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Old 04-19-2005, 03:22 PM   #54 (permalink)
Andy F
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Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: London
Posts: 448
'Our membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism'

It doesn't say those who 'only' suffer from alcoholism. It says ALL who suffer from alcoholism. It doesn't say your primary drug of choice must be alcohol.

If an NA member believes that alcohol is a problem for him, then that is enough. It is irrelevant that he has other problems. He or she has qualified for any meeting. Legitimately. This does not interfere with AA's singleness of purpose. Neither does the fact that this member might talk about his other experiences with other drugs. Afterall, I listen to alsorts of experience in AA that is not directly related to alcohol. I listen to AA's going on about their spending habits, their relationship problems, their penchant for chocolate, their rebellious kids, their money problems, their credit card bill, the boss they hate, and endless stuff personal to them.

I would be a bit careful about asking people to leave closed meetings. The only authority in AA is not the group conscience, but supposed to be the voice of a loving God expressing himself through the group conscience. This relates back to the days of the Oxford groups when they believed that they could directly receive instruction from God. A group conscience was held to discuss everyones experience in quiet time to ascertain what experiences, thoughts that came to them in prayer and meditaion were the voice of God and which were their own. So when you ask that person who has a desire to stop drinking to leave an AA meeting it is not supposed to be the groups overall personal opinion, but what the group perceive as God's voice or will.

Good luck.
Andy F is offline   Reply With Quote
 

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