[fat_cam]

As a current and active member of AA, let me re-affirm that this battle over a "higher power" exists inside the rooms of AA just as everyone is arguing about it here. A great many alcoholics let them selves get hung up on the concept of a higher power, or more specifically, the word "God". The word God appears 134 times in the first 164 pages of the Big Book. For many non religious people as well as non Christian people this presents a huge problem; how can we alleviate the burden of alcoholism without believing in God?

Within the 12 steps of AA, Bill W clearly laid out the answer to this very question. Below I've copied over the first 3 steps of AA.

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.

The gist of step 1 is acceptance. Acceptance that our lives are controlled by alcohol. This one is pretty easy for any true alcoholic to admit.

The gist of step 2 is surrender. Step 2 states, "Came to believe a power greater than our selves could restore us to sanity." Coming to believe in something is not the same as flipping a light switch and a light coming on. Surrender here in step 2 deals with admitting that we need the help of something greater then ourselves to restore us to sanity. That power could be the love of your family, wife/husband, kids, the energy that moves the cosmos, or a fucking Zagnut bar. As long as it is a power greater then self, you're good.

The gist of step 3 is faith. The key to not getting hung up here is the statement "God as we understood him". This ties directly back to "a power greater than ourselves". Seeing how the Big Book was initially written in the 1930's, and Bill W himself was a Christian, the word God appears a lot. Before the first edition was published, there was an internal fight between the founding members and contributors to the Big Book on the wording of step 3 in particular. They made a deliberate decision to say "God as we understood him" to include as many people as possible.

I share this with you all because I have been and always will consider myself a non religious person. I have needed to work on the concept of a higher power time and time again. When I first started attending AA meetings I let the God/higher power thing get in the way of my recovery and relapsed many times. Only once I surrendered to the idea that a power greater than myself could alleviate my suffering, was I able to start the road to content sobriety. I hope this helps clear the air for some of you, and if there is anyone out there suffering from alcohol or drugs please find a local AA or NA meeting raise your hand and ask for help.

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

> That power could be the love of your family, wife/husband, kids, the energy that moves the cosmos, or a fucking Zagnut bar.

So, either you actually believe that a Zagnut bar is an agent that can help you out of your desparate situation by using its special powers. Or you are intentionally obfuscating the rather obvious fact that indeed, people do not need to surrender to anything or anyone, because obviously it's not the Zagnut bar doing the work, but rather exclusively they themselves.

[leetcrew]

I'm not an AA person, and frankly, from what I know about it, I find it somewhat off-putting . still, I will try and be charitable here.

I have a hard time going to the gym consistently. I know it's good for me, but I just don't like going very much. so I make plans with other people to go to the gym together. if I flake, often they say something about it the next day, which is annoying but ultimately helpful. acknowledging that I can't (or at least probably won't) go to the gym consistently on my own, I have voluntarily created a system where there is a social cost to not going. I still have to do all the work myself, but the other people help me stay on track.

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

So, other people are a Zagnut bar?

The point here is that there is no "higher power" involved. It's other people or you yourself, or possibly both, neither of which in any meaningful sense qualifies as a "higher power", and either of which has a completely unambiguous, non-confusing term to refer to it: "Other people" and "yourself". The point is that it is dishonest to then pretend that somehow a Zagnut bar could plausibly be an agent helping you instead of simply saying the obvious: It's most certainly not the Zagnut bar, so what's left is you yourself and/or other people.

[leetcrew]

tbh I always feel like AA people are shooting themselves in the foot with these silly examples of a "higher power", especially on forums like this one. I doubt anyone earnestly surrenders themselves to a candy bar or fire extinguisher, but I'm certainly not knocking it if it helps someone.

I think the point is that you need some sort of mind hack to escape the paradigm of will vs. desire which has been a losing battle thus far for most addicts. it is ultimately your will that prevails, but you have to trick yourself otherwise for it to work.

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

> I doubt anyone earnestly surrenders themselves to a candy bar or fire extinguisher, but I'm certainly not knocking it if it helps someone.

No, of course, noone does, that's the point. Possibly, some people somehow think that they do (and even that seems a bit unlikely to me), but it just is a nonsense concept: You can, as a matter of semantics, not surrender to something that doesn't exercise power. You might as well be saying that you need to wash yourself, but you can also do so by looking at a horse. Looking at a horse makes you washed as much as following instructions of a candy bar makes you do anything, for lack of any washing effect in one case, for lack of any instructions in the other.

