The author is an atheist and member of alcoholics anonymous who has not had a drink for more than 17 years. While he has got the program in spite of the god references in AA's 12 steps and Big Book, he has encountered many agnostics and atheists who have been put off by them. As a freelance journalist and business analyst, he has applied his mind to outlining ways in which they, too, can adapt the AA program to their beliefs, thus bringing many more people who have a problem with alcohol into the AA fold. Hopefully some will be saved who would have perished and many will stop drinking sooner than they would have done otherwise, thus saving themselves and people around them from the harm inflicted by years of further drinking alcoholicly.