Rebellion Dogs Radio

This recording is the first-ever "We Agnostics" panel at AA's International Convention, held in Seattle to celebrate 55 years of AA in 1990.

At the time of recording, we are a couple of weeks from the 90th Anniversary of AA, held in Vancouver, Canada, from July 2nd to 6th. There will be another We Agnostics Panel at 9:30 AM on Saturday, and also, "What is a secular AA format?" Friday afternoon and "One Big Tent" named after the Grapevine booklet of Atheist and Agnostic Experience, Strength and Hope. The International Conference of Secular AA will have a hospitality suite from Thursday to Sunday. Check the program for details and come see us.  

This recording included Bruce and Sarah from the We Agnostics group in Seattle, Charlie P from Hollywood, Mary N from Florida and Phylis from New York. 

Rebellion Dogs Publication is devoted to wellness, mental health and secular life. Special attention is afforded to people in recovery from addiction seeking a secular, non-religious approach. Subjects include medicine, art, non-fiction, research, demographics, psychology, therapy and the creative process. 

Since 2005, visit us for records of previously published journalism, music, radio and print, including 30 Things: Practical Advice for Living Well, Beyond Belief: Agnostic Musings for 12 Step Life and other great books, radio and podcasts.  Please join the conversation: social media, contact info, links, and show notes. 

Visit https://rebelliondogspublishing.com/home-page

In 2000, Minneapolis featured the third rendition of non-believers at the quadrennial International convention of AA. In 1990 We Agnostics was part of the Seattle AA program. In 1995 We Agnostics was hosted by the San Diego AA World Convention; there has been such a panel every world convention since, in Toronto 2005, San Antonio 2010, Atlanta 2015. Detroit 2020 was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

When posting this, there are less than 70 days to Vancouver 2025, The Language of the Heart, July 3 to 6. Visit https://www.aa.org/international-convention for registration and information. In the Vancouver program, you'll find the "Secular AA Hospitality suite. " Come and visit us. We will have two freethinker/agnostic meetings in Vancouver: We Agnostics + One Big Tent. Hope to see some of you there. 

• Chaired by Bob F, NY City We Agnostics Group, 
• Gwen G,, Miami, 
• Fred C., British Columbia, Canada, sober for 48 years at the time. Sober from about 1952?
• Richard B, Cleveland

Any locals, Rebellion Dogs is curious about any record of Fred, a freethinker in Canada AA from the 1950s. If anyone knows someone who knew him, we'd love to hear more about his biography. 

VIsit https://aasecular.org for more information and recordings, and/or see more Rebellion Dogs @ https://rebelliondogspublshing.com  

Rebellion Dogs Publication is devoted to wellness, mental health and secular life. Special attention is afforded to people in recovery from addiction seeking a secular, non-religious approach. Subjects include medicine, art, non-fiction, research, demographics, psychology, therapy and the creative process. 

Since 2005, visit us for records of previously published journalism, music, radio and print, including 30 Things: Practical Advice for Living Well, Beyond Belief: Agnostic Musings for 12 Step Life and other great books, radio and podcasts.  Please join the conversation: social media, contact info, links, and show notes. 

Visit https://rebelliondogspublishing.com/home-page

The AA World Convention is a quinquennial gathering to celebrate the anniversary of Alcoholics Anonymous.  

Since 1990, there has been a “We Agnostics Panel." At the time of posting, we are 80 days away from Vancouver 2025, July 3-6. AA World Convention with the theme “Language of the Heart.” 

2025's AA celebration will include a Secular AA Hospitality Suite, which you can find in your 2025 AA Vancouver program. We are open Thursday, Friday, and Saturday; come and visit. There will be another "We Agnostics" panel + all about being part of a secular AA group in another panel called "One Big Tent." Who knows what other panels of the 700 +/- speakers among our secular members will participate?  

Rebellion Dogs will share some of these previous recordings. In 1995, in San Diego, we celebrated 60 years since Bill W. met Dr. Bob, the birth of AA. There is no society of one person; therefore, two sober people equals the birth of this peer-to-peer society.  

