“When bits of information or data are contextualized, we have knowledge. Knowledge helps us to appreciate what we know and to acknowledge that there is much we don’t; together these are the beginnings of understanding. Wisdom grows and understanding births humility and open-mindedness, both requisites for seeing things as they are.”

Judith Grisel, Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction (2019)[i]

I understand how and why AA has been recognized as “Religious in nature” by the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals in the USA. The legal interpretation is that if and when a parolee or probationer is coerced to participate in AA, the quasi-religious Twelve Step approach violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Weighing what is read in meetings, written in Alcoholics Anonymous (The Big Book), and the unapologetic tribalism about faith-healing is one of these “bits of information,” referred to above. In the absence of the context that comes with direct involvement in AA, I could come to the same conclusion that AA is religious.

Visit Secular AA LinkedIn for more about how legal, healthcare and human resource professionals can use Secular AA referrals to help people with addiction without religious conflicts/concerns.

There are 45 - 50 million copies of the Big Book in circulation. Academics and Treatment Professionals call us a “12-Step program.” In a movie, a Big Book is a recognizable prop that tells the viewer exactly what the setting is for this scene: we’re in an AA meeting, the meeting has a book and the book referrs to finding God as you understand Him as the primary antidote to the cycle of alcohol addiction.

Now with that in mind, I am an atheist; I am as sober as anyone in Alcoholics Anonymous. All of the cliches of AA—The Steps, the book, the beliefs—while popular, are not prerequisites. I can belong without believing (as others seem to). I know that we can have a perfectly effective AA meeting, with another book, or a magazine article, or no readings from any literature at all. Each AA group has the inalienable right to use a secular interpretation of the Twelve Steps, or five or fifteen Steps, or no Steps at all. A pathway to AA sobriety contingent on a spiritual connection works fine; but AA offers many paths.

In a 1709 poem, Alexander Pope guided us, “A little learning is a dangerous thing. Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.” While the Blind men of the 9th Circuit formed their conclusions about the AA Elephant, drinking deeper brings a growing understanding. The book Alcoholics Anonymous is rightfully recognized by the Library of Congress as one of 88 books that shaped America. That is amazing. And if you can quote the Big Book, but no phrase from Living Sober comes to mind, many can identify with you in this regard. "hominem unius libri timeo" - This is attributed to Thomas Aquainus, could be phrased today, “Fear the person of one book.” There are many examples and stories of recovery in AA that are worth preserving and sharing. Our AA Grapevine books and magazine catalogues new ones every week and month. Yes, our Big Book has value and deserves recognition. AND, it's not helpful for others; the theistic, or American-centric, or dated language can leave a reader feeling discounted. AND we have other choices. This isn't a competition. 

Is Alcoholics Anonymous religious, spiritual, neither? Findings from 25 years of mechanisms of behaviour change research

Dr. John Kelly of the Recovery Research Institute dared to explore how honestly the Big Book narrative characterizes the rank-and-file AA members’ experience of 21^stcentury AA recovery. During a collective push by healthcare academics to evaluate AA members’ mechanisms of behaviour change (MOBC), Kelly looks closely to “see things as they are.”

“While AA’s original main text (Alcoholics Anonymous, 1939; 2001; the ‘Big Book’) purports recovery is achieved through quasi-religious/spiritual means (‘spiritual awakening’), findings from studies on MOBC suggest this may be true only for a minority of participants with high addiction severity. AA’s beneficial effects seem to be carried predominantly by social, cognitive, and affective mechanisms. …Alcoholics Anonymous appears to be an effective clinical and public health ally that aids addiction recovery through its ability to mobilize therapeutic mechanisms similar to those mobilized in formal treatment, but is able to do this for free over the long-term in the communities in which people live.”[ii]

Kelly’s characterization isn’t the religious mechanism described by the 9^th Circuit US Court of Appeals - conclusions easily arrived at from a glance at Chapter Five of the new Plain Language Big Book:

“We believe the stories of our experiences as A.A. members all boil down to three simple ideas:

1. That we were alcoholics and could not manage our own lives.
2. That no human power could have stopped or changed our alcoholism.
3. That God could and would help us if we tried to find God.”[iii]

John Kelly’s paper was a literature review, as a basis for determining how AAs collectively overcome a biopsychosocial condition. To support his thesis, he had to look further than the first book he saw.

