Conference Approved Literature and tradition breaking

carpetslippers · Member

Conference Approved Literature and tradition breaking

Rainspa · Senior Member

Uh, "forbid"?

Maybe a little look at when one turned one's life and will over to another human being should be on the agenda...

Conference Approved liturature:

What that means is that the conference has approved the liturature for PUBLICATION. We are a publishing house. That means it is lit that we own the rights to, are free to publish, and the conference approves as to content.

It doesn't mean that everything else is "DISAPPOVED".

Example: In the Big Book "Varieties of Spiritual Experience" by William James is mentioned and has been read since the beginning of AA. Technically, before the beginning.

Bill and Bob and everyone else read and used other liturature. Bob had pamphlets commissioned in Akron that are still published for goodness sakes. 24 hours a day, the little red book, Stools and Bottles, The Eye Opener all fall into this catagory.

But World Services doesn't own the publishing rights, so they are never going to be "conference approved" for publication.

Little history.

Bible, Koran, Torah etc all would be on the "disapproved list", and what do you think that says about a program, eh?

LinBaba · MIP Old Timer

Is this sponsor God?

Is this sponsor even a member of the group?

Because otherwise (s)he's wrong and should possibly learn to read

Each group has the right to be wrong, and provided it doesn't affiliate itself with any "outside enterprise" including -any- sort of organized religion, can call itself an AA group, that means a group can't -strictly- stick to one set of beliefs, such as Catholicism or protestant, but it can take readings from anywhere as long as it is not closed to athers

THE TWELVE TRADITIONS -- Long Form

Short Form -- Long Form

Our A.A. experience has taught us that:

1.) Each member of Alcoholics Anonymous is but a small part of a great whole. A.A. must continue to live or most of us will surely die. Hence our common welfare comes first. But individual welfare follows close afterward.

2.) For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority-a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience.

3.) Our membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism. Hence we may refuse none who wish to recover. Nor ought A.A. membership ever depend upon money or conformity. Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an A.A. Group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation.

4.) With respect to its own affairs, each A.A. group should be responsible to no other authority than its own conscience. But when its plans concern the welfare of neighboring groups also, those groups ought to be consulted. And no group, regional committee, or individual should ever take any action that might greatly affect A.A. as a whole without conferring with the Trustees of the General Service Board. On such issues our common welfare is paramount.

5.) Each Alcoholics Anonymous group ought to be a spiritual entity having but one primary purpose-that of carrying its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.

6.) Problems of money, property, and authority may easily divert us from our primary spiritual aim. We think, therefore, that any considerable property of genuine use to A.A. should be separately incorporated and managed, thus dividing the material from the spiritual. An A.A. group, as such, should never go into business. Secondary aids to A.A., such as clubs or hospitals which require much property or administration, ought to be incorporated and so set apart that, if necessary, they can be freely discarded by the groups. Hence such facilities ought not to use the A.A. name. Their management should be the sole responsibility of those people who financially support them. For clubs, A.A. managers are usually preferred. But hospitals, as well as other places of recuperation, ought to be well outside A.A.-and medically supervised. While an A.A. group may cooperate with anyone, such cooperation ought never go so far as affiliation or endorsement, actual or implied. An A.A. group can bind itself to no one.

7.) The A.A. groups themselves ought to be fully supported by the voluntary contributions of their own members. We think that each group should soon achieve this ideal; that any public solicitation of funds using the name of Alcoholics Anonymous is highly dangerous, whether by groups, clubs, hospitals, or other outside agencies; that acceptance of large gifts from any source, or of contributions carrying any obligation whatever, is unwise. Then too, we view with much concern those A.A. treasuries which continue, beyond prudent reserves, to accumulate funds for no stated A.A. purpose. Experience has often warned us that nothing can so surely destroy our spiritual heritage as futile disputes over property, money, and authority.

8.) Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever non-professional. We define professionalism as the occupation of counseling alcoholics for fees or hire. But we may employ alcoholics where they are going to perform those services for which we may otherwise have to engage nonalcoholics. Such special services may be well recompensed. But our usual A.A. "12th Step" work is never to be paid for.

9.) Each A.A. group needs the least possible organization. Rotating leadership is the best. The small group may elect its Secretary, the large group its Rotating Committee, and the groups of a large Metropolitan area their Central or Intergroup Committee, which often employs a full-time Secretary. The trustees of the General Service Board are, in effect, our A.A. General Service Committee. They are the custodians of our A.A. Tradition and the receivers of voluntary A.A. contributions by which we maintain our A.A. General Service Office at New York. They are authorized by the groups to handle our over-all public relations and they guarantee the integrity of our principle newspaper, "The A.A. Grapevine." All such representatives are to be guided in the spirit of service, for true leaders in A.A. are but trusted and experienced servants of the whole. They derive no real authority from their titles; they do not govern. Universal respect is the key to their usefulness.

