Does anyone know if groups are allowed to ask people to remove hats and wear dress clothes to a meeting?  Suit and tie - and dresses for woman?  If I decide I want to go to a meeting where this is taking place... can they kick me out if I show up in my usual bucket hat and regular casual clothes???  Just curious if the only requirement for membership is the desire to stop drinking in all groups, or if some can make their own rules. 

Well - that is just it - I'm just wondering if they are actually going to kick me out, or if I can just say - "thanks for the suggestion".

I do not own any dresses, and I don't plan on buying any to be a part of a meeting.

You go Girl!!!

Holy mackerel, where do you find these groups? I would refer the group to the traditions of AA where it states the only requirement is a desire to stop drinking. I have had to call General Services on one of my home groups before because they started up with some baloney like you stated above. A dress code of such rigidity is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard. Sounds like they are trying to dress themselves right out of being listed on the meeting schedule.

You should go in your wedding dress and ask if its too formal.
Tom

I'd like to see that!!!

They wouldn't have liked me! When I lived in MN I worked at a Steel Manufacturing Plant and routinely went to meetings in my dirty jeans and steel toes!

A dress code! Crrrrrrrraziness! I would totally want to show up in the grubbiest clothes I own.

Doesn't everyone wear Valentino ball gowns and Jimmy Choo heels to meetings? I skip the tiara unless it is a very special day though. *grins and winks*

The really cool thing is, there are tons of other meetings. I've gone a whole year without running into them. Just recently, have I decided to start changing up my meetings and exploring other options. My kids are getting bigger, I have decided I will try some of the later night meetings now because they aren't so needy at bedtime. I had an unpleasant experience with one of my sponsors (now ex sponsor), and I just decided I needed a change of pace and a fresh start. This is where I wound up lol... but... there are lots of other options : )

-- Edited by justadrunk on Saturday 20th of April 2013 03:34:52 PM

What exactly is a pacific meeting? I don't know the difference

I was told there are other meetings like it all over the country though... but the GSO have bigger fish to fry.

I researched it a bit now that you mentioned it. The following is stuff I dug up an cut and pasted. It's not my words but quotes from others having attended and sounds like it backs up what you are saying. The most lengthy resource is the last one and I included the website:

"Clancy the self-appointed guru of the Pacific Group tells women they have to wear dresses and men jackets when they participate at their meetings. Men must not have beards. The idea is that conformity is part of the so-called cure of Alcoholism. Very controlling male chauvinist."


"There is an AA meeting in woodland hills called the Pacific Group. It's a mens stag meeting on fri. nights. This meeting is run like a Cult. AA is to help people quit drinking, not to try to control the members ever move. They will tell you how to act, what to wear etc... No where in the Big Book of AA does it talk about this BS."

"There are cult like groups within AA. Mostly in California. For example, The Pacific Group, where you are not allowed to have facial hair and are required to wear a suit. They have a GURU named Clancy who controls the group and many individuals."

***
Probably the most lengthy and informative info came from here :http://qtpi1969.net/recovery-spirituality/the-dark-legacy-of-a-rehab-cult-the-pacific-group/

Pacific Group "Rules"





Group speaking rules:


Wear a modest dress and make-up (men must wear a jacket and tie. No gym shoes allowed. Iintroduce yourself as a Recovered Alcoholic. Give both your sobriety date and sponsors name. Do not use curse words, and limit quotations either to the first 164 pages of the Big Book or to the Other Big Book.



Group rules: (partial list)


1) No medications should be taken whatsoever. If a sponsee or fellow AAer is doing so, they are told that is "untreated alcoholism". The PG considers all psychiatric/psychotropic drugs regardless of doctor prescription ruinous to ones sobriety.

Pacific Group members and sponsors, are telling people to stop taking prescribed medication for illnesses such as bipolar and schizophrenia, and just trust the Twelve Steps to heal them. That borders on criminal irresponsibility.


It is also practicing medicine without a license, because they are countermanding the orders of a real doctor.

It is also practicing medicine without any training those fools have never gone to medical school. Attending A.A. meetings for a few years does not make someone a competent doctor or psychiatrist.


Medications of any kind are disparaged, and any diagnosis of disorder other than the Big Book's disease concept of alcoholism meets with strong opposition. The parallel with "faith healing" should be obvious and the same pitfalls are present. To such individuals, there is no such thing as clinical depression.

Sponsor direction to stop seeing a psychiatrist and/or a psychologist, resulting in relapses, suicides, and psychiatric episodes.



2) Opposite sex Sponsors are encouraged. Sponsors are assigned rather than chosen. Sponsorship in the PG is not optional.





