READ/DOWNLOAD PDF copy of March Blog “Atheists in the 12 Step Closet” CLICK HERE

“The times, they are a-changing.” Thank you, Bob Dylan. 

What is changing about what Americans believe? Once, 96-98% of Americans identified as Christian adherents. Gallup and others reveal that change is happening in two ways: first, a small but rapidly growing culture of “Good without God” contingent; secondly, people of faith are part of a more diverse faith landscape among the faithful. 

In the 249th year of the United States of America, citizens adhere to supernatural forces with many different names, characteristics, and messiahs, such as Islam, Hinduism, and Sikhism. Other Americans belong to religious communities that don't believe any higher power rules the universe, like Taoism and Buddhism. 

Gallup and others suggest that diversity will make the Christian worldview popular but no longer how most Americans identify. An omnist respects all religions and may follow more than one, conceding that none have all the answers. This could describe America before the country's 300th anniversary. 

I wonder about worldview and the increasing diversity of recovery communities, especially 12-step recovery. Still ubiquitous, 12-step approaches continue to share space with newer mutual-aid modalities. Recovery surveys show that most of us dabble, AA members go to Recovery Dharma and/or SMART Recovery, etc., and some find a spiritual journey that extends from the recovery community to the larger community.

2025 is an AA membership survey year for the USA/Canada and Great Britain. In an upcoming blog, let's look at ways this survey could give us a better understanding of what members believe and how important it is to their sobriety and well-being. Change within 12-step communities with secular/humanist/freethinker groups demonstrates that irreligious 12-step work garners the same good results as “our more religious members.”

• How many AA members believe, in a literal way, “No human power could have relieved our alcoholism, [and] That God could and would if He (She, It, They) were sought?
• How many 12-steppers go along to get along but do not believe in a prayer-answering, sobriety-granting higher power as anything more than a metaphor?
• How many newcomers turn away from 12-step groups, not because “they just aren’t ready,” but because “God as we understand Him” is objectionable or not helpful?

According to AA's estimation, we are a community of 123,000 groups in 180 countries, spoken in 100 languages, and attended by 1,970,000 members [i]. Each 12-step group has its both-feet-in members, strictly emulating the group's code and rituals. Side by side with more orthodox AAs, we find freethinkers, picking and choosing Steps, Traditions, and other AA offerings that are true and helpful for them. 

Groups know best, and members decide on meeting format and culture. Special composition groups offer like-minded people greater identification and relatability: women, LGBTQIA, Black Indigenous & People Of Colour, youth, career-specific groups (lawyers, pilots, doctors, etc.), atheists and agnostic groups, neurodivergent and more.

An essential asterisk about AA’s population is that 1.35 million members—68% of all members—live in the USA. This hasn’t always been so: in 1990, the USA had 896,000 of 1.8 Million AA members[ii]—under 50% of the total. So, USA demographics can tell us something about this substantial majority that influences AA. The rest of us have less influence regarding AA as a whole. AA grows in the USA and records fewer members everywhere else. 

Is AA just a microcosm of the world outside our meeting doors? 

In part, AA membership has what researchers call selection bias[iii] and/or systemic barriers for minorities and outliers. AA allows everyone to accept and reject parts of it, making it their own. We have our differences, but we are all equal.  

On the other hand, for anyone for whom a Big Book-god neither makes sense nor holds appeal, the readings and praying may signal that the path to much-needed social capital is arrived at through the doorway of belief in an AA brand of faith healing. Some feel safer not saying what they think: “I can’t tell you what is true for me without rubbing up against what you seem to all believe.” 

Some of us are brazen; we could give a damn if others liked what we said or not. Being an agitator is not uncomfortable for us. But for many, you’ll find us in the closet. We depend on connection as essential to recovery. We see the ridicule or hostility of others who say they are atheists; wouldn't it be great if everyone could talk candidly without causing a three-alarm fire?

Here's a story about an everyday American atheist who had to weigh what to say.

KATE COHEN AUTHORED WE OF LITTLE FAITH: WHY I STOPPED PRETENDING TO BELIEVE (AND MAYBE YOU SHOULD TOO) 2023

Identifying as Progressive Jewish (based on culture, not worldview), for Kate Cohen, God is fictional, using myth in storytelling ways. On The Thinking Atheist Podcast[iv], Cohen is asked why she didn’t speak out about God not being honest when she, as a youth, realized her atheism. 

