athrowaway69

Nice. Blaming the victim and implying I was the hostile one.

I'm respectful of others' religions. It's a private matter. I made friends, ostensibly, until they found out I was an atheist.

So fuck right off with your pseudo-righteous bullshit, okay?

This has happened to me. I'm an atheist, and experienced verbal abuse when others found out.

There is no shortage of meetings where you're expected to submit to the Christian God, where the people will be hostile to someone they find out is an atheist.

They'll still use the "your higher power can be the door knob!" bit, too.

In my experience, some meetings don't care much about that. Others have told me if I'm not into the whole Christian God thing that I'm not welcome.

I had other experiences. The friendships I had in AA were superficial. Once, when I was struggling and needed help and people to talk to, I was completely ignored by the people around me. They didn't want to help the struggling - just to have this toxic positivity that nothing is wrong.

I later moved out of state. I came back to visit family, and went back to a meeting to find out that there were rumors that I had relapsed after I moved and continued using until I was homeless. It was a drama fest. Absolutely ridiculous.

When I moved, the meetings I encountered were extremely hostile to atheists.

> the 12 step program is super light on the spirituality stuff and very atheist friendly

This is highly dependent on where you are. I experienced verbal abuse and was made to feel unwelcome at meetings when people found out I'm an atheist. People have told me, verbatim, "You don't belong here if you're denying God".

Needless to say, I am no longer a part of that little cult. I'm doing fine without it.