3) Long distance sponsorship is encouraged.





4) The cross-continent sponsorship line (ie:Grandsponsors, great grandsponsors, etc) is integral and important to know.




5) Inventories are called "Giving a First Step"
which is a detailed confession to the entire group that often goes back to earliest childhood and then focuses mostly on the period when the 'sinner (confessor)' had the most hormone-related activity, because that will have the most cachet. The more lurid the details, the more intently the group listens. Afterwards, there is much hugging and congratulating, so everyone can feel absolved.



6) Members are encouraged to break off contact with friends and family outside the program, even those who do not drink, and to get an "AA boyfriend". Members are also known to be pressured into having sex with other members.




7) The PG does not allow drugs to be discussed in meetings.



8) The PG makes the newcomers sit in special chairs so everyone knows they are fresh. (Lamont Oaks)



9) The PG group actively goes out to attract older men and younger women.




10) If someone attempts to leave the PG group or go to other, non-PG meetings, they are told: "You will fail. You will die."

Members are only allowed to go to their meetings, and only talk to people in their group.


11) People are told that only AA knows what is good for them, and if therapists or doctors disagree, drop them and find one that does.


ALSO:

*In order to become a member of the PG, a member of the PG must sponsor you

*In order to vote at a group conscience meeting, you must be a member of the PG, which means that you must have a sponsor in the group.

*The PG groups believe in sponsor direction, not sponsor guidance.

*Direction to attend a meeting every night of every week, and, as mentioned earlier, only MG meetings. Attendance is mandatory and the sponsor must grant permission when a meeting cannot be attended.

*Direction to withhold child visitation to a spouse who is outside the PG or AA in general.

*Direction on who to be sexually active with and/or who to get into a personal relationship with, regardless of his/her age.

*Direction to live with others in the PG in PG group homes.

*Sexual activity is encouraged by justifying it as helping members stay away from drugs and alcohol and by stating that it is a "true spiritual experience."

*Sponsor/sponsee confidentiality is violated and personal information is shared with the leader and others in the hierarchy regularly. Written 4th Steps (an AA member's very personal inventory on sensitive issues including sex) have been passed on from sponsors to members of the hierarchy. This information is sometimes revealed openly in front of others during a meeting.

*As is suggested in the Sponsorship Pamphlet, new members are strongly encouraged to select a sponsor of the same sex. In the PG this is frequently violated, resulting in the abuse of power.

*Certain members of the PG direct other members to serve the leader and his hierarchy. While they do bring meetings into detox centers, rehabs and jails, it is for the sole purpose of recruiting new members into their group. Certain members of the PG refer to this practice as "Outreach". (AA, as a whole, is a program of attraction, not promotion. AA does not recruit members.)

*Financial support is often disguised as gifts.

*'Service work ' includes activities such as raking a sponsor's lawn, cleaning his/her home, doing his/her laundry, etc. (This is documented as cult behavior in literature on the subject and is not considered AA service.)

*They have directed members to cease seeing their psychiatrist and/or therapist. (A cult tactic that is described in literature on the topic.)

*They have directed members to stop taking medication prescribed to them by a medical professional and based on a diagnosis and treatment plan.
"AA is not a medical organization, does not give out medicines or medical advice."24
AA does not discourage members from seeking
qualified help and even encourages it in our primary literature.

*They have directed members to throw away prescribed medication and to change their sobriety dates inferring the member was never sober while taking the medication.

*Certain members of the hierarchy have ostracized and alienated other members and directed sponsees to do the same if those members are on any medications. Some former members have experienced being completely ignored when speaking to or approaching anyone in the group.

*The California Group offset of the PG group actually has a specific form of doing a 4th step, which includes answering over 300 questions (most of which are very private and most of which do not even pertain to a real AA inventory):

Why do you want to go?

They sound like something to avoid.  Good to know.

Wow, Tasha. I'd heard about those guys. I had NOT registered that they were your first contact with AA.

You were obviously serious about your sobriety at the start, more serious that you may have realized. A lot of folks might have seen that and run as far as they could have from what they thought AA was. I'm pretty sure I'd have reacted that way.

Steve

stuff like this will be the end of AA

Kinda realize now why some may have thouht AA was "cultish" Have never been to, or heard of meetings where there was a dress code. Also don't realize why my sponser should or would tell me how to dress. And I don't follow how this could enhance or deter my sobriety. I think that you may be asking to get your feelings hurt by telling someone how to dress for a AA meeting. We are not all form the same social, economical, or cultural  class, and this is what makes AA special in it's own way. This can work for anyone, all you have to have is the desire to stop drinking, no matter what you wear to the meeting. Check your ego at the door and take a seat! God Bless!!

