AA Things Nobody Explained to Me – #1
For some people walking into AA, this isn’t a minor question.
It’s the question.
Maybe you’re religious. Maybe you’re spiritual but not religious. Maybe you’re agnostic, atheist, angry with God, suspicious of organized religion, or simply not interested.
Then somebody hands you the Twelve Steps and there is the word God.
More than once.
So: Do you have to believe in God to belong to AA?
No.
The only requirement for AA membership, according to the Third Tradition, is “a desire to stop drinking.”
AA does have a spiritual program. But it doesn’t prescribe a religion or require members to share a particular understanding of God.
The Big Book addresses this question directly in the chapter We Agnostics. Its approach isn’t “here’s what you must believe.” It repeatedly leaves room for a Higher Power as we understood Him.
That distinction has mattered to generations of AA members.
Some members understand their Higher Power in traditional religious terms. Others think of nature, love, the AA group, the accumulated wisdom of the Fellowship, or simply something beyond their own unaided will.
And some members remain atheists.
AA even publishes personal stories from atheist and agnostic members who have gotten sober in the Fellowship.
You may also hear…
Someone may tell you that you must believe in God to get sober.
That’s their experience or belief. It isn’t a requirement for AA membership.
You may also hear the old AA suggestion that you don’t have to figure out the whole God business today.
That’s probably good advice.
You came here because of drinking.
Start there.
If you’re new, try a few different meetings. Your room is out there.