Originally Posted by
miamifella I think developing judgement and insight are part of the process of recovery. Learning to see beyond the presentation changes how you see meetings.
Personally, I think that it is the culture of only sharing experience, strength and hope that brings about the issue you are discussing. In my experience, when people try to share their trouble or be honest about the negative things in the life, the greeter and others tell them that they are living in the problem rather than the solution.
How to foster honesty? Praise it when you hear it. You know some folk are working against it, so it is up to individuals to support any honesty we hear. Our first instinct is to fight dishonesty. I think that is a losing game. Encouraging honest is slow but effective.
And believe me, I've been beating myself up and haven't been able to sleep all weekend for not being more intuitive about this guy. . . I had coffee with him a LOT and never suspected anything. . . but the truth is, NO ONE knew. His shares sounded truly genuine, with just enough self-deprication that everyone took him absolutely at his word. The woman who admitted to smoking pot every day during her almost 3 years of sobriety. . . I was her sponsor and she lived with me for a while (and smoked pot in my house) and again, NO ONE had any idea. I don't think even the most intuitive person in the world would have known that these people were lying.