ECT History behing the 12 steps of AA ...

[Faither]

Okay purex,

What's the real problem? Are we not reading the same Book? Are we reading a different third step?

Or is the real problem you think that there are other "higher powers" than Jesus Christ? I "never" guide anyone to Christ, Jesus will do that. I do the same thing I'm doing here and on the pisteuo thread, focusing on the first surrender, and each time after that, making a better surrender. so please tell me the answer to the questions above . No more rants, i'm mean I love a good rant as much as the next guy. But lets see if we can learn something here. If you don't specifically answer the questios above, I'm out!

 

[PureX]

The third step is not religious and neither is pisteuo. I never said that. Your whipping yourself into a frenzy because you've been taught a different understanding of the steps. starting with changing the wording. I don't get into all these little so called "Theological" arguments you guys get into over who's this and who that. That means nothing!

The problem is that there are many suffering alcoholics who do not believe in the existence of any gods. There are also suffering alcoholics who believe in concepts of God that are very different from yours or mine. And there a great many alcoholics who have been blaming God for all their misfortunes for many years, and as a result have developed a deep resentment and sometimes even hatred for God. So when you go around preaching the third step as if surrendering to "God" is the quintessence of all human existence, you are creating an image of it that I know will turn many suffering alcoholics away from the help they so desperately need when you keep insisting that AA is about them subjugating themselves to God. But I'm beginning to see that you don't much care about that, because all you're really interested in is preaching your own big revelation. Which is quite selfish and inconsiderate, I think.

So the longer you keep presenting AA's 3rd step as religious ideology, then I will continue to try and explain that it is not intended for that purpose (though, individually, it my be used that way).

The reason people in AA tend to refer to God as a "higher power" is that in doing so they can accommodate those alcoholics who are still feeling great resentment toward their God. And those who do not believe in the existence of any kind of God. Because those people exist in AA, and they need help, too.

I have been to "quad A" meetings (Atheist and Agnostic Alcoholic Anonymous) where they use all the same steps and traditions by simply replacing the word "God" with the term "higher power", and they then perceive that "higher power" as the sobriety, wisdom, hope and strength of the group as a whole. And that works just fine.

I care about the alcoholics who are still suffering finding their way to sobriety. I do not care about your particular religious/ideological peccadilloes regarding the 3rd step. The problem here is that you keep insisting on dragging AA into your personal revelations about God, and that's not a place that AA belongs.

Pisteio is the only thing that matters to us, yesterday, today, and forever! It was relevant in the catacombs, in the oxford group, the first 100, and today. You and others think you can just change the words of anything you want, Gods Word the 12 steps, to make your own out comes. I'm here to tell you the difference, YOU make the choice!

Clearly you are obsessed with this notion. And perhaps you need some professional help with that. I don't know.

AA "was" a program for people that had no other choice, "LAST RESORT".

That last last resort starts with turning your life and will over to God, What don't you get about that?

What don't you get about the fact that people have very different concepts of God. And some of them just don't work that way.

I was stepped by someone whos sponsor was in the first 100, The AA I know doesn't exist anymore! From that 75 years of sobriety they gave me, its my responsibility to carry the message. You probably don't do that any more either.

I don't care if you were 12 stepped by Bill W. himself. Stop preaching AA as a religion! It's not a religion, and it's not a theology. It's an alcohol addiction recovery program.

I've answered all your questions, when are going to answer my one question?
Is the third step and pisteuo defined as the same thing?

The answer is I DON'T CARE.

Try turning your obsession with that word over to God, and maybe He will remove it from you.

 

[Faither]

The problem is that there are many suffering alcoholics who do not believe in the existence of any gods. There are also suffering alcoholics who believe in concepts of God that are very different from yours or mine. And there a great many alcoholics who have been blaming God for all their misfortunes for many years, and as a result have developed a deep resentment and sometimes even hatred for God. So when you go around preaching the third step as if surrendering to "God" is the quintessence of all human existence, you are creating an image of it that I know will turn many suffering alcoholics away from the help they so desperately need when you keep insisting that AA is about them subjugating themselves to God. But I'm beginning to see that you don't much care about that, because all you're really interested in is preaching your own big revelation. Which is quite selfish and inconsiderate, I think.

So the longer you keep presenting AA's 3rd step as religious ideology, then I will continue to try and explain that it is not intended for that purpose (though, individually, it my be used that way).

The reason people in AA tend to refer to God as a "higher power" is that in doing so they can accommodate those alcoholics who are still feeling great resentment toward their God. And those who do not believe in the existence of any kind of God. Because those people exist in AA, and they need help, too.

