So... pardon us Nazi-type intolerant Step-Thumpers for a moment... but what do y'all think of this Recovery Soup type meeting and all?
I'm seeing it envogue not just in my neck of the woods... but yours as well... to come to the meeting and bring whatever ails you to the 12 steps.
Over-eaters? Sex addicts? OCDers? What is this, anyway?
Evidently, we've got folks who drive around in cars... sober... and stress out over whether or not they just drove over a baby or not. Of course they hadn't... but they just fear that they have.
And they want to sit in a meeting with us and hear how we're overcoming drinking ourselves to death on booze.
But then the non-Nazi-type intolerant Step-Thumpers will say, "Oh! Oh! Oh! But alcohol is NOT the problem! It's merely the symptom!" What say you about this?
I see you've been browsing on SR, I too stop in now and then to read the ongoing bs, glad that's not my deal anymore.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the 12 steps for everything meetings. I don't really care, I would hope it wouldn't be called AA though because it's not.
I would also hope that if a real deal alkie showed up, he would get hooked up with a recovered alkie and find a group that was singular in purpose. My gut tells me, someone who eats too much cake because their inner child never blossomed, will not be able to help the real drunk, so yeah, identification is REAL important.
Yup. Look at all that support for that first post too. DT is a pretty popular poster over there too, but look at all the alternative recovery folks jump on that bandwagon.
ReplyDeleteOne of the reasons I left to tell you the truth.
ReplyDeleteSR ? I just went over and looked at it and couldn't get interested enough to actually read anything. Same old people spouting the same old bs. I learned to become a fan of face to face meetings by that little adventure. The internet is pretty much useless as far as the 12 steps go to me. Maybe some can do it, but I just don't feel it.
ReplyDeleteThere are all types in any given AA meeting. I think it's my responsibility to carry the message as best I can. My message is (hopefully) our of the BB. I suspect I can do more good sitting in a freaky meeting and talking program out of the BB than trying to change the landscape of AA.
If we try to control AA we become like CarolD over at SR. And who wants that ?
Best to let the chaos happen around us and be true to the way we were raised in AA. Then we can plant the seeds, which is really now it works.
If you take the alcohol out of a drunken horse thief, you still have a horse thief. Like Bill said in his book, the founders of AA realized that drinking is but a symptom of our problem, we have to get down to causes and conditions.
ReplyDeleteColter
I once made a statement to the effect of "If I didn't go to AA meetings I wouldn't have much inventory to write." I think I said that on SR once or twice and I know I've said it in f2f meetings a time or two. Know what? It's true. I haven't written a single piece of inventory about an AA member or what goes on in AA since I stopped going to meetings back around the first of February.
ReplyDeleteA long time ago I realized that the whole concept of singleness of purpose in AA went out the window, that the dike had been breached and the tide couldn't be bucked anymore. Of course, kit took me a while to stop fighting it.
I got tired of being in meetings where I felt like I was the only alkie in the room. Or even if there were other alkies, they weren't interested in what I was offering. Gresham's Law seemed to been proven prophetic. Like I said a big reason I left, not the only reason, but a big reason. That was my way of not fighting AA anymore. Tony, my hat is off to you for sitting in those meetings, but I just could not do it anymore. I do agree with you regarding internet recovery. Getting the boot from SR was a good thing for me.
It's "singleness of purpose" for the organization, not singleness of problem for members. I had the "ism" before I ever had the alcohol....drugs....food....sex...etc. To focus on the symptom as the primary problem, to the exclusion of the causes and condition’s, this leads back to separation from my group of fellow travelers on the road to happy destiny. Once again, separated from the society of people we cannot, or will not accept. Once again, our problem has risen out of ourselves, a polished version of the same terd.
ReplyDeleteMy frustration has been an overspecialization in "not drinking" to the exclusion of a focus on a God centered life.
Colter
So...the Traditions don't apply to the individual? If the individual members don't apply them, how can a group composed of individual members be expected to?
ReplyDeleteI’ve been a follower on your blog for a while now and would like to invite you to visit and perhaps follow me back. Sorry I took so long for the invitation
ReplyDeleteI haven't been over to SR in a while and don't see the purpose of going there. I'm on double secret probation anyway.
DeleteI don't really get too excited about the whiney bullshit that seems to pop up in meetings. Most of the time that stuff gets cut off at the knees. But then again, I'm fortunate in that I have a shitload of meetings available. Over the years I've found the good ones and avoid the ones that suck.
I'm off to LA for a month so it'll be good to get a different (?) perspective. I'll keep you guys posted on what the left coast is up to these days. Last time I was there it was pretty good.
Well, not all of them, that weren’t the spirit of why the traditions were put into, place. The singleness of purpose had to do with the experience of other similar organizations getting bogged down in politics or endorsements. Such practices divide and prejudice people for various reasons.
ReplyDeleteBut I do like the sound of "never being organized" personally, or becoming "professional".....but at the same time I wouldn't want to "lend my name" to anyone. :)
Thanks
Good points Joe.
ReplyDeleteI belong to the best meeting in our humble town of about 105,000 people. Now it's not the biggest nor the most popular... but the best A.A. It's that way because we made it that way. Y'all are welcome to check it out and see for yourselves provided that you're alky or wondering whether you are or not... and you want to do something about it.
We have a philosophy that... if your meeting/group is not the best in town, then make it that way. Believe me when I say that about 99.2% of the folks in town that go to A.A. would disagree with me. They don't want what we have and/or they refuse to do what we do. The feeling is somewhat mutual... but I do like the people regardless of the discrepancy.