Faith and Fellowship [View All]

[varkam]

I had a bit of an uncomfortable encounter the other night, and I'm not sure how I should deal with it. It's actually an issue that has been building since I've been in recovery, but so far I've been mum on it.

I attend SAA in my city. It's a fairly small group (~20 people) but it's active. The other night, I met with two other members of my own volition. We talked about our lives, and (inevitably) the conversation turned towards religion; specifically Christianity. They wanted to know about my own religious beliefs, which I'm normally rather quiet about. I'm an atheist. I don't believe in any sort of supernatural powers or metaphysical realities. I have a higher power for the purposes of my recovery, but it doesn't require me to make any sort of a leap of faith - it's something that I know exists.

Anyway, I told them and essentially they proceeded to minister to me. To save my soul. I was put on the defensive and pretty much stayed there. I ended up leaving feeling pissed off and alienated.

The next meeting, during the preamble, something struck me - "SAA is not a religious organization..." That means, I take it, SAA is essentially secular in that it does not endorse any specific religion or way of thought over another. What that makes me think is that I should be free to tell people not to minister to me.

The reason I want to say that is not because I'm just being an uppity atheist. Often times, when something like that happens, I just end up feeling alienated. The special thing about the group is that we're all addicts, and so that is our common bond. But then I feel like some of the members use religion as a wedge between me and the rest of the group. All I want is to recover, and for all of them to recover as well. I just don't know what I should do. I don't want to continue to be ministered to and feel alienated from the rest of the group, but yet I don't want to alienate anyone else or ruffle anyone's feathers. In a sense, I'm at a loss. Thankfully most respect my beliefs, and I can get along quite well with them. I just wish I didn't have to put up with people trying to convert me.