“I was a cute little kid in dress up clothes, went to synagogue, had my Bar Mitzvah, said my prayers, read my Torah, sang the songs. … I did not speak out because I was a get-along kind of kid. I guess it would have been rude or impolite. I think that’s a lot of why people don’t speak out or bring it up, no matter what they think, we sort of nod and smile and do what our families are doing … 

In a way, it is a very large social pressure to be liked and be part of everything and not set yourself apart or aside from other people. I think it’s fascinating that we believe that other people believe what they appear to believe and talk about. 

 I’m not trying to get people to give up God who genuinely believe. I’m trying to get people, who don’t believe, to stand up for themselves.”
 

Can we predict what blow-back our candid atheism will cause in our 12-step community? With an undercurrent of conform-or-be-cast-out unsaid messages hanging in the air, waiting to speak up can feel like tomorrow is a better day to raise our hand and speak up.

Freethinkers in AA may think, “Sure, I would like to be an example to other skeptics who are staying quiet, but I can’t un-ring that bell once I open my mouth.” Can we predict what blowback will come from our candid atheism? 

Some people of faith suffer from secularphobia - an irrational fear and/or hate for irreligious views and people. This prejudice can be subconscious or intentional. 

What will be the catalyst for any of us to open up and make a stand? Speaking to American Humanists[v], Cohen goes into depth about the critical juncture of becoming a parent: 

“My kids made me an atheist,” Cohen shares from the podium, explaining the ritual of storytelling and book reading with her then three and five-year-old boys. A story about Zeus and a lightning bolt and inquiries from her kids started a conversation. Cohen explained to her kids that people didn’t understand much of what went on in the world; at the time, many thought Zeus was real. Now, most people don't believe such a thing. 

While many parents return to their place of worship with kids in tow, Kate Cohen felt she had to be honest with her kids about what she believes to be accurate. Well-intended, religious mythology is a human creation that explains the ineffable through storytelling. People who believe such things to be genuine are religious.

WHAT DO THESE 12-STEP PEOPLE BELIEVE--REALLY?  

In 12-step meetings, we find outspoken atheists or believers in the rooms. Some believe in a literal way. Others hide behind ambiguous discussions of higher powers or say nothing at all. 

I am a member of a secular meeting—one of several in my hometown—and a regular at others, online and in person. Every week, someone says, “I tried AA before, but I did not hear my story; petitioning a higher power for serenity, acceptance, wisdom? Gods aren't part of my worldview. Believing and belonging appear to be inextricably connected in AA. I thought that I couldn't belong if I didn't believe.” 

Others with 20 years of sobriety would join us; we would be witnesses to a real-time coming-out party. “How long have these meetings been going on? I was thinking of leaving AA because I was told to fake it years ago; I never made it. Feeling phoney, I started wondering if AA was for me.” 

Feeling welcome and safe to speak unabashedly builds connection. For long-timers, it breathes fresh life into recovery after trying to rationalize practicing rigorous honesty with hiding a secret. 

GALLOP REPORTING FROM 2022 PREDICTS POST-GOD AMERICA BY 2070. 

Here are some recent facts about changes. Among Americans, we find adherents, apostates and the irreligious. The future isn't an anti-theist America, but multi-faith America will replace the idea of a “Christian Nation.” 

• As of 2023, 22% of Americans follow no religious rituals or beliefs (called the “Nones”).
• Christians—who reached an all-time high in 1975 (50 years ago), when a mere 6% of Americans were irreligious (as far as we knew, anyway).
• Americans are leaving religion (apostates); the most common reason given for leaving/changing their religious identity is outgrowing their religion’s teachings. 
• 77% of Americans still identify as Christians. The USA is home to the largest number of Christians—248 million, 11% of the world’s followers of Christ, their saviour. 
• America today reflects a more diverse religious landscape. Besides Christianity, America reports various religious beliefs and backgrounds (largely Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism).
• Fewer Americans find that religion is very important, that they need to belong to a church, or that they believe in God. 
• This trend of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated ("Nones") has been estimated to reach 52 percent by 2070, ultimately taking over Christianity to make up the majority of the population.[vi]

The prevalence of identifying as having faith in a higher power is altered by how the question is asked— as high as 82% or as low as 42%. In “How Many Americans Believe in God,” Gallup.com, June 24, 2022, we see how results can vary. 

“ALWAYS THE BEAUTIFUL ANSWER THAT ASKS A MORE BEAUTIFUL QUESTION.” ee cummings

When asked in 2022, “Do you believe in God?” 81% of Americans say, “Yes." This is the wording used in polling since the 1940s. Ten years ago, believers identified with this style of questioning were 11% larger, at 92%.

Qualifying belief by asking, “Are you convinced that God exists?” 64% answered “Yes.” In 2005, 79% (15% more) responded with certainty to this question.  