10.) No A.A. group or member should ever, in such a way as to implicate A.A., express any opinion on outside controversial issues-particularly those of politics, alcohol reform, or sectarian religion. The Alcoholics Anonymous groups oppose no one. Concerning such matters they can express no views whatever.

11.) Our relations with the general public should be characterized by personal anonymity. We think A.A. ought to avoid sensational advertising. Our names and pictures as A.A. members ought not be broadcast, filmed, or publicly printed. Our public relations should be guided by the principle of attraction rather than promotion. There is never need to praise ourselves. We feel it better to let our friends recommend us.

12.) And finally, we of Alcoholics Anonymous believe that the principle of Anonymity has an immense spiritual significance. It reminds us that we are to place principles before personalities; that we are actually to practice a genuine humility. This to the end that our great blessings may never spoil us; that we shall forever live in thankful contemplation of Him who presides over us all.

Tradition Four

"Each group should be autonomous except in matters
affecting other groups or A.A. as a whole."

AUTONOMY is ten-dollar word. But in relation to us, it means very simply that every A.A. group can manage its affairs exactly as it pleases, except when A.A. as a whole is threatened. Comes now the same question raised in Tradition One. Isn't such liberty foolishly dangerous?

Over the years, every conceivable deviation from our Twelve Steps and Traditions has been tried. That was sure to be, since we are so largely a band of ego-driven individualists. Children of chaos, we have defiantly played with every brand of fire, only to emerge unharmed and, we think, wiser. These very deviations created a vast process of trial and error which, under the grace of God, has brought us to where we stand today.

When A.A.'s Traditions were first published, in 1946, we had become sure that an A.A. group could stand almost any amount of battering. We saw that the group, exactly like the individual, must eventually conform to whatever tested principles would guarantee survival. We had discovered that there was perfect safety in the process of trial and error. So confident of this had we become that the original statement of A.A. tradition carried this significant sentence: "Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an A.A. group provided that as a group they have no other affiliation."

This meant, of course, that we had been given the courage to declare each A.A. group an individual entity, strictly reliant on its own conscience as a guide to action. In charting this enormous expanse of freedom, we found it necessary to post only two storm signals: A group ought not do anything which would greatly injure A.A. as a whole, nor ought it affiliate itself with anything or anybody else. There would be real danger should we commence to call some groups "wet," others "dry," still others "Republican" or "Communist," and yet others "Catholic" or "Protestant." The A.A. group would have to stick to its course or be hopelessly lost. Sobriety had to be its sole objective. In all other respects, there was perfect freedom of will and action. Every group had the right to be wrong.

When A.A. was still young, lots of eager groups were forming. In a town we'll call Middleton, a real crackerjack had started up. The townspeople were as hot as firecrackers about it. Stargazing, the elders dreamed of innovations. They figured the town needed a great big alcoholic center, a kind of pilot plant A.A. groups could duplicate everywhere. Beginning on the ground floor there would be a club; in the second story they would sober up drunks and hand them currency for their back debts; the third deck would house an educational project-quite noncontroversial, of course. In imagination the gleaming center was to go up several stories more, but three would do for a start. This would all take a lot of money-other people's money. Believe it or not, wealthy townsfolk bought the idea.

There were, though, a few conservative dissenters among the alcoholics. They wrote the Foundation*, A.A.'s headquarters in New York, wanting to know about this sort of streamlining. They understood that the elders, just to nail things down good, were about to apply to the Foundation for a charter. These few were disturbed and skeptical.

Of course, there was a promoter in the deal--a superpromotor. By his eloquence he allayed all fears, despite advice from the Foundation that it could issue no charter, and that ventures which mixed an A.A. group with medication and education had come to sticky ends elsewhere. To make things safer, the promoter organized three corporations and became president of them all. Freshly painted, the new center shone. The warmth of it all spread through the town. Soon things began to hum. To insure foolproof, continuous operation, sixty-one rules and regulations were adopted.

But alas, this bright scene was not long in darkening. Confusion replaced serenity. It was found that some drunks yearned for education, but doubted if they were alcoholics. The personality defects of others could be cured maybe with a loan. Some were club-minded, but it was just a question of taking care of the lonely heart. Sometimes the swarming applicants would go for all three floors. Some would start at the top and come through to the bottom, becoming club members; others started in the club, pitched a binge, were hospitalized, then graduated to education on the third floor.