   

- I have first hand experience with this. It's from my own mouth because it happened to me, and I watched it happen. A man with blue hair was escorted to the "naughty" corner - and that just isn't right. I don't know about any of the sex stuff, and I don't plan to stay long enough to find out - but I have an elder in the area who has given me a warning about that very thing, and I have gotten an invitation to a "retreat" at a private party up north in Ashland with one of the pacific group elders for a weekend on the beach - and didn't know any better at the time - but after reading Mark's post - it made sense. I was new to AA at the time. I'm remembering more and more things that now make sense as I go along, and there is no question that these things are actually taking place. I heard sexist remarks made by the speaker last Thursday - jokes about woman were actually the theme... even my husband was disgusted and couldn't believe his ears... one about a new camera coming out that was so fast it could record a girls mouth flapping... and woman were never called anything but 'little girls' - and a few Sundays' ago when I was so upset at being called "a little girl" when I was shut down from chairing a meeting - I was also at a pacific group meeting and didn't know it. I'm starting to get it all put together, and it's appalling. When I went back to make amends to that man for me leaving without saying good bye (because I was about to cry) - he said "oh I just figured it was a woman thing - you guys are overly emotional". He said that right to my face, and took my apology for 'over reacting' as an opportunity to belittle me even further. Then I saw him in the grocery store with his hysterical young boy having a tantrum, and tried to help - (with the boy) and he snubbed me.

There's some extremist AA groups near where I live.

Basically they go around to various meetings and in sharing tell everyone that they're doing it wrong, that they're killing newcomers and more or less that they have the only proper way of doing the steps. I've seen them in meeting a number of times and their line is always the same.

I'm just very lucky that they weren't my first exposure to AA, otherwise I don't know where I'd be today.

Shame, but I guess that wherever on or two come together in any name, a few will start to take it to extremes.

Steve

It makes it all the more wonderful that when women DO come to a meeting that isn't one of these extremist things they have you as a wonderful model of sobriety, Tasha.

Seriously. You are an inspiration to me for sure!

Ditto, ... My sentiments exactly ... ... ...

Pacific Group is a cult. AA is too weak, for political reason having nothing to do with the traditions or steps, to remove their meetings from sanction. Is it legal? Yes. Are they really AA? No. Chuck Clancy is an egomaniac who will only help you if you have a God as HE understands it.

I come from an area where there are a lot of meetings (40-50 within 25 miles of my house, every night of the week), so my thoughts come from that perspective.  My thoughts in no way are to defend the group, because my first thought is "Rule #62".  We have a group locally that asks that people coming to speak wear suits.  I found it to be disturbing, but whenever I am disturbed the problem is with me.  I realized that it wasn't all about me and I wore a suit when I went to speak out of respect for them.  I didn't agree, but in the big picture it wasn't a big deal.  I'd rather not distract from carrying the message because I wanted to make a point about clothing.  If you know that is what the group is asking and refuse you need to take a look at yourself.  Why are you being defiant?  What purpose does it serve?  On the other hand, if you don't know, show up for the first time, and are asked to leave, I think the group has an issue and they need to look at themselves.  Why are they being unwelcoming?  Why will they apparently not consider the AA Declaration that when anyone, anywhere reaches out for help that the hand of AA should be there?  Should I just find another group more in line with the AA purpose of helping one another?

If you are in an area where there aren't a lot of meetings then you may not have the choices I have.  In this case, the issue with self is the same.  Take a look to see if the issue is with you.  Is it a big deal to dress in a way that the group finds to be something that makes them feel good about themselves?  But if they are turning people away who didn't know, or they are not willing to consider a person's means who may not be able to afford it, then their spirit is not in line with what AA is all about, and they need to make some adjustments to their refusal to acknowledge what the Big Book tells us...our real purpose is to be of maximum service to God and those about us.  Love and service is our code.

Lowe's home improvement company is conducting an online customer satisfaction survey at lowes.com/survey official portal. Five customers have an amazing opportunity to win a $500 gift card by participating in the Lowes survey every month.

The Choc-A-Lot Cake is available at Nandos restaurants worldwide. Its a popular dessert choice for both adults and children, and its often ordered for special occasions, such as birthdays and anniversaries. https://nandos-menus.co.uk/choc-a-lot-cake/

10.29. Can you ever have too much chocolate? Six different kinds of chocolate, paired with two scoops of vanilla bean ice cream and drizzled with chocolate sauce for a dessert so big, you'll need the whole herd. Longhorn Dessert Menu