Thanks for your message DE. I actually attend AA and NA as I don’t have a GA meeting where I live. I just treat my addictions as the same at this point. A meetings a meeting to me as long as I’m sharing what’s going on in my life and watching for any addictive behavior patterns that happen to me. I did treat my gambling addiction seperate in the beginning of my recovery that’s when I sought out help from a counselor who specializes specifically with gambling. I to had struggled with alot of the literature and higher power stuff. I’m not religious at all and struggle to even walk in a church actually. But I am super spirtual I’d consider myself more like a hippie if that paints a better picture. After awhile I started seeing that a higher power wasn’t a religious thing at all it was just something that made sense to me. Back in the day when the first meetings started the literature was written from a more religious standpoint. However now adays people have evolved to have many different beliefs and spiritual practices that different greatly from one another. The majority of people I’ve met in the programs have had the same mindset. They come in as what they consider an atheist at that time I would say the same about myself. Till this day I’d still consider myself an atheist in some ways as I don’t follow religious teachings. I have nothing against them as I no it helps many people im just not someone that believes that theory thats all. So maybe this will help you to separate yourself from the words used in those meetings. It took me a few years to see that the meetings and connection to people are super important for me. I’m still greatful to this day for the members who said this very exact thing to me in the beginning. It definitely helped me to feel less defensive walking in to a meetings.
