Follow your heart and instinct. Do what feels right for you.
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Got friend i knowing John since school hes a non believer he goes to meetings 34 years sober now . believing or not believing god wont get you sober only you can do that wish you well
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My peers keep me sober. I find my peers right here, as well as in my work - I’m a nurse in a detox facility. I need my peers to learn from, to be inspired by, to exchange knowledge and hope with.
And secondly I work on my mental health, I work on the issues that made me feel the need to forget my troubles and hide from myself and the world for 40 years. Hide and forget in substance abuse. Now I’m sober I can no longer hide. I’m confronting my issues in therapy and in my daily life, in my relationships to others and to myself. One day at a time.
I never believed in a god, I wasn’t brought up that way and I encountered nothing in my life that made me believe otherwise. Becoming sober and clean didn’t change that. I believe we need to do it together. Us humans, as well as the whole living earth. We’re in it together. Wishing you all success.
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It sounds like you are open to trying different things to help you on this journey. For me, it’s like having kids. You don’t know what on Earth you’re doing or how to stop them crying sometimes when they’re small so you try everything until SOMETHING works! Just keep trying anything you can until you find something that sticks for you. It could be something you’ve never tried before? Your mind needs something to keep focus and develop.
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I don’t have the answer for you, but I do hear you feeling damaged and unworthy. Sometimes when I feel this way, I remember that we are all worthy and that we are in need of love and healing…not judgement and shame. We really do grow through connection and love…including self love. I know that our substance abuse issues can really tear us down physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually. What I found within myself was the desperate need and lack of self love and self worth. Maybe the validation you seek, the strength you seek is truly inside you waiting to be uncovered? 
We are all worthy of love, kindness and support…no matter our past. Can you offer your self, your flawed human self, the same love, kindness and compassion you offer your children? Because you do truly deserve it, just as they do.
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Howdy…here is a thread you might be interested in
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I think nobody except you can help you with this. My religious way was bumpy. I was raised strictly catholic but started asking difficult questions early on.
In the end I do believe that something big is out there and everywhere around us.
We have to figure our life out on our own. I don’t believe that someone or something comes along and forgives you everything you’ve done wrong.
You have to do the work.
In the end do what helps you the most.
All the best for you
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I’m not an atheist but rather an agnostic and I do pray. But I don’t think praying is about asking God to fix things for you but rather seeking the courage and strength to do what you need to do to heal yourself. In that way I look at praying as similar to mantras. It’s a way to burn the message into your brain so that when difficult situations come up you have that message on how to fight and resist right there without thinking. Even though my prayers use the name “God” it really is a prayer to me.
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From a post of yours last July:
2 things that have helped me tremendously are:
- One day at a time. Reminding myself to take it day by day…
- Being active in recovery.
And today, you are taking a much more passive approach.
maybe I should just start praying and hope that doing so will make things slowly get better.
Which works better to keep you sober? Are you using the issue of belief or unbelief or different belief to excuse yourself from doing the work and making the changes needed to grow your sobriety?
I’m so desperate
That is the gift you just might need. Are you desperate enough to admit that you cannot get yourself out of this mess, you cannot think your way out, you cannot pray your way out, you cannot hope your way out? Desperate enough to go to a rehab and do exactly what they tell you to do? Enough to go to AA and do what they tell you? Even praying on your knees to a mystery?
For a long time, I tried to treat my alcoholism by getting other people to change, by changing my environment, by distracting myself with spiritualism and with personal psychological journeys. When I made my final surrender, it wasn’t surrender in the AA first step sense (powerless over alcohol, life unmanageable) so much as surrender to the idea of sobriety. Surrender as in stop fighting the idea of sobriety by trying to prove I could still drink and get away with it. I had to give up making my own decisions for a while and to just do what I was told to do by the powers stronger than me, namely the courts and the program of AA that had a proven track record of people staying sober.
It sucks to feel that desperate, I know. But it can also be the stepping off point on a journey to undreamed joys. Blessings on your house 
as you begin your journey.
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My experience is in hearing this
Came to believe that a power greater than us to restore us to sanity.
Figure that out and i think your headed in the right direction.
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God is an answer, if that’s what you need. There’s no one way. I’ve been able to achieve sobriety without God and many people have found it through God.
Do what you need to do to find your sobriety. Just do something!
Be well.