I have been to "quad A" meetings (Atheist and Agnostic Alcoholic Anonymous) where they use all the same steps and traditions by simply replacing the word "God" with the term "higher power", and they then perceive that "higher power" as the sobriety, wisdom, hope and strength of the group as a whole. And that works just fine.

I care about the alcoholics who are still suffering finding their way to sobriety. I do not care about your particular religious/ideological peccadilloes regarding the 3rd step. The problem here is that you keep insisting on dragging AA into your personal revelations about God, and that's not a place that AA belongs.
Clearly you are obsessed with this notion. And perhaps you need some professional help with that. I don't know.
What don't you get about the fact that people have very different concepts of God. And some of them just don't work that way.
I don't care if you were 12 stepped by Bill W. himself. Stop preaching AA as a religion! It's not a religion, and it's not a theology. It's an alcohol addiction recovery program.
The answer is I DON'T CARE.

Try turning your obsession with that word over to God, and maybe He will remove it from you.

Okay, you don't care! why didn't you just say that two days ago.

I don't have a problem that you are involved with starting a new program for alcoholics, in fact I would encourage it. But you don't need to change the words to all the steps and destroy the real AA. Start your own program with your understandings. You've already basically wrote your own version of the steps, good luck to you.

 

[Faither]

Comment about the Real AA.

A genuine theologian once said, that it takes Satan about four hundred years to pervert Gods programs. All through out history we see God touch or inspire someone to start a path to help people in need. Now satan never wants to destroy Gods programs, he just wants to tweek them a little. Satan perverts things, that means he turns them backwards.

lets look at AA for anyone who might be following this topic. AA is for people who have tried everything to try and quit drinking. So obviously alcohol is the problem, right! No! alcohol is "result" of my real problem. My real problem is I'm a selfish pig, and I don't care about anyone but ME! Stopping to drink or use is the easy part of AA. When we turn of life and will over to God, He'll take that obsession away in a moment. But the real everyday struggle is to learn how to live without being a selfish pig. And like I've said, this is a last resort program for those who have tried everything, and are willing to do whatever someone tells them to do to escape the insanity they are living under.

When that day came for me, I turned and stepped towards God by simply going to a meeting. I then took another step by opening my mouth and basically begged for someone to help me. That same night, I was approached by someone who took me out and spent five hours working the steps with me. The steps are a covenant or contract with God, I made a covenant that night with God. And I could not wait to take that tool the man gave me and use it. At the end of that night the guy told me to call him tomorrow and we'll go to a meeting. Another step towards God , I called him, and we went to a meeting. After that meeting was done he grabbed a guy, and asked if I wanted to go with him to work the steps with this baby, he would call them. I took another step, when i said yes, and we spent 5 or 6 hours working the steps with someone neither of us had ever met before. After we were done, he said call me tomorrow and we'll go to a meeting. Tomorrow came, I took another step by calling him, we went to a meeting and after this one, he's taking 3 people out to work the steps, asking me again if I wanted to go. I said yes.

I think your kind of getting the theme of what's happening here. After a few weeks of doing this every night, I realized that I hadn't even thought about drugs or alcohol. All I was doing was turning my life and will over to God everyday, every five minutes if I had to. And taking the suggestions this guy was offering me. Over the next year, that is all we did but go to meetings and work the steps with anyone who cried help me help me. I had become a recovered addict and alcoholic, and a recovering selfish pig. Its been 30 years since that man came into my life, and I still, with more desire than I can contain, surrender my life to Jesus everyday and then look for the opportunities He will put out there for me to show I have indeed genuinely surrendered my life to Him.

That AA is gone now, satan has successfully perverted the program God started all those years ago. It only took him around 75 years to do the job this time.

I like to think about the similarities between the different programs God uses to draw us to Him.

That same theologian said, "if I were to put the Word of God into one sentence, it would be: Deny self, take up your cross, and follow HIM." Denying self is surrendering our lives to God,(pisteuo) taking up your cross is serving others and their problems before your own, and following Him, well that's personal to each one of us.

 

[PureX]

Okay, you don't care! why didn't you just say that two days ago.

I don't have a problem that you are involved with starting a new program for alcoholics, in fact I would encourage it. But you don't need to change the words to all the steps and destroy the real AA. Start your own program with your understandings. You've already basically wrote your own version of the steps, good luck to you.

AA is not dependent on the exact wording of any text. And as a group AA has rewritten and reprinted the big book a number of times over the years. Each time according to the wisdom it has acquired in the interim.

But what has not changed is it's singleness of purpose: to help alcoholics get and stay sober. That has always been it's one and only goal. And the more you keep trying to imply that it's some sort of gateway to some Christian/spiritual utopia the more I will clarify that this is not, and has never been it's intention. Ever. And the more you try to fob off your fantasy of some magical origination of AA involving mythical steps scratched on the walls of the catacombs of Rome, or whatever, the more I will continue to point out the obtuse irrelevancy of it regarding AA.

