Reddit reviews Beyond Belief: Agnostic Musings for 12 Step Life: finally, a daily reflection book for nonbelievers, freethinkers and everyone

This is such a good point to bring up. Thank you for doing so! This is really helpful.

I'm much earlier in this process, so I don't know that I have anything helpful to contribute. That said, I hope you don't mind me answering these questions anyway--it's a useful thought exercise.

Also, I'm sorry, I can't seem to not write a flipping novella.

• What do you do on a daily basis to stay stopped?
  
  I have a morning routine that feels really central to my sobriety and my commitments to myself. I get ready for the day, make tea, and listen to the news as I write three to five pages in my journal, and then read the Beyond Belief daily reflection, write out choice quotes and the questions, and answer them.
  
  I've also been taking care with my nutrition and my sleep schedule (the latter being particularly hard), and try to make sure I'm taking really good care of myself. Temptation comes in when I feel rotten in my own skin, so I've been trying to get ahead of it.
  
  
• What keeps you subscribing to a sober life every day?
  
  My paternal grandmother died of alcohol poisoning when my dad was about my age (this was before I was even born). She'd been hospitalized several times before she died. Apparently, one time my dad was in the hospital with her and begged her to stop drinking, telling her she was going to die. She told him that she wanted to die. When she finally did, her family was so used to her passing out on the floor drunk that everyone, including her husband who was a doctor, stepped over her body for hours before they realized she was dead.
  
  My uncle was an addict, and going through complicated gender stuff, and ended up committing suicide when I was three.
  
  My dad died when he tried to quit drinking. The stress on his body took out his already weakened heart.
  
  My mom's side of the family is filled with a bunch of alcoholics who seem to live forever and are violent, angry, and abusive. Oh, except my aunt, who died when I was sixteen. Her health issues that had been ignored while she was in the midst of her addiction took her out.
  
  No one in my family has been able to stop this cycle.
  
  Both sides of my family are destructive to themselves and others. They're also extremely witty, sparkly, creative, charming, generous, brilliant, and knee-slappingly funny people.
  
  I don't want to be a violent, angry, or abusive person, and I don't want to kill myself. I don't want to have a lifetime of misery. I want to take all of the good of my family, that lives in me too, and heal the bad. I can't do it for them, but I can do it for me (I hope). I want to do what my parents, and their parents, could not.
  
  I get that some of this still seems like "fear of what will happen if I drink," but for me, I was never in as deep as my family members were and are. It doesn't feel like a fear, as much as it feels like a sobering (hA) understanding of how the choices I make now can directly impact not only my future, but the future of my loved ones.
  
  In even just three months of sobriety, I have more clarity and calm than I can pretty much ever remember having. I don't know what the future holds, but I've been thinking on this a lot lately--especially when I've started going down that path of, "Well, maybe I wasn't that bad..." or when I get a really bad craving. I'm determined to not repeat this long-standing pattern, and I'm pretty sure a sober life is a crucial element of that.
  
  
• How have your motivations to stay sober changed since you first started?
  
  Initially, it was a response to my own mental health crisis. I knew that drinking was likely making it worse, and that I needed to take a step back. I didn't realize that this was going to become an entire perspective shift, a life shift. My initial motivation was, "I have so much anxiety and I'm in so much pain that I want to die, and using drinking as a coping mechanism is making it worse, so I should moderate and then take a short break."
  
  My new motivation is fueled by a better understanding of myself, as well as addiction, and a deeper understanding of my relationship with alcohol. It's also fueled by the benefits. There are many aspects of sobriety that are a lot harder than I expected, but there are also benefits I would have never anticipated. From what I've heard with people who have much longer term sobriety, things continue to unfold in a similar fashion: unexpected challenges, with extremely unexpected positives. Aside from everything else, I'm excited to see where this path leads.
  
