I really struggle with the God stuff in AA. I am not religious and never will be.
So what do I use as my higher power? Ive read through old TS posts and well meaning people have suggested faking a belief in God until you make it which is not something I am going to do.
So what do people use? If it is something like nature, then how do you use that as a higher power in practical terms?
I get that when religious people feel they need to they talk to God or pray, how would that work with a higher power that is not omniscient?
Anyone that can shed any light on this at all will be repaid in a million internet hugs 
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Ok, so here’s my interpretation:
That little voice, the one that told me that it was ok to drink?
To me, that voice has an opposite, a voice that is connected to Life the Universe and Everything!
I opened myself up to the idea that there’s a power greater than me that guides and nurtures me.
If I listen to it.
It’s so much louder than the other one now.
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God to me is a god within yourself. A god you pray to like a father keeping you strong,independent,confident, and persevere through the day pushing you to be the best version of yourself.
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As simply as I can put it, for me it’s what I’ll go back to when I die. Whatever energy or atoms I’m made of will be part of the universe again. Even alive now, we are still a part of the universe, and always will be.
It brings me a lot of peace to think about it, and know that I’m connected to something so much bigger than myself. If I meditate, sometimes I feel like I’m closer to being part of it, when my thoughts slow down and my mind is calm. That’s what I try and lean back into.
I try to stop worrying about stuff so much, and let go, stop trying to control everything, and see what the universe puts in my way in terms of opportunities.
I’m not much of a fan of organized religion, ceremonies, doctrine, or any of that stuff either. I try to keep it as simple as possible, and be as honest as possible about what I am, what I know, and what I have experienced.
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Thanks for your responses, plenty for me to think about there. I’ve spent my life looking at spiritualism with the irony for everything that is rampant for kids of the 90s.
Im trying to soften my stance on this kind of stuff but it’s so tough!
Just keep working on it. Open yourself up to the possibility. You will be surprised. I don’t meditate persee, but I do sit quietly and open myself up to Lue.
You will be surprised what you find! But like religious prayer, it doesn’t smack you in the face!
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Hey pal, this is one of my favourite topics. I too grew up as a hardened atheist yet I have found my place in AA and I love talking to others and hearing others’ experiences of steps 2 and 3. I need to get ready for work, so just sticking a pin in this and will send you a long response later this morning I hope. You are on the right track by asking and being curious about others’ experiences. One of my friends gives her sponsees an assignment to talk to others about their HP. In the meantime, here is a speaker tape I like. I love listening to Bob D and Sandy B talk about HP stuff.
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Bookmarked for later listening thank you 
I don’t do AA, so I don’t worry about a higher power. I do believe in the infinite energy of the universe though and that we are all a part of that energy.
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I’m thinking of going to AA under my therapist’s suggestion. But when I tried it before the Higher Power stuff always put me off loads.
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My old sponsor’s higher power is the collective wisdom of a group of drunks who have been to hell and back and came out on the other side. She and another drunk are bigger than her alone, etc. She believes that sharing experience, strength, and hope with them restored her to sanity and keeps her sober. When she meditates, she focuses on the hope, love and experience she finds in the rooms.
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I think maybe at the moment just concentrate on getting to the rooms. Go in with an open mind. Talk to people and get involved.
Accept the fact that you can’t do it on your own, and you are asking for help.
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was chairing a meeting with my friend John last week he dosnt believe in a god but he stuck around and hes a year behind me 32 years sober , as geo says just go to meetings what will be will be just stay sober and who knows wish you well
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My higher power is the universe, mother nature and all that connects us spiritually
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I can really relate to your questions, as this is something I struggled with. Here is a slightly adapted version of something that I sent to a friend and fellow in response to her sponsor’s assignment to speak to someone about their experience of finding an HP.
My experience of this is shaped by my background and my parents’ background. My parents were raised in strict Catholic households, religious schools and were treated very badly and physically assaulted by the priests and nuns at school. My Dad went on to go to medical school and was rejecting of religion and mysticism, in favor of science. This is the attitude of my household growing up. We were not baptised, did not go to church and had no religious or spiritual components to our upbringing.
I therefore became a die-hard atheist. I was very hostile to religion, any concept of God (or anything), and simply believed there was nothing. I thought these kinds of beliefs were only for people who were uneducated. I later came to know some fellow lawyers in London who I knew and respected as intelligent people - they had some faith and that genuinely puzzled me. I recall a moment when experiencing suicidal ideation in London of being at a train station when I saw some religious people with pamphlets and I cursed my parents for raising me with no religion. I was in such a state of distress and I felt like I had no purpose or meaning in life or community. But I thought “I do not believe because I wasn’t raised to believe and it is not a switch I can flip.”
From December 2017 to September 2018, I was a regular Al-Anon attendee. I was still very hostile towards any concept of God or even a HP, but I saw others struggle with it too and the constant refrain was “take what you want and leave the rest”, so I did just that. Someone at a meeting once described being out of options for a particular problem and their sponsor said “well, why don’t you pray?” That stuck with me, as it indicated to me prayer was a thing to do when there was nothing else to do. I had always scoffed at prayer.
When a friend’s daughter died unexpectedly last summer at age 18, I knew there was nothing I could do. So I found myself asking the universe for strength for my friend and strength for us all to appreciate every day as a gift. That weekend they sat Shiva and I went both days and did not drink for four days (despite there being a lot of alcohol there). It felt important and sacred to not drink and to feel the sadness. This was unusual for me as I would have always drank through something like that.
I started to research prayer. I had no idea how to do it. So I googled “how to pray”. The thing that caused it to click into place for me was a quote by Kierkegaard: “The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays”. For the first time I understand faith and spirituality and prayer not as a literal, mystical thing in another dimension, but as a way to access energy within all of us and all of the world and universe. Prayer is a way to connect to that energy and to change myself, not to ask for things from a Santa Clause god.