The moderator was Jacques F, AAWS Director and freethinker from the Serendipity Group in Pointe-Claire, Quebec. Speakers included Merl E. from Hollywood We Agnostics group, Mel D from New York City and  Linda F from the Freedom Group Tuscon AZ who had a coming-out as a non-believer at the podium. 

Following the formal speakers, we heard from the crowd: Bill, Allan, Quad-A, Chicago, Pete, Matt, Norma Jean, Adrian, John, Katie, Carrie, We Agnostics of Passedina, CA, Elizabeth from Back to Basics in San Francisco and Melanie. 

Rebellion Dogs Publication is devoted to wellness, mental health and secular life. Special attention is afforded to people in recovery from addiction seeking a secular, non-religious approach. Subjects include medicine, art, non-fiction, research, demographics, psychology, therapy and the creative process. 

Since 2005, visit us for records of previously published journalism, music, radio and print, including 30 Things: Practical Advice for Living Well, Beyond Belief: Agnostic Musings for 12 Step Life and other great books, radio and podcasts.  Please join the conversation: social media, contact info, links, and show notes. 

Visit https://rebelliondogspublishing.com/home-page

Connection

Hope

Identity

Meaning

Empowerment

These commonalities of most people who thrive (vs. cope) in recovery from addiction and mental health comes from the research of Mary Leamy, Senior Lecturer in Mental Health Recovery and Staff Wellbeing, and Associate Dean for Postgraduate Research programme, Kings College in London

https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/mary.leamy

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22130746/ 

How CHIME applies to people in recovery has been the basis of research for Rebellion Dogs Publishing for three years. We continue to present and encourage participation in workshops with people in recovery, through 2025. Previous workshops have included Vancouver BC, Savannah GA, Kingston ON and presented at the International Conference of Secular AA in Orlando, September 2024.

Joe C is the author of Beyond Belief: Agnostic Musings for 12 Step Life

Rebellion Dogs Publication is devoted to wellness, mental health and secular life. Special attention is afforded to people in recovery from addiction seeking a secular, non-religious approach. Subjects include medicine, art, non-fiction, research, demographics, psychology, therapy and the creative process. 

Since 2005, visit us for records of previously published journalism, music, radio and print, including 30 Things: Practical Advice for Living Well, Beyond Belief: Agnostic Musings for 12 Step Life and other great books, radio and podcasts.  Please join the conversation: social media, contact info, links, and show notes. 

Visit https://rebelliondogspublishing.com/home-page

Dr. Joe Nowinski's book ideas comes from working in the trenches, not from any ivory tower. Episode 77 of Rebellion Dogs Radio looks at a run-of-the-mill problem in early recovery that doesn’t get enough ink: if we are together in a relationship and you go to treatment and come home to stay sober, should I live a sober life too? It’s your problem. Well, that’s one way to look at it; others would feel we are in this together.

Here’s another case: a couple is together for a long time. Neither has ever had a legal or health scare because of using alcohol or other drugs. Still, their consumption has increased, and the relationship is suffering from some consequences. Should they consider being a sober couple, or is sober just for people diagnosed as severe on the alcohol use disorder spectrum? 

Dr. Joe Nowinski has a new book (Johns Hopkins Press Health Book, September 10, 2024) called Sober Love: How to Quit Drinking as a Couple. This is from case studies over years of family practice as a clinical psychologist.

Former Chief Medical Officer of Hazelden Betty Ford says, “Dr. Nowinski is a highly qualified expert who uses the latest research and his clinical expertise to couples that recognize that alcohol has interfered with their lives." Dr. Marvind D. Seppala goes on to say, "Alcohol can undermine even the best of relationships. Sober Love delivers the information necessary to develop a plan.”

Addiction Medicine doctor Ray Baker says, “I am delighted to recommend this gem of a book! It offers the knowledge, tips and skills needed for recovery people in intimate relationships to interconnect on their mutual journey of growth. It’s one of a kind.”

If you’re a Rebellion Dogs Radio long-timer, you know Joe’s a repeat guest. Mary C and Joe C talk with Dr. Nowinski after reading his book. If you are new to Rebellion Dogs Radio, visit our website for links and further discussions:

Recovery After Rehab: A Guide for the Newly Sober and Their Loved Ones (2021) on Episode 62 & If You Work It It Works! The Science Behind the 12 Steps (2015) on Episode 12. 

