Secular AA by Vince Hawkins

Secular AA: design & build your individual program

This is the final piece in Vince’s collection of addiction busters comprising a choice of one of three handbooks plus the complementary As Vince Sees It (Kindle ebook) or Everyone’s An Addict (paperback) daily reader – 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. 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 comcept 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.

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 complulsion to do the steps either. This may come as a huge relief to many members who might have viewed stepwork as unnecessary unpaid labour. Or they might have lacked faith in the type of sponsor who says there is only one way to do the steps/construct the program and that is the way their sponsor showed them.

Wishing all alcoholics a long and happy recovery.

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 17 years as at the end of 2015. 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.

Vince is also a life member of the British Humanist Association.

An Atheists Guide to AA

Vince Hawkins – Ubud, Bali, 2009

An Atheists Guide to AA

Vince Hawkins – St Petersburg, 2009

Twelve 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.
Please Visit www.addicts12steps.com for more information.
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.

Wishing all steppers a long and happy recovery. VH

Visit www.everyonesanaddict for the daily reader.

or Vince’s fiction offering, visit www.traderbobnovel.com

As Vince Sees It