“Who believes in a God that listens to prayers and intervenes in the lives of humans?” When asked about a higher power with this characteristic, 42% answered, “Yes.”[vii]

What clues does the 2022 Gallup report offer about AA’s beliefs? Does this match our assumptions about AA or the larger 12-step community?

In the USA, could it be that 42% of people believe in a higher power that "hears our prayers and intervenes"?

Cohen goes on to say that while she thinks more people talking about their atheism will welcome more people talking about atheism, she understands why some wisely chose to stay closeted. Coming out was low-risk for Kate Cohen. Her family already knew she was an atheist. Working at home and living in a Northeast USA town, Cohen felt safe being known as a nonbeliever. 

Cohen warns us that (some) Americans hate atheists. Data reveals that more Americans would rather see their children marry across race, religion, and political view or enter a same-sex marriage ahead of marrying an atheist. Social standing, work environment, happy home life and political aspiration can all be frustrated by letting others know, "I don’t pray to—or get my moral direction from—any gods—because there are none, at least none that care about or interfere with what we do here on earth.”

Is secular phobia a factor in AA? Everything is notoriously yes-and in AA. “Of course, you can believe anything you want,” is comfortingly heard from one member, and then from another, “Keep coming back—you’ll come around.” Mixed messages abound.

NOW FOR THE “ASK A GERVAIS!” SEGMENT OF OUR SHOW:

From comedian Ricky Gervais … 

“Saying atheism is a belief system is like saying not going skiing is a hobby.” 

Funnier and more popular than most scientists, Ricky fetches $150-$1,500 per ticket for a Toronto’s Scotia Bank Arena show in April 2025. Let’s enjoy this one-liner for free and move on to the scientist.

From Will M. Gervais PhD, psychologist and author of Disbelief: The Origins of Atheism in a Religious Species

“The success of religions, however, does not imply their inevitability. The fact that most of our species have been religious believers does not mean that atheism is unnatural, or even unlikely. It just means that our species has only recently (in cultural evolutionary scales) developed the sorts of societies in which religion loses its influence and in which atheism becomes easy.”

In an earlier Rebellion Dogs blog, I shared Will Gervais’s code-breaking inquiry, which seems to get accurate and revealing answers from Americans without putting them in a vulnerable state of being outed to others. In 2015, researchers Will Gervais and Maxine Najle (University of Kentucky's Department of Psychology) conducted two surveys. These surveys included a self-reporting group, a baseline group, and a target group. 

The self-reporting question asked, “Do you believe in God: Yes or No?" The clever approach is with how the baseline and target groups differ.

In Sample 1, the baseline is ten questions ("I am a vegetarian, I own a dog, I have a dishwasher, I can drive a motorcycle, I enjoy modern art, etc."). 

Baseline participants are asked, “Please count how many are NOT true statements about you.” If Participant X answers “six” as the answer, six out of the ten questions are not true for them; four are true. 

The Target Group has the same ten questions + inserted between five and six: “I believe in God.” 

Now, “six” as an answer would mean that six out of 11 are “not true.” 

In Sample 2, there is one baseline of seven questions. 

The Target Group added a question: “I do not believe in God (a positive instead of a negative assertion).” 

Another group had a Math question (instead of a God question), “I do not believe that 2+2 is less than 13.”

This U of K study was done in 2015 when Gallup's most recent findings were that 89% of Americans believe in God, with 11% atheists. The Unmatched Count Technique (UCT) ensures respondent anonymity. This reportedly provides an unbiased estimate of the prevalence of a characteristic (atheism) in a population.

Sample 1 suggested that 34% of Americans are atheists, while Sample 2 suggested 20%. Speaking of the difference, the report states:

“Sample II primarily differed from Sample I in that it included a positive affirmation of atheism rather than a more passive denial of theism in Sample I. … Our aggregate analysis, pooling across samples, provided an indirect atheism prevalence rate of 26%. …”[viii]

Gervais and Najle suggest a potential of 1/3 (34%) of Americans who don’t buy into the God construct (as of 2015). Census data from 2021 says, “the share of Americans who believed in God had fallen to 81%.” [ix] 

From a 12-step program approach, it is not so important that practicing members are 5% irreligious or 95% irreligious (not believing in, nor factoring in a God-construct to recovery practices); the more salient point is that it doesn't matter. As Will Gervais attests in his book, the point is that regardless of the prominence of faith healing AAs or the wording of the Steps, it “does not mean that atheism is unnatural or even unlikely.”

