Haha, good one. 
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I was raised Eastern Orthodox and for me, religion was always there through traditions, the bi-annual going to church and family cemetery… you know just a background addition to day-to-day life.
My parents were never particularly into it (though they seem to have changed their tune now). And the older I got, the less it made sense. I read parts of the bible at various times in my life and… I don’t get it.
I admire people who have faith and those who are choosing a more spiritual path in their recovery. Whatever makes them happy…
But the whole thing just never clicked with me. I doubt it ever will.
So now… I’m kinda agnostic leaning towards atheist sometimes. But leaving it at ‘I don’t actually know and I’m not gonna waste my short life trying to figure it out.’ I like humanistic principles. I sometimes lean towards nihilism, but that one’s too depressing to dwell on (and probably a symptom of depression).
The idea that there’s some all-powerful being out there who cares about what parts of my body I touch, whether my sex life is within marriage or not, or what substances I ingest when for our entire recorded history this whole world has always had some type of war, plague, tragedy etc. going on just doesn’t… make sense. That idea is actually terrifying. Like… the being’s priorities might be a bit off here!
What I’m trying to say is that I got sober without a god, or a higher power, or faith, or some spiritual belief. It was me. I fought hard to be where I’m at today and as narcissistic as that sounds, I’ll be the one taking all the credit, thank you very much. 
Thank you for coming to my Ted(x) talk.
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Wow, that could have written by me! I was born and raised as a Evangelical Lutheran and all my life I’ve been trying to figure it out. I’ve been also into Buddhism, Hare Krishna’s, Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy and when I started my recovery journey, I read the Bible trying to rely on God, but that just felt wrong to me. Nowadays I’m some sort of atheist, agnostic and like you, I tend to be a nihilist in some days but it’s mostly my depression talking. But I’m happy where I am right now, I don’t need religions anymore.
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This, precisely this is what hacks me off about people talking about needing to connect with your HP. Is my HP going to be sober on my behalf? Thought not, so I don’t need to put my fate in their hands.
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I can relate to one thing in the thinking of needing something outside myself. That something for me is other people. We need each other. For me the slogan ‘the opposite of addiction is connection’ means everything. I tried to solve everything I met in life alone, on my own, never trusting anybody. And getting addicted, relying on substances to help me through life, fitted perfectly in that way of trying to find my way.
Re/discovery for me means learning to relate to and connect to others. While working on myself to make that possible. And I don’t need capitals for that. We’re social animals and we can’t do it alone. I don’t wanna be that lonely wolf. But I also don’t want to be part of the pack that blindly follows a concept like a deity. To me that’s just hocuspocus. Or follow ideas like capitalism or communism for that matter. I’ll still find my own way but not in isolation. We have to do it together.
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Well said Amy 
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Understood, @Mno and I guess you hit the nail on the head - I am a bit of a lone wolf who prefers to live without other humans (cats are definitely welcome!) and be self-employed. I have a very ‘social’ job and spend about the entire workday talking to people, which in turn means I can be a bit anti-social outside of work hours.
In terms of addiction recovery, I did all the hard work in the beginning on my own as well. I have since come to realize that connection is indeed important (if only because you diligently repeat that mantra on here!) and have started sharing a bit more, on here and with r/l family and friends. I guess what I meant in my original post is that, even though I seek connection, I am firmly in the driving seat of my recovery and wouldn’t even dare handing over the reigns to a HP for the simple fact that I am a control freak who likes things done his way
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Meme gallery of the Humanist Society of Singapore:
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We could have a contest who’s the loneliest wolf of the two I feel. But we won’t 
. My lonely wolfism stems form my unsafe attachment as a toddler and was reinforced by the psychological sexual abuse I endured as a preadolescent. Both together made me extremely self-reliant but not in a healthy way.
So me being the lonely wolf was formed, not born into me. I feel that I was born a very social being. And the connection mantra reminds me of that and I keep repeating it to remind myself in the first place, although I do think it will help all.
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So what are my instilled beliefs, if not religion? 
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Good question really. I would imagine there are a lot of cultural and societal things instilled in us that have nothing to do with religion.
What is one that you feel you’ve had to deconstruct?
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Bigotry is the first one that comes to mind.
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