I am a "newcomer", almost 60days sober. I love AA. I have met some wonderful people! We are indeed a very unique group of people. We all have interesting and sometimes helpful opinions. Sadly, opinions do not save lives, they can actually bring death closer to an Alcoholic. Two great men set out on a mission in the 1930s and I think we all need to grab the bull by its horns more these days! AA meetings are not therapy groups. (We have plenty of other groups that handle such things) We all are not there to talk about how our day went, or how our week went, or that our cat is sick, or that we got a DUI, etc.. We are all likely guilty of such things on some occassions, and those are perfectfully good things to fellowship about before or after the meeting. It is just not right to take an hour and talk about the trouble you are having with your child (having said that I have two) or whatever other non-AA related topic you may like to put into the blank. We are in a meeting, together, to talk about the solution! The steps, the traditions, the prayers, the Works. Now in no way am I trying to attack anyone, because I am guilty of crying "whoa poor me" at a few meetings myself, I am simply stating that we need to take back the program for what it was meant to be! Newcomers should not have to ask what a Big Book is. They should be told where to sit if there is a designated place for lets say people who have under a year. Meeting after meeting they should not be forced to hear war stories, you can't scare anybody in to being sober. Them scaring themselves into the program is enough. Once they are there with us they should have hands guiding them in the direction they need to go. They should be hearing about the positives the program has brought. They should be finding God and having spiritual awakenings! This disease is crafty, and if left alone it is not a matter of only how much you wanted sobriety, but a matter of your strength against the disease of alcoholism! We can not leaving eachother out there flayling like fish without water! It is our responsibility to help those still suffering. Thats what this is all about! Not just staying dry, and still smug in self. We need to open our arms, and open our mouths with the message of AA so that no more of us has to die!!
My intentions are not to offend, I simply want AA and AA's to stay alive!
1st of all, Welcome to MIP Cindy, hope you keep coming back to share with us ...
I can tell by your post that you have come to expect certain methods and rules to be followed in our meetings ... actually i do agree with your basic train of thought, however, we are constantly gaining new members that don't have the experience or haven't learned to respect our reason for being there yet ... this will take time and require our patience and tolerance to allow them to grow into the recovery process ...
A lot of people come to AA and find our meeting formats lend themselves to a (for the lack of a better term) 'bitching session' and the result is something less than a recovery lesson ... that has been a part of AA ever since it was founded and it will continue to have a lot of that in the future ... it's really just a part of our disease ...
Cindy, when I had about a year and a half sober, I went on a rant that stirred up some things too ... I'll never forget the time a lady came in with a few months going, and started the meeting by complaining about what a rough day she was having ... after I listened to her complain about how her car wouldn't start and how her son was mean to her and how her pilot husband expected her to have the toilet paper turned a certain way and how she had a flat tire at the grocery store, etc. ... I'd had enough, i made sure my sharing came next and I unloaded both barrels in the meeting ... I explained that her problems were something to be grateful for, that there are others who woke up to much more intolerable situations, that found a way to remain sober ...
I said I know a guy that got a phone call at 2 or 3 a.m. and was told his son had just been 'life-flighted' to the hospital and was in ICU and may not make it ... this guy had to pack his bags and drive nearly 300 mi.s to go see his son ... and it turns out his son was to be a quadriplegic for the rest of his life ... now there's a crappy day for you ... not the car problem nor the son and husband bitching, but a real serious problem ... so I said she should be grateful and could we please talk of recovery and leave the personal stuff for our sponsor OR at least discuss it with those that care, AFTER the meeting ... I felt bad afterwards because there was a better way for me to approach this than the way I did ...
But I guess my point is, is that some of us still have 'short' fuses and wind up saying things we later regret ... It's all part of the learning process and it helps us deal with future problems in a more 'thoughtful' way ... Just be careful of your 'expectations' and be tolerant of those who haven't learned any better ...
By the way, if you haven't come across members that aren't 'perpetual' complainers yet, just wait, they're a real test of our love and tolerance ... LOL
Love Ya and God Bless, Pappy
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'Those who leave everything in God's hand will eventually see God's hand in everything.'
People are free to spend their 3-5 minutes however they want to in my book. They came to the meeting to do what they needed to do: Not isolate, share, learn to live or just not drink etc. It's their choice... how dare I be so selfish as to expect they have to do it perfectly for me. Recovery teaches me to stop being so self centered and stop wanting everything my way. To be grateful for what I've got - as Pappy explained.
Mr. David said it best when I was spouting off once: AA is not a museum of perfect people! LOL
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Thanks for everything. Peace and Love on your journey.
