The wording of the steps often leads to people believing that all good things in their lives are a result of God, and all (or most) bad things are a result of them not being in line with God’s will for them.
— Jeffrey Munn, Staying Sober Without God (2018)
Some of us hit a wall in the program that had nothing to do with the work. We were willing to be honest. We were willing to look at ourselves. What we could not do, or could no longer pretend to do, was believe. The word God appeared in half the Steps. Many meetings ended with hands joined and prayers spoken. Some sponsors tried to assure us that if we only sought long enough, tried hard enough, something would arrive. For those of us for whom that never happened, the implication was difficult to ignore. Our recovery felt defective before it even began.
Jeffrey Munn spent years in that position. A psychotherapist with two decades in recovery, he eventually left meetings rather than continue faking a faith that would not come. What brought him back was not belief. It was the recognition that he had been confusing the container with the contents. His book is not an argument against the Steps, nor is it an argument against faith. It is written for those standing at the edge—unwilling to pretend, unwilling to walk away—who need to know there is a third option.
That option begins with a simple observation: the obstacle is often not the work itself, but the theological framing around it. References to God, surrender, and divine removal of shortcomings can suggest that recovery depends on correct belief. Munn argues the power of the Steps has never been theological. It has always been structural.
But the framing does more than confuse. When credit for every good thing flows to God and responsibility for every setback lands on personal spiritual failure, we end up in a position that is intrinsically disempowering. Progress becomes something that happens to us. Relapse becomes evidence that we weren’t aligned with God’s will. The agency that recovery actually requires, the willingness to own our choices, examine our patterns, and change our behaviour, gets attributed elsewhere. For people whose belief is solid, this may work. For those of us for whom it doesn’t, it can undermine the very foundation we’re trying to build.
Beneath the language, the early Steps describe psychological movements. Step One requires admission that a cycle is causing harm, and that admission disrupts denial. Step Two introduces the idea that our own thinking has been unreliable. We have been trying to solve a problem with the same mind that created it. That recognition challenges ego authority. Step Three formalizes commitment to something beyond immediate impulse. Whether that framework is described as God, community, shared values, or disciplined process, the effect is the same: isolation is reduced and self-justification is limited. None of this requires supernatural intervention. It requires participation and repetition.
Munn’s reframing preserves the demands of the program while removing the assumption that transformation must originate outside human agency. Humility becomes recognition of cognitive limits rather than submission to a deity. Surrender becomes abandonment of strategies that have repeatedly failed. Faith becomes trust in a structured process tested through collective experience. The emphasis shifts from belief to behaviour. Belief cannot be manufactured on command. Behaviour can be practised.
Community remains central to this model. A group provides corrective feedback and modelling that an isolated mind cannot generate on its own. Shared experience counters the illusion that personal reasoning is sufficient. In this sense, “Higher Power” can be understood functionally as the stabilizing influence of collective wisdom and shared principle. What matters is not the terminology but the outcome—the reduction of ego isolation and the reinforcement of accountable behaviour.
This is not a claim that faith has no value. For many people, belief is genuinely central to their recovery, and Munn says so plainly. He is a fan of what works, and he has no argument with those for whom God works. What he disputes is the insistence that recovery is impossible without it—an insistence that turns away a growing number of people who might otherwise benefit from a structure that has helped millions.
When stripped to its operational core, the program functions as a disciplined system for interrupting self-deception and building habits aligned with chosen values. Structure replaces chaos. Accountability replaces secrecy. Repetition reshapes identity over time. The invitation is not primarily to adopt a belief but to adopt a disciplined way of living. The outcome depends less on what is professed and more on what is practised—and that is something all of us, regardless of where we stand on God, can work with.
Where does the language of the Steps help me, and where does it get in the way?
Which Steps open up when I focus on what they ask me to do rather than what they ask me to believe?
Where in my recovery have I already been building something, without naming it that way?
What becomes possible when the structure is enough?
