ItsJustMe89

I am coming back from a 3 week relapse. One thing I don't like about AA is how everyone talks about everyone else. There is so much gossip and everyone knows your business. I am a really private person and I don't want everyone to know things about me. I think that is something I am going to need to find a way to get over. I want to keep my secrets to myself, or only tell a close friend. But like they keep saying, you are only as sick as your secrets. I have to figure out a way to come to terms with who I am and take responsibility and be free of all my secrets. I just want to hold on to them so bad tho.

Dee74

I find my sober life is a lot less secretive than my drinking life itsme.
Give them nothing to gossip over and the problem resolves itself

D

Berrybean

You don't have to share all your most personal information with everyone in the rooms! As long a we have 'Admitted to God, to ourselves; and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs' those things aren't 'sick secrets', it's just being discreet and protecting ourselves.

Some stuff is best kept between you and your sponsor. I'd say if you don't trust the one you have to respect your privacy and exercise discretion enough so that you can trust them, it's time to find another sponsor. Although there have been a few things that I think I blew up into big deals in my head, and once I'd shared them with my sponsor, those things didn't seem such a major deal any more. The power had gone out of the secret once I'd shared it with her, and I did feel happy chatting about it. I suppose that's the healing process of the sharing.

Also, I think some of the people we hear sharing all sorts of things have been in the rooms for many years, and have formed more intimate friendships with trust being built up over time. Maybe once I've been going for 10 or 20 odd years I'll want to share more personal stuff with the room or in coffee break. At the moment I have only known them maximum of 13 months, so I take care over it all.

JaneLane

To be honest this is what prevented me from getting a sponsor until recently. I actually spoke with and found someone I wanted to be my sponsor and spent time getting to know her before asking for her guidance. I'm so pleased I did. If you don't feel like your sponsor is a good fit with you, then keep trying and be patient with yourself.

I got honest with myself first and foremost about my drinking, then shared things with my friends in recovery (not out of pressure or anything, they are just my friends!) and then told my sponsor. It doesn't sound like you're keeping secrets or that this is destