God as We Understand Him (continued… pp. 2-3)
We much regret that
these facts of AA life are not understood by a legion of alcoholics in the
world around us. Any number of them are bedeviled by the dire conviction that
if they go near AA they will be pressured to conform to some particular brand
of faith or theology. They just don’t realize that faith is never a necessity
for AA membership; that sobriety can be achieved with an easily acceptable
minimum of it; and that our concepts of a Higher Power and God as we understand
him afford everyone a nearly unlimited choice of spiritual belief and action.
*****
I
love open meetings of AA because an open meeting is where those who haven’t made up their
minds about whether of not they even need help; or let alone, whether they
believe in anything at all along the lines of faith. We take upon ourselves the
responsibility… those of us who have been sober long enough to know what our
program is… to carry the core message of AA rather than our own personal take
on things. That core message is that alcoholism is a terminal disease and once
it has developed past a certain stage there is no way we can stem its immanent march
towards insanity and death. Understanding this is important because we need to
grasp the fact that we need help. Furthermore, this help does not come from any one of us but from a Power greater than
ourselves that we can conceive on our own. The only pressure comes from our disease. This power doesn’t even have to be called God. Our Steps are a ladder to a spiritual
renewal powerful enough to relieve us of our disease no matter what we believe.
All are welcome regardless of what we believe or whether we believe at all.
geo, 4,670
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