[freya]

Well, you know, logically speaking, anything or anyone that/who is not defective in some sense would, by definition, be perfect.

Personally, I don't know anyone who is perfect (and I know quite a few people)....and I most certainly would not consider the idea of suicide on the installment plan known as alcoholism to be at all compatible with human perfection....

....and, even if it were, why would anyone who was perfect be interested in any kind of recovery program....or even feel the need for making any kind of personal changes whatsoever????????

Something is not quite making sense to me here.

Are you sure you don't have the idea that we all have character defects confused with the concept of "original sin"??????

But anyways, moving on to the actual question:

I'm not AA; I'm Al Anon. But I do, obviously, work a 12 Step program, and I do attend GLBT AA meetings.

First off, anyone can attend any open AA meeting. So, if you want to attend AA meetings, GLBT or otherwise, go ahead.

However, in my personal opinion, attending AA meetings -- or any kind of traditional 12 Step meeting -- just for "support," while "not really caring for the Steps or the book" strikes me as rather ego-centric and kind of insulting to the people who are actually there to work the AA program.

I mean, how would it sound if I were to say I wanted to attend the Baptist church down the street in the hopes of getting support from the people there, even though I have already decided that I don’t care for the teaching of Jesus Christ or believe in The Bible?????

What kind of welcome could I realistically expect to receive under those circumstances, and whose "fault" would it be if I received just exactly that "welcome"?

What would it really say about me if I tried to enter any pre-existing group of people looking to get something from those people, but at the same time I had already decided that I don't want or value whatever the common bond is that those people share? What, really, is the difference between behaving like this and showing up at the neighborhood bridge club with the idea that I am going to get all those people to play euchre with me because I don't happen to like bridge?

As far as I can tell, that kind of behavior would be just totally self-centered and disrespectful……almost to the point of being delusional....Unless, of course, it was my true goal to deliberately set myself up with an excuse to cop a resentment against those people....in which case my behavior would be self-centered, disrespectful, manipulative and dishonest....but probably not delusional.

Now, on the other side, I do find most AA meetings in my area – and this is not true everywhere or even of all meetings in my area – are very tolerant of newcomers with “baditudes” -- of whatever kind. But that is the case because most people around here seem to be willing to operate on the hope that if that new person sticks around long enough, he/she will actually lose the baditude and become open and willing to work an AA program.

freya