When I first became a member of my 12 step program, I was looking for the differences.  I was comparing myself to others. It was difficult to see that I was alcoholic because I didn’t have a DUI. I had not been in jail.  I hadn’t stolen anything to support my addiction.  What I failed to do was to look at the similarities until an elderly gentleman in overhauls told my story.  I was a housewife with 5 kids, but this elderly man with nothing apparently in common with me told me who I was by his own testimony with alcohol.  I still find that amazing.  I’m awestruck by the common bond that those of us share who otherwise “would not mix.”  It was then that I started seeing the likeness, the similarities.  It was then that I accepted my disease and that I was like every other alcoholic and it was only a matter of time before my “have yet’s” would catch up to me.

I find a similar phenomenon with religion.  As alcoholics we are so bitter against God or anything resembling God that we are looking for the differences between us and those who believe. We are looking for why we shouldn’t believe.  If we are truly agnostic or atheist as we say we are, then why are we so angry with God and religion?  Why is it so hard to open our minds up to the possibility of not even a God, but a higher power?  I think we feel we’ve been burnt by religion and want nothing to do with it.  We’re afraid of being hurt and disappointed.  We’re afraid of another dead end road.  We’re afraid that nothing is on the other end of the line that we pray.

When I worked through my resentments with religion while working on step 4 of my 12 step program, I realized that I had played a part in my bad relationship with God.  Just like all of my bad relationships, I had some part to play in its disintegration.  Somewhere along the line, I blindly believed in someone else’s definition of God.  I didn’t take the time to think it through and discover for myself who God was to me.  I had expectations of what God was supposed to do for me based on expectations that someone else had fed me.  I had set myself up for failure.

When I finally began to define my higher power for myself, the resentments melted away.  Instead of looking for differences between myself and those “God believers”, I began to work with what was similar.  I began to look for the universal truths behind all religions.  I was told not to throw the baby out with the bath water.  Religion has given millions of peoples through thousands of generations hope, comfort, peace and direction.

What I found was a greater faith and the peace that comes with the unity of knowing I’m connected in some way to every human being on earth.  We all share something in common, including those periods when I doubt.  Doubt is part of the process.  I have something spiritually in common with people on the other side of the earth even though our lives and lifestyles normally “would not mix.”  I love and laugh and hurt and so does every human being on earth. I started there.  I think my higher power, or God, loves and laughs and hurts.

I noticed that all little boys think farting and burping is funny.  I think God does too.  I think God hurts when we hurt but, I think it hurts him more when we don’t use the power that he gave us to help ourselves and to help others.

I learned by taking calculus that there is more than one solution to a problem and that there is a solution.  Believe it or not, I learned about my higher power through mathematics.  It’s there if you look for it.  I learned how to find solutions in theoretical multidimensional worlds.  We ask why all the pain and suffering in the world.  I think God has provided solutions but we don’t use them.

With that being said, I’m not a religious person.  I do not attend church.  However, I do believe in the power of organized religion that helps millions of people all over the world with not only spiritual matters but also matters of survival. I also came to believe in the power of a loving God.

I think, just for today, I’ll look for and ponder the solutions that God has already given me.