The Alternative 12 Steps: A Secular Guide to Recovery

By Martha Cleveland and Arlys G.

In 1991, two women were successfully working the 12-Step program… and they were atheists. They knew how the program worked, and translated the Steps into secular terms. This ground-breaking book, in which each Step is discussed in a practical and down to earth way, is as valuable today as it was when it was first written. An inspiring and helpful book!

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 16, 2014
• ISBN: 9780991717477

Book preview

Agnostica

The Alternative 12 Steps:

A Secular Guide

To Recovery

Martha Cleveland, PH.D.

and

Arlys G.

Second Edition

AA Agnostica

Copyright

The Alternative 12 Steps:

A Secular Guide to Recovery

Second Edition

Copyright 2014 by AA Agnostica. All rights reserved.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Cleveland, Martha, author

The alternative 12 steps: a secular guide to recovery /

Martha Cleveland, Ph.D. and Arlys G. - Second edition.

Includes bibliographical references.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-0-9917174-6-0 (pbk.) – ISBN 978-0-9917174-7-7 (html)

1. Alcoholics—Rehabilitation. 2. Twelve-step programs.

3. Alcoholics Anonymous. I. G. Arlys, 1945-, author II. Title.

III. Title: Alternative twelve steps.

HV5278.C73.2014 362.292'86 C2014-904883-1

C2014-904884-X

Published in Canada by AA Agnostica (aaagnostica.org) with a Foreword by Roger C.

Originally published in 1991 by Health Communications, Inc.

Ebook version formatted by Chris G.

Dedications

To my sons Peter and Vladimir Jr.

Arlys

To my parents – who set my feet on the path.

To Walter – who has walked with me every inch of the way.

Martha

The Twelve Steps are reprinted and adapted with permission of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. Permission to reprint and adapt the Twelve Steps does not mean that AA has reviewed or approved the content of this publication, nor that AA agrees with the views expressed herein. AA is a program of recovery from alcoholism – use of the Twelve Steps in connection with programs and activities which are patterned after AA, but which address other problems, does not imply otherwise.

The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Foreword

We can learn the universal, generic pattern of life's dance from the 12 Steps. But in our individual dance of life, we choose our own music and dance our own dance.

From the chapter on Step 3

By Roger C.

This is a remarkable book.

And there are at least two very good reasons for that.

Secular Steps

First, there is in this book, to the best of our knowledge, the first non-Godly version of the 12 Steps ever published.

The original version, of course, written by Bill Wilson and published in Alcoholics Anonymous in 1939, refers to God (or a Power or Him) six times.

That's way too much God for many of us.

And, to be sure, many in AA had already taken action to circumvent the God bit. In fact the term God bit comes from Jim Burwell, one of the first members of AA, who convinced Wilson to make the 12 Steps a suggested program of recovery – rather than a required one – in the AA fellowship.

Meetings for non-believers in AA have been around for a long time. Quad A (Alcoholics Anonymous for Atheists and Agnostics) was launched in 1975 in Chicago. Only a few years later, in Los Angeles, Charlie P. and Megan D. started the very first AA meeting called We Agnostics. It is named, of course, after a chapter in Alcoholics Anonymous (often called the Big Book).

Today there are hundreds of AA meetings for agnostics and atheists in major cities across the United States and Canada. And more coming, more and more quickly.

Moreover, there is now plenty of literature for those who do not believe that an interventionist deity has a role to play in their sobriety.

For example, in 2013, Joe C. published a book of daily reflections called Beyond Belief: Agnostic Musings for 12 Step Life. That same year The Little Book: A Collection of Alternative 12 Steps was published and it contains the secular version of the Steps, written by Martha Cleveland and Arlys G., which are at the core of this book.

All of the above is meant to place The Alternative 12 Steps: A Secular Guide to Recovery – written in the middle of this history in 1991 – in a historical context.

The God bit is hardly dealt with at all in this book, except in the introduction, as an impediment for many people who could otherwise do a 12-Step program. What the authors do is find the root power of each step, and reword it.

As 12-Step practitioners, we believe in the 12-Step program. We believe it can work for anyone. Our objective is to help non-religious people accept the healing power of the Steps. This is the same program, same principles, same values, same scope, same depth – all of it said in a little different language. We have extracted the actions and principles of the original Steps and put them into a secular context.

And they do it well! Anybody can understand Martha and Arlys. To use the Steps, there is no need for any particular religiosity; nor is there any need for psycho-jargon.

An example.

The original Step 6 says: Were entirely ready to have God remove our defects of character.