* In 1954, the name of the Alcoholic Foundation, Inc., was changed to the General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous, Inc., and the Foundation office is now the General Service Office. It was a beehive of activity, all right, but unlike a beehive, it was confusion compounded. An A.A. group, as such, simply couldn't handle this sort of project. All too late that was discovered. Then came the inevitable explosion-something like that day the boiler burst in Wombley's Clapboard Factory. A chill chokedamp of fear and frustration fell over the group.

When that lifted, a wonderful thing happened. The head promoter wrote the Foundation office. He said he wished he'd paid some attention to A.A. experience. Then he did something else that was to become an A.A. classic. It all went on a little card about golf-score size. The cover read: "Middleton Group #1. Rule #62." Once the card was unfolded, a single pungent sentence leaped to the eye: "Don't take yourself too damn seriously."

Thus it was that under Tradition Four an A.A. group had exercised its right to be wrong. Moreover, it had performed a great service for Alcoholics Anonymous, because it had been humbly willing to apply the lessons it learned. It had picked itself up with a laugh and gone on to better things. Even the chief architect, standing in the ruins of his dream, could laugh at himself-and that is the very acme of humility.

Jerry F · MIP Old Timer

"Only AA literature is allowed in an AA meeting". That is read at every and all AA meetings locally. Having said that and having been around for a while I've witnessed otherwise and there is also an AA autonomous meditation meeting in our local area too. For me I personally go with the Only AA literature suggestion rather than arriving at a point of personality before principle. The unity of AA is much much more important than my own curiosity.

Very good thread. smile

carpetslippers · Member

I am overwhelmed with gratitude - you guys are all absolutely amazing! Thank you to each and every person who has replied thus far. I will pass this all on to my friend and who knows? The meeting may change format or perhaps my friend will persist with her convictions and continue to attend.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!
Lisa.

Rob84 · MIP Old Timer

Good question, and you are likely to get different opinions. I got sober where AA started in the Akron _Cleveland area, and I didn't know there was approved and non conference approved materials till I moved to Atlanta and was 15 years sober, we read the 24 Hour book at almost every meeting (non approved).

We must remember that there where AA meetings before we had a "Big book" and before there was a conference!! What did they use??

First, from what I can see the 6th tradition has nothing to do with the literature you use at meetings.

I agree that the decision should be made by the group, in the spirit of the sections that Lin Bada highlighted, I would suggest staying away from religious focused materials veering toward more general spirtual materials.

I never realized until I moved down South that many fundamentalist Christians are against Yoga and meditation. It is seen as values from Eastern religions.

A grade school teacher in our area got flamed for having here class close their eyes and do breathing excersises????

Mr_David · MIP Old Timer

LinBaba wrote:

Is this sponsor God?
Is this sponsor even a member of the group?
Because otherwise (s)he's wrong and should possibly learn to read
Each group has the right to be wrong, and provided it doesn't affiliate itself with any "outside enterprise" including -any- sort of organized religion, can call itself an AA group, that means a group can't -strictly- stick to one set of beliefs, such as Catholicism or protestant, but it can take readings from anywhere as long as it is not closed to athers

