12 Step Programs’ God Problem
These spiritual programs need to stop proselytizing religious principles and groupthink mentalities and promote the vital and authentic uniqueness of each individual
I have not written about both substance abuse and 12-step programs in a single article in a while. I fervently believe that the overwhelming majority of humans would benefit from understanding and practicing the spiritual principles of 12-step programs. I believe just as strongly that 12-step programs have abysmal results when it comes to treating substance abuse and that I must try to effect changes in such programs by raising awareness through my writing and offering suggestions that will lead to better outcomes.
Many people shy away from appearing to criticize 12-step programs because they say it helps some people and no alternative has manifested. I understand that viewpoint, but it is unacceptable.
“Peer reviewed studies peg the success rate of AA somewhere between five and 10 percent,” writes Dodes. “About one of every 15 people who enter these programs is able to become and stay sober.”
This is not an example of if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Here, it is undeniably broken but no one has the guts to stand up and say enough is enough, let’s tweak the model to improve it.
Today I shall focus on the “the God problem” and the incongruity that while 12-step programs profess to impart spiritual principles upon their attendees, actually they preach too much religion. Religion abhors spirituality and vice versa.
Religion cannot stand Spirituality. It cannot abide it. For Spirituality may bring you to a different conclusion than a particular religion — and this no known religion can tolerate. Religion encourages you to explore the thoughts of others and accept them as your own. Spirituality invites you to toss away the thoughts of others and come up with your own.― Neale Donald Walsch, The Complete Conversations with God
Spirituality encompasses many individual paths to living in accordance with spiritual principles. Religion and 12-step programs promote groupthink and conformity. The leaders of 12-step program groups accuse anyone who questions the dogma of suffering from terminal uniqueness and tell them to shut up, sit down and listen if they want to succeed. They preach dissolution of ego while hypocritically serving their own egos.
I believe in “God” with all my heart and soul yet I know without a shadow of a doubt that 12-step programs must remove their concepts of “God” from Steps 2 and 3 (and other steps, and remove steps 6 and 7 entirely but that's not for this essay) and simply advocate living a spiritually principled life and encourage vital uniqueness.
In the United States, outside of NYC, most groups close the meeting with the Lord’s Prayer — and even in NYC where most groups close with the appropriately abbreviated version of the Serenity Prayer, some groups still close with the former. This Christian prayer must be removed from 12-Step programs. Any and all religious teachings about God must disappear from the programs. If God, as taught by the Bible, works for individuals, they will adhere to their beliefs whether or not 12-step programs preach these beliefs. Those that understandably cannot accept these teachings leave the rooms when they are preached to. As I have written:
Religions have been designed to be believed and thus construct God as a deliverer of human wants if we do as we are told, which God is not. So people either blindly believe in God because the lie of what God is is believable, or reject God because the God defined by religions cannot co-exist with the reality that most people do not get what they want, or are not actually happy, and a world full of seemingly senseless tragedy and really bad things happening to good people.
I have heard many many tales in 12-step meetings of horrible physical, sexual, and or mental abuse. These people often refuse to believe in the God preached by religions, and they are correct not to.
Many groups promote a fake it till you make it path. Spirituality requires authenticity. Fake it till you make it is an anathema to authenticity and does not instill anything useful in those that cannot accept any religion's version of God.
Step Two — “Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity”
Step Three — “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him”
Humans, when controlled by their egos, are essentially self-centered. I have written:
When I use the term spiritual, I use it in a manner that transcends the binary of theism versus atheism. One can act entirely spiritual with or without a belief in “god” however one understands that term. Spirituality only requires love, empathy, compassion, humility, honesty and courage.
So, believing in a power greater than ourselves does not have to mean belief in a metaphysical higher power. It can simply mean acting in accordance with the aforementioned spiritual principles, which promote a belief that the greater good (a power greater than ourselves) is more important than our individual human wants.
The last line of the 12 and 12’s discussion of Step Two is “God will restore us to sanity if we rightly relate ourselves to Him.” In my copy, I highlighted and circled the words “we rightly relate ourselves” and wrote beneath it “Decision.” So, connecting that to Step Three, the decision to turn over our will does not mean “let go and let God.” It simply means making a decision to lead a spiritually principled life.
People walk into the rooms of 12-Step programs stigmatized and ashamed. Any program that implies the imperative of finding a belief in a metaphysical higher power, while well-intentioned, adds too much and an unnecessary burden on the non-believer. If one seeks a higher power of their understanding, they shall find it in due time. While it makes it easier, breaking free from the attachment of addiction does not require it. The path to God cannot be taught. It must be experienced.
Here are some of my prior writings referred to or related to the above:
In Rama I create, with soul-energy surging through my body, inspiring me and breathing wind into my sails,