Rebellion Dogs Publication is devoted to wellness, mental health and secular life. Special attention is afforded to people in recovery from addiction seeking a secular, non-religious approach. Subjects include medicine, art, non-fiction, research, demographics, psychology, therapy and the creative process. 

Since 2005, visit us for records of previously published journalism, music, radio and print, including 30 Things: Practical Advice for Living Well, Beyond Belief: Agnostic Musings for 12 Step Life and other great books, radio and podcasts.  Please join the conversation: social media, contact info, links, and show notes. 

Visit https://rebelliondogspublishing.com/home-page

What’s Different?

• The first 164 pages are now 122 pages – by simplifying the language.
• More “gender-balanced” – e.g. jaywalker is female; but not gender-neutral using “they”.
• The wording of the Steps has not changed from Him/His, but in other places,gender-balanced He/Him/His “may have changed to God”.
• Only “Dr. Bob’s Nightmare” is included in the stories (more on some problematic Doctor Bob language to follow).

Plain language interpretation reduced 164 pages by 25%—a noteworthy reduction. How Bill wrote does not fit in as far as a contemporary discussion about alcohol use disorder or addiction in general. Here’s an example: it is unimaginable to expect to hear or read this abstract and flowery description of alcohol use disorder at your doctor’s office:

“But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is finitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die. 

If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics, these things are poison (“How It Works,” p. 66).”

Referred to in this show:

 THE BLOG POST (Read on PDF or Website) includes AA membership from 2002 to 2020, which changed (+/-) over 20 years and more.

https://rebelliondogspublishing.com/blog/blog/7425695/plain-language-big-book-coming-soon-who-what-where-when-why

Biographies of the 28 AA stories in the first edition of Alcoholics Anonymous (and other AA stories)Referred

https://library.iusb.edu/search-find/archives/gcarchive/docs/ref-bb-authors.pdf 

2020 Membership Survey from Great Britain General Service Office+ 

81% of newcomers and 94% of people sober 10+ years believe in a higher power (Great Britain and English-speaking Central Europe). Of those who believe, ⅓ believe in a religious god, ⅔ believe in a secular higher power. See page 11.

https://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/AA-Membership-Survey-2020.pdf

Other show notes....
https://rebelliondogspublishing.com/rebellious-radio/blog/7438907/plain-language-big-book-episode-76-rebellion-dogs-radio

Rebellion Dogs Publication is devoted to wellness, mental health and secular life. Special attention is afforded to people in recovery from addiction seeking a secular, non-religious approach. Subjects include medicine, art, non-fiction, research, demographics, psychology, therapy and the creative process. 

Since 2005, visit us for records of previously published journalism, music, radio and print, including 30 Things: Practical Advice for Living Well, Beyond Belief: Agnostic Musings for 12 Step Life and other great books, radio and podcasts.  Please join the conversation: social media, contact info, links, and show notes. 

Visit https://rebelliondogspublishing.com/home-page

We look at history—why? Isn’t this a contemporary, or even future gazing look at recovery and addiction?

Well yes and yes. Yuval Noah Harari, PDH author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind says, “History is not the study of past; history is the study of change; it’s not about remembering the past; it’s about liberating ourselves from it.”

Episode 75 of Rebellion Dogs Radio explores three calls to action by Alcoholics Anonymous that need our attention in 2024:

1.            New stories of AA diversity today are needed to update the 48-year-old Do You Think You’re Different? Let’s get our freak on; if you ever felt you can’t or won’t blend into AA, we want you to help demonstrate what we mean by, “We are people who normally would not mix. But there exists among us a fellowship, a friendliness, and an understanding which is indescribably wonderful.”

2.          About our primary literate in AA—The Big Book + 12 & 12: rewrite it? Or reify it? Grappling with a need to adapt to changing times, being sensitive to change-resistant tendencies, the trustees’ Literature Committee is polling members, looking for their marching orders: preserve what’s written; or breathe fresh life into last millennium’s AA message and widen our gateway? Directly from AA’s General Service Office, we have these seven questions for you.

