The following was written in December of last year for inclusion in the recently released zine, “Anarchist Experiences in and Explorations of Alternatives to Twelve-Step Programs,” published by Scrappy Capy Distro. It’s a great collection of texts, be sure to check it out.

My name is Scott, and I’m an alcoholic. My sobriety date is December 17, 2023. I have a sponsor and have worked the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. I now take others through the steps. I go to three to four meetings a week. I have a conception of and relationship with a power greater than myself that has been the cornerstone to my recovery. I’m also an anarchist.

I’ve been battling alcoholism and addiction for a while now. The first time I realized I could not stop drinking even though I wanted to, even when my job, health, and relationships depended on it, was in 2013. Back then I was militantly atheist and, frankly, judgmental and arrogant. Some days I still am. I’m a work in progress. The first person to offer to take me to an AA meeting was a conservative older woman wearing a t-shirt with the US flag on it. I thought she couldn’t possibly have access to a solution that would work for me. A few months later, still unable to stop drinking, I ended up in treatment, where we had to attend AA meetings.

I remember the first time I walked into a meeting. It was a relief that people looked normal, whatever normal looks like. They didn’t look like alcoholics, whatever an alcoholic looks like. The relief quickly faded to dread when I saw the twelve steps written on a banner hanging from the wall. God was all over that thing, and God and I had parted ways when I was fourteen. God clearly wasn’t the solution to my problem. God didn’t exist. It was nice this deal worked for all these normal-looking alcoholics, but it certainly wasn’t going to work for me. I just had to figure out another way. I’d have to do it on my own.

Several trips to rehabs, emergency rooms, and detoxes later, I was no closer to cracking the case but was in a lot more pain, with mountains of regret, shame, and damage weighing heavy on my conscience. As my first sponsor said, “You hit bottom when you decide to stop digging.” I thought I was there. I knew I couldn’t do this by myself, under my own willpower. But I wasn’t willing to believe in God, either. Hopeless, confident only in my inability to stay sober, I made a plan to take my life. As the Big Book of AA says, “To be doomed to an alcoholic death or to live on a spiritual basis are not always easy alternatives to face.” They truly are not.

Convinced by an exceptional therapist not to commit suicide, to try one more time, I begrudgingly went to AA meetings, got a sponsor, and started working the steps, all the while not believing in a higher power. My sponsor patiently explained the spiritual nature of the program to me. He parsed the steps to show I didn’t even have to believe, I just had to be willing to be willing to believe. Nonetheless, I still argued with the Big Book, writing in the margins in response to rhetorical questions such as, “Could we still say the whole thing was nothing but a mass of electrons, created out of nothing, meaning nothing, whirling on to a destiny of nothingness?” that yes, yes, I could, thank you very much.

Eventually, however, something ever so slight shifted in me. Through a series of events, I became open to the idea that there just might be something more out there. That was enough. I had a beginning. My sponsor took that and ran with it, and we completed the twelve steps. From the brink of suicide, I put together more than two years sober. But then I moved, I stopped going to meetings, I stopped calling my sponsor, I stopped working with sponsees, and shortly thereafter, I stopped being sober.

There’s a saying that “AA will ruin your drinking.” That was true for me. For years after that, I struggled on my own until a little more than a year ago, when things went from manageably bad to horrifically worse, as they always do in my experience. With my tail between my legs, I walked back into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous to start again. I now have one year sober, and I would not trade it for anything.

For an alcoholic and addict of my type, to drink or to use is to die. Recovery is deadly serious business. Those who have suffered or are suffering the horrors of addiction know there is nothing cool, fun, romantic, or rebellious about it. We do it because we have no other solution, no other choice, no other means of survival other than to ingest what will ultimately kill us. In AA, I found a solution, a choice, a remedy to that soul sickness. I went to AA because I had to. Now I go because I want to. I believe that without AA I will relapse. I have no desire to test that theory, so I keep going.

I disagree with the idea that AA is a quasi-religious organization. There are plenty of problems with AA, but that is not one of them. I would also posit that AA has a lot to teach anarchists, though that argument would require a separate piece. If you struggle with alcohol or other substances and want help, I would not hesitate to recommend AA. Is AA the only thing that keeps me sober? Certainly not. But it is a crucial part of my recovery. Nor is AA the only way to get and stay sober. If something else works for you, use it. For me, nothing else has, and my laundry list of attempted treatments, methods, and schemes is a lengthy and expensive one.

I thought that because I was an anarchist and an atheist that AA would not work for me. I thought I was terminally unique because of my politics, my experiences, my traumas, and that there was no way I could relate to some group talking about God. I was wrong. I rejected and judged AA based not on what AA is but on what I thought it was. That attitude kept me in pain for much longer than necessary.

What I have learned over more than a decade is that AA is not a religious program but a spiritual one, and that distinction is crucial. There is no one way to do it right, there is no credo to believe, there is no dogma to follow, there are no authority figures dictating what or who God is. Even the steps are just suggestions. And the point of the steps is to help the alcoholic form an understanding of and a relationship with a power greater than themselves that will maintain their sobriety. It is often referred to as God for the sake of simplicity and brevity, but there is no one God. One’s higher power can be any myriad of things, concepts, formations, phenomena, or beliefs, as long as it isn’t oneself. It can change and develop over time. Nothing is set in stone, and nothing must be figured out. The steps are there to guide one through a process whose end goal is a spiritual awakening that is personal, individual, and unique to each member. As a spiritual program, AA is capacious, flexible, open, accepting, and welcoming. Not every meeting might be, nor every person one meets in AA – we’re sick people, after all – but AA is bigger than all of that. As another saying goes, “Take what works and leave the rest.”

Those who are anarchists, atheists, or devout materialists need have no problem with AA. There is plenty of wiggle room and space for technicalities in the program if one needs it. All that is required to start is honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness. As for why a spiritual program is even necessary to maintain sobriety and how it is that a higher power can keep one sober are matters that would require lengthier discussion.

Nothing changes if nothing changes. If you are in the midst of alcoholism or addiction, know first that you are loved, cared for, and worthy. You are not alone in this. There is a way out. If I can do it, truly anyone can. If you have more questions, I’d be happen to talk more. I can be reached at scott@fallingintoincandescence.com.