM assure that practicing the Steps yields happiness, joy, and freedom -- and empowerment:
quote:

Alcoholics Anonymous, Fourth Edition, page 133
We are sure God wants us to be happy, joyous, and free.  We cannot subscribe to the belief that this life is a vale of tears, though it once was just that for many of us.

To me, the view of humans as inherently sinful -- therefore "bad" -- is a distortion -- or even a perversion -- of Christianity.  The evangelical forms of protestantism are particularly imbued with this pessimism.   This is the predictable result when class-insecure obsessive-compulsives, who were probably also depressed, are allowed to design a religion.
quote:

ORIGINAL: juliaoceania
I never ever said that atonement was wrong, but I did say that it was a Christian principle. It is a Christian principle to take moral inventory, too.

Are you saying that the concept of atonement is only found in Christianity?  As you know, Jewish observance also incorporates atonement, albeit in a different form.  Interestingly, in my researches into this, I found that the Hindu concept of karma includes confession and repentance:
quote:

ORIGINAL: "How to Ease Karma," Hinduism Today, July/August 2000
By confession, by repentance, by austerity and by reciting the Veda a sinner is freed from guilt, and, in case no other course is possible, by liberality. In proportion as a man who has done wrong, and himself confesses it, even so far he is freed from guilt, as a snake from its slough. In proportion as his heart loathes his evil deed, even so far is his body freed from that guilt. He who has committed a sin and has repented is freed from that sin, but he is purified only by the resolution of ceasing to sin and by thinking 'I will do so no more.'

See also Spiritual Practices: Managing and easing Karma, The Himalayan Institute

quote:

ORIGINAL: juliaoceania
It has nothing to do with "god" and everything to do with me.... in fact I suppose in my spiritual outlook, any god would want me to feel powerful inside of myself, to meet challenges, and to cope with adversity...

IMHO, AA would agree with the bolded portion.

Recently I came across the following:

quote:

ORIGINAL: Thomas Merton
If we enter into ourselves, finding our true self, and then passing "beyond" the inner "I," we sail forth into the immense darkness in which we confront the "I am" of the Almighty... Our inmost "I" exists in God and God dwells in it... Hence the Christian mystical experience is not only an awareness of the inner self, but also... it is an experiential grasp of God as present within our inner self.

Even if you may not believe in a deity, do you believe in a "higher self" or "true self" within you?




juliaoceania -> RE: Does religion belong at AA? Fight over God splits Toronto AA groups - thestar.com (6/15/2011 9:44:01 PM)

I think specific words have power, and the way that the 12 steps are worded have a certain connotation for me from my own experience with Christianity

I am not going to argue this anymore with you

If it works for you, happy for you

It would never work for me



eihwaz -> RE: Does religion belong at AA? Fight over God splits Toronto AA groups - thestar.com (6/15/2011 9:59:01 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: juliaoceania
I think specific words have power, and the way that the 12 steps are worded have a certain connotation for me from my own experience with Christianity

Understood.  It's been interesting for me to learn about this, since I come from a much different background and haven't had this experience (although I've certainly had lunatics -- perhaps well-intentioned -- in my face asking me if I'm "saved").


quote:

ORIGINAL: juliaoceania
I am not going to argue this anymore with you

My sincere apologies if I came across as argumentative. It was not my intent.




tweakabelle -> RE: Does religion belong at AA? Fight over God splits Toronto AA groups - thestar.com (6/16/2011 3:57:44 PM)

In my personal experience, I've never encountered an AA adherent who accepts the possibility of other programs working. Every time I hear "12 Steps is the only way". The literature is different of course. This appears to me to be a classic insider-outsider discourse (eg the old USSR's Constitution proclaimed "freedom of religion". We all know how that turned out.). The theoretical possibility of other approaches being successful is noted in the literature. In practice, it's ignored as far as I can see.

Perhaps more interesting is the definition of 'spiritual transformation' offered, which is:
quote:

Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, "Step Twelve," pages 106-107
Maybe there are as many definitions of spiritual awakening as there are people who have had them. But certainly each genuine one has something in common with all the others. And these things which they have in common are not too hard to understand. When a man or a woman has a spiritual awakening, the most important meaning of it is that he has now become able to do, feel, and believe that which he could not do before on his unaided strength and resources alone. He has been granted a gift which amounts to a new state of consciousness and being. He has been set on a path which tells him he is really going somewhere, that life is not a dead end, not something to be endured or mastered. In a very real sense he has been transformed because he has laid hold of a source of strength which, in one way or another, he had hitherto denied himself. He finds himself in possession of a degree of honest, tolerance, unselfishness, peace of mind, and love of which he had thought himself quite incapable. What he has received is a free gift, and yet usually, at least in some small part, he has made himself ready to receive it.

AA's manner of making ready to receive this gifts lies in the practice of the Twelve Steps in our program.


To me the 'spiritual transformation's' benefits sound pretty close to the benefits any one derives from achieving any goal they have worked hard for, or any person succeeding in any significant program of personal growth, or any person shedding a long term bad personal habit. It is perfectly OK to interpret these benefits as a spiritual transformation if you like, but there are lots of other (perhaps somewhat less exalted) interpretations one could reasonably put on the process and outcomes described above.

