Amends to AA - sent to me by a friend

[lizw]

This was sent to me by a friend - I'm on the fence with this one though. When I first started attending AA I use to call myself an alcoholic/addict too, but that lasted for about a year, now @ AA I say I am an alcoholic and at NA an addict despite how rare it is that I go.

AMENDS TO ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
Excerpted from article published in Mirus,
THE NEWSLETTER OF THE MINNEAPOLIS INTERGROUP

I recently completed the Eighth step and have decided that my first amends should be to Alcoholics Anonymous itself, which I believe I have harmed to some extent by violating its singleness of purpose.

I used to identify myself as an alcoholic and an addict. I do not anymore because I believe other addictions are irrelevant at AA meetings. But, aside from that, I used to always insist on talking about my other addictions beyond what was necessary to relate them to alcohol. I justified this by saying that alcohol was just another drug and so it was unfair to expect me not to talk about all my addictions. And I refused to attend any other fellowship because I claimed to prefer the wisdom and sobriety an AA.

I realize now how rude and self-centered this position was. It is not a question of what is fair, or whether alcohol is just another drug. The Traditions and primary purpose of AA are what they are, whether I agree or not.

In the past when I was actively using, I often had dinner at the homes of people who did not use drugs, but who drank. I never considered insisting that I had a right to smoke a joint at their dinner table because they were drinking wine. And imagine if I had and then added insult to injury by saying, “And not only do I have the right to use any drug I want around here if you are going to drink, but I’m going to keep coming back and I’m going to keep using any drug I want in your home because I like the food you serve and your company better than the food I find in the homes of my drug addicted friends, and I have a right to do this because all drugs are the same and I don’t care what the rules or customs of your home are.”

Such a gross abuse of hospitality sounds preposterous, but that is essentially what I was doing by insisting that I had the right to violate AA’s singleness of purpose. I was abusing the hospitality of this fellowship

This is not an apology. I was too sick to realize how selfishly I was acting, and the mere apology is not necessarily an amends. I hope to amend the harm I did by stating clearly what I did, for the benefit of others, and further, by not doing it again.

[debs4321]

Wow, that is awesome

Thank you for sharing.

[FightingIrish]

Ah, the grandiosity and self-importance of the alcoholic...