I've had the opportunity to see some of my colleagues expressing this fact lately.
Danny Boy calls it a misused word. The proper word is "Unrecovered" evidently.
My mentor... sponsor's sponsor, if you want to get technical... said it this way; "Those who say they are recovering are not." RIP Frank McKibbon.
I was at a meeting yesterday and a gal said she was still a newcomer... at two and a half years of sobriety. Puke. I like this gal too. I just question her thought process. It was a "newcomer" meeting because the chairperson had nothing... and used the Daily Reflection of the day as a topic. There were other disgusting violations of tradition and steps in that meeting. But I endured. I even enjoyed the meeting once the a-hole "elderstatesmen" said their piece and shut the fuck up.
I spoke. I said I am not a newcomer. I did steps and can show the newcomer how to do steps.
Doesn't the book instruct us to introduce ourselves as a man who has recovered?
ReplyDeleteTha being said, I went through a period where I intentionally introduced myself as a recovered alcoholic just to piss off the MOTR crowd.
These days I try not to engage in controversy but I still like a good stirring of the pot from time to time. Bottom line with me,is I am happy usefull to others and I want what I have, I am not suffering any signs of alcoholism, the problem has been removed. I'm guessing that makes me recovered,although like you guys I'm not as interested as to what people think about me as I used to be.
Weekend before last, I went to a noon meeting at our local vanilla-flavored AA lite MOTR hall. The guy read something out of "Living Sober" as the topic. He read something about thinking the drink through to the end. As luck would have it, I was the first one called on. All I said is that my experience doesn't line up with thinking the drink through. I said if it did, I wouldn't be a member of AA. I then challenged everyone in the room to match their own experience with that reading, to honestly look at the fact and ask themselves if remembering their last drunk was sufficient to keep them from having the next one. I said if you are an alcoholic, the day will come when you WILL drink, and you will drink with a full knowledge of what happens when you drink and you will do that with no alcohol in your system. That is unless you have a deep & effective spiritual experience. Then I closed by saying that most of the literature put out by G.S.O. is rubbish because it is totally contrary the message of Alcoholics Anonymous.
ReplyDeleteThen I had to sit and listen to all the hard drinkers talk about how they can think the drink through. Some of them even tok potshots at me. Sometimes in those meetings, I feel like I'm the only alkie in the room.
Well I went to a noon meeting today... and the guy sitting next to me has been sober longer than I even knew A.A. existed... about 26 + years. I know he's recovered and very active in the three legacies of the triangle. Yet, he had to say, "I'm not recovered... I'm always recovering."
ReplyDeleteWhere the hell do these people come from? Are they playing small? False humility? I don't know. But for most of the meeting, I sat there quite sure I wasn't getting called on and I fantasizes what I would say; "I, on the other hand... AM a recovered alcoholic... until you ask me to do something because I want to duck responsibility."
But I was called on. And I didn't say that. I didn't stir the pot. Instead, I recalled my current and past experience on the topic at hand. My Harley is running good again and I was just in a good mood for a change. Darned voltage regulator was shot, of all things.
I think the guy is playing small, an attempt at false modesty. It can be uncomfortable to make waves you know.
ReplyDeleteWell I do... but then I don't get called on to speak for a long time.
ReplyDeleteThis is at the noon meeting of course. They're an emotional touchy feely sort. Good coffee though.