Welcome

      “Newcomers are approaching AA at the rate often of thousands yearly. They represent almost every belief and attitude imaginable. We have atheists and agnostics. We have people of nearly every race, culture and religion. In AA we are supposed to be bound together in the kinship of a common suffering. Consequently, the full individual liberty to practice any creed or principle or therapy whatever should be a first consideration for us all. Let us not, therefore, pressure anyone with our individual or even our collective views. Let us instead accord each other the respect and love that is due to every human being as he tries to make his way toward the light. Let us always try to be inclusive rather than exclusive; let us remember that each alcoholic among us is a member of AA, so long as he or she so declares.”

      —Bill W., Grapevine, July 1965

      The stories in this book, originally published in Grapevine, represent the shared experience of AA members who are atheists, agnostics, freethinkers or nonbelievers, who have struggled with alcoholism, yet ultimately found a common solution in AA.

      Pushed to the edge of desperation by their inability to stop drinking, each finally has taken the plunge into AA—often as a last resort. Their entries into the program weren’t always graceful, as a number of the stories in this volume can attest. Yet once arrived, they generally found a warm welcome—something unexpected after years of drinking and despair.

      As each came to know more about AA and its spiritual program of recovery, deep reservations surfaced, with a sense that the Fellowship might not be for them.

      Chapter One explores some of these reservations and how members worked through them to keep the focus on sobriety—recognizing that without sobriety all would be lost. In the book’s first story, the writer of “The Transformation” asks a pivotal question often considered by many atheists and agnostics in AA: “Was a spiritual awakening necessary for lifelong sobriety? If I didn’t have one, was I going to drink again?” The experience shared in this chapter puts that notion to rest, as nonbelievers of varying experience share how they are able to work the program successfully, one day at a time, as reflected in the words of Bill M. in