3.         The 2022, much anticipated, AA membership survey is posted with current data on AA for all to see; counselors, healthcare and criminal court diversion professional who refer people to AA, the general public and last but not least AA members to show how we are doing, from our home groups to the USA/Canada General Service Conference at reaching all those who want or need AA to be available, equitably, and effectively. Our responsibility declaration nudges us to look at this new info, see who were are serving, who we may be failing and confront how, whenever, wherever, someone reaches out, we want the hand of AA always to be there (for everyone regardless of age, race, gender, creed, cultural touchstones). There’s information for the first time about USA/Canada AA’s use of online meetings and our preferences. It’s like those pioneering driving blind days all over again.

DIVERSITY:  What makes you different?

If you are someone in recovery and you were helped by peer-to-peer, maybe AA specifically, did you immediately feel at home at your first meeting, or did you feel different that the group you were exposed to? If you felt or feel different, we have a humble writing assignment for you as our first topic.

The  AA Literature desk wants your story, 500—800 words. DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DIFFERENT? is the 48-year-old pamphlet #13 that tipped the scale in my own should-I-stay or should-I-go sobriety. I found people (stories) spoken in my language for the first time in AA. If you do not know this collection of AA stories, click the link to read. Thirteen essays of people who felt marginalized, a teenager, atheist, clergy, high bottom, low bottom, movie star, person of color, LGBTQIA+, share the barriers and bridges navigated to find a rightful seat in AA. How timely to hear from a 15-year-old when I was a teenage alcoholic. I was happy to read what Ed the AA atheist and Jan the AA agnostic had to say about sobriety without an anthropomorphic personal higher power. 

It's a great recovery tool; and it’s old. Today’s teenager doesn’t have any use for 1970s teenage angst; it could be unrelatable, leaving gender identification, pronouns et al alone for now—yes we need to attend to contemporary, sensitive, inclusive language, but—it all starts with a story, one person in recovery talking to another with alcohol use disorder. This

Rebellion Dogs Publication is devoted to wellness, mental health and secular life. Special attention is afforded to people in recovery from addiction seeking a secular, non-religious approach. Subjects include medicine, art, non-fiction, research, demographics, psychology, therapy and the creative process. 

Since 2005, visit us for records of previously published journalism, music, radio and print, including 30 Things: Practical Advice for Living Well, Beyond Belief: Agnostic Musings for 12 Step Life and other great books, radio and podcasts.  Please join the conversation: social media, contact info, links, and show notes. 

Visit https://rebelliondogspublishing.com/home-page

From our Radio vault, Episode 19 features Richard, a Canadian Slam Poet, Comedian, pianist + Jack from LA, punk rocker, author, and recovering Big Book thumper. This show was recorded in the Fall of 2015. It is eight years later - both of these mavericks are doing their thing, in meetings and on stage. Visit our website for links if you connect with Jack, Richard, or both of these samples of recovery. I suspect that one or both are performing somewhere you could get to, or maybe in a meeting on Zoom or just down the road from you. Jack's book, A Principle of Recovery: An Unconventional Journey Through the Twelve Steps is only a click or two away, also

Most of all, how these people with addiction found recovery in the rooms and adapted what they found to fit their worldview and the life they lead, is a story worth listening to again... or again and again.

Also discussed on this podcast, Vancouver will host the International Convention of Alcoholics Anonymous the first weekend of July, 2025. This quinquennial event has happened (almost) every five years since 1950. In 2020 we were supposed to be in Detroit but COVID, who remembers COVID and an in-person event of tens of thousands wasn't going to happen in Motown or anywhere. So, some restless folks are going to be eager to get out and share in the spectacle and spend the money already saved up in their Big Book sized piggy bank. That said, crazy as it might sound, it may not be too early to think about booking a hotel room or Air B'n'B because VanCity will be overcapacity, I am pretty sure of that. Also on the planning ahead front, the twice postponed 2020 and 2022 biennial International Conference of Secular AA had to funnel atheists and agnostics onto Zoom because Washington DC wasn't going to happen for the same reasons mentioned above. Orlando Florida, September 20-22 we--or some of "we" are going to to be all Goofy, Mickey and Minnie or Donald Ducky for the weekend. Info for Secular AA ICSAA 2024

For more on this Rebellion Dogs Radio classic, blogs, books, community and other ways to engage with time well wasted, visit Rebellion Dogs Radio for links and show notes or to comment. We are all in this together; Rebellion Dogs would enjoy hearing from you.
https://rebelliondogspublishing.com/ 

Rebellion Dogs Publication is devoted to wellness, mental health and secular life. Special attention is afforded to people in recovery from addiction seeking a secular, non-religious approach. Subjects include medicine, art, non-fiction, research, demographics, psychology, therapy and the creative process. 

