Athiest – Agnostic
A.A. is not a religious organization.
Alcoholics Anonymous has only one requirement for membership, and that is the desire to stop drinking. There is room in A.A. for people of all shades of belief and non-belief.
Many members believe in some sort of god, and we have members who come from and practice all sorts of religions, but many are also atheist or agnostic. It’s important to remember that A.A. is not a religious organization; we have a simple idea that there is a power greater than us as individuals.
What we all have in common is that the program helps us fi nd an inner strength that we were previously unaware of — where we differ is in how we identify the source. Some people have thought of the word “God” as standing for “good orderly direction,” or even “group of drunks,” but many of us believe that there is something bigger than ourselves that is helping us today.
This power may lie within some person’s religious beliefs, or it can be completely separate from
any religion. For example, one member looks at the sea and accepts that it is a power greater than him.
We could ask ourselves, “Do I believe that somehow there is a power greater than myself?”
As A.A. co-founder Bill W. wrote in 1965:
We have atheists and agnostics. We have people of
nearly every race, culture and religion. In A.A. we
are supposed to be bound together in the kinship of a common suffering. Consequently, the full individual liberty to practice any creed or principle or
therapy whatever should be a first consideration
for us all. Let us not, therefore, pressure anyone with our individual or even our collective views.
Let us instead accord each other the respect and
love that is due to every human being as he tries to
make his way toward the light. Let us always try to
be inclusive rather than exclusive; let us remember
that each alcoholic among us is a member of A.A.,
so long as he or she declares.
Whatever you do, please don’t let someone else’s
religious beliefs prevent you from fi nding the solution that is available to you through Alcoholics
Anonymous.
Excerpt from The God Word pamphlet, Copyright © 2018
by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Pamphlets and Literature:
The God Word
© The above graphic is copyrighted and used
with permission of A.A. World Services, Inc.
One Big Tent
© The above graphic is copyrighted and used
with permission of A.A. World Services, Inc.
Links to external sources.