If a person has achieved such a turnaround in their lives, why not give them most of the credit? They're the ones who did all the hard work after all. The achievement belongs to them. Isn't that the empowering way? To me that seems most likely to embed the changes permanently in a person's life.

All the rest of us can offer is support. That support might be a critical factor at a critical moment to assist someone turning their life around - in the same sense as a straw breaking a camel's back or the last piece of the jigsaw to fit into place. The real credit belongs to the individual concerned, and their efforts ought to take first place. They, not the program, ought to receive the credit they're due. They've earned it.



LadyPact -> RE: Does religion belong at AA? Fight over God splits Toronto AA groups - thestar.com (6/17/2011 1:09:21 AM)

If that is so, tweak, I'd have to think that you haven't met many folks who identify as members of AA or NA.  They'll tell you that they know that there are other methods out there, but a twelve step program is what worked for them.  That seems to Me why it makes no logical sense to rewrite steps, the Big Book, or put meetings on a schedule that is advocating a different way.  It's not the responsibility of AA to promote other programs or give a list of all of the options, such as julia's health care provider did.  It's not what they do.

I have to admit, I see a lot of similarities in the 'recovery community' to the BDSM community.  In both, you're going to find One True Wayers, elitists, people mixed with each other that, if they didn't have that one thing in common (recovery or kink) they might not be socializing with each other.  Just like BDSM, you're also going to find a lot of folks doing their own interpretation of the way they do things.  Some even call it a "lifestyle" just like some of us do. 

If the people in the vanilla community wanted to come to our public dungeon and start telling us how we had to change our dungeon rules to make them happy, it's something of the same thing as non program people deciding the success rate just isn't high enough to satisfy them.  I say, leave to AA what belongs to AA.  Those who aren't happy with it can form an alternative program.



tazzygirl -> RE: Does religion belong at AA? Fight over God splits Toronto AA groups - thestar.com (6/17/2011 1:17:02 AM)

quote:

It's not the responsibility of AA to promote other programs or give a list of all of the options, such as julia's health care provider did.  It's not what they do.


I was thinking the same thing, LP. What works for one wont work for another. But there are no rules that you have to promote someone else's way. Advertising... it worked for AA/NA.



eihwaz -> RE: Does religion belong at AA? Fight over God splits Toronto AA groups - thestar.com (6/17/2011 9:03:26 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: tweakabelle
In my personal experience, I've never encountered an AA adherent who accepts the possibility of other programs working. Every time I hear "12 Steps is the only way".

Do they mean for themselves or for everyone?  With respect to the latter, it's unfortunately common that some people conclude that what worked for them must therefore work for all.

quote:

[ORIGINAL: LadyPact
you're going to find One True Wayers, elitists

Quite so.  Groups of all kinds have their own varieties of fundamentalists.

quote:

ORIGINAL: tweakabelle
To me the 'spiritual transformation's' benefits sound pretty close to the benefits any one derives from achieving any goal they have worked hard for, or any person succeeding in any significant program of personal growth, or any person shedding a long term bad personal habit.

Certainly "spiritual transformations" aren't unique to AA.  However, not every achievement entails the "huge emotional displacements and rearrangements" described by Jung.

quote:

ORIGINAL: tweakabelle
If a person has achieved such a turnaround in their lives, why not give them most of the credit? They're the ones who did all the hard work after all. The achievement belongs to them....  They, not the program, ought to receive the credit they're due. They've earned it.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that the AA program gets the credit.  First, actual practice of the Steps is hard work, of which anyone can be justly proud.  Further, according to AA, the compulsion to drink is removed through the grace of God or a Higher Power.  

quote:

ORIGINAL: Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 63
[T]he often disputed question of whether God can -- and will under certain conditions -- remove defects of character will be answered with a prompt affirmative by almost any A.A. member.  To him, this proposition will be no theory at all: it will be just about the largest fact in his life....
...
It is plain for everybody to see that each sober A.A. member has been granted a release from this very obstinate and potentially fatal obsession.  So in a very complete and literal way, all A.A.'s have "become entirely ready" to have God remove the mania for alcohol from their lives.  And God has proceeded to do exactly that.


Step Seven ("Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.") extends reliance on the grace of God to any character defect.

Of course, this makes no sense if you don't believe in the possibility.

Which is to say that, though non-denominational and non-religious in the sense of not being connected with any organized religion, AA is a faith based program.

Regarding the efficacy of AA, I agree with other posters that measures based on lifelong sobriety are too simplistic.  Moreover, a truly accurate measure would have to distinguish those who actually "work" the program, as opposed to merely attending AA meetings.  AA literature is clear that participation in AA meetings is necessary but not sufficient for long term sobriety.

For example, if I see a physical therapist who prescribes exercises to be performed between treatments, the efficacy of the physical therapy may depend on how dutifully I perform those exercises.  Patient compliance is often a confounding variable in clinical trials.






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