I'm not *uncomfortable* with the God-talk per se; it's just that, even though the third step talks about a "God of our understanding", it really means evangelical Christianity (such were the program's roots, naturally), and "our understanding" really means "our understanding, so long as it's a personal, interventionist God". I'm agnostic but really more apathetic (I spend literally zero time thinking about these things), but I was raised in high-church Anglicanism -- actually maybe the best thing my father ever did for me, and I don't mean that at all backhandedly -- and all in my adult life I've been uncomfortable and unsatisfied even with regular Episcopal or Methodist churches, the kind of tradition AA is founded on. Basically the twelve steps rely on a very narrow tradition, wilfully blind to and ignorant of others. That's cool; that's how most religious people see the world and what comes most naturally to them and I respect that, but it leaves a lot of people out. But courts and publicly-funded institutions definitely shouldn't mandate twelve-step attendance as it's basically an evangelical program. I have other bones to pick with twelve-stepism but this was a sticking point for me. I tried the old fake-it-till-you-make-it with the third step (I wanted to be as happy as those people and that's the start of how they did it) but I never made it.
Thinking about it, the little things -- stammering to the checkout girl, feeling like the world was watching me -- reveal more an excessive self-consciousness with things like this rather than nerves. I guess I'm proud, or I don't like to show weakness. Probably would help to resolve this but not at the expense of feeling (even more, and self-imposed) pressure not to drink.
The best and most helpful AA-ism was not to take the first drink. Because it's definitely the first.
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