Take What Works
My complicated relationship with AA
In my original Home Group, we stand in a circle at the end of every meeting and recite the Lord’s Prayer. Then someone inevitably says, “AA is not a religious program.”
I want to scream.
It is religious. It is a lie to say it’s not. Own it. Say what it actually is instead of pretending spirituality and religion are somehow different when you’re literally reciting scripture.
The pandemic made it impossible to ignore: I had a drinking problem. I’d heard AA worked. I also knew it was drenched in God-talk of the Christian variety, and I wanted nothing to do with it. So I tried to fix it myself.
This witch in a lab coat created experiments: weaning off vodka gradually, pouring drinks I challenged myself not to touch, staring at full glasses until I could dump them down the sink. White-knuckling every single day. It worked—sort of. But it required massive emotional energy and felt like punishment. I knew I had to do something else.
I knew several people with decades of recovery. They'd all gone through AA. They had their doubts at first, but it worked. There’s an adage frequently attributed to AA: “Take what works and leave the rest.” It doesn’t appear in The Big Book, but people reference it constantly when you run into something that blocks your progress in recovery. As you can imagine, I heard that a lot. I still do.
AA wisdom says newcomers should do 90 meetings in 90 days—build momentum, develop support, all that. One of my partners suggested that I try it and offered to go with me. I said there was no way I was doing 90 days, but I’d agree to 30, so that’s what we did. I found a group and we went to my first AA meeting in a Community Center a few miles down the road.
In the meeting, I heard stories from people that I could absolutely identify with. Stories about lying, hiding booze, this seemingly unstoppable urge to drink that never abates. I heard stories that scared me. DUIs, jail time, deaths, a motorcycle accident that nearly took off his entire arm. The question of “where is your bottom” came up frequently for me. None of that had happened to me…yet. What was I going to do about it?
At the end of the meeting, my partner whispered in my ear, “You’re not going to like this.” And he was right. We stood up and held hands and someone started the Lord’s Prayer. WTAF?
All that connection I was feeling—identifying with people's stories, seeing myself in their struggles—was now coated in this grey slime of religiosity that I had to wade through.
But—”Take what works and leave the rest, Mel.”
So, I did. That day I walked up to two of the women who spoke at the meeting and asked if we could grab coffee. I was looking for a sponsor to guide me through the 12 steps of AA. Within a week, I met with both of them. One of them was deeply religious and rigidly tied to the Big Book—she was a no. The other had three years in recovery. She was a lapsed Mormon. Still religious, but she got it—the polyamory, the agnosticism, all of it. Jane (not her name) became my sponsor.
Jane and I worked together for three years. I took the work seriously and dove into the program. It took me two years to get all the way through the 12-steps for the first time. Step number 3 reads: “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”
Whoa. Now, there’s a hard one to swallow—God and Him? Hello patriarchy. I knew you were here somewhere. But, “Take what works and leave the rest, Mel.” If I was going to move forward at all, I’d have to just get on my knees and say sure. I had no problem with Step 2 which is “Came to believe a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” I had already proven that to myself. I needed something other than me and the experiments I was creating for myself. I needed outside help. But now God and Him. Another layer of even darker slime to wade through. I haven’t counted the number of times a higher power is referred to as Him in the Big Book, but suffice it to say it’s a lot. As a woman brought up Southern Baptist with a history of sexual abuse, that’s a really hard pill to swallow or to constantly reject or gloss over.
And I did it. I just lied at the time and said I accepted it—even though the program is built on rigorous honesty. I didn’t see any other way to move forward in the steps. I was never going to accept the word Him in reference to a higher power, even if this book was written in the mid-1930s by two men and “it works so nothing needs to be changed” as some people are wont to say about the program.
I didn’t have a higher power at the time, so I grabbed one out of my brain: my Granddaddy Fred Moseley. He was a Southern Baptist minister in small-town Louisiana and one of the most truly Christian people I’ve ever known. He voted for gay marriage and gay rights. He wrote letters to the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) in support of Rosa Parks and MLK’s march on Selma, and when the SBC began its fundamentalist takeover in the 80s, he rejected the organization. My Granddaddy truly believed in ALL people’s rights to be loved and cared for.