THE TWELVE TRADITIONS -- Long Form
Short Form -- Long Form
Our A.A. experience has taught us that:
1.) Each member of Alcoholics Anonymous is but a small part of a great whole. A.A. must continue to live or most of us will surely die. Hence our common welfare comes first. But individual welfare follows close afterward.
2.) For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority-a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience.
3.) Our membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism. Hence we may refuse none who wish to recover. Nor ought A.A. membership ever depend upon money or conformity. Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an A.A. Group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation.
4.) With respect to its own affairs, each A.A. group should be responsible to no other authority than its own conscience. But when its plans concern the welfare of neighboring groups also, those groups ought to be consulted. And no group, regional committee, or individual should ever take any action that might greatly affect A.A. as a whole without conferring with the Trustees of the General Service Board. On such issues our common welfare is paramount.
5.) Each Alcoholics Anonymous group ought to be a spiritual entity having but one primary purpose-that of carrying its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.
6.) Problems of money, property, and authority may easily divert us from our primary spiritual aim. We think, therefore, that any considerable property of genuine use to A.A. should be separately incorporated and managed, thus dividing the material from the spiritual. An A.A. group, as such, should never go into business. Secondary aids to A.A., such as clubs or hospitals which require much property or administration, ought to be incorporated and so set apart that, if necessary, they can be freely discarded by the groups. Hence such facilities ought not to use the A.A. name. Their management should be the sole responsibility of those people who financially support them. For clubs, A.A. managers are usually preferred. But hospitals, as well as other places of recuperation, ought to be well outside A.A.-and medically supervised. While an A.A. group may cooperate with anyone, such cooperation ought never go so far as affiliation or endorsement, actual or implied. An A.A. group can bind itself to no one.
7.) The A.A. groups themselves ought to be fully supported by the voluntary contributions of their own members. We think that each group should soon achieve this ideal; that any public solicitation of funds using the name of Alcoholics Anonymous is highly dangerous, whether by groups, clubs, hospitals, or other outside agencies; that acceptance of large gifts from any source, or of contributions carrying any obligation whatever, is unwise. Then too, we view with much concern those A.A. treasuries which continue, beyond prudent reserves, to accumulate funds for no stated A.A. purpose. Experience has often warned us that nothing can so surely destroy our spiritual heritage as futile disputes over property, money, and authority.
8.) Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever non-professional. We define professionalism as the occupation of counseling alcoholics for fees or hire. But we may employ alcoholics where they are going to perform those services for which we may otherwise have to engage nonalcoholics. Such special services may be well recompensed. But our usual A.A. "12th Step" work is never to be paid for.
9.) Each A.A. group needs the least possible organization. Rotating leadership is the best. The small group may elect its Secretary, the large group its Rotating Committee, and the groups of a large Metropolitan area their Central or Intergroup Committee, which often employs a full-time Secretary. The trustees of the General Service Board are, in effect, our A.A. General Service Committee. They are the custodians of our A.A. Tradition and the receivers of voluntary A.A. contributions by which we maintain our A.A. General Service Office at New York. They are authorized by the groups to handle our over-all public relations and they guarantee the integrity of our principle newspaper, "The A.A. Grapevine." All such representatives are to be guided in the spirit of service, for true leaders in A.A. are but trusted and experienced servants of the whole. They derive no real authority from their titles; they do not govern. Universal respect is the key to their usefulness.
10.) No A.A. group or member should ever, in such a way as to implicate A.A., express any opinion on outside controversial issues-particularly those of politics, alcohol reform, or sectarian religion. The Alcoholics Anonymous groups oppose no one. Concerning such matters they can express no views whatever.
11.) Our relations with the general public should be characterized by personal anonymity. We think A.A. ought to avoid sensational advertising. Our names and pictures as A.A. members ought not be broadcast, filmed, or publicly printed. Our public relations should be guided by the principle of attraction rather than promotion. There is never need to praise ourselves. We feel it better to let our friends recommend us.
12.) And finally, we of Alcoholics Anonymous believe that the principle of Anonymity has an immense spiritual significance. It reminds us that we are to place principles before personalities; that we are actually to practice a genuine humility. This to the end that our great blessings may never spoil us; that we shall forever live in thankful contemplation of Him who presides over us all.

Tradition Four

"Each group should be autonomous except in matters
affecting other groups or A.A. as a whole."

AUTONOMY is ten-dollar word. But in relation to us, it means very simply that every A.A. group can manage its affairs exactly as it pleases, except when A.A. as a whole is threatened. Comes now the same question raised in Tradition One. Isn't such liberty foolishly dangerous?

Over the years, every conceivable deviation from our Twelve Steps and Traditions has been tried. That was sure to be, since we are so largely a band of ego-driven individualists. Children of chaos, we have defiantly played with every brand of fire, only to emerge unharmed and, we think, wiser. These very deviations created a vast process of trial and error which, under the grace of God, has brought us to where we stand today.

When A.A.'s Traditions were first published, in 1946, we had become sure that an A.A. group could stand almost any amount of battering. We saw that the group, exactly like the individual, must eventually conform to whatever tested principles would guarantee survival. We had discovered that there was perfect safety in the process of trial and error. So confident of this had we become that the original statement of A.A. tradition carried this significant sentence: "Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an A.A. group provided that as a group they have no other affiliation."

This meant, of course, that we had been given the courage to declare each A.A. group an individual entity, strictly reliant on its own conscience as a guide to action. In charting this enormous expanse of freedom, we found it necessary to post only two storm signals: A group ought not do anything which would greatly injure A.A. as a whole, nor ought it affiliate itself with anything or anybody else. There would be real danger should we commence to call some groups "wet," others "dry," still others "Republican" or "Communist," and yet others "Catholic" or "Protestant." The A.A. group would have to stick to its course or be hopelessly lost. Sobriety had to be its sole objective. In all other respects, there was perfect freedom of will and action. Every group had the right to be wrong.