Since 2005, visit us for records of previously published journalism, music, radio and print, including 30 Things: Practical Advice for Living Well, Beyond Belief: Agnostic Musings for 12 Step Life and other great books, radio and podcasts.  Please join the conversation: social media, contact info, links, and show notes. 

Visit https://rebelliondogspublishing.com/home-page

It was the Fall of 2019, Writing the Big Book: The Creation of AA by William Schaberg was about to be published and Joe C sat down with the author to talk about the soon-to-be-unveiled book born of eleven years of primary documentary research on Rebellion Dogs Radio, Episode 49. Four years later, more has been revealed and new insights gained. So listeners asked, “When are you two going to sit down again for a podcast?” Here it is. 
 
 This time around we look at new insights and speculation into early AA history. Bill and Joe share about their own recovery experience and reflect on changing AA culture through the years and what might inform the future of AA groups, members and culture. 

• We talk about The “God” Word: Agnostics and Atheists in AA
• We talk about the upcoming ZOOM October 7th/8th ICSAA (International Conference of Secular AA).
• We talk about the probable influence of the most popular New Thought books of the day and how this cultural phenomena informed our AA 12-Step suggested program of Recovery. Read “Bill W's secret bookshelf.” 
• We talk about the idea that and documentary evidence that supports the idea that Bill W thought he was done writing the Big Book--without the 12 steps or any step-by-step guide.
• We talk about Episode 49: when we first talked writing Writing the Big Book: The Creation of AA (click to read/listen) 

Rebellion Dogs Radio always features rebellious music. Episode 74 feature a Toronto band covering a recently lost British icon who died, too young, but sober: Goodnight Sunrise covers David Bowie's Major Tom. 

Rebellion Dogs thinks this Major Tom cover is amazingly artistic and new sounding - it may send you clamoring back for your original psychedelic era version (and that's okay, too). Visit Goodnight Sunrise, view their campy look at the music industry today in their video WAIT FOR IT. See this band live if you get the chance.

SHOW NOTES & LINKS EPISODE 74 of REBELLION DOGS RADIO

Rebellion Dogs Publication is devoted to wellness, mental health and secular life. Special attention is afforded to people in recovery from addiction seeking a secular, non-religious approach. Subjects include medicine, art, non-fiction, research, demographics, psychology, therapy and the creative process. 

Since 2005, visit us for records of previously published journalism, music, radio and print, including 30 Things: Practical Advice for Living Well, Beyond Belief: Agnostic Musings for 12 Step Life and other great books, radio and podcasts.  Please join the conversation: social media, contact info, links, and show notes. 

Visit https://rebelliondogspublishing.com/home-page

Two Davids, facing two Goliaths of stubborn orthodoxy are the focus of Episode 17 of Rebellion Dogs Radio.

One rebel is Mark Lewis, who challenges the disease model of addiction.

Greta Vosper, atheist minister of the United Church of Canada, who at the time was facing a review of her peers who found her liberalism to be maybe too far to be called even progressive Christianity.

Looking back in 2023, these heretical views of not so long ago are today's contemporary views or worldview and/or substance use disorder and wellness.

Visit original posting for links REBELLION DOGS #17 August 30 2015

Visit Rebellion Dogs Publishing for the latest

Rebellion Dogs Publication is devoted to wellness, mental health and secular life. Special attention is afforded to people in recovery from addiction seeking a secular, non-religious approach. Subjects include medicine, art, non-fiction, research, demographics, psychology, therapy and the creative process. 

Since 2005, visit us for records of previously published journalism, music, radio and print, including 30 Things: Practical Advice for Living Well, Beyond Belief: Agnostic Musings for 12 Step Life and other great books, radio and podcasts.  Please join the conversation: social media, contact info, links, and show notes. 

Visit https://rebelliondogspublishing.com/home-page