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Old 30th July 2010, 07:25 AM   #321
Dymanic
Philosopher
 
Join Date: Sep 2002
Posts: 5,330
Originally Posted by Tinyal View Post
Embracing AA's core doctrine - that being Bill's claim that except in very rare, unheard of cases, it is impossible to get and maintain sobriety unless one develops a concious contact with a 'higher power' - no, that did not work for me.
That didn't work for me either; certainly not for any definition of "conscious contact" that I could accept as both meaningful and sane. On the advice that all that was required was a willingness to believe, I tried. What that effort led me to was a realization that belief is not a choice; it resides at a level I don't have access to. I cannot give AA credit for making me into an atheist; I started out as an atheist. AA simply helped me to get comfortable with that.

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socializing/relearning how to be part of a social group - these are what worked for me
I think that's what worked for me as well. Or, as marlots puts it above:
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In my opinion, to the extent AA helps someone, it is dependent on a sense of community, the AA group itself.
I say "I think", because I've come to see both addiction and recovery as rather complex, the oft-heard claim that AA is a simple program notwithstanding. People often have interesting and detailed explanations for why something does or doesn't work for them; a job, or a relationship, for example. But the other person (the employer or the S.O. -- or the ex-employer or S.O.) may questionn the accuracy of those insights. I think recovery is like that. Abstinence does not automatically equal success, and relapse does not automatically equal failure, and as helpful as it might be to be able to put a finger directly on the causes for one or the other, it's rarely very easy to do so.

What seems most relevant to the OP of this thread is the question of the extent to which AA may be considered to be something more than what you refer to as its "core doctrine" (defining "doctrine" as something like: a body of knowledge to be accepted and absorbed without critical thought). Unless I have misunderstood, and you did your "socializing/relearning how to be part of a social group" somewhere other than AA, you seem already to have conceded that AA is more than mere doctrine.

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I suggest everyone interested in what AA doctrine really says about 'higher powers' read Chapter 4, as in it Bill quite clearly states that using the group as a higher power is only meant as a small start - a first step - to developing a relationship with god, and is not meant as a final choice.
Bill W's memory is much cherished, and his words often quoted, but (as Alfie has pointed out) his take on a particular point is no more regarded as the final word on the matter than is Darwin's on some point related to evolutionary theory. In my view, it's one of the main things that disqualifies AA as a "cult". But I have a bigger problem with your statement: I cannot find in chapter 4 of the Big Book anything remotely resembling the statement you claim is there.
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