When A.A. was still young, lots of eager groups were forming. In a town we'll call Middleton, a real crackerjack had started up. The townspeople were as hot as firecrackers about it. Stargazing, the elders dreamed of innovations. They figured the town needed a great big alcoholic center, a kind of pilot plant A.A. groups could duplicate everywhere. Beginning on the ground floor there would be a club; in the second story they would sober up drunks and hand them currency for their back debts; the third deck would house an educational project-quite noncontroversial, of course. In imagination the gleaming center was to go up several stories more, but three would do for a start. This would all take a lot of money-other people's money. Believe it or not, wealthy townsfolk bought the idea.

There were, though, a few conservative dissenters among the alcoholics. They wrote the Foundation*, A.A.'s headquarters in New York, wanting to know about this sort of streamlining. They understood that the elders, just to nail things down good, were about to apply to the Foundation for a charter. These few were disturbed and skeptical.

Of course, there was a promoter in the deal--a superpromotor. By his eloquence he allayed all fears, despite advice from the Foundation that it could issue no charter, and that ventures which mixed an A.A. group with medication and education had come to sticky ends elsewhere. To make things safer, the promoter organized three corporations and became president of them all. Freshly painted, the new center shone. The warmth of it all spread through the town. Soon things began to hum. To insure foolproof, continuous operation, sixty-one rules and regulations were adopted.

But alas, this bright scene was not long in darkening. Confusion replaced serenity. It was found that some drunks yearned for education, but doubted if they were alcoholics. The personality defects of others could be cured maybe with a loan. Some were club-minded, but it was just a question of taking care of the lonely heart. Sometimes the swarming applicants would go for all three floors. Some would start at the top and come through to the bottom, becoming club members; others started in the club, pitched a binge, were hospitalized, then graduated to education on the third floor.

* In 1954, the name of the Alcoholic Foundation, Inc., was changed to the General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous, Inc., and the Foundation office is now the General Service Office. It was a beehive of activity, all right, but unlike a beehive, it was confusion compounded. An A.A. group, as such, simply couldn't handle this sort of project. All too late that was discovered. Then came the inevitable explosion-something like that day the boiler burst in Wombley's Clapboard Factory. A chill chokedamp of fear and frustration fell over the group.

When that lifted, a wonderful thing happened. The head promoter wrote the Foundation office. He said he wished he'd paid some attention to A.A. experience. Then he did something else that was to become an A.A. classic. It all went on a little card about golf-score size. The cover read: "Middleton Group #1. Rule #62." Once the card was unfolded, a single pungent sentence leaped to the eye: "Don't take yourself too damn seriously."

Thus it was that under Tradition Four an A.A. group had exercised its right to be wrong. Moreover, it had performed a great service for Alcoholics Anonymous, because it had been humbly willing to apply the lessons it learned. It had picked itself up with a laugh and gone on to better things. Even the chief architect, standing in the ruins of his dream, could laugh at himself-and that is the very acme of humility.

How true...

StPeteDean · MIP Old Timer

There is a local qroup on St. Pete Beach called "The No Fluff qroup" in case anyone wishes to attend lol. They read a selection from the "Akron Pamphlets" called "the definition of an AA". They don't preface it as non-conference approved, or that it Dr. Bob had it written by non-AA members in the 40's. They just read it like it's a current readinq. I objected, in the first and last meetinq, that I attended there, alonq with 3 others about how in your face the readinq is. It was written as a quide for sponsors to share with their sponcees, not to read at the beqininq of a meetinq. The qroup quickly (and kinda rudely) told us that we were free to leave and attend other meetinqs. I called AA world services NY and asked if it was permissible to read this antiquated literature, beinq a little weak on the traditions. I was told that all meetinqs are free to read whatever they want as lonq as it didn't affect AA as a whole (paraphrasinq here). So if a qroup of nazis wanted to nazi about this or that, they are free to do so. Vote with your feet, includinq the pickinq and unpickinq of your sponsors. lol

imaqine hearinq this, as a newcomer, at your first AA meetinq.

Definition of an Alcoholic Anonymous:

An Alcoholic Anonymous is an alcoholic who through application of and adherence to rules laid down by the organization, has completely forsworn the use of any and all alcoholic beverages. The moment he wittingly drinks so much as a drop of beer, wine, spirits, or any other alcoholic drink he automatically loses all status as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

A.A. is not interested in sobering up drunks who are not sincere in their desire to remain completely sober for all time. A.A. is not interested in alcoholics who want to sober up merely to go on another bender, sober up because of fear for their jobs, their wives, their social standing, or to clear up some trouble either real or imaginary. In other words, if a person is genuinely sincere in his desire for continued sobriety for his own good, is convinced in his heart that alcohol holds him in its power, and is willing to admit that he is an alcoholic, members of

Alcoholics Anonymous will do all in their power, spend days of their time to guide him to a new, a happy, and a contented way of life.

