I chaired my first with like 19 days and chaired a huge one with 42 days, both times I was asked and said no but then said well I guess... no one cared!

Chairing a meeting is good service work.  I was asked early on but said no because I am shy about being on center stage.  I chaired my first meeting today (10 months).  In my time in AA I have noticed how it can be important that the chair have a strong footing in the traditions.  Squirley stuff can come up unexpectedly at meetings and it is helpful when the chair keeps the meeting safe by minding the traditions.  I do think it's fine for newer members to chair, but it's well if they have support present in more experienced members.  We don't have official newcomer meetings here, so maybe there's a different format for those meetings?
I'm not sure about the situation you mentioned regarding the sponsor.  Without fully understanding the situation, I'll just say that sponsors hopefully have the best interests of the sponsee at heart combined with an inside take to a person's growth in AA.
I suggest letting it go, not worth building a resentment around.  All in good/god's time.
Hope this helps, Sincerely, Angela

So what is the purpose of a meeting? What is the purpose of someone "chairing" a meeting?

Tradition 5.) Each group has but one primary purpose-to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.

What is "it's message"?

To show others precisely how we have recovered.

How do we recover?

Step 12.) Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

What The Book talks about what we share is "What it was like, what happened, and what it's like now."

Typically someone who "chairs" a meeting tells their story, and it is recommended that person has had a spiritual awakening as the result of the twelve steps. If one isn't sharing the "solution" all one has to offer is "the problem"

What was told to me was, if I can't teach anybody in that room how to get drunk, and I can't teach anybody in the room how to stay sober, why am I sharing at a group of alcoholics anonymous?

I would have recommended that if it were my sponsee he wait to actually work the steps before he chaired as well, or it isn't "AA", it's a drunkalog with some dry time.

However, I wouldn't give my opinion to anyone else if you follow, if you asked me "What about Bob?" I'd ask if Bob had worked the steps, had the spiritual awakening as the result of the steps, and had a good grounding in the traditions and steps, and if Bob was my sponsee, I wouldn't forbid him, but I would suggest against it and ask him exactly what it was he was looking to convey by chairing. Was it his ego that made him want to share or did he really feel he had something to offer, the message of AA, the spiritual awakening promised by the steps.

I would ask had he taken sponsees through the steps.

I would ask him to read the following passage.

Our book is meant to be suggestive only. We realize we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us. Ask Him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who is still sick. The answers will come, if your own house is in order. But obviously you cannot transmit something you haven't got. See to it that your relationship with Him is right, and great events will come to pass for you and countless others. This is the Great Fact for us.

Truly, this is a time for ego to step down. If he felt strongly enough about it, I would go watch.


However I come from the school of thought that AA isn't group therapy, it's not a place to dump about our day, or share about my feelings, I come from the school of thought that an AA meeting is where we carry the message of AA to the still suffering alcoholic, and that message is "To show others precisely how we have recovered" and if I am not sharing "the solution" I am just sharing the problem, and the solution is how to apply those steps to my day to day life and have a spiritual awakening as THE result of working those steps.

How I recovered from a seemingly hopeless condition of mind and body.

I come from the school of thought that meetings don't keep us sober, the steps keep us sober. Out of all my friends, I hardly know anyone any more with less the ten years of sobriety, and what every single one of them have in common is they worked the steps, I see people come in and and stay sober for a year or two on "tips and tricks" but they invariably get in enough pain to do one of two things.

Drink or work the steps.

So I would ask myself, what message am I trying to send the newcomer?

When I am chairing a meeting I am not there to tell you about me and what a great guy I am, I am there to tell you how the program of Alcoholics Anonymous has worked in my life. I am not there to tell you about Andrew's spectacular program of recovery, because Andrew's spectacular program of recovery involved hangovers, lost jobs, jail time, and STD's. If I haven't actually worked the program, what am I sharing?

The Problem. I am telling you about me. I am telling you about Andrew's Program, not THE program, because I haven't worked THE program.

How can I have experience with the steps if I haven't worked them and taken another alcoholic through the steps? I am giving you my opinion about an experience I have never had.

I can go to any bar to hear that.

That would be like me reading a flight manual for a 737 and then teaching a class on how to be a pilot without once ever flown the plane myself. In short, I would be talking out of my ass.

I wasn't even allowed to share my first year, much less chair a meeting. (In all fairness, I would sneak to other meetings, share my vast wisdom, someone would rat me out, then my sponsor would chew me out, but it kept both of us busy)

Everything I wrote was passed on to me by my old Gransponsor who got sober in 1942, and who spent many years trying to get me to pull my head out of my bum and show me what The Program of Alcoholics Anonymous was and wasn't, and one thing AA isn't is someone with no experience with the steps telling other people with no experience with the steps about the steps, sure we see it plenty, it just isn't AA.


-- Edited by AGO on Tuesday 30th of March 2010 12:21:41 AM

No specific time in the program is suggested for a person to chair a meeting.

However a sponsor, if he is doing his job well knows a person better than anyone else.  Either we trust sponsors or we do not.  If not then there is not much use in having a sponsor.   If we trust them we should be confident that any suggestion is purely made in the sponsees best interest for recovery.

A chairman's job is not to impart knowledge.  That comes from the group as a whole sharing experience, strength and hope.  The chairman's job is to insure that the meeting runs smoothly without arguments or unruly interruptions.   Some times a person in early sobriety is not ready to "Take control if the need arises"  After all
we are told to stop controlling are  we not?  It takes time in the program to know when it is appropriate and when it is just ego driven.  That time requirement is different for each of us.

My home group pratices this.  Our group conscience decided that the Chair person
should have a minimum of one year sobriety unless recommended by their sponsor.

Larry,
-----------------------------
"Things aren't necessarily going wrong just because they're not going my way"



-- Edited by Larry_H on Tuesday 30th of March 2010 12:17:49 AM

-- Edited by Larry_H on Tuesday 30th of March 2010 12:18:40 AM

Well, if his sponsor has said it's too soon for him, then he should respect what his sponsor has told him and so should you, so I'm glad to see you won't meddle. But not meddling also means not griping to him about how you disagree with his sponsor. That's not in your friend's best interest because he's having his own hard time at the moment with accepting someone else's direction for what he's allowed to do and not do. He may not say so, but you can count on it that our disease just loves for our friends to start bitching about our sponsor's decisions and stuff like that. If you want to hear what your friend has to say, ask him. He doesn't have to chair a meeting to give you his message. If you've heard it and it's a good message and you think others would enjoy it, just wait----there's time enough to do that down the road a ways if he can follow his sponsor's suggestions and stick there long enough in sobriety. Having worked a 5th step doesn't automatically mean he's ready to chair a meeting. When I had done my 5th step, I wasn't ready for much of anything else but my 6th and 7th step and my sponsor would have told me so if I'd asked her if I could chair a meeting. My home group was called the Tough Love Group, though, and they didn't ask me to chair anything for a long time. I was to get IN my own chair at the meeting and listen.

I just want to thank Larry, Ellen and AGO for their input. I'm glad I read all this thread.

there are suggested guidelines for service posts from GSO over here, butt he group conscience decides.

I too chaired a meeting or two early on, before getting to step 12. I had an intellectual knowledge (I'd read the manual on the 737) but didn't have the practical knowledge (I'd never flown it.). it wasn't a good message.

I have seen people pushed into chairing a meeting (and I've pushed people myself) who went back out big time 'cos it ws too much for them, or they recognised they were conducting Billy's anonymous, not an AA meeting.

But there are still personalities, years and years sober, who seem to turn a meeting into the Ren and Stimpy show - so maybe time has little to do with it than quality.

So I agree that the ideal is having got the spiritual awakening that comes from steps 1 to 11 we are at step 12 and have the right message to carry and then can carry it.

I think I had at least 10 months in the program before chairing. I walked into a meeting Monday & at the last minute was asked to chair. In my area it's at least 6 months before a person can chair.

Hi

At most meetings I have been to they would like the Chairperson to have at least 6 Months.  This is usually enough time for a new person to have gotten a sponsor and to have done a few steps.

The only difference would be if you were an outsider at a Center meeting or at a Jail or Court Meeting.  Most there would only have a few hours or days of sober time.  Then it would be whoever has had the longer time frame.

Given that the early AA'ers made it a practice to take all 12 steps in less than a day, and then get on with the business of living sober, I don't see anything wrong with anyone who is sober chairing a meeting. Most meetings have such standard formats these days that the process is even written down in a binder so it's easy to follow even if you don't have that much time in. The chair isn't a special person with special powers..he or she is just another humble servant. And if you don't let it go to your head (ego), chairing when still "new" can be a very healthy humbling experience that helps the newer person gain strength and become more involved in the fellowship.