Yeah, I see the irony—my first higher power was a Christian man. That relationship changed over time when I had an epiphany at an AA women’s retreat and found Flo. I recognized her from when I was much younger—this connection to the universe I’d felt as a child. Not the scary God pointing His finger down at me through the clouds in my Children’s Illustrated Bible with the three Wise Men on the cover. This was love and gentle guidance I felt rather than heard as I moved through my early experience on the planet. I could sense when I was “in the flow” and when I wasn’t, but I didn’t have a name for her then.
Flo remained my higher power for several years. She’d give me signs that I was on the right track and “in the flow of Flo”—feathers on the ground, elk surrounding me during a relapse, a person saying the exact right thing at the exact right time as if they were channeling what I needed to hear.
I left that Home Group when I got so fed up with the God-talk and the lack of understanding of the negative effects of patriarchy. I found other AA groups that resonated—“Women of the North,” “She Agnostics”— and I found another sponsor for this next chapter. Kathy (not her name) is very spiritual and not religious. I can be truly honest with her about my experiences and challenges around the “leave the rest” portion of “Take what works.”
It’s true that the rigorous honesty helps! It’s ironic that the program is not rigorously honest.
Another place where this shows up is that lack of recognition that Bill Wilson, the co-founder of AA, was actually a proponent of the clinical use of LSD to treat alcoholics struggling with the spiritual component of the program. When Bill W found that despite being sober, he still had a frustrating and continual desire to drink he sought other means toward sobriety. He found a couple of psychiatrists in Canada, Dr. Humphrey Osmond and Professor Abram Hoffer, who wrote an article entitled New Hope for Alcoholics.1 They were using LSD to help alcoholics achieve sobriety.
“In 1956, Wilson made the decision to ingest LSD under the medical supervision of psychiatrist Sidney Cohen and clinical psychologist Betty Eisner.”2
That experience resulted in a spiritual awakening for Wilson and he began endorsing its use for alcoholics. This is fully outlined in the book Pass it On: The Story of Bill Wilson and How the AA Message Reached the World.
Bill W sought help outside the program. And so did I.
After nearly five years of working the steps, going to meetings, doing everything right—I still had what I called a parasite in my brain. The constant pull toward drinking. AA’s tools helped me not act on it, but they didn’t remove the desire to drink.
ThetaHealing did.
One session, and the parasite was gone. The compulsion lifted. After years of white-knuckling and feeling into Flo and working my program, this was what finally freed me. This also connected me to a bigger version of my higher power that I call Creator. Flo is the messenger that pointed me in the direction. Creator is the space of love and acceptance that I tap into through my witchy practices.
And I can’t say that in a typical meeting. It wouldn’t be accepted. So I share it with my sponsor and a handful of AA friends who get it, and I stay quiet in the rooms. Take what works and leave the rest, right? Except I’m the one who has to leave parts of my truth at the door.
I wonder how many people avoid AA entirely because of this all-or-nothing approach. How many alcoholics who could benefit from the community, the shared stories, the accountability, stay away because they can’t stomach the God-talk or the patriarchal language or the lie that it’s not religious.
AA could be one tool in the toolbox. One modality among many. But instead it positions itself as the only way, and if you can’t swallow it whole—Lord’s Prayer and “He/Him” and erasing your progress when you stumble—then you’re out.
What if we were actually allowed to take what works and leave the rest? What if outside literature was welcomed instead of forbidden? What if we could talk about ThetaHealing or therapy or medication or psychedelics or whatever else actually helps us stay sober without being shut down?
I’m still going to meetings. I still find value in the community and the stories and the framework of the steps. But I do it with my eyes open now, knowing I have to code-switch, knowing I have to leave parts of myself and my truth at the door.
Take what works and leave the rest. Just don’t expect to be honest about which is which.
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I have only found references to the original article apparently written in the mid-1950’s, but here is the link to the book published in 1968.
See the article “AA, Bill Wilson, Carl Jung and LSD” in the journal Analytical Psychology, Sept. 2024
And, what if you are the one to bring this type of community to others needing this type of healing, dear one? xoxo
Great piece, Mel!
As someone who has been around for 35 years, this isn't the first time I've heard this sentiment. I'd say, at least half of all of us have God issues, probably more. It's funny, I know a guy who is an Atheist, and so much so, he started a group for atheists. The irony, which I think is funny, is that the meeting is held at a church -- on SUNDAY. Yep. Then the guy who started it goes to church every Sunday with his family. He does it for his wife and kids. I just find that so ironic and alcoholic temperament-like. ha.