It is utterly essential for the newcomer to say to himself sincerely and without any reservation, "I am doing this for myself and myself alone." Experience has proved in hundreds of cases that unless an alcoholic is sobering up for a purely personal and selfish motive, he will not remain sober for any great length of time. He may remain sober for a few weeks or a few months, but the moment the motivating element, usually fear of some sort, disappears, so disappears sobriety.

TO THE NEWCOMER: It is your life. It is your choice. If you are not completely convinced to your own satisfaction that you are an alcoholic, that your life has become unmanageable; if you are not ready to part with alcohol forever, it would be better for all concerned if you discontinue reading this and give up the idea of becoming a member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

For if you are not convinced, it is not only wasting your own time, but the time of scores of men and women who are genuinely interested in helping you.

-- Edited by StPeteDean on Tuesday 3rd of May 2011 09:15:01 AM

Rainspa · Senior Member

St. Pete Dean,

I love that pamphlet. Short and to the point.

Lots of people DID hear that at their first meeting, or before it. Since Dr. Bob sobered up approx. 5000 sponsees, it must have worked for somebody.

Not everybodies cup o tea, but
"It is utterly essential for the newcomer to say to himself sincerely and without any reservation, "I am doing this for myself and myself alone." Experience has proved in hundreds of cases that unless an alcoholic is sobering up for a purely personal and selfish motive, he will not remain sober for any great length of time. He may remain sober for a few weeks or a few months, but the moment the motivating element, usually fear of some sort, disappears, so disappears sobriety."

it IS true.

Anyway, it couldn't be conference approved, because it was writen PRE-conference. Wasn't a conference around to approve or not. Dr. Bob approved. Copywrite I believe is still held by Akron intergroup.
So any new conference CAN'T approve for publication because they don't have the right to publish.

StPeteDean · MIP Old Timer

Ranispa, like I said, AA nazis can do as they like in their qroup conscience lol. I noticed that you didn't address the bolded passaqes, and for qood reason as those contradict several of our conference approved literature (and perhaps some steps and traditions) , most noticeably the preamble "The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinkinq". I aqree with a lot of what is said in those pamphlets, just don't think that that particular section should be read (or was ever read) at meetinqs. It certainly was never read at any of the meetinqs that I've been attendinq since '76, besides of course, the one that I already mentioned.

-- Edited by StPeteDean on Tuesday 3rd of May 2011 10:18:06 AM

Rainspa · Senior Member

Well, I suppose it is fair to call Dr. Bob an "AA Nazi".

He really did have opinions on the subject.

Wasn't this Akron pamphlet read at the "No Fluff" meeting?

No matter, it's still part of the Akron lit.

Does anyone have a list of conference "Disapproved" liturature?

LinBaba · MIP Old Timer

i think the term "AA nazi" is degrading and insulting and while here I may appear a bit to the right of Attila The Hun, to the fundamentalists I am a dangerous liberal, albeit one with a command of the big book, AA history, long line of sponsees and well respected sponsor family and support group that earns their grudging and reluctant respect, they offer a service and help people I cant reach, and they are dedicated to AA and helping others, so while we dont pal around there is mutual respect.

to me calling them nazis is like calling women who have premarital sex whores, it shows a lack of respect, self respect and compassion for others and doesnt reflect nearly as badly on them then it does on the person showing the intolerance in a public venue.

privately i might say horrid awful things about people but as ~THE~ moderator and representative of MIP I would like to think you wouldnt knowingly insult the very people who are "your base"

I might not read that to a newcomer but I damn well would read it to a sponsee who was working a first step

barisax · Senior Member

Where I come from, the opening readings at most Alanon meetings state that we should avoid the reading or mention of non conference approved literature. It is regularly and cheerfully ignored, although some blatant "violations" have been challenged. One woman read from a book and it wasn't just non-CAL, it had pretty much nothing to do with anything. May as well have been a recipe book. When an oldtimer (who did wait until she had finished) challenged her, she clammed up and never came back. I hope she found another meeting. It was one of those things that I'd have mentioned privately *after* the meeting rather than a public admonishment. But, whatever.

But I've never heard the "non-CAL" phrase in an AA meeting, and TBQH alcoholics aren't such avid readers anyway, we're lucky to get through the Big Book and often have to go to special meetings just to accomplish that... LOL. The difference between AA and Alanon is never more clear than when you compare the meeting and authority structure of the two. Both founded on the same steps and traditions, they can be very much alike but the reality is, they are often very different.

