Aa Beyond Belief

It's been a while since I've recorded a podcast and it's been way too long since I've had a chat with Benn. Life got in the way, and I had to spend a little more time at work, getting things squared away on that front. This happens sometimes. Every so often, priorities need to change, and I'm unable to make the number of meetings that I like to attend or do other things I enjoy, like podcasts. This is normal, and thankfully, today I'm sober, and I live a normal, every-day, ordinary, dare I say manageable life.

In this episode, I speak with Len R., from Jasper, Georgia. I first became acquainted with Len shortly before the International Secular AA Convention that was held in Austin last November. Len wrote to ask if he could help out at AA Beyond Belief by recording audio versions of the stories that have been published on the site. He told me that he has a good radio voice and the skills needed to do the job.

Alcoholics Anonymous isn't a program, it's a fellowship. As stated in the AA preamble, its a "fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism." It's the Fellowship that does it. An old-timer from my former home group used to say repeatedly, "the magic's in the meetings." And I believe that to be true.

For the second year in a row, I had the opportunity to speak at the Paseo Group's annual holiday Alkathon, which is a time during the Holiday's when the group hosts AA meetings around the clock. They invite people from groups from all over the city to participate, and I spoke for our group the last two years. This week's podcast is a recording of the talk I gave Christmas morning at the Paseo Group.

This week, we speak with Joe C., author of Beyond Belief: Agnostic Musings for 12 Step Life, a co-founder of Canada's first agnostic AA group, Beyond Belief, and host of the podcast Rebellion Dogs Radio. Joe writes articles for various publications, presents a seminar on AA history at the Sedona Mago Retreat, and much, much more.

Willow F. got sober just before her 16th birthday, and on December 26, 2016, she will celebrate 28 years of sobriety. Her story confirms what AA experience over the past 80 years has shown— one does not necessarily need to drink for very many years to become an alcoholic. Thousands of us started young and fell fast and hard, and thousands like Willow have found lasting sobriety in AA.

When they suggested he pray, Bob K. responded, "what else you got?" He wasn't buying the God business and he wasn't shy about letting anyone know; and though he sat through plenty of meetings with readings from the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, he says that in those early days, he wasn't much interested in any of that "program stuff."

This week's podcast features Richard H. from the We Agnostics group in Calgary. By the time that Richard made it to his first AA meeting, he was ready, he was done, finished. He knew he needed to stop, but he wanted to learn how to stay stopped, so he went to Alcoholics Anonymous.

This podcast episode was recorded shortly after returning from the We Agnostics, Atheists and Freethinkers International AA Convention that was held in Austin, Texas from November 11-13th. Included in the discussion is Benn B., from Lincoln, Nebraska and my co-host on AA Beyond Belief, Vic L., from New York, New York and a past board member of WAAFT IAAC, and Willow F. from Seattle, Washington. In the podcast we have a conversation about our experiences and observations while attending the convention. Included with the podcast, is an article by Vic, "Some Observations from Austin", and an article that I wrote "Thinking About Austin".

In today's podcast we meet Yvonne H. from the Mainely Agnostics Group in Portland, Maine. The group celebrated its first anniversary in June of this year, which pleased Yvonne a great deal. It was here where she learned to become comfortable with following her own path in the program, and as a result she is sober and passionate about AA, especially Agnostic AA.

It was nice to catch up with Benn and talk about Step Ten, the first of the three maintenance steps. This step calls for us to continue to take personal inventory and when we are wrong, to promptly admit it. It can be done as a review at the end of the day, or as a spot check inventory during the day. It might also, according to the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, include a semiannual or annual housecleaning.

Jeb B. is a founding member of the Freethinkers in AA Group in Denver, Colorado. The group meets Monday nights from 6:30 pm to 7:45 pm, and Saturday morning from 9:30 am to 10:45 am. Both are open meetings and held at the Secular Hub located at 3100 Downing Street in Denver. However, you won't find the meetings listed in the meeting directory of the Denver Central Committee of Alcoholics Anonymous. Jeb asked that the meetings be listed, but his request was denied. The Office Manager at Denver's Central Committee told Jeb that she didn't want newcomers to get their first impression of AA from the Freethinkers group. This person apparently held the sole power to keep the meetings out of the directory, and she denied the Freethinkers group participation in Intergroup, making it impossible for them to even plead their case.

This past Saturday, I had the pleasure to start my day with a cup of coffee and a chat with an AA friend, Cope C. from the Many Paths group in Urbana, Illinois. Cope does a lot of work here at AA Beyond Belief, helping with design and many of the images that we use in the articles that have been published here.

Ed grew up in New York in a typical New York family with the typical New York dysfunction. As a teenager, he somehow avoided the rite of passage of getting drunk at keggers in the park, and it wasn't until after he had been in college for six months that he began to experience heavy drinking. By the time he was 25, he thought he had it under control, but before long he found himself drinking at work, and then waking up with a drink to start the day.

There were exactly three occasions when I saw my father cry; the night he learned that his grandmother died, the night his wife (my mother) died, and the day I told him that I was an alcoholic. I was in my 20's and living on my own, and though my father knew in a general way that I had problems, and that I would from time to time, have strange run-ins with the law; I guess I did a pretty good job of hiding the root cause of my crazy life. I was an alcoholic, and though I had been going to AA daily for over two months, my sobriety was fragile and I was absolutely terrified that I was going to drink.

Last week we published Mark C.'s story in which he described from his own experience, the insidious progression of alcoholism and the challenge he faced as an atheist in AA. Today, we are posting a podcast that goes into more detail with what Mark describes as a "holy war" at his home group, and how he learned to fight it by doubling down on love and tolerance.

Pat N. will be a keynote speaker at the We Agnostics, Atheists and Freethinkers International AA Convention that will be held in Austin, Texas from November 11th through the 13th of this year. He was kind enough to visit with me for a podcast to share a little of his story, to talk about starting a secular AA convention in Olympia, and to talk a little about some of the happenings in Austin this Fall.

Chris grew up the son of an Anglican priest in a city in Saskatchewan originally founded as a temperance colony. When he started drinking as a teenager, there were a lot of legal restrictions with respect to alcohol—a legacy of the city's founding. In 1985, when he went to Japan as an exchange student, he found a society that was much more permissive about drinking than was Canada at that time. In Japan, it seemed liquor was everywhere.

I met Erica in March of 2015 when she came to a meeting at my home group, We Agnostics. Her confidence was shaken, her sobriety was fragile, and she was facing a life or death situation. She needed to stop drinking, and having experienced past success in AA, she felt this was her best hope. Yet, something was different this time, and it frightened her

Roger C. from the We Agnostics group in Hamilton, Ontario gave a talk in Kansas City, Missouri on August 6, 2016 to commemorate the anniversaries of two secular AA groups. Freethinkers in AA celebrated their first anniversary, and We Agnostics celebrated their second anniversary.