So much has changed since 1939, even the 80s and 90s. Society has changed, and the medical industry has learned much more over the years. I don't know if you know it yet, but they've come out with a Plain Language BB, which has addressed some of the issues you're referring to. You can probably find in online.
Back in the 90s, I was also doing a lot of therapy. It was extremely helpful and filled in a lot of gaps the program didn't reveal in black and white. During that time, so many others were doing the same. There was a period where people were sharing about sex abuse and being molested, Religious (Satanic) abuse, bipolar disorders, sex issues (addictions), hard core drugs. It got to a point where you could not tell that you were in an AA meeting. I couldn't tell what kind of group or meeting it was. People were sharing all kinds of deep stuff. At first, we all thought we were getting to the "real" core of it all, and that it was all a good thing. Eventually, that group folded. It kind of got watered down with trying to be everything for everybody.
Years later, a sponsor explained it to me, and it began to make sense. AA is about "identification." The power of it - the magic of it - is mostly due to the "identification' aspects. We all experience it: someone shares, and we think to ourselves, "wow, that's exactly how I was, or how I thought, or what I did. I drank just like that." We identify we each other like no one else can. People who are not alcoholics cannot understand why we can't just have a couple of drinks and stop. My first wife would say that. And there's a long list of examples that we hear constantly in the rooms. It's all about "identifying with each other. You know this line: "Alcoholics can help another one like no other person can," and that's why.
So if a newcomer comes in and they have never done cocaine, pot, crack, etc., that they're only a drinker, they cannot identify with most people in the room talking about issues other than alcohol. The newcomer will leave thinking, "I don't identify with all that drug stuff or Theta Healing stuff, or inner child work." This program is not for me.
So by keeping the discussions single-focused, "singleness of purpose" on alcohol, it's more helpful. Otherwise, it'd be like me going to one of our Creative Retreats and my share be filled with AA talk. All but one in the group would really understand. They kind of might a little, but you know what I mean. They can have a drink and stop.
In the program and in the rooms, in my shares, I incorporate my outside work and just speak in terms of AA language. I don't even need to say, "my therapist said." AA is really cognitive therapy, and Al-Anon is where Co-dependance originated from. So, it's easy for me to do that.
And the God thing. If AA had originated in Japan, it probably would have been wrapped in Buddhism. And if it originated in India, it might have been wrapped in Hinduism. And if I started AA, I would have it wrapped in Ed-ology. haha. But it started in a predominantly Christian region, thus pulling from the Bible. And we should keep in mind that AA really got its start at the Oxford Group, which was a religious thing.
The book says, "We have a spiritual malady." A spiritual disease. I see spirituality as something much different from religion. Spirituality is made up of "us, our emotional body, and spiritual sense, or agency. There are no names or labels. It's something different.
Whereas religion is "man-made." And when man makes something, he usually, well... fucks it up (ha), or usually makes it so that he can have the most control. And thank God we're getting out of the patriarchal phase of humankind. Personally, I think we're on the verge of the age of the woman. The traits of the feminine are in great need right now. More and more leaders and CEOs will be female, and will provide what's been missing all these ages.
When I came back in in 2001, I was at a wall with the God thing. And my sponsor said, "Don't worry about God, you'll find one or something of your understanding by working the steps. And sure enough, by the time I got to Step 9, I found it. She was about 5'6, red hair... Hahah. kidding. But, yea, I found one that worked for me. And it's constantly evolving. God is God. Flo is Flo. She doesn't change. What changes for all of us, I believe, is our perspectives of the Higher Power. My beliefs, usually from my experiences and studies.
It sounds like you believe there is a power or powers out there somewhere that is more powerful than you. That's the critical thing. Me too. I don't give a shit what we call it. We can call it God, Creator, Source, Universe, Flo, Giggles, Hubba Bubba, Good old Dude (God), Krishna, whatever. I don't think Source cares, or Flo cares.
You said something powerful. You were talking about 'rigorous honesty." I get that. We're trying to change everything about us, and be rigorous, then, the so called powers that be say "except when..." It's confusing and maybe hypocritical.
Personally, I just don't worry as much about it anymore. People in AA are far from perfect. I've seen some doozies. When I'm in meetings, i focus on that. When I'm in other groups, I focus on that.
Thanks so much for writing this essay. I'm sure others will identify and get some help. After all, they are topics that have chased folks away. Thankfully, in many cases, the bottle brings them back. but not always.