We first need to know what the problem is to find a solution. The big book says "we brought our problems to the meetings to find solutions." (That's in Bill's story somewhere.) I like to share solution...a lot...but I also like to know that if a problem arises, that I have a safe place to go and share. And the biggest answer I have gotten to any problem is "Just don't drink over it"! Plus, My sponsor told me that it's ok to bring a problem to a meeting, I might just get 30-40 solutions! Thank God for love and tolerance!
Have you ever been to ...what I call...a "Canned Group"? Most of them can't stay sober and most of those groups fold. I don't know about you but I need AA...it doesn't need me.
Thank you to all of you. I appreciate all the input on my thought. : ) I don't mind a good "bitching session" once in a while, lol. We are definetly not a perfect people, and I believe thats why its hard to find a boring meeting lol, regardless of topic. Thanks again
Glad you could make it. When I hear the words "A.A. drama" I think of my first sponsor Harold. He would say something like: "Welcome to the magnificent reality which is called AA." I know dear, that part sounds a bit corny even for me, but my sponsor had a way of getting his message across, regardless. The 'magnificent' part is just an outward sign of gratitude while the 'reality' part happens every day. And I'm emphasizing the word 'reality' for one reason only. It's usually during these times that people have the propensity to ramble on, and on with very little regard for anyone else. When that does happen, unfortunately, we should be ready for just about anything.
If someone had a bad day, for example, then they should be allowed to discuss 'any' incident 'whatsoever' without fear of retribution -including what happened and why. It's only when certain people disrupt the meeting place that our group members will take action, as they should. Our group has a 'reflex' policy in place, where a member of the group will pull that person aside and console them outside the meeting, so not to disturb the proceedings further. It's our version of a sidebar and also very effective.
Let's face it, though: Some people will talk candidly about AA related issues while others simply don't care. They'll talk about anything just to pass the time, and that's when the group conscience comes into play. Our sponsors should act like advocates when something does go wrong, but to think we can alter their speech somehow, well, that's something we can't always change. But we can change how we react to them, plain and simple. Only then may we find an alternative that actually works. I hope this helps.
P.S. I had a hard time dealing with some of the old timers early on. They would say things like "Sit down and shut up" or "take the sock off your foot in put it into your mouth", which aggravated me to no avail. Why was I so aggravated? It sounded more like commands to me than actual advice. My first sponsor actually tracked me down after a meeting once and said "I heard you shared your story at this so and so meeting last night". Who said you can do that anyway? I'm in charge here, remember. Well, that's when I went off, literally. I'll spare you the details Cindy, but my sponsor fired me after that, thank goodness. But the memory of that day still lingers on. Why you may ask? He drank himself to death only 2 years later and I was never able to say my proper goodbyes, that's why. So please remember that the next time someone says "do this" or "do that", it may cost them more than just a chip.
-- Edited by Mr_David on Saturday 10th of November 2012 11:08:46 PM
Welcome to the MIP forum. Hope you keep coming back with the positive contributions, it seems like you have really put a lot of focus on learning about AA in your short time, I think I was still just happy to find the damn meeting at 60 days sober!
I believe you are correct in what you are saying, it is best to focus on the solution, we all know about the diease. We share our experience strength and hope, not opinions.
With our groups and people it is progress, and we will never get to perfection. Best we can do is be a power of example, and help others stay in the solution as much as possible. If we get a chance to chair a meeting we can maybe bring this up as a topic to help educate people, get involved in the group and bring it up at the HG meetings. Share about staying in the solution.
Here in the ATL area the meetings are pretty good, and they allow new people to share. I tell new people and sponcees, if they are going to vent, at least end your sharing with how you navagated the situation and didn't drink.....what tools did you use? Did you respond differently than the old "you"?
We need always remember.....our common welfare comes first=unity. Only requirement for membership is the desire to stay sober=don't judge. Love and tolerance is our code.
Is there such a thing as a solution to helping our groups stay in the solution. Thanks for the topic
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Rob
"There ain't no Coupe DeVille hiding in the bottom of a Cracker Jack Box."
The rooms of AA are loaded with clones and non-clones. In the beginning where I got into recovery; coming thru the doors of Al-Anon; I was married to an alcoholic/addict who was just wrecking my own drinking program, the BB thumpers and Nazis' tried unsuccessfully to hammer on me about the oughta's and gottah's and shoulda's which just totally pissed me off and put them on dangerous ground. One of my emotional and behavioural character defects is I'm oppositional defiant. There was no way I was going to "come along with them". "Instant assholes...just add alcohol" later became my understanding of "them".
