A Story of Recovery:

Atheist in Recovery

I weighed 270 pounds; my weight was rising quickly. I wouldn’t have called myself depressed, but I certainly wasn’t happy. I resented my family and felt that I had given up my dreams of being a writer and an intellectual in order to support my family, financially and otherwise. At any given moment, it seemed the only things that could make my life bearable were eating, watching movies, playing games on the Internet, or reading. I hated exercise, but that was the only thing slowing my weight-gain. I knew I couldn’t keep up the daily 5 a.m. boot camp much longer and was bound to shoot past 300 pounds. I thought if I didn’t do something quick, bariatric surgery appeared to be the only option.

That’s when I heard about FA. I was ready. Countless failures and disappointments around my health, career, and relationships had left me with the gift of desperation. Years of therapy, OA, and meditation provided me with some positive preparation. One hundred and twenty pounds has fallen almost effortlessly off my body. The constant friction between me and the universe has lessened as I’ve made a daily practice of sitting quietly, making phone calls, and asking my higher power for serenity, courage, and wisdom. I feel a new freedom and a new happiness.

During my first few months of Program, I struggled with the God idea. I was a committed atheist. I am still an atheist, yet I have become a devout worshipper of a God I invented for the purpose of working the Twelve Steps. I wanted what my sponsor and others in FA had. I wanted contented, reliable abstinence; I wanted that sense of hope and serenity. I was willing to do what I was told, to take suggestions. I wasn’t going to let my recovery be held hostage by my religious beliefs or lack thereof. My sponsors have told me at times how to pray, what to say to God, when to kneel, and how to ask for God’s strength and guidance, but they have never told me to believe that God exists.

I think the usual course of events for open-minded skeptics is that we follow suggestions; we act “as if.” When it starts working, we begin to believe that the God we’re praying to really exists. Call me stubborn or whatever, but I was only willing to go so far as to believe that behaving this way has the intended effect, not that the effect is caused by the being I am praying to.

When a sponsor asked me, “Do you believe that I believe God exists?” I could certainly say yes. I could see that these beliefs were making all sorts of miracles possible in the lives of my fellows. I came to believe that if I did what these people were doing, the miracles would happen for me, too. I’ve been asked to trust in God, to rely on God, to open myself to that still, quiet voice. I have a God I explicitly invented, named and imbued with certain characteristics, including that of not existing. But, despite this non-existence and my refusal to believe that She manifests any power or presence in the world outside my own mind, I have found that I can trust Her, I can rely on Her. I haven’t been acting “as-if” She exists; quite the contrary. I can talk to Her and feel Her presence within me, much as I can that of my father who died 30 years ago. In fact, a lot of why I can trust Her and rely on Her is that I never ask her to change anything in the world but myself, my thinking, and my attitudes. My direct experience confirms that the more I trust Her, the more I rely on Her, the more my thinking and attitudes will change. The power of my Higher Power is not in Her pulling the strings of the universe, it’s in my willingness, my openness, my cry for help, and in Her constant, quiet, benevolent presence, whenever I choose to be aware of it.

When I mention my atheism in meetings, it’s not because I’m embarrassed to say I believe in God; it’s because I want any atheist newcomers who may be sitting in the room to know that we can get this program just as well as anyone else, and that we will be treated with the same respect as everyone else.

As an atheist, I faced some extra obstacles in learning how to hear and use all the “God language” in Program. Open-mindedness was not a problem; I already had a strong commitment to that. But I was not willing to change my beliefs without being convinced it was necessary. My admiration for FA members with strong abstinence made me willing to emulate them by praying, asking God for help, and otherwise reshaping my internal mental habits. The invention of my non-existent God has allowed me to do everything that believers do in, and to talk with others without tension or misunderstanding. I need other people’s wisdom, and this is how I’ve been able to access it—not by letting them dictate my beliefs, but by listening with an open mind, understanding their suggestions in a way that makes sense to me, and following practical advice.

The confrontation between my atheism and the suggestion that I turn my will and my life over to the care of God has been enormously fruitful for my recovery. I was lucky enough to enjoy the challenge I put to myself: How can I follow every bit of advice my sponsor and the FA literature are giving me and still hold on to my atheism? Part of meeting that challenge included being willing to give up my atheism if I had to, being willing to say, “God, I will pray to You, seek Your presence, guidance and protection, I will be open to anything You tell me. And if You tell me You exist, I will believe it.”

My Higher Power has shown me guidance, protection, and Her divine and loving presence, but She has still never suggested to me that She actually exists.

The gifts of this program are available to anyone who works for them. I have been asked to do some difficult things and to be open to new ways of thinking. I’ve been asked to have faith in some apparently crazy ideas, like the idea that weighing and measuring my food three times a day can lead to miraculous transformations in every aspect of my life. I’ve had to let go of self-destructive beliefs, beliefs in my own inadequacy, in my reliance on flour, sugar, and quantities. But no one has asked me to let go of the beliefs and truths I’ve held or discovered in my best self, in the parts of myself I respect and admire. I have watched in wonder as my cherished beliefs change and grow, but I know I can hold on to them with faith that FA will strengthen, not replace, them.