My suggestion to you is that you drop this thread all together, and pursue your obsession with 'pisteuo' on another thread, that leaves AA completely out of it. Something similar to AA's 3rd step was part of the Oxford Groups 6 steps, AND the Oxford Group was a pseudo-religious utopian social healing experiment, which would seem to me to be right in your 'pisteuo' obsessed ball-park. So why don't you start with them, and bypass AA all together.

 

[Faither]

AA is not dependent on the exact wording of any text. And as a group AA has rewritten and reprinted the big book a number of times over the years. Each time according to the wisdom it has acquired in the interim.

But what has not changed is it's singleness of purpose: to help alcoholics get and stay sober. That has always been it's one and only goal. And the more you keep trying to imply that it's some sort of gateway to some Christian/spiritual utopia the more I will clarify that this is not, and has never been it's intention. Ever. And the more you try to fob off your fantasy of some magical origination of AA involving mythical steps scratched on the walls of the catacombs of Rome, or whatever, the more I will continue to point out the obtuse irrelevancy of it regarding AA.

My suggestion to you is that you drop this thread all together, and pursue your obsession with 'pisteuo' on another thread, that leaves AA completely out of it. Something similar to AA's 3rd step was part of the Oxford Groups 6 steps, AND the Oxford Group was a pseudo-religious utopian social healing experiment, which would seem to me to be right in your 'pisteuo' obsessed ball-park. So why don't you start with them, and bypass AA all together.

Other than your feeling of me having most of the experiences written in the BB as somehow misrepresenting the steps, were on the same page. I acknowledge year after year they change a little of this and a little of that, I say they have changed and lost the soul of what AA is. You say, the changes are good, and that in fact the more they change it, the better it gets. That's the point we disagree on. I know AA is a Spiritual program, and that's all I've ever said. You'll never here the word religion, or any other ism come out of my mouth in support of anything.

Again I've acknowledged your questions, and still have no answer to my question.

Is the third step of AA: "Made a decision to turn our life and will over to the care of God , as we understood Him". "The same thing as Pisteuo : A personal surrender to Him, and a life inspired by such surrender." Used 248 times in the NT ?

 

[PureX]

Is the third step of AA: "Made a decision to turn our life and will over to the care of God , as we understood Him". "The same thing as Pisteuo : A personal surrender to Him, and a life inspired by such surrender." Used 248 times in the NT ?

No.

AA uses the third step as a way of eliminating the overwhelming obsession to drink, by removing the alcoholic's will from the choice, and replacing it with the will of an "other". The "other" is the will of God, if the alcoholic believes in some conception of God, and of the group's collective strength and wisdom if the alcoholic does not believe in any pre-concept of God, or believes in a malevolent God (as many do).

The alcoholic no longer has to choose to drink, or not drink. He/she simply let's go of the choice and does the will of his/her higher power: his/her God, or AA group.

Steps 1, 2, and 3, are all about just not drinking.

1. recognize the problem.

2. recognize the solution.

3. surrender to the solution.

That's it. These are the immediate resolution to the alcoholic craving. "Doing" the 3rd step is calling someone sober when you feel the desire to drink. Or going to a meeting. Or praying, or meditating (or both), or seeking out whatever representation of a 'solution' one has available at that moment. (I paced the floor for many, many hours in those early days, because for me, that helped. It was an active form of prayer and meditation.) Because that 'solution', whatever it is, is our "higher power" in that moment of need.

The rest of the steps are about recovering the human being that has been lost to and in the abyss of addiction. And that takes time, persistent effort, and practice.

In AA the 3rd step is not a spiritual ideology. It's not something the alcoholic "believes in" as a way of life. It's a means to an end: staying sober long enough to change, fundamentally, who we are. So that we are no longer hopelessly obsessed with getting and being drunk.

AA does not teach, preach, or promote "a life inspired by surrender (to God)". And it never has as far as I am aware. If it did, it has learned not to, now, by hard experience. It simply uses the idea of total surrender to relieve the alcoholic of the overwhelming obsession to drink, so that he/she can begin to recover his own humanity, again. And regain the will to say "no" to that obsession.

AA doesn't make anyone a better person. It makes them a sober person. Who they are besides that, is up to them.

 

[Faither]

No.

AA uses the third step as a way of eliminating the overwhelming obsession to drink, by removing the alcoholic's will from the choice, and replacing it with the will of an "other". The "other" is the will of God, if the alcoholic believes in some conception of God, and of the group's collective strength and wisdom if the alcoholic does not believe in any pre-concept of God, or believes in a malevolent God (as many do).