  Thanks for giving me a lot to think about on my lunch break, yo. I appreciate it. <3
  

There is a great book used in my local meetings for some daily readings instead of the big book. I find it useful to have on the shelf as well.

https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Belief-reflection-nonbelievers-freethinkers/dp/0988115700

Check out http://aaagnostica.org

My home group is an atheist, agnostic and all others meeting. Maybe there's one in your area. I've met a lot of atheists and agnostics who have long-term sobriety.

Edit: These books have been very helpful, too:
The Alternative 12 Steps: A Secular Guide To Recovery https://www.amazon.com/dp/0991717465/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_CASZxbMEEPTBT
and
Beyond Belief: Agnostic Musings for 12 Step Life: finally, a daily reflection book for nonbelievers, freethinkers and everyone https://www.amazon.com/dp/0988115700/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_2BSZxbWN3C3RQ

I'm struggling with the idea of AA myself for the very same reason, but every therapist or life coach I talked to gently recommended AA regardless. I finally went to a meeting and it clicked WHY that type of system works. The sense of community is important, along with simply knowing that YOU ARE NOT ALONE. Even without the spiritual aspect of it, the things the women said really resonated with me (I chose a women-only meeting to start with, at the recommendation of my therapist).

I'm still at the beginning of my journey and working every day at it. I need to reset my number again, but am gradually building up an arsenal of tools to help me stick with it for longer - I'm beginning to believe that AA will be the lynchpin if I can approach the twelve-step program from an atheist's point of view.

In that effort, I visited AAAgnostica.org and read a bit about them, and then also picked up the following books and have been working my way through them:

• The Alternative Twelve Steps: A Secular Guide to Recovery
  
• The Little Book: A Collection of Alternative Twelve Steps
  
• Beyond Belief: Agnostic Musings for 12 Step Life (a daily reader)
  
  I am not affiliated with the authors. I just desperately needed some material of my own that aligned with all the twelve step information I was learning, but that let me approach it without all the "god stuff".
  
  At the very least, try the first book. See if the steps as written without the inclusion of religion and god start to make sense to you. Note that the concept of "spirituality" is still present but not in the sense of following a religion or believing in a god. In my case, the thing that clicked the most for me was a creative visualization tool I learned while doing a meditation (completely unrelated to AA). Meditation is a somewhat "spiritual" practice, but for me, the power comes from within and makes itself known through my deeper understanding of myself. This is just one of many tools I am leveraging to help me stay sober on the days when it is particularly hard.
  
  There's a reason the program works, so it made sense for me to try my damnedest to make it work for ME. Maybe it won't work for you, but consider just reading the steps and then decide.
  
  Step Two is going to be harder for me because I'm a bit of a hermit and social interaction with new groups can be so damn hard, but the meeting I went to didn't dwell on god much at all - the only real mention was when we said the Lord's Prayer at the end, but I hear that not all meetings do that. Simply going to the meeting helped me understand why Step Two is important. Traditionally, that step sounds like you need to give up responsibility for your life to a higher power. Just for example, one of the alternative steps states something slightly different.
  
  
• Traditional Step Two: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
  
• Just one of many alternative interpretations of Step Two (from "The Little Book" I linked above): I came to believe that realistic and rational thinking could restore me from the insanity of addictive drinking
  
  It isn't "God" or any spiritual power to ME that makes that step important. It's simply looking outside yourself for help. Going to the meeting made that click. The very act of taking that step - seeking out a community of others for support - the power beyond myself is the wisdom of communities like that, or communities like THIS one, too. For many, the community is where the power lies if we can acknowledge that. For others that may not be the case, but the point is to find something that provides you with that power, regardless of what you believe or don't believe.
  
  Is it private, personal meditation, or getting together with people who share your struggles and simply leaning on them for support? Is it a combination?
  
  Now my challenge is to quit making excuses and start going to regular meetings. There are at least a half dozen going on in my town on any given day. This is the path I feel I need to take.
  
  I hope you are able to find yours and that you find the strength to keep at it. Good luck to you!