“Take what you need and leave the rest.” — AA meeting wisdom
AA didn’t get its spiritual language from saints sitting quietly and agreeing with each other. Some of it came from a troublemaker.
One of the early guys pushed back hard when the book was being written. He wasn’t buying anyone else’s conception of God, and he wasn’t shy about saying so. He made it clear: if this thing looked like a religious program, he was out. That resistance mattered, and at that moment the group cemented in the idea that spirituality is inclusive, not exclusive, and everyone, yes everyone, is entitled to their own understanding and we can all learn a thing or two from each other.
That’s how we ended up with phrases like “a Power greater than ourselves” and “God as we understood Him.” Not to water anything down—but to widen the door.
For some, old ideas about God kept us stuck for way too long. We’ve heard people joke that when they got here they had a “God of their misunderstanding,” and plenty of us nodded along. We kept trying to shove square pegs of alcoholic thinking into the round holes of our old, worn-out ideas about a Higher Power. Nothing fit, and the more we tried, the more frustrated we became.
Then we really noticed the words as we understood Him.
That was the crack in the door.
That freedom—to let go of old ideas instead of arguing with them—saved us from fighting ourselves. Some of us find what we need in the Group of Drunks. Some use the Great Outdoors. Some use Good Orderly Direction. At the end of the day, who cares, as long as it’s working. We are entitled to use whatever power greater than ourselves to help us stay sober and spiritually alive without debate or argument.
Trying to define another person’s Higher Power can sometimes cause more harm than good. Spirituality, as AA figured out, is broad and roomy. And honestly—arguing about the definition of a Higher Power starts to look a lot like closed-mindedness anyway. That same closed-mindedness is what kept many of us spiritually sick in the first place.
What worked for you today that wasn’t working when you were drinking?
