an atheist walks out of a bar

i was told very early on in recovery:

"take what you need and discard the rest."

so i did that. for the past several years i've taken everything i can from recovery. i've joined and built fellowship groups. i've attended meetings and i share regularly. i give a lead speech when i'm asked. i try to sponsor, and i am sponsored

but i've discarded something that's integral to 12-Step recovery: the "God" idea

there's nothing in recovery literature that says any person needs to believe in God. in fact, the point of these programs is to come to terms with some sort of Power Greater Than Ourselves, whatever that looks like. but i've not been attuned. i fought when people suggested i should just believe that they believe. what the Hell does that even mean?

well here i am at over 4.5 years sober and attending 3 different programs, still trying to figure out: what is my Higher Power?

i'm an atheist, so it isn't "God." i say that at meetings and i share regularly about it with people who ask. but i still need, as AA puts it, "a sufficient substitute," for the drink problem.

so, why don't i make the Group Of Drunks my Higher Power? because i've found out the hard way what happens when i make a person my Higher Power, and that's why i'm now in SLAA and CoDA. i need to go a layer deeper.

what about the Great Out-Doors? i've practiced Paganism in the past and i appreciate Nature and the gifts of the Earth. these things are Powers Greater Than Myself. i've been thinking about dabbling into Magick again, for ritual and for fun. but i don't really worship Nature, as much as i revere it. i accept that it's bigger than me, but will it keep me sober? let's go further

besides the ones i've already said, i've heard several acronyms for GOD:
Good Orderly Direction
Grand Order of Design
Gaining One's Dignity
Gift Of Desperation
Grace Over Drama
Getting Off Drugs
Get Out of Doubt
Grow Or Die

i can, and often do, recognize any or all of these as Powers Greater Than Myself. i suppose that puts me at Step Two: i've come to believe that a Power Greater Than Myself can restore me to sanity. which of these will do the job? or do i need something *else*?

Step Three tells me that, by that point, i've made a decision to turn my will (thoughts) and my life (actions) over to the care of GOD as i understand it. but i'm only human. i can't understand GOD in a theological sense. it's quite beyond my capability to understand the concepts of Omnipotence and Omnipresence. i need to simplify further

in the Spiritual Appendix in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, my most-quoted line is:

"With few exceptions our members find that they have tapped an unsuspected inner resource which they presently identify with their own conception of a Power greater than themselves. Most of us think this awareness of a Power greater than ourselves is the essence of spiritual experience. Our more religious members call it "God-consciousness.""

let's take a page from Satanism: if i'm the Prime Mover in my life, this tells me that this Power Greater Than Myself is inside of me

let's take a page from Paganism: if we are all aspects of The Divine, this tells me that this Power Greater Than Myself is inside of me

let's take a page from Taoism: there is nothing outside of me that isn't inside of me; nothing Greater without something Lesser; i am equal parts Divine and Not Divine; i am a part of and apart from, The Great Mother; therefore this tells me that this Power Greater Than Myself is inside of me

so here i am, over-thinking and over-philosophizing again. yet out of my main three spiritual influences, congruent with what AA lore tells me, this Power Greater Than Myself is inside of me. It is *not* me, but It *is* inside of me. i am a part of it, and apart from it. i am me and It is Itself.

It doesn't need a gender, for It is beyond gender. but how am i to turn my will and my life over to the care of It?

i want to find some Good Orderly Direction. science has shown me that, humans are discovering more and more, there is a Grand Order of Design (even if that order is chaotic and unpredictable) in the Great Out-Doors. i believe that i've Gained (One's) Dignity. i've experienced firsthand the Gift Of Desperation. i believe in Grace Over Drama. the Group Of Drunks helped me Get Off Drugs, and Get Out of Doubt. i understand that in order to live in recovery, i must Grow Or Die.

so how does an atheist believe in GOD, but not believe in "God"?

i don't fucking know, and maybe that's the point