In my experience, AA is very open about the “higher power” thing and every meeting I have ever been to has also emphasized the flexibility and variety of what that even means to a person. But I would argue there’s absolutely a reason why it’s said that you need to hit your personal rock bottom first. Recovery is a wild experience and you do only reach it when you are so out of ideas as to how to make your own bullshit work anymore. I’m sober today although not through attending AA. But - in retrospect - the whole thing does make logical sense to me and my process looked a lot like the progression of the 12 steps. While I still have criticisms and skepticisms of AA, I wouldn’t consider it to be anywhere in the vicinity of anti-abortion “pregnancy centre” type deceptions.
In my experience, AA is very open about the “higher power” thing and every meeting I have ever been to has also emphasized the flexibility and variety of what that even means to a person. But I would argue there’s absolutely a reason why it’s said that you need to hit your personal rock bottom first. Recovery is a wild experience and you do only reach it when you are so out of ideas as to how to make your own bullshit work anymore. I’m sober today although not through attending AA. But - in retrospect - the whole thing does make logical sense to me and my process looked a lot like the progression of the 12 steps. While I still have criticisms and skepticisms of AA, I wouldn’t consider it to be anywhere in the vicinity of anti-abortion “pregnancy centre” type deceptions.