> I think the point is that you need some sort of mind hack to escape the paradigm of will vs. desire which has been a losing battle thus far for most addicts. it is ultimately your will that prevails, but you have to trick yourself otherwise for it to work.

That might well be the case, yep. And I see two big problems with not clearly stating that that is what's (likely) going on: In more than one place, it seems to cause harrassment of atheists, and I am not so sure it's actually helpful for mental health when people externalize the credit for the work that they have done themselves. And also, even if that's a hack that is needed in the "therapeutic context", a discussion about the scientific evidence of the efficacy certainly is not a place for such intentionally onfuscating language.

[Mikhail_Edoshin]

If you think logic is so powerful, why don't you use it to cure alcoholism instead if spending it in HN comments? :) The use of surrender is to admit you don't know how things work. At least not to the point to actually cure yourself of addiction.

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

> If you think logic is so powerful, why don't you use it to cure alcoholism instead if spending it in HN comments? :)

Where did I make the claim that logic could be used to cure alcoholism?

> The use of surrender is to admit you don't know how things work. At least not to the point to actually cure yourself of addiction.

Which doesn't make a Zagnut bar an agent that has power, does it?

[Mikhail_Edoshin]

How do you know?

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

That must be the cheapest attempt at shifting the burden of proof I've encountered yet.

[Mikhail_Edoshin]

A sane rational logical person has an addiction. The sane rational logical tools he has do not help him to get rid of it. This means he cannot trust them. There's a flaw somewhere and he doesn't know where. They are not good for any conclusion, including the agency and power of that bar. The best he can do is to drop them and admit he knows nothing. Then there's a chance to learn something new that may help with that addiction.

[fat_cam]

The point is, you find a power greater than yourself that you can surrender your will to. That "higher power" is different to everybody. A lot of people let them selves get hung up on the higher power bit because they can't abstract the idea of surrendering to a non quantifiable or tangible thing (hence the Zagnut bar for those who can't surrender to the idea of love or the ideas of forces of nature). Believe me, I was one of those people for a long time. But my suffering got so great that I eventually had to admit to myself that I cannot do it on my own and I need to find something I hold sacred and dear. And if a Zagnut bar is that higher power for you...then so be it. It's better to believe a Zagnut bar could restore me to sanity, then to continue to kill myself with alcohol and drugs.

Again, the point is surrender. I am in no way saying the Zagnut bar is doing anything but inspiring hope in the alcoholic. And you are 100% correct that the work comes from inside, not a candy bar. But without the surrender of self-will, nothing else is possible. Steps 1, 2, 3 are saying I am powerless over alcohol, that I cannot stop on my own, and need to have faith in a higher power of my own understanding to make it through this thing alive.

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

> The point is, you find a power greater than yourself that you can surrender your will to.

So, you think that a candy bar is a power, in any way whatsoever?

> A lot of people let them selves get hung up on the higher power bit because they can't abstract the idea of surrendering to a non quantifiable or tangible thing

Because it's nonsense?

> (hence the Zagnut bar for those who can't surrender to the idea of love or the ideas of forces of nature)

Which makes it only more nonsensical?

> Believe me, I was one of those people for a long time. But my suffering got so great that I eventually had to admit to myself that I cannot do it on my own and I need to find something I hold sacred and dear.

... and then you did it yourself, thus demonstrating that you were simply wrong about not being able to do it yourself.

> It's better to believe a Zagnut bar could restore me to sanity, then to continue to kill myself with alcohol and drugs.

Only if that actually "restores you to sanity". And if it does, it was still you who "restored yourself to sanity".

> Again, the point is surrender. I am in no way saying the Zagnut bar is doing anything but inspiring hope in the alcoholic

Yes, you are. You are saying it's "a higher power". It's not. It's a candy bar. Possibly a candy bar that is inspiring hope in an alcoholic.

> And you are 100% correct that the work comes from inside, not a candy bar.

So, why all this dishonest mumbo-jumbo about a "higher power"? Mind you, this is not a therapeutic setting, this is a discussion about scientific evidence of efficacy.

[daseiner1]

missing the point entirely. alcoholism is illogical. alcoholism is not something one can control. surrender is a key part of the program because to get sober the alcoholic must accept that they cannot do something that it seems everyone else can (drink)

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

But THERE IS NO HIGHER POWER INVOLVED. There just isn't. Even if alcoholism is illogical, there still just isn't.