LIVING SOBER: AA’s practical, humanist program of lived experiences. 

Visit the literature table of your local AA meeting, as we may assume Harvard’s John Kelly did. As you browse the offerings of AA’s member-supported publications, you find the 1975 Living Sober. Celebrating 50 years in 2025,[iv] this year, we approach 8 million copies of Living Sober in print. This 31-Chapter, 92-page booklet of lived experience is a popular meeting-starter or handout for newcomers. 

While the methods described in Living Sober—which focus on daily, practical actions to avoid the first drink—align closely with principles studied in addiction research, such as cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) and relapse prevention, little scientific or academic attention has been paid to AA’s younger sibling in print, Living Sober. That’s a shame.

A broader understanding of AA’s many paths to recovery would better inform stakeholders. For instance, I am sure that if Living Sober had been the focus of the 9^th Circuit Court enquiry, they could not have so decisively characterized our fellowship and program as “religious in nature.” Living Sober is AA’s more earthly, humanist program of recovery from addiction. Sure, while shadowed by Big Book notoriety, being the third-best-circulated book in AA, over fifty-five printings (2024), is not insignificant. This is the secular—things as they are—AA narrative that dwarfs the Big Book in terms of breadth of tried and tested peer experience. Alcoholics Anonymous was one man’s future tripping, based primarily on his interpretation of his three years of sobriety. Living Sober is a retrospective of the collective experience of decades of sobriety.

There is no zealotry; no righteousness of the recently converted. As we read in Chapter 2:

“Each practice mentioned has proved useful to some members, and may be helpful to you. This booklet is intended as a handy manual to consult from time to time, not something to be read straight through just once, then forgotten. … there is no prescribed AA ‘right’ way or ‘wrong’ way. Each of us uses what is best … without closing the door on other kinds of help we may find valuable at another time. And each of us respects others’ rights to do things differently.”[v]

Some of the 31Chapters relate member experience (mechanisms of behaviour change) with: 

• Using the 24-hour plan
• Being good to yourself
• Getting plenty of rest
• Making use of ‘telephone’ therapy,
• Letting go of old ideas
• Seeking professional help
• Being wary of drinking occasions
• Going to AA meetings
• Being grateful

The way I explain the choice between these two AA books, “Here is our first book, written with a few years of experience over dozens of case-studies! Or, here is Living Sober, 40+ years of experience and hundreds of thousands of case-studies—you choose.” Of course, read or use either, neither, or both.

AA’s mechanism engages as one person with alcohol use disorder, talking with another, or others. A book is a format, an interpretation reflecting on what happens within a mutual-aid structure. The “program” is the heart-to-heart connection, hope, identity, meaning and empowerment that comes from the sharing and listening of two or more fellow sufferers, together online or in person.

You can read or listen to Living Sober for free @ AA.org. 

The 2025 General Service Conference passed a motion to provide Living Sober with an update on contemporary language, new science, and to apply what we recently learned about plain language in our first revision of Alcoholics Anonymous. 

Other Secular AA Literature

Along with the booklet Living Sober, there is a pamphlet of agnostic and atheist AA members, The “God” Word[vi].

Also, in 2018, From AA pioneer Jim B, writing about 30 years of irreligious sobriety and talking about how he helps new people whose integrity isn’t congruent with feigning belief in the supernatural, to 21^st century members talking about their own secular approach to AA life, AA Grapevine collected stories from the 1960s to present by AA atheists and agnostics and published: One Big Tent: Atheist and Agnostic Members share their experience, strength and hope.[vii]

In Phoenix AZ, November 13-15, 2026, the International Conference of Secular AA[viii] (ICSAA)’s theme will be “Many Paths,” with workshops, speakers and panels sharing about how unity, not uniformity, widens AA’s gateway.

 See this article in LINKED IN: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/identifying-mechanisms-behavioural-change-aa-harvard-doctor-atnxc