In AA it's not God, it's "higher power". It's nature is left completely open.
Hmm. In looking at the 12 steps where I posted them here:
http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2539281#post2539281
The word God appears four times in those steps, and the capitalized pronoun Him is used twice.
But maybe you're right. Here's Bill Wilson from the Third Step of the book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 27:
"This is only one man's opinion based on his own experience, of course. I must quickly assure you that A.A.'s tread innumerable paths in their quest for faith. If you don't care for the one I've suggested, you'll be sure to discover one that suits if only you look and listen. Many a man like you has begun to solve the problem by the method of substitution. You can, if you wish, make A.A., itself your 'higher power.' Here's a very large group of people who have solved their alcohol problem. In this respect they are certainly a power greater than you, who have not even come close to a solution. Surely you can have faith in them. Even this minimum of faith will be enough. You will find many members who have crossed the threshold just this way.
But then there's this from the same book, page 96:
To certain newcomers and to those one-time agnostics who still cling to the A.A. group as their higher power, claims for the power of prayer may, despite all the logic and experience in proof of it, still be unconvincing or quite objectionable. Those of us who once felt this way can certainly understand and sympathize. We well remember how something deep inside us kept rebelling against the idea of bowing before any God.
Hmm, this looks like a bait-and-switch, and the "A.A. group as their higher power" thing was just a "starter God." Apparently when you get to the 11th step, the AA "higher power" really is God.
In psychoanalysis it's the "big other", or in Freudian terms it's the "super ego". The mechanic of AA is to introduce these artificially. A friend who's a psychoanalyst and who has worked with addicts explained the idea behind AA, and why it works. It works for people with a weak super ego. Ie, lacking in discipline, or people who are bad at telling themselves what to do and sticking with it. People are addicts for different reasons. 12 stepping won't work for all addicts.
Geez. Does Alcoholics Anonymous in Sweden allow addicts to talk about their drug addiction in meetings? Back when I was going to AA meetings they started reading this
Singleness Of Purpose Statement at every meeting, and interrupted anyone who started talking about drugs or drug addiction.
Narcotics Anonymous has been around decades earlier, but but the mix of "alcohlics" and "addicts" became more prevalent as the alcohol-and-drug treatment center industry grew in the US in the 1970's and 1980's, and all those "pure alcoholics" in AA meetings were getting pissed at treatment centers dumping people into any old 12-step fellowship willy-nilly with no regard to their alcoholic/addict self-identification.
Originally when AA was founded the explicit goal was to help addicts by also "saving" them with God. But they stumbled on a secret recipe that can help people, God or not.
So when and how exactly did that change?
That's why it is so popular.
That's interesting. Maybe you can tell us why Scientology is so popular? Scientology doesn't even have the big advantage I posted earlier that AA has, judges sending DUI offendors to them.
In Sweden people are rarely religious. So over here "higher power" is most often interpreted as the addict simply picking a fetish, and treating it with due reverence. In a friends DAA group there's a guy who's higher power is his aquarium fishes. It works for him.
Maybe thats for Sweden, but an object ("nature" or "a doorknob" are classics AA examples) is only a starter God in US AA, as I indicate from the 12&12 quotes above.
I've never heard the word fetish used to describe it - perhaps in Sweden that word means something less "specific" than in the USA. Looking it up, I see
it does indeed have a more general meaning but as a citizen of the oversexualized USA, I've never heard fetish used outside the sexual meaning of definition 1c.
I have a few strongly atheistic friends who most likely would have been dead by now if it wasn't for DAA. Their atheism is left quite intact in spite of bowing to a higher power.
How would they have been dead?
I knew several people in AA who committed suicide. I'm convinced most wouldn't have done so had they not been in AA.
Maybe AA is "watered down" in Sweden, which would make sense - if open agnosticism and atheism are as common as you say there, the original USA version of AA would get a poor reception there. Almost certainly, that would explain any change or watering down from the original USA version.
You may be interested in looking at these webpages concerning AA:
http://orange-papers.org
http://peele.net
There's also
http://morerevealed.com by author Ken Ragge, but it's not up at the moment. There's a subpage on it, originally an older website, that currently works:
http://www.morerevealed.com/aadep/
