Hey! Thanks for posting. I am really glad you are using your words.
(While I admire AA and the many fine people in it, and honor how many people it keeps sober, it is not for me. I have 7.75 years sober/straightedge, so I won't be singing from the AA hymnal, and certainly can't/won't speak for the recovery movement. Though I was in Debtors Anonymous ten years ago, and loved it. Since then the disease model just isn't quite right for me, though it keeps many people alive today. Take what I say with a grain of salt.)
Basically, as I understand it, there are so only so many ways people get sober in the real world. This is from my own observations in the real world.
1. AA/disease model
2. Religious experience
3. Sick and tired of being sick and tired
People can get sober quick, or slow. YMMV.
May I playfully, kindly challenge you?
When you say "those people", do you mean those sober people? Those sober, laughing because of joy and crying at one another's struggles? The sober people who have a safe place to go, and many people they can call 24/7/365? Those people who care enough to set up a meeting space, welcome unloveable people, and try to improve themselves?
If you actually look at a bunch of AA people getting together, they seem to be having a ball. Whatever going on there is much preferable, for me, than listening to a bunch of drunks at a bar.
A little tough love for you. Offered kindly.
You don't believe in God? Good for you! No one cares.
I say both of those sincerely, without irony. I am glad you have found a cosmic heuristic that works for you. At the same time your sincere lack of interest in God etc will not cause anyone else to start drinking again. You must abide by the dictates of your conscience, and give the AA folks space to enjoy their God, slogans, and miracles. (Because remember, they're sober. They're doing good.)
Regarding what you wrote here:
"If you are unable to believe in a Higher Power that is conscious and active in the universe, you cannot believe in one which is able to remove desires and defects, to grant serenity, etc."
You posit an if/then statement which is pretty sweeping and definitive. If it is true or not, I am too exhausted right now to weigh in, but such a sweeping generalization may or may not serve you well. I am not saying to not believe that, but to be careful of the power of such categorical statements.
Here is what I would do if I were you:
Find a friendly AA person, and invite them out to lunch. Warn them, kindly, that you are going to throw every doubt and anger about AA at them. Then promise, once you're done, to listen intently as the AA person responds. Let them talk for as long as they like.
Get it all out, man. Get real.
Wrapping up a final thread from above:
Sober people are real jerks. We're sanctimonious, imperious, and dogmatic. They call active alcoholics "drunks" and mock "typical drunk behavior": getting into fights, freezing to death in the snow, starting fires.
We are also doing what you say you want to do: not drinking.
Take the folks at Celebrate Recovery: not only do they have a Higher Power, they only have one, and it is Jesus. That's it. That's a lot of baggage there. But I challenge you, I really do, to go to a Celebrate Recovery meeting, or better yet five of them, and see if you've seen such a happy, struggling, real bunch.
No AA person, no Celebrate Recovery person, or no straightedge person is going to pity or coddle you. No one is going back to drinking to satisfy your whims. None.
But
Many an AA guy, Celebrate Recovery, and straightedge person will stand by you, literally, if it would help keep you from drinking, if you wanted to stop.
Along with being sanctimonious, we are also long-winded, as you can see, so I'll wrap up with a story.
I am obligated to be at work at 9 am M-F.
My friend, who lives across the street, is an alcoholic, and if he wanted to get sober, I would stand by him, holding his hand, until the last moment of when I could leave to arrive at work on time. I would skip breakfast, showering, and shaving. I'd drive directly back to comfort him. I wouldn't watch TV, take excess time to eat, or waste time on the Internet. I would do anything to keep him from drinking.
Actually, what I wrote in the previous paragraph is not totally true. I would have done any of those things until six weeks ago. My friend died of alcoholism. He is dead at 40. So much promise, gone. I see his mother and she is a shell of herself. She gets to her dead son's sober-ass friend (me) drive to work each day. What must be going through her mind?
Does AA have lots of problems, and thorny/problematic issues? Yes. I ask you: what would she give to have had her son go to AA and take it seriously.
I'm not saying you are about to die of alcoholism. I am saying that alcohol plays for keeps, and there are real consequences.
I hope you'll forgive my bluntness. I am very T of HALT, and I am also sick and tired of polite and euphemistic talk hurrying people to an early grave.
Work is love made visible. -Kahlil Gibran
A person with a "why" can endure any "how". -Viktor Frankl
Which is better: to be born good or to overcome your evil nature through great effort? -Skyrim