For me, knowing that I don’t have to believe in a big guy in the sky is liberating, because I don’t think I could do that. But my conception has changed over time. I feel like my HP is individual to me, some kind of force that keeps me safe, in spite of my own actions at times. There have been many times in my drinking days that I felt “but for the grace of god, I would be dead in a ditch”, even though I did not believe. I always felt like I was “lucky” and made it out of some insane situations with minimal physical harm to myself or to others, considering the circumstances. It felt miraculous, especially when I was pushing my luck and putting myself in some very risky and unsafe situations.
Gradually, over time, though attending a lot of meetings and listening to others talk about their HPs and reflecting on my experiences, I have, very gradually “come to believe” in something bigger than myself that gives me comfort. I honestly, with my background, never ever thought that would happen.
I don’t have a visual description of my HP, as it doesn’t take any physical form. It’s just a feeling of an energy bigger than me - like if I zoom out of my life and keep zooming until I get into space, it makes me feel like like issues and problems are very small, as compared to when I am in my head feeling like they are the most important thing in the world.
My HP communicates with me through my gut (sensing bad situations to avoid) and through other people (when I hear what I need when I need it), through music and through birds or other signs of nature. It sends me signals in all sorts of ways, if I am willing to notice and listen. It presents itself to me through the Jungian concept of “synchronicity” - meaningful coincidence. For example, the day I went to my first AA meeting was 1 November. I went to the morning meeting and then went to work - it was an emotional and crazy day, and when I got to work, there was a Barred Owl in the tree near the front door of work. That has never happened before or since. The first thing I thought was “this is an omen that I am doing the right thing”. That owl hung out all day - I went to the noon meeting and picked up my white chip (I was too flustered at the morning meeting to do so) and went back to work and that owl was still there. It eventually left mid afternoon. It was such an unusual day.
There is a song that I heard that I really connected to: https://youtu.be/dHC6I7v-1Pc For me, it is like a conversation between me and my HP, where my HP is saying to me “put your money on me” - ie “trust me, I know it is hard, but trust me”.
Once the door to my HP started to crack open, it got easier and easier, though it isn’t always easy. I sense my HP at meetings. When I meditate, I sometimes get answers by feeling something negative in my gut, or something positive in a tingling in my arms. Connecting to the feeling in my body at any given time seems important.
Sometimes during the first moment of silence at a meeting I will speak to my HP to ask them to be present at the meeting, or ask for continued honesty, openness and willingness. I also sense it outside in nature, or at meeting.
The on awakening reading in the Big Book really helped me…
“In thinking about our day we may face indecision. We may not be able to determine which course to take. Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision. We relax and take it easy. We don’t struggle. We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while. What used to be the hunch or the occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the mind. Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God, it is not probable that we are going to be inspired at all times. We might pay for this presumption in all sorts of absurd actions and ideas. Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration. We come to rely upon it.”
As mentioned before, I listened to a lot of speaker tapes about other people’s experiences.
I try to not let myself bristle when the word God is used in the lit. I just take it to mean my own individual Higher Power, which is always shifting. Sometimes it is the Great OutDoors, Group Of Drunks, Good Orderly Direction, Gift Of Desperation. Whatever. The universe. The sky.
My sanity started to be restored by the Group Of Drinks (GOD), because they UNDERSTOOD and told me that I wasn’t crazy. I stopped feeling like people were looking at me like there was something wrong with me and realised that people in those rooms got it, they had also been to hell and back and they had understanding, compassion and empathy. They understood what was going on in my crazy mind. This put me at ease and started the process of being restored to sanity. I’ve come to depend on that feeling. Those feelings of going crazy kept me in myself - now I know I can share any old crazy rubbish going through my mind and people listen and get it.
I still don’t have any organised religion, nor do I ever except to. I meditate with a Buddhist Sangha on Monday nights and THAT really helps me understand the need for the spirituality of the program. In is in that space, where I am meditating with others, that I have found the kind of ease and comfort that I used to find in drugs and alcohol. It is the only other way in which I have found that feeling of total peace and…weightlessness. I try to be open to other spiritual experiences, even if I find they are not for me. But I do try to take the attitude of meetings - take what I want and leave the rest.
For me, I haven’t been able to force belief, but it has come to me gradually, over time, as I start to pay attention and listen and be willing to notice things.
Hope this helps you on your journey!!! I love this topic so much.
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This is absolutely fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing!
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Wow, thank you very much. It’s going to take me some time to reread and digest this wonderful response but I’d like to ask questions at some point
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Feel free, it’s a great topic so questions and discussions are super.
We are burdened, as humans in modern society. Some burdens are physical, some emotional, some psychological. Sometimes the weight of these burdens can cripple us and change our mental state. Maybe its bills, maybe its work, maybe its addiction. Regardless of what it is, wouldn’t it be nice to get rid of it, to unburden ourselves? That is what the higher power is for. It’s an entity that we can ask to carry our burdens so that we don’t have to and we will no longer be crippled by the weight of it. No human can take the burden of addiction off your shoulders, but a higher power can, if you ask for it, if you allow it. And when you do, It’s empowering and its freeing.
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Karma could be your higher power. You live your life trying to be good to everyone, including yourself. Discipline can be your higher power. You subordinate your desires in pursuit of mastery of self.
I get how “religion” can turn some away from seeking something greater than themselves. Yes, my higher power is a trinitarian, limitless, all-knowing, everlasting perfect being, but this doesn’t mean it has to be yours.
Seek, and you shall find.
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