3 ms·
When it's been studied for effectiveness, it turns out AA works for between 5% and 10% of the people in it; as it also turns out, that's about the same percenta
by Frondo 8y ago
When it's been studied for effectiveness, it turns out AA works for between 5% and 10% of the people in it; as it also turns out, that's about the same percentage of people for whom any group support program would work.
This isn't a distortion, this is the empirical view of AA.
As for explicitly unreligious, I would like to include the twelve steps here:
1) We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2) Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3) Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4) Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5) Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6) Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7) Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8) Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9) Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10) Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11) Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12) Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
I am struggling to find an unreligious interpretation for steps 3, 5, 6, 7, 11, and 12, even if the "higher power" isn't an Abrahamic religion "God".
What's a spiritual awakening to an atheist?
- TimTheTinker 8y agoI think the key here is that people function better, and break addictions better, when they realize and submit to the concept that they do not (and can't) have complete power and control over their own lives. The notion of a "higher power" or "God" can help people get into that posture of "letting go", which helps them find real support outside of themselves (and their addictions). Being a Christian myself, I know I function much better when I'm consciously in an attitude of trusting God -- it lets me relax and simply be who I am and do what I need to do, without worrying about "fixing things" outside of my control. (And yes, I do take an intellectually rigorous approach to my faith, but that's a different topic.)
- hellofunk 8y agoI'm not a religious man myself, but I think your perspective is wiser than most of those who call themselves Christians, and frankly, I think what you have expressed here runs deeper than the particulars of any specific religion.