Martha and Arlys reword that Step to say: Be entirely ready to acknowledge our abiding strength and release our personal shortcomings.

In both cases, the person doing the Steps must be entirely ready. But in this book, the work isn't relegated to God. It is up to the individual to be prepared to take action. And, in this version, the individual doesn't only deal with personal shortcomings (or defects of character), but also acknowledges an abiding strength.

We shall deal with this more positive approach further on.

But in the meantime, we want to point out that, in fact, these can be the 12 Steps for anyone. Especially those without a belief in an interventionist God.

Women and the 12 Steps

The original 12 Steps were written by men for men. In particular, they were written for white men with well-to-do backgrounds.

This version of the Steps was written by two women.

Does that mean it is just for women?

No. It means that Martha and Arlys add some much needed balance to the Steps.

For instance.

There is a tremendous emphasis on powerlessness and humility in the original 12 Steps. While the idea of being powerless over alcohol makes sense, the idea that a human being is by his or her very nature powerless is another matter entirely. And yet it is deeply ingrained in the original Steps.

In this day and age, preaching powerlessness and humility to women would seem a bit off kilter.

But remember, the original Steps weren't written today or for women.

And, to come back to the religion part, they were deeply influenced by the religion of the day. The evangelical pietism of the Oxford Group, in which AA – and the Steps – had its origins, considered humans worthless. It emphasized a deep aversion to all emphasis on human strengths. (Not-God, p. 180). You had to Let go and let God. This attitude is very much embedded in the original 12 Steps.

And so when Martha and Arlys talk about acknowledging our abiding strength, as they do in their version of Step 6, they are, if you will, letting go of God, and recognizing that we human beings are indeed not powerless and have a part to play in our own sobriety, our most precious recovery.

And that is an important part of their version of the 12 Steps.

And it adds more balance between accepting the things we cannot change and mustering the courage to change what can and must be changed in our lives.

We are not criticizing the original 12 Steps or their author. Nor do Arlys and Martha do that in The Alternative 12 Steps: A Secular Guide to Recovery. Indeed, Bill Wilson never claimed to have written the perfect Steps. On the last page of the main part of the book Alcoholics Anonymous he wrote: Our book is meant to be suggestive only. We realize we know only a little.

And this particular book is meant only to be a helping hand to we alcoholics who do not have a belief in a God and must inevitably choose our own music and dance our own dance on this generic, but ultimately unique, 12 Step road to recovery.

Let the story begin.

Introduction

Martha

My name is Martha. The meeting is about to start. I stand in the circle with all the others, reaching out to grasp the hands of those on either side of me. The room is quiet. Then someone says, God, and I deliberately and self-consciously remain silent. I can't speak to a god I don't believe in. Once God has been said, I fervently join with the others and finish: . . . grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. I squeeze the hands I am holding, release them and return to my seat. Once again the mysterious process has begun. The understanding, the undemanding love offered by AA and its affiliate groups takes over and a healing energy enters the room. But I am left with a nagging uneasiness.

For many years I have struggled with the residue of growing to adulthood with an alcoholic father. I have searched for self-esteem, for trustful intimacy, for peace. To the outer world I have appeared competent, confident and successful – but in my inner world I am still sometimes insecure, tentative and pushed to accomplish things that society praises, rather than things that would bring me pleasure and satisfaction.

The map that helps me most as I search for a serene self is the 12-Step program. It has become the cornerstone of my emotional growth and my spiritual life. Yet there is one big problem – and that problem is God.

Millions of suffering people have had their lives healed by accepting the 12-Step program and the Judeo-Christian God that it seems to address, but their God is not my god. Nor is their God my higher power. Theologically I am an atheist. I don't believe in a traditional God or the Judeo-Christian dogma. Philosophically I am an agnostic. I believe the essential nature of things or ultimate causes, such as God, Jehovah or Allah, are simply unknowable. My higher power is not a singular entity to be addressed with a capital H and a capital P. So as I join this meeting, as I try to live by this program that is so important to me, I am constantly forced to translate and transform the program's words to meet my own personal

Reviews for The Alternative 12 Steps

[jan.stinus.nielsen · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed reading the book. It's a welcome alternative to the archaic, biblical lingo of AA. Being very short it is by its very nature an introduction, a guide. The real work is the work you do yourself. Of course. In that sense this is one of those books you never really finish but keep returning to and using as a natural part of your 12 step work, whatever you're recovering from. That is another great thing about the book: the focus is not solely on alcohol or substance abuse, it's much wider. Some parts of the book got a little new age and fluffy for my taste, but at its core this is a book that should be in your library.