I went to a couple of other meetings this week and found them to be man-made attempts to achieving discipline and rather controlled and contrived.
In the nooner, they all but told you what to say, how to say, and when to say it... after they whipped out a 20 minute display of instructions and rules.
Evidently, it's God's job to micromanage your life.
In the other group, a fine bunch of folks who hadn't got to see me in some half a year. They appeared warm and welcoming... like they'd missed me.
Then they proceeded to lecture the group on how I do 4th Steps wrong... what with our crazy 3 column inventory and all.
If you feel the need to call yourself names, conclude and give your ego hoops to jump through... have at it.
See ya in another 6 months... maybe.
definitely sounds like a bunch of alcoholics, whether or not they've recovered could be another topic altogether. in my experience, i find certain meetings to be a true exercise in some of those ever elusive principles such as patience, tolerance, kindliness, love, understanding, etc. Watchfulness has been indispensable during these challenging times. thank God my sobriety is contingent upon my spiritual condition and not on whether or not i make a meeting. some of these miserable people i run into might want to consider actually working the steps.....or, maybe not. thanks again for your work patrick. God bless all.
ReplyDeleteThanks Dave, I just feel that... that's right, I'm expressing a feeling here... these folks were my friends since they first moved to town and checked out A.A. in this one horse town and set out to develop a "good" meeting. Well we were once in one group and they left us. They started another group and it turned into a fine group, no doubt. But why do they spend their time bad-mouthing our group... telling folks how we're wrong and to stay away from our meetings?
ReplyDeleteWe don't do that to them. In fact, we send new folks from our meeting to them and let them choose.
Our little group has grown a bit lately... but not too much. I like our group and this is what is most important to me. I miss some friendships from the other group though... but it's got to be about program first and social next, if at all.