“We were plumb disgusted with religion and all its works” (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)
I was utterly contemptuous of spirituality and religion when I got to AA. I was almost entirely ignorant of both domains, but, concluding I was smarter than all the smart people operating in these domains, reasoned I could confidently dismiss all of the people down the ages, from Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, through Augustine and Aquinas, Donne, Milton, Spenser, Herbert, Tolstoi, Dostoyevsky, Kierkegaard, to G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, and even Tolkien, who believed in God and wrote about the matter. What any of them said did not need to be examined. It was plain to someone of my intellect that God did not exist, and that was the end of that, and anyone who disagreed with me was stupid or corrupt.
My conceit was matched only by my abysmal illiteracy.
“Finally, when all our score cards read ‘zero,’ and we saw that one more strike would put us out of the game forever, ...” (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)
It’s funny how almost dying of alcoholism can pluck the banana out of one’s ear.
Whilst I did not think I needed God, a summary judgment was issued in the case: there is no God.
When the only remaining option was God, the case was dismissed altogether: there was no further case. I had no choice but to believe. What else was I to do?
And it worked. If it is not God that has transformed my life, it is a power that is God-like in its extraordinary abilities, towering above all mortal efforts, in other words ... God.