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I was a very rational atheist since I was 11 years old and now my higher power is a divine sensuality encompassing abundance, beauty, creativity, connection, love, and pleasure. I’ve used many tools from various religions to create my own spiritual practice that has nothing to do with institutionalized religion or God. It was a lot of experimenting but I’ve gotten a point where I have such a powerful and rooted relationship with myself and I use that as the fulcrum of my spirituality.
I really recommend reading the books of bell hooks! All About Love changed my life
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Sobriety-wise there are many tools, programmes and ideologies both spiritual and non spiritual. Whatever works to keep one sober and advancing in their recovery is a good one.
Desperation, humility and prayer can lead you to Christ, who is what your soul ultimately needs. Whether you identify as an atheist, agnostic or something else, God calls everyone. Praying is acknowledging you need help. You do what you can and trust that God helps you with things that you can’t change.
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I believe God and the evil one exist, because I have seen the works of both.
I know what it is to feel totally lost and worthless, and my life pointless. I was alone and unloved. I once found myself in a pit that I dug for myself. It had been so very long since I had prayed for anything, but I prayed for deliverance, and over time I was delivered. I was completely alone, and was sent a group of new friends who stood me up, and held me up. I prayed for a new path to walk, and I walked it by faith.
That path has had it’s ups and downs. The downs were always from my own doings, and I prayed to be placed back on that path, and over the years it’s led me to this day. My life is far from perfect, and it’s better than I’d ever thought possible.
Prayer won’t hurt, and it just might help. Prayer doesn’t require faith. Answers to prayer build faith. My strongest most genuine prayers have mostly come when my faith was at its lowest.
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I’m participating in a book study right now through cac.org. His book, Breathing Under Water, is the 12 Steps for stinking thinking and unlearning a lot of retribution and judgement that many of us faced growing up in more evangelical and conservative Catholic households. Please know that you aren’t alone. I think you would get a lot out of looking at Richard Rohr’s books and teachings. The God of my understanding is compassionate, kind and very inclusive of all.
I too have taken from various religions to creat a higher power that I’ve learned to let guide me. Also, if you just have the tiniest amount of willingness to at least believe that you will someday see and know that you are worthy, you are on a very solid path moving forward. Acceptance and honesty.
I was at the lowest of the lows spiritually, emotionally and physically in March of 2021. I surrendered and latched on to my AA and TLC community and here as well. I was open-minded and willing. I now have 2 years freedom from alcohol and came through a Stage 2 breast cancer diagnosis. It is a miracle. And now that I have some sober time, I can look back and see where my Higher Power had been at work the whole damn time, even before I got sober.
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I am sick spiritually. AA offered me the idea that i can find a God of my understanding. This was an epiphany for me. I dont have to subscribe to an organized religion to be spiritual. I pray but i dont have a face to envision. Im in my infancy of my spiritual journey. You can be spiritual and not subscribe to a specific god.
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This is a tough one. I believe in a higher power but not god as imagined by the Christian church (have a very complicated history with religion, including being sexually approached by an adult in a church as a teenager). AA is confusing because they say they are agnostic but then recite the Lord’s Prayer at the end of the meeting.
However, rather than be upset or resentful about this, I embrace it knowing that I can take or leave what works for me from any experience, and I see beauty in others who do find comfort and healing through that. I focus on the many benefits from connecting in person to other addicts. It can be tough sometimes but compassion, empathy, and firm boundaries allow me to participate (even if I don’t fully relate to) the experience. I also think it’s so important to have an open mind. Truth is stranger than fiction and what seems impossible can become reality. I am grateful for these experiences and respect our differences. Everyone has their own journey.
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Shoe answer is no…you just have to find something you love to do, everyone has at least on thing they enjoy doing,a couple weeks ago was my six months sobriety,I didn’t need to go to a meeting to get a chip to make myself feel good,I feel good just knowing what I have done,and doing this way has made me so much mentally stronger than ever.i have always been a gym rat even when using heroin for ten years believe it or not.when I decided to get clean I dedicated more time and effort into the gym,and with my real appetite back I started seeing results I hadn’t seen in ten years,after my 30 days I rewarded myself by going another gym,a boxing gym and I must say my life has never been better when I wake up I can’t wait to train,train train…find your nitch homie it’s out there you just have to put in a lil effort yourself and the domino’s will start to fall for you bud… Trust me there’s more than just God and meetings they don’t work for everyone
Good luck with the journey.
Smiley
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God really changed my life in every way for the better when I started being honest and doing what Jesus said
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Me to a “T”. Wrong thread, but sorry about job. Another door is already being opened.