In Bill Wilson's Big Book writing, a concession is offered. From his “no human power can relieve our alcoholism” stance from the 1930s, 2 1/2 years of sobriety perspective, by 1941, he was more enlightened. In the “Spiritual Experience” Appendix added to the second printing, he added that the God-conscious experience, while it worked great, was unnecessary and less likely. Thousands of AA cases revealed that the “educational variety” and “an inner resource” was a more universal, inclusive way to frame AA recovery (Alcoholics Anonymous p. 567, 1941), being understandable in either secular or religious terms. 

AA, HOW ARE WE DOING; WHAT IS OUR POTENTIAL?

Everyone can point to literature to demonstrate a liberal or conservative (or secular vs. religious) AA narrative. See what the AA leaflet, A Newcomer Asks, says about AA pluralism…

“The majority of AA members believe that we have found the solution to our drinking problems not through individual willpower, but through a power greater than ourselves. However, everyone defines this power as [they wish]. Many people call it God, others think it is the collective therapy of AA, still others refuse to believe in it at all. There is room in AA for people of all shades of belief and non-belief.”[x]

Again, this is evolution, with more experience and wisdom that could be afforded by dozens of AA cases with less than three years of recovery…

“When we became alcoholics, crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is, or He isn’t. What was our choice to be?” (p. 53, Alcoholics Anonymous)

Again, we understand why so many are confused about what “the AA path” is or is not. With so much on the line, we can see how people on both sides could get enthusiastic, or evangelical. Most of AA is in the middle. 

On one hand, AA’s code is always inclusive—never exclusive.

On the other hand, we hear in a meeting, “We once believed as you did, but that was our ego and stubbornness. We came around, and you will, too.” 

So much of the foundational literature was written by one man, based on his views and informed by his experience and environment. 

Here’s a thought experiment: what if our primary literature was brought to us with a different founder and a different worldview? Put your curiosity-hat on and here is a colorful example.

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895 – 1986), born the same year as AA’s founder/author, grew up in South India to parents who were Brahman. 

Wilson and Krishnamurti were athletic, suffered family tragedies in youth, had transformative spiritual experiences and became writers. Both men may have been in London before World War I simultaneously. They may have been in New York City at the same time during one of Krishnamurti speaking tours.     

People who were students and/or influenced by Jiddu Krishnamurti include: Bruce Lee, Alan Watts, the Dalai Lama, Henry Miller, George Bernard Shaw and Aldous Huxley. If Wilson and Krishnamurti never met, Huxley would have talked to Bill about the man's teachings. Krishnamurti was a vegetarian, a teetotaler, a nonsmoker and a yoga practitioner. So, no surprise, he outlived Bill Willson (1985 - 1971) and died in 1986 in California of pancreatic cancer. 

Bellow, we find honesty, open-mindedness and willingness in Krishnamurti’s approach, the cornerstones of recovery in or out of AA:

“Truth is a pathless land. We cannot come to it through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, nor through any philosophical knowledge or psychological technique. We must find it through the mirror of relationship, through the understanding of the contents of our own mind, through observation, and not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection.”

Jiddu K (lol) was not about powerlessness, conforming to an outside agency, human or other-world. For anyone in AA, “As Jiddu Sees It,” can be applied to AA sobriety as successfully as following the steps with a sponsor, who had a sponsor, who had a sponsor, each taking the other through the Steps, precisely as written. 

It doesn't matter that The Steps are directive and Krishnamurti's pathless land encourages a make-it-your-own process. As Narcotics Anonymous reminds us, “Spiritual principles can never conflict with each other.” 

Conformity to a way that works is proven to be effective. Nonconformity, in part, informs every breakthrough in AA, going back to Bill writing a book that most others opposed. 

Differing needs, wants and opinions are not a conflict in AA; it is our diversity. Far from a problem to be eradicated, diversity is how “whenever, wherever a hand reaches out” works for many. Diversity is adaptive. Diversity is a readiness for an uncertain future and our best bet for continued usefulness of AA in the world.

Near the end of his life, Bill Wilson left us with, “Never fear needed change.”

 Yes, Dr. Bob said, “Keep it simple; don’t louse it up.” 

It's always a balancing act.

In our next blog, we will look at the many paths to AA sobriety: by-the-book AA, service-keeps-you-sober AA, leaving AA, freethinking, fundamentalism. We will look at the AA membership survey. The General Service of Great Britain asked members who believed in a higher power. Of those who did, who sees higher power as secular and who sees it in a religious way. The answers shocked the General Service Office. We will also look at AA’s secular manifesto: Living Sober. Should Living Sober get a make-over? 

The adventure continues…

https://RebellionDogsPublishing.com 

READ/DOWNLOAD PDF copy of March Blog “Atheists in the 12 Step Closet” CLICK HERE