There's no religion but sound and dancing
There's no religion but line and color
There's no religion but sacred trance

Sting, "Send Your Love"
---
Everyday when I get back from work, I have to blow into a breathalyzer upon entering The Facility. A guy got rolled up a couple of days ago for blowing numbers, which means that his BAC was non-zero. I think his reading was something like 0.02%, but I that's just heresay. Yesterday, though, was my birthday: instead of just a breath test, I also got strip searched and had to piss in a cup. This also happens the first day you arrive: if you piss dirty, then they roll you up right then and there (on the other hand, I know people who entered County Jail high as a kite, drunk off their ass, stoned as a motherfucker, and tweaking on as much meth as they could find).

I seriously don't even think about it anymore: it's just the nature of my present living conditions, but maybe that's my mind placating itself.

At last night's AA meeting, I was able to get one of the Thirty Days Sober chips. I'll be honest with you, I got seriously tongue-tied whenever I tried to say, "I'm Ron, I'm an alcoholic." Never saw that tongue-twister coming. But I've become more and more comfortable with saying it, even though I know it's not true; perhaps that's why I couldn't say it at first. But I picked up my Thirty Day chip and proceeded to hear some guys ask what it meant to be agnostic. In AA, there's a lot of emphasis placed on the notion of understanding God as we know him. They really want to impart a sense of spirituality in recovering alcoholics, to have it known to them that there is a higher, benevolent force ubiquitous in our daily lives.

Yann Martel, in his book Life of Pi, makes an interesting point when it comes to agnostics versus atheists: even an atheist could convert on his/her deathbed, but agnostics could go on doubting until the very end. Without an understanding or faith in that higher force, he says, you end up missing the bigger picture. Although some agnostics have their cynicism rooted in habit or stubbornness, I believe that most are just a product of our advanced and modern age, in which scientific breakthroughs and discoveries are commonplace. To use Carl Sagan, we're in the midst of a technological adolescence; perhaps once we mature to an era where philosophy and science intermingle, we'd see that bigger picture, even if we don't find it of interest.