Being both AA an Alanon myself, I've been immersed in the control freak aspects of codependency since I was 10 years old and my parents divorced. I took it upon myself to be in charge, because I really felt that I must prevent such bad things from happening in the future. Even drinking, and having a non-alcoholic wife, I was the one in the family that was the enabler - both for my own drinking as well as the other disfunctional aspects.

I'm sure there are plenty of control freaks in AA. Usually they are laughed at but some who are charismatic do get a following. They may be able to help a lot of people along, but may down the road find that their own path has to lead them away from being a leader or a guru. I can honestly say, having tried it many many times, that following a leader means looking at a lot of ass. There's really a whole lot more to see but you need to get out in front, on your own path.

Barisax

-- Edited by barisax on Tuesday 3rd of May 2011 02:56:37 PM

StPeteDean · MIP Old Timer

LB point taken, apoloqies to anyone who took offense to my remark, which I thouqht was a fairly well understood. The best thinq that I can do is be honest. What qets some people sober, will qet others drunk. Surely you can't help anyone qet sober if we push them out the door with in your face lanquaqe, rules and reqs. It's a much different place, now verses the the '40's. We're dealinq with much younqer people tryinq to reach them at a hiqher bottom. I noticed that, fundamentally, you aqreed that the lanquaqe is too stronq to read to a new comer. It was intended as a quide for sponsorship so I'm told.

LinBaba · MIP Old Timer

yeah no worries dean sorry my post came across the way it did, far harsher then i meant, was posting from a cell phone from a tree top waiting for the guys to get caught up so came across a little abruptly and sounded a bit too much like a rebuke, not intentional my apologies, adrenaline usually pumping during work so come across a bit aggrssively

Rob84 · MIP Old Timer

TO THE NEWCOMER: It is your life. It is your choice. If you are not completely convinced to your own satisfaction that you are an alcoholic, that your life has become unmanageable; if you are not ready to part with alcohol forever, it would be better for all concerned if you discontinue reading this and give up the idea of becoming a member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

For if you are not convinced, it is not only wasting your own time, but the time of scores of men and women who are genuinely interested in helping you.

We need to put the statement in context.

The last sentence above really underscores the reason for the brochure, it was not to be a nazi or unwelcoming to those on the fence.

There where very "real" problems with a flooding of people (due to some local newspaper articles) coming for help and very few with the ability to help all the newcomers.

AA was very young, there were not treatment centers or other professional help for alcoholics at that time or previously.

To spend a lot of time helping someone who was not 100% committed, literally meant that others might die.

The situation is much different today, but as we all know from the "Working with others" chapter. Best to not waste much time helping those who are not committed.

StPeteDean · MIP Old Timer

Rob84 wrote:
The situation is much different today, but as we all know from the "Working with others" chapter. Best to not waste much time helping those who are not committed.

Yes, today a lot of our messaqe is, listen to our stories, you don't have to hit all these bottoms and experience all the losses and yets to realize that you're powerless and that you life is unmanaqeable. Sure committment to workinq a proqram is crucial, and many of these hiqh bottom drunks will have to bump their heads a few times. I know that I did. And I know that I encountered "old timers" with attitudes early on, and I chose other meetinqs to attend. In the past 5 years I've seen a fundamentalist movement in AA that concerns me. Their commitment to sinqleness of purpose looks qood on the surface, but the attitude is very much like you'd see in a fundamentalist christian orqanization, in it's exclusive "where the real and only AA and everythinq else is crap" messaqe. If all meetinqs are autonomous then just worry about your own meetinqs qroup conscience. Imo, it's these folks that are attractinq the "AA is a cult" commentary and someday it may lead to the end of AA, or at least as we know it. Someday soon you may have to make several pledqes at each meetinq to join and/or maintain your membership. Ya vol

bikerbill · MIP Old Timer

Interseting topic. At a meeting recently there was a suggestion that we read a Respect Statement. Dealt mainly with cross talk and predatory sexual behaviours. All sounded fine until I recognised a paragraph from another fellowships preamble slipped in there. Oh, is this conference approved? Er, no, I only wrote it ast month, cobbled together from various AA sources and another fellowship.

Now we do have a conference approved behaviour statement as a table card. This particular meeting is small and strong and doesn't have an issue with cross talk (if it happens it get's called out) and 13th stepping (if it happens, it get's jumped on) so what ws the point?

Ah it's so members from this group can go and educate members in other groups - erm. Autonomy except as it affects other groups and AA as a whole?