The alcoholic no longer has to choose to drink, or not drink. He/she simply let's go of the choice and does the will of his/her higher power: his/her God, or AA group.

Steps 1, 2, and 3, are all about just not drinking.

1. recognize the problem.

2. recognize the solution.

3. surrender to the solution.

That's it. These are the immediate resolution to the alcoholic craving. "Doing" the 3rd step is calling someone sober when you feel the desire to drink. Or going to a meeting. Or praying, or meditating (or both), or seeking out whatever representation of a 'solution' one has available at that moment. (I paced the floor for many, many hours in those early days, because for me, that helped. It was an active form of prayer and meditation.) Because that 'solution', whatever it is, is our "higher power" in that moment of need.

The rest of the steps are about recovering the human being that has been lost to and in the abyss of addiction. And that takes time, persistent effort, and practice.

In AA the 3rd step is not a spiritual ideology. It's not something the alcoholic "believes in" as a way of life. It's a means to an end: staying sober long enough to change, fundamentally, who we are. So that we are no longer hopelessly obsessed with getting and being drunk.

AA does not teach, preach, or promote "a life inspired by surrender (to God)". And it never has as far as I am aware. If it did, it has learned not to, now, by hard experience. It simply uses the idea of total surrender to relieve the alcoholic of the overwhelming obsession to drink, so that he/she can begin to recover his own humanity, again. And regain the will to say "no" to that obsession.

AA doesn't make anyone a better person. It makes them a sober person. Who they are besides that, is up to them.

I'm sorry purex, I don't recognize the program your presenting. But I also know it's not just you who are saying these things, it's mostly everyone now. You've gone a bit futher in making AA acceptable in this day and age. But I've seen your thinking in many people over the years. We would call it "the softer easier way." "A half measure." There is many things I could call you on concerning the true AA, but that's not what this thread is highlighting.

You've answered the question, that's all I was asking for.

Never heard this one though, "Surrender to the solution?" And what would that be?

Oh, and AA used to produce those who went to meetings in order to give something, not to get something. The best part of AA that's been gone for a long time.

 

[PureX]

There is no "new AA" and "old AA". There is just AA: alcoholics helping each other to get and stay sober. The books, the steps, everything else is subservient to that singular purpose.

Personally, I think you're just a curmudgeon complaining about how "back in the olden days … we walked uphill to and from school every day!" Another crank wallowing in nostalgia for a time that may or may not have even existed.

AA is what it has to be to do what it means to do. Your personal peccadilloes regarding the 12 steps aren't it's concern, nor mine. I understand the significance and import of this idea of "pisteao", but I don't think it has much to do with AA except as a means of getting and staying sober. I disagree with your assertion that it was ever part of some pseudo-religious life philosophy promoted by AA. I have no doubt that it became that for some number of AA members, as it apparently has for you, but you are not the yardstick by which all of AA must be assessed, or defined. You are just one more recovering drunk, among millions.

 

[john w]

Two drunks are driving down the highway drinking beer. All of a sudden they see a police car's lights flashing in the rear view mirror. "What are we going to do?" asks the drunk passenger.

"Don't worry, I know what to do. Peel the label off your bottle and stick it to your forehead. Let me do all the talking."

They pull over and the cop gets out. "May I see your license and registration?" he asks. The guy gives him his license. "Have you been drinking?"

"No officer. We haven't."

"Well, you were weaving back and forth. Are you sure you haven't had anything to drink?" The officer asked.

"I swear officer. I haven't had a sip."

"Well why do you have beer labels on your foreheads?"

The man answers, "These aren't labels. We are alcoholics, and we're on the patch."




I kill me!

 

[Faither]

There is no "new AA" and "old AA". There is just AA: alcoholics helping each other to get and stay sober. The books, the steps, everything else is subservient to that singular purpose.

Personally, I think you're just a curmudgeon complaining about how "back in the olden days … we walked uphill to and from school every day!" Another crank wallowing in nostalgia for a time that may or may not have even existed.

AA is what it has to be to do what it means to do. Your personal peccadilloes regarding the 12 steps aren't it's concern, nor mine. I understand the significance and import of this idea of "pisteao", but I don't think it has much to do with AA except as a means of getting and staying sober. I disagree with your assertion that it was ever part of some pseudo-religious life philosophy promoted by AA. I have no doubt that it became that for some number of AA members, as it apparently has for you, but you are not the yardstick by which all of AA must be assessed, or defined. You are just one more recovering drunk, among millions.

Read the first forward in the BB. I'm "recovered" like the first 100 were. Your "recovering" and by your own words always will be.