I did get into AA 9 years after I arrested my drinking and right after I took my first for real alcoholism assessment...alone with the exception of HP and after HP's direction. The consequence was my first AA for me meeting on a Friday night at the Alano Club in CenVal Ca. Why? I had learned about the possibility of relapse and the assessment review told me the next time I drank I'd die. I've over dosed three times and ours is a progressive disease.
For me there were and are still (I've been a member such) lots of fellows who will stand up and direct the spotlight upon themselves and how they believe it should be done and at the same time forget that HP is something other than them. An Alcoholic practicing Power and Control is a delusional alcoholic with a short memory. Recite the steps and I am instantaneously aware of why.
One of my sponsors taught me about "half-life" sobriety. "If you don't have at lease as many years sober as you did drinking...the disease is still a head of you". He also taught me to not attempt to get in the way of some one elses chance at recovery when I didn't have it myself. He admonished me to shut up rather than distract the process. Its a spiritual program and often it doesn't work and often it doesn't work until after the relapse process however long and timely is over. I don't speak to relapse cause I've never had one...yet...with the chemical. I have had several without the chemical and have the amends to prove it.
At 60 days of recovery I still didn't know and didn't know that I didn't know about this fatal disease and my life. I hadn't gotten over the defect of isolation and being oppositional definant I was just sitting with an open mind hoping to find help. I didn't "Love anything or anyone including myself and the literature was still greek to me and still I know today that HP abided with me and kept me in my chair". Recovery isn't a Me thing it's a God thing and most often God directs things very differently than I shoulda, ottah, woulda or coulda. I was taught to listen for solutions for me and that comes thru the sharing of others like me. Thousands of members have helped me to rebuild my life for which I am beyond gratitude. Happy, Joyous and Free is more like it. Keep coming back...
-- Edited by Jerry F on Friday 9th of November 2012 03:38:29 AM
By the way, if you haven't come across members that aren't 'perpetual' complainers yet, just wait, they're a real test of our love and tolerance ... LOL
Love Ya and God Bless, Pappy
My brother is in the program/ fits the description and lives in the St Pete area, so be careful what you wish for. LOL
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Rob
"There ain't no Coupe DeVille hiding in the bottom of a Cracker Jack Box."
Sure, unless the group conscience provides otherwise, folks can complain (for the group conscience maximum agreed time for a share) about how the slurpee machine wasn't working when they were at 7-11 or how the AM/PM corndog wasn't spicy enough.
Nothing says I have to listen to them.
Hate to crumble any wisdom cookies, but I'm not going to drink if I tune out of shares that aren't about the solution but that are about complaining and talking about how mad someone is about something.
I won't walk out and I won't cross-talk. I *will*drink, eventually, if I start doing that.
And I *will* reflect during that time on how I can carry the AA message of recovery to others and what I can do to maintain my spiritual condition so that *I* am not the one complaining about the corn dogs, or, less extremely, using the meeting as my ongoing personal Step 5 moment -- as I used to do for the first couple of years or so.
I did see one guy walk out of a meeting in which the speaker spent the first half an hour more or less doing his Step 5. Most of us felt like doing the same thing. When I saw that, I thought to myself, OMG, the pain that I used to cause in my shares. lol
Steve
-- Edited by SteveP on Friday 9th of November 2012 05:06:56 AM
At little over 3 months sober, I have found the same thing. I attend womans and step meetings. Because sharing will lean towards what I don't know. Though I have dropped a sponsor because she avoided the question "how do I apply the steps to this issue" typically, I have learned that if I can't get a response from my sponsor, I will give my issue and ask if any one has advice (before or after the meeting). Lead by example. Stay sober long enough for some one to emulate you. Love, Avery
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In the end, everything will be alright. If it is not alright, it is not the end... Paulo coelho (also marigold hotel)
I found AA via rehab, so the meetings I first went to had members that were used to new faces every couple of days, and sorta tailored some of the message to us. I remember one old timer saying in a very fire and brimstone way:
"AA won't fix your marriage. It won't fix your problems at work. It won't get rid of all your money problems. It won't do any of that stuff. You're all in the wrong place if you come here expecting that. What AA will do is get you sober and sane. Then you will be able to go out there and sort all those problems out yourself"
It seemed a bit over the top at the time (especially because he kept pointing at me when he said it!) but I see now that he was spot on. Without sober and sane no amount of therapy and good advice will help anything.
That said sometimes the rooms are the only safe place a person knows where they can pour out their heart. As long as it's not a constant domination of the meetings that is diluting the primary message I think a bit of leeway on this is fine.