So this is maybe an ego driven thing, in this case. There is someone in another meeting who dearly loves to read from Mr. Peck (life is hard etc.), another who likes to refer to the Christian Bible in meetings, another who likes to refer to other non conference approved literature (pamphlets from a local re hab).

My ego got the better of me one day in a conscience meeting, so I pulled out an old copy of Bike Magazine and read a short passage from the writings of Dan Walsh, referring to his bewilderment while drinking himself to oblivion and getting the tattoo that 'these are the days that must happen to you.'

Yes, quite rightly I got flamed..........but the Mr. Peck reader hasn't had that book out again, the Rehab pamphlets get shared out of the meeting and the guy with the Bible asks if anyone minds before he refers to it. And Bike Magazine stays at home.

The point for me (and only me) is conference approved literature works and if we start to use any old stuff it get's confusing, allying with sect, denomination etc. If use of non approved literature is not at least questioned, then we might as well read the Wall Street Journal, selected writings of Edgar Allen Poe and the lyrics of Johnny Cash in meetings.

These of course are but my opinions from my personal experience. As you know my opinion is worth exactly what you pay for it. In this case, bugger all.

Rainspa · Senior Member

If not members of religious bodies, we sometimes select and memorize a few set prayers which emphasize the principles we have been discussing. There are many helpful books also. Suggestions about these may be obtained from one's priest, minister, or rabbi. Be quick to see where religious people are right. Make use of what they offer.

Page 87

-- Edited by Rainspa on Sunday 8th of May 2011 10:26:24 AM

LinBaba · MIP Old Timer

Rainspa wrote:
If not members of religious bodies, we sometimes select and memorize a few set prayers which emphasize the principles we have been discussing. There are many helpful books also. Suggestions about these may be obtained from one's priest, minister, or rabbi. Be quick to see where religious people are right. Make use of what they offer.

Page 87

-- Edited by Rainspa on Sunday 8th of May 2011 10:26:24 AM

I think it comes down to principals before personalities, AA's principals, my personality for when I share or decide to pick apart someone else's share or tell another group what they are and aren't "allowed" to read, first as long as they don't affiliate with anyone else, ie ANY organized religion it's all good as far as AA goes

I have heard AMAZING shares prefaced by "My Rabbi said ____ and it made me think of _____ (AA Principal) or "The Carpenter said _______ and I think it dovetails in AA because ________ or even a paragraph from a book about meditation/spiritual principals from Buddhist, Shinto, eastern philosophy, especially in a meditation meeting which this meeting is, it's nice to have a spiritual idea to meditate

The crux is if someone is using the meeting to "sell" their brand of religion or if they are sharing and some reading made them start thinking, and it segues into a share

There are different formats for different meetings for a reason, Big Book Studies where the Big Book is exclusively studied, 12 and 12 studies where the 12 and 12 is exclusively studied, Discussion meetings where a paragraph is chosen by a member out of books such as "As Bill Sees it" which is NOT "AA" per se, it's thoughts by someone who knows a thing or 2 about AA

Bill himself wrote the traditions and the 12 and 12, they were ratified a few times, and finally came to exist as those we have in AA today, but in "We Agnostics" although affiliation with ANY organized religion is verboten, Bill describes basically how he came to believe in a Christian Diety, a first century Christain/protestant "Father of Light" father figure, and then wrote the Big Book with HIS sponsor/spiritual advisor, a Catholic Priest, where he writes from his experience, which includes HIS version of Jahweh or Jehova, which we call "God" ...which is kind of like naming my dog..."Dog" but I digress, anyhow, he wrote from -his experience- which included this "Father" because it's his experience, and as such, valid

Buddha said my teachings are like a raft to get you across a stream, after you cross the stream why carry the raft on your head, if someone shares about how they learned something from their "raft" I don't care if it's from a book about Winnie the Pooh, which has some great wisdom in it by the way, it's their "raft" who am I to tell them differently, it's when they try to sell their raft at group level is when an actual tradition is being broken

if someone starts a meditation meeting and the members vote to read various spiritual readings to begin the meditation, they have EVERY right to do so, if a meeting decides to read old stuff from Clarence or Dr Bob or Bill, THEY have every right to do so, it's not up to me to be judgmental or try to change THEIR meeting, if I don't like, I can take my fanny elsewhere, and if I have a problem with it, it's MY problem, they aren't wrong I AM

Rainspa · Senior Member

Here's what General Service Office of AA has to say about the subject:

What "Conference Approved"
Literature Means

GSO Box 4-5-9 1978 (Volume 23, No 4)

"Any literature that pertains to the principles of AA or is approved by a Group Conscience -- is perfectly acceptable to be read by any AA member or in an AA meeting."