I go to alot of N.A meetings. Typically at least seven a week. Today's meeting was very difficult for me as it is at every meeting where a Higher Power is the main topic of discussion.
I am aware that the program states that a belief in and turning your will and you life over to a higher power is one of the first necessary steps to recovery. So what am I to do? I am an atheist. I do not believe in a god.
Now I have been coming to these halls for a while now. And I have been attempting to work the steps. I can't seem to get past step one though. I am not willing to turn my life over to the care of god "as I understand him" Because I don't understand him. I don't believe in a creator. I don't believe in Jesus. I don't believe in buddha. I believe that we are here on this earth, that we make our decisions and our will is our own. I do not and cannot believe that some god has a will for me.
Things happen as a result of cause and effect not because some higher power deems it his will. I truly believe that.
I'm told, by many people in this program, that I will not heal unless I change this belief. Is this true? I refuse to believe such a thing.
I have had step one finished for over six months. I cannot complete step two. I've read it and reread it and come to the same conclusion. This program is trying to force me to believe in something that I don't believe in.
While the step doesn't directly say it outright it insinuates in the questions and in the reading that not believing in a higher power is being close minded. I have been brainwashed by parents and shrinks my entire life, and I feel that this is another attempt at that. I feel like an attempt is being made to make me feel like I am wrong. My beliefs and the way I feel isn't wrong. If there is one thing I learned in the years of therapy I've been subjected to it is that my feelings are not wrong.
I want this program to work. I want to work the steps. I strongly feel however, that I cannot continue the steps if Becoming religious or believing in a higher power is a necessity.
Because of this I started attending A.A. meetings thinking that maybe they wouldn't be as adamant about the whole higher power thing. I found it to be worse. The continuously say "God of YOUR understanding." At the end of the meeting the chant the Lords Prayer. A religion specific prayer. How is that a god of my understanding?
I guess the bottom line is am an atheist. I have never, for as long as I can remember, believed in something that I have had no tangible evidence of its existence. With that being said, where do I go from here?