One of my first experiences in AA was a meeting where a man was sharing how he didn't know how he was going to pay his bills, he had no job, no income, and no hope. The man who spoke after him pounded on the table, and literally shouted out at the other guy "I don't give a f#@* about your bills or your job or your worries. And he started to recite pages from the BB. Well, I was new to AA, barely a few meetings in, and I wanted to run out of there and never look back. I thought, if this is what this is about, you can have it. I was stunned and scared and I thought, these are the people who are supposed to help me???? I didn't run, and I still see both of these men regularly at meetings. The one who shared about his worries continues to do so, it's what works for him. I either listen or meditate during his shares, depending on where I am that day. If I am chairing, I give him a minute or two, and gently try to bring him around to our topic. He either includes it or stops sharing. The other booming BB reciter continues to be booming and can pretty much recite the BB word for word. It saved his life, and that's how he passes it on. If I ever need to know where I can find info on a particular passage or topic in the BB, I can go to him, and he can lead me right to it.
An old timer in our meetings says her sponsor told her many years ago "If you spill your problems onto the tables of AA, they will be cut in half. If you share your joys in the halls of AA, they will be doubled." I must say, I have done both at times, and probably will continue to do so on occasion. Most of the time I try to "carry the message, not the mess", but sometimes, it just spills out of me when I open my mouth. I must say, the mess does lose a lot of it's power when I let go of it, and my joys are greater when I can share them with my fellows. I have learned that I don't have to do AA perfect, I just need to be willing to continue to grow and learn. And then share that with others so they can do the same. How that works for me depends on the day.
If I am chairing a meeting where someone gets on a roll sharing their mess, I will thank them after they've had their 5 minutes, then call on a member who I can rely on to bring the meeting back to topic, or at least back to carrying the message. Again, for me, it's all a learning process, one that continues one day at a time.
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I asked God for all things that I may enjoy life. He gave me life so that I may enjoy all things.
There's nothing wrong with AA. Meeting culture differs greatly from place to place, though the message remains the same. You sound pretty observant and coherent for having just 60 days sober, but my caution would be to worry less about what's wrong with AA and focus more on yourself.
"And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation -- some fact of my life -- unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes."
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
cindy, For what it is worth: this is what I found with ALNON groups when I was trying desperately to find 'fixes' for my ExAH. Bitch, bitch, bitch......Hell I'd done/said most of what I was listening too. That's when I decided to try AA. I felt like I was intruding!!!! or spying!!!!! Was silent for a long time. Read posts here....at the time there was a gentleman named Phil....one of the first monitors of this site. He used to post jokes! Some totally unrelated. At first I too was thinking all you have. He did however, when needed got down to business!!!! Of course I read other posts and during my journey, found more insight ,help ,understanding. Eventually, I joined, and spoke up.....from my point of view about dealing with this disease. The group did not mind rather welcomed me. (I forget her name...but she and Phil used to banter back and forth on this site. I thought OMG leave this poor woman alone. she could be a spitfire and gave it right back at times. I learned later they had actually been close friends! -----they lived in different countries, so I'm not sure if they ever met face to face. As time went I seen the humor. And both gleaned wonderful advice stories ect to help those who came here.) We are human....these are discussion groups YES geared to alcohol. However, sometimes, people have to vent other life issues before they are comfort discussing matters at hand. It is hard I know to be patient, however, by showing compassion and bearing....what is bared.....we may very well be saving a life. Hang in there. No one is perfect. If we were we wouldn't be here! learning
Thank you all for your advice. Please know that I was simply venting. I intend to hurt no ones feelings. I am being Honest, which is something I am unfortunetly new at being, though I always thought I was..ha ha. I am actually a pretty tolerant person(I think). I have never interfered with anyone sharing and have never walked out of a meeting. I hope nothing ever brings me to do either! I need my meetings. I have seen people do both and it made me very uncomfortable. I went my first thirty something days without a sponsor, which I know and knew shouldn't be done, so my first week of meetings I tolds my story, lol. I didn't know any better. We all make mistakes. And I have shared well more than once about my "bad day" and how whoever did whatever and it made me feel however. I had a similar experience with an olddtimer telling me what AA could not do for me. I try to find something positive out of every meeting. And truly believe(at least at this point) that there is no such thing as a bad meeting, so long as you learn something. I tried for a long time fighting this disease alone, for I didn't know I had it. It didn't even cross my mind until maybe 6months ago. So I have thrown my whole heart into this, because I know for me, that is the only way. We all do what works for us to stay sober. And I am proud to be one of you! =)
Again, thank you all for your input, advice, and yes even opinions =)
