This recording is the first-ever "We Agnostics" panel at AA's International Convention, held in Seattle to celebrate 55 years of AA in 1990.

At the time of recording, we are a couple of weeks from the 90th Anniversary of AA, held in Vancouver, Canada, from July 2nd to 6th. There will be another We Agnostics Panel at 9:30 AM on Saturday, and also, "What is a secular AA format?" Friday afternoon and "One ...

In 2000, Minneapolis featured the third rendition of non-believers at the quadrennial International convention of AA. In 1990 We Agnostics was part of the Seattle AA program. In 1995 We Agnostics was hosted by the San Diego AA World Convention; there has been such a panel every world convention since, in Toronto 2005, San Antonio 2010, Atlanta 2015. Detroit 2020 was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

When posting this, there a...

The AA World Convention is a quinquennial gathering to celebrate the anniversary of Alcoholics Anonymous.  

Since 1990, there has been a “We Agnostics Panel." At the time of posting, we are 80 days away from Vancouver 2025, July 3-6. AA World Convention with the theme “Language of the Heart.” 

2025's AA celebration will include a Secular AA Hospitality Suite, which you can find in your 2025 AA Vancouver program. We are open...

Connection

Hope

Identity

Meaning

Empowerment

These commonalities of most people who thrive (vs. cope) in recovery from addiction and mental health comes from the research of Mary Leamy, Senior Lecturer in Mental Health Recovery and Staff Wellbeing, and Associate Dean for Postgraduate Research programme, Kings College in London

https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/mary.leamy

A conceptual framework for personal recovery in m...

Dr. Joe Nowinski's book ideas comes from working in the trenches, not from any ivory tower. Episode 77 of Rebellion Dogs Radio looks at a run-of-the-mill problem in early recovery that doesn’t get enough ink: if we are together in a relationship and you go to treatment and come home to stay sober, should I live a sober life too? It’s your problem. Well, that’s one way to look at it; others would feel we are in this together. <...

What’s Different?

• The first 164 pages are now 122 pages – by simplifying the language.
• More “gender-balanced” – e.g. jaywalker is female; but not gender-neutral using “they”.
• The wording of the Steps has not changed from Him/His, but in other places,gender-balanced He/Him/His “may have changed to God”.
• Only “Dr. Bob’s Nightmare” is included in the stories (more on some problematic Doctor Bob language to follow).

Plain language ...

We look at history—why? Isn’t this a contemporary, or even future gazing look at recovery and addiction?

Well yes and yes. Yuval Noah Harari, PDH author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind says, “History is not the study of past; history is the study of change; it’s not about remembering the past; it’s about liberating ourselves from it.”

Episode 75 of Rebellion Dogs Radio explores three calls to action by Alcoholics ...

From our Radio vault, Episode 19 features Richard, a Canadian Slam Poet, Comedian, pianist + Jack from LA, punk rocker, author, and recovering Big Book thumper. This show was recorded in the Fall of 2015. It is eight years later - both of these mavericks are doing their thing, in meetings and on stage. Visit our website for links if you connect with Jack, Richard, or both of these samples of recovery. I suspect that one or bot...

It was the Fall of 2019, Writing the Big Book: The Creation of AA by William Schaberg was about to be published and Joe C sat down with the author to talk about the soon-to-be-unveiled book born of eleven years of primary documentary research on Rebellion Dogs Radio, Episode 49. Four years later, more has been revealed and new insights gained. So listeners asked, “When are you two going to sit down again for a podcast?” Here it is....

Two Davids, facing two Goliaths of stubborn orthodoxy are the focus of Episode 17 of Rebellion Dogs Radio.

One rebel is Mark Lewis, who challenges the disease model of addiction.

Greta Vosper, atheist minister of the United Church of Canada, who at the time was facing a review of her peers who found her liberalism to be maybe too far to be called even progressive Christianity.

Looking back in 2023, the...

 Trysh Travis, is Associate Dean at University of Florida. She oversees Women’s Studies, is a cultural and literary historian whose work looks at the gendered history of medicine and popular therapeutic cultures. While working as a high school teacher, she earned an MA from the Bread Loaf School of English, followed by a PhD in American Studies from Yale University. She is the author of The Language of the Heart: Twelve-Step Recove...

William G. Borchert: September 9, 1933 - October 1, 2022 memorial will be on Zoom coming from Stepping Stones April 2 (first 1000 only) 
ZOOM 867 0807 3394 Passcode 1962 7—8:15 PM New York time (UTC –4)

 Who was Bill B? A New York newspaperman who got sober in the 1960s and would write some AA history including early AA + When Love is Not Enough, the story of Lois Wilson. Bill died in October 1922 and he is being honored by frie...

Bob K's new book is out - The Secret Diaries of Bill W 

 In 1972  AA was learning to live sans-founder as  Bill Wilson had been dead for a year. In Episode 72 of Rebellion Dogs Radio, The Secret Diaries of Bill W by bob k bring him back for another lap around the track. We spend, well pretty much the whole episode talking about all kinds of things but mostly Bob K and Joe C talk about writing, this, Bob's  new hi...

Michael is a professor, musician, journalist and author. Having just written a Living Sober-size booklet, Michael is our guest to make a case for AA for people, even if they are skeptical about the higher power stuff. He shares how in he neither looks for a war of worldviews nor bites his tongue. This first contemporary recovery print offering of 2023 is a great for secular AA Zoomers in search of new meeting starters. It's a ...

Meet Clinical Psychologist at Greater Manchester West NHS Mental Health Foundation Trust, Mani Mehdikhani, one of AA Great Britain’s non-alcoholic trustees on their General Service Board. 

Among other duties, Mani and his committee prepared the quinquennial AA membership survey which went out to Alcoholics Anonymous members in Great Britain and English-speaking Central Europe Region groups in 2020. 

A remarkable thing happe...

With or Without God: the latest Alcoholics Anonymous Membership Survey from Great Britain identifies how many members are religious vs. secular.

Episode 69 of Rebellion Dogs Radio  looks at our more enlightened understanding of AA members, at least a significant sample size: the findings from the Great Britain 2020 AA Membership Survey + English Speaking Central Europe meetings. We look, not only at this modernism movement that incl...

This blast from the past features two interviews by recovering alcoholics helping to overcome the stigma of addiction (and in some cases, addiction recovery) from the courtroom to the Rock 'n' Roll cabaret.

First, we talk with author, lawyer, former Attorney General Michael J Bryant on his second book, Mere Addiction.  Michael offers an insider’s candid commentary about how abstinence bail conditions are a set u...

Thanks for listening to Rebellion Dogs Radio: A contemporary look at addiction, recovery and mental health, hopefully with less dogma and more bite!
Douglas Coupland (author: Generation X) wrote, "The boomer generation is the one that unselfconscientiously uses pronoun 'We' when describing itself. X, Y and [generations] beyond flee the room the moment someone says, 'We.'"

"It's a...

 Rebellion Dog Radio EPISODE 68 features guest, Carl Erik Fisher. A Columbia University Psychiatrist, host of Flourishing After Addiction podcast, author of THE URGE: OUR HISTORY of ADDICTION, Carl Erik Fisher talks about his research, his work and his lived experience.

Our musical feature on Episode 68 is Goodnight Sunrise with their song debuting 02 22 2022 "One Pill."

Carl Erik Fisher’s search for answers abou...