A non-theistic approach to 12 step addiction recovery programs?

[Vulture]

And for the rest of you spiritual fuck you never tapped into the singularity and I can not and will not help you. You are looking for salvation from an imaginary figure

Which... you are trying to become. 

[X0MB13]

No, not singularity in that sense either....not gettin into religion discussions unless bullshitting people out of their money for salvation and the accompanying tax breaks  makes it worthwhile

[Obvious Alt]

My brother started his intensive outpatient program for his drug addictions, and understandably has reservations about the whole thing.  He says they want him to join 3 (?) 12 step programs, and they count regular church sermons as one of them if a person so chooses.  I'm a little confused on that point and it's hard getting information out of him even though I'm terribly interested lol.  One of the issues he's having though is the whole "admit to powerlessness/give yourself up to a higher power" thing.  This is probably a common problem people find themselves faced with, and I found some really interesting stuff online about it, but I thought I'd bring it up here to see what you guys thought.

One of the things I found when searching for non-theistic approaches to the 12-step program was replacing the 12 steps with the four noble truths, and then the eightfold path.  Haven't had time to really compare and contrast those twelve with the AA stuff but it made sense to me at a glance- powerlessness being paired up with accepting the reality of suffering, etc.  My brother's not too into spirituality at this point in his life though so maybe there's something else.

It's all just a bunch of gobbled-gook to try to help you fill whatever void you had in your life that lead you to the drug addiction in the first place.  You can fill this void with anything you would like.  12 steps, 4 truths, 8 folds, 72 virgins, etc.  In the end, it doesn't really matter.

Wisdom.