Secular AA: design & build your own program
Vince’s latest offering, Secular AA is the final piece in his collection of addiction-busters comprising a choice of one from three handbooks plus the complementary As Vince Sees It (Kindle ebook) or Everyone’s An Addict daily reader (paperback) – both the same book. Secular AA underlines the importance of meetings, which we cannot do without. And so many online meetings have blossomed thanks to the COVID crisis, that no one need do without a meeting due to geographical isolation or any other reason. No one need do without a sponsor for the same reason. On the other hand many members believe that traditional AA sponsorship puts too much influence in the hands of amateurs.
But the underlying concept of the program outlined in Secular AA is for the member to choose the elements they wish to make up their own program and leave the rest. For example, if their definition of spiritual has to be synonymous with religion, then they can dispense with spirituality. However, the book outlines a concept of non-religious spirituality giving examples such as the wonderful togetherness addicts feel in their meetings when they share an understanding of each other’s addiction.
There is no compulsion to do the steps either. This may come as a tremendous relief to many members who might have viewed stepwork as unpaid labour. Or they might have lacked faith in the type of sponsor who says there is only one way to do the steps/follow the program, and that is the way their sponsor showed them. See www.alcoholics12steps.com where the latest Secular AA and the classic bestseller An Atheists Unofficial Guide to AA are previewed together.
Wishing all alcoholics a long and happy recovery. VH
An Atheists Unofficial Guide to AA
The author is an atheist and member of Alcoholics Anonymous who had not had a drink for more than 23 years as at the end of 2021. While he has got the program in spite of the god references in AA’s 12 steps and Big Book, he has encountered many agnostics and atheists who have been put off by them.
As a freelance journalist and business analyst he has applied his mind to outlining ways in which they, too, can adapt the AA program to their beliefs, thus bringing many more who have a problem with alcohol into the AA fold.
Hopefully some will be saved who would have perished and many will stop drinking sooner than they would have done otherwise, thus saving themselves and people around them from the harm inflicted by years of further drinking alcoholically. Find out more at www.alcoholics12steps.com.
Wishing all steppers a long and happy recovery. VH
Vince Hawkins – Ubud, Bali, 2009
Vince Hawkins – St Petersburg 2009
12 Steps to Self-improvement
If I could broaden the scope of AA, why not other 12 step programs and even suggest a new one, Bad Behavers Anonymous or BB, for non-addicts who want to achieve self-improvement? Why shouldn’t they attain contented lives as decently functioning human beings?
So I have tweaked the 12 steps yet again and hope the net will widen further.
I have something in common with Bill W, the co-founder of AA who was a researcher of companies with shares listed on Wall Street. I was an investment analyst working for stockbrokers at one time, too. Though I’m just a follower, rather than a groundbreaker, it comforts me to think our thought processes might not be entirely dissimilar. Find out more at www.addicts12steps.com
Wishing all addicts a long and happy recovery. VH
Everyone’s an Addict
The daily reader , Everyone’s an Addict, is much more than 366 daily inspirational entries; it is bursting with detailed practical tips on how to tackle addictions from a secular viewpoint. (This means freedom of religion, or non-religion, for all. Readers can choose from either the traditional steps or god-free alternatives for six of the 12.)
The proposition is that everyone is an addict of one kind or another, if not to the major league isms – alcohol, drugs, food, gambling and sex – or the second division clutter, hoarding, shopping, video games and work; then to the minor league smoking, Sudoku, TV shows and the like – something. Addiction robs us of time that would be better spent in improving our own lives and, as a by-product, other people’s. Find out more at www.everyone’sanaddict.com
Vince is also a life member of the British Humanist Association
Vince Hawkins
residing in Valencia, Spain, 2018