Joined in 2023 
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Daily Reflections is irrelevant to me, and to my AA experience. In my area, I’ve only ever seen one meeting centered around the book. People quote it in meetings almost never. It’s not as if I’m assailed with it. Are there “Daily Reflections Thumpers” somewhere?
No matter what the beginning quote, and no matter what the following “reflection” says about that quote, and even no matter whether or not it even says something intelligent, or coherent about that reflection, which is far from always the case – somehow, even if there has been nothing up to that point to warrant it – they invoke god in (usually) the last three lines. Gratitude toward god, or just plain talking about the things god does in the ordinary course of existence which apparently can’t be otherwise understood. There is an obsessive quality about it which it seems couldn’t have happened at random if they indeed just barely got enough responses to put the book together. There must be more at work. Or is it really just me having a god persecution complex?We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. While we have seen signs that the General Service Board is staffed by open-minded people, the General Service Conference which makes all the decisions for AA literature seems bent on exercising “tyranny of the majority” by keeping all of AA as Christian as possible. Some of our early literature has specifically Christian roots. What Bill wrote in 1938 with three years of sobriety is forgivable. The way Bill’s every word from those beginnings is canonized while his later writings are ignored is not. Only Step One, where we made the 100 percent admission we were powerless over alcohol, can be practiced with absolute perfection.
The secular ones. I have to confess that there were more secular ones than I had expected. I did define secular as broadly as I felt able to do, including quite a few which generically talked about spirituality, some which in passing mentioned faith, in a couple of instances even prayer – however, so long as they didn’t specifically refer to a deity, but only to the state of being as it relates to a person themselves, and one for quoting the 6th step where the reflection itself did not invoke god. There were 124 days of these, and my broad definition may include about 20 which some people would say belong to category 2. While the “Many Paths to Spirituality” pamphlet mentions atheists and agnostics, it still boils down to just One Way, “the 12 Steps just as they are written in the Big Book”, and in no way at all legitimizes the presence in AA of those of us who reject a God as their source of our sobriety. It has not – in the least – made traditional meetings more accepting of and open to non-believers. And I have never yet heard a secularist newcomer say that because he has read the “Many Paths” pamphlet, he or she now feels welcomed with open arms in AA. Why all this insistence that every A.A. must hit bottom first? The answer is that few people will sincerely try to practice the A.A. program unless they have hit bottom. For practicing A.A.’s remaining eleven Steps means the adoption of attitudes and actions that almost no alcoholic who is still drinking can dream of taking. Of late, however, I’ve been gifted with an ability to be more compassionate towards those who believe so differently from me and must, perhaps fearfully, cling to their ardent beliefs in an external deity to save them not only from eternal damnation after they pass, but from the ravishes of their addiction while still enclosed within their mortal coil.Lo and behold – it had me reaching for the bottle instead; and I’m half in half out when it comes to God. People who want to find the reflections do not have to look very far. They can find the original hard copy book: The religious, where god is the most important part of whatever is being talked about. The ones where AA shows the side of itself where it is more of a religion than a recovery program. And you just can’t get all religious without talking a bunch about god, so those are nothing but, such as January 1st. There were 34 days of that. And then there is this article on attempts to get AA literature for agnostics and atheist in AA: An AA Pamphlet for Agnostics: The 1980s. Years ago, I was presented Came To Believe as a book some well-intentioned pinhead thought might put me on the path to salvation. It didn’t. The book is crap, so I never read it again.
In October 1988, the trustees’ Literature committee reported the following with regard to the response of the mailing: The exception I believe is Dr. Bob Smith who, perhaps a little more predisposed to this than Wilson, accepted the Oxford Group’s explanation for that power; it was God.I live in a big city; a privilege that is easy to take for granted. I have dozens of meeting to choose from every day. Now, in Toronto, if I don’t mind driving, I have choices of agnostic AA groups to go to on some days. I have to remember that this isn’t every AA member’s experience. In many AA towns there is one meeting a day – take it or leave it. My soul is restless till it finds its rest in Thee.” A river flows on, until it loses itself in the sea. Our spirits long for rest in the Spirit of God. We yearn to realize a peace, a rest, a satisfaction that we have never found in the world or its pursuits. Some are not conscious of their need, and shut down the doors of their spirits against the spirit of God. They are unable to have true peace. After reading Jan and Feb, I cheated and fast-forwarded a couple of months to see if things got better. Then another couple of months. The DR Text Is Meant to Act as a Complement to the “Big Book,” as It Focuses on Other Areas of Recovery Like:
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