Does any meetings share ESH anymore?

[trucker]

thoses people you mentioned.......is that what you call a bb thumper?

its what i call an idiot and life full of them....

i dont think there is such a thing as a bb thumper

its a term used by people that found happyness in thoses group therapy meetings..

the fellowship and the program drift ever further apart here.........

as ive said i prefer the manual for the job............i find it harder to understand the rest.

i dont believe telling a newcomer that.. makes me a thumper......hopefully ill attract newcomers by how i "live" it rather than how i tell it.

[McGowdog]

Originally Posted by trucker

...And by that i mean...group therapy...group moaning..and 1000 meetings in a 1000 days...

Now wait a minute here, Mister! That's not how it goes! It's 90 meetings in 90 days, then down to once per day! Oh, but one day at a time, too! Just don't drink.


Does any meetings share ESH anymore?


I'll answer it this way; I go to a meeting where you can bring up a topic such as, "What's your current experience with having entered the world of the Spirit" and people will share their current experience with that. Or sharing on how it felt when you made your last amend, or what's prayer and meditation like.


I imagine there are people out there who do not work steps or who have been living on an old experience of doing steps and are very vocal about what it says in the book. I was at a meeting last night and the chair person read 13 pages out of the book and opened the meeting up. He read from page 72 to the end of the 9th Step promises on page 84.


...


Then he shared on what he read for about 8 minutes. While the meeting started, everybody chanted the 12 steps from when he read How it Works.


I personally found that all very spooky.


But that's just me.


We can all probably find a different take on what the big book thumper is.


I find a lot of people in A.A. who can stay sober on what they do be offended at hearing me discuss what I've been doing in the steps. I merely discuss my current experience in doing a 4th Step and a guy goes off on how nobody should tell anyone else in A.A. what to do. Weeks later, we've started talking to each other and I think he's a really neat guy. He's been sober a long time and has wonderful experience in the steps. He said he thought I was one of the treatment center counselors. Hmmm... I didn't know how to take that. I was talking to one of the counselors during a meeting, a guy who brings is clients to that meeting. He's a little more "liberal" than I am, but he's been sober and "clean" a lot longer than I am. I think my approach is a bit more simple, to the book.


But I'm not a Big Book thumper. I don't live and die with the book. I do some things that are not in that book! Imagine that. I do not do some things that are in that book. For example, most of that stuff on page 74 I would reduce down to two or three sentences;


I 5th step with drunks. I don't 5th step with preachers, doctors, or shrinks because they are too easily conned. I know a few drunks who know my stuff. I 5th step with them. I would never ever 5th step with a family member.


So... when you do those steps and get your own experience in them and share that at meetings, it seems like a whole new world.


I hope some of you can relate to what I'm saying here.

[trucker]

i did my first 5th with a priest.......i didnt feel like i could con him....in fact i felt the opposite..

these days its much the same as you......drunks...i have a close knit bunch of alkies that i have stayed in contact with over the years...

Its obvious to me that you have access to meetings that are totally different to my experience.......very very few meeting i get to... discuss their experience with the steps...how they apply them or live them..

like you i share my experience but to uncomfortable shuffling or head scratching.

i feel like im pi@sing in the wind mostly mcgow....and im starting to get angry about it.

in fact rather than get this deleted ill pm you...

[DaveBB164]

Originally Posted by trucker

i did my first 5th with a priest.......i didnt feel like i could con him....in fact i felt the opposite..

these days its much the same as you......drunks...i have a close knit bunch of alkies that i have stayed in contact with over the years...

Its obvious to me that you have access to meetings that are totally different to my experience.......very very few meeting i get to... discuss their experience with the steps...how they apply them or live them..

like you i share my experience but to uncomfortable shuffling or head scratching.

i feel like im pi@sing in the wind mostly mcgow....and im starting to get angry about it.

in fact rather than get this deleted ill pm you...

Most AA meetings are the same in England, they are in my experience anyway, most meetings are about what a bad day its been or how bad work is,

when you go in there and share your ESH its different to theirs it takes them out of their comfort zone, take my local open disgusting meeting for example, the collective experience of the group is fear based, its based on meeting attendance and telephoning each other half a dozen times a day,

so when someone goes in and shares about living by spiritual principles and an absolute dependance on God, well the words sh*t and fan spring to mind,

the thing is, its ok they can not listen or get their ar*e in their hands all they want, they don't want what we have and that is ok but if I am getting frustrated and angry I am jeopardizing a possible opportunity to be helpful and I am not being of maximum service to God and I am as bad as them!,

I have had those reactions you mentioned from people for nearly 9 years and it used to frustrate me and upset me but I realized I can't give something to someone who does not want it,

I started to share hopefully with love, understanding, compassion and a sincere desire to be helpful, since then some of the "Anti" squad have asked me for help, I have sponsored some of them too, a couple of times guys have come to me when their world has collapsed in on their heads,

a guy like me found me in an open disgusting meeting and played a part in saving my life I go in there now loking for the next me.

[trucker]

thanks dave..........forgive me for going on.. i just get frustrated with it
it upsets me at the moment..

where with live there is a high concerntration of treatment centres.
slowly over time the aa meetings have turned into these treatment centres.

the guys are familiar with group therapy....most settle local after treatment and fill the rooms.......slowly over time the meetings become those group therapy sessions....because there doing whats familar to them i guess.

problems become paramount and solution are not forthcoming...

Addicts sponsoring alcoholics......people sponsoring newcomers and still not beyond 4 themselves......lots off newcomers in trouble because their sponsors back on the sauce.

i go.....i share my experience with the steps.....i share my experience with god...

just sometimes i think......f@ck it...........im done.

this too shall pass....maybe.

[McGowdog]

Anyone ever hear of Golden Slippers? I hear some newly sober dudes who couldn't stay sober decided to get together and do the derned book and if someone was stuck on a step, they went no further. Blanket party!!!!!

Just kidding. They waited for him/her and continued on together once they got it.

If I didn't have a strong meeting to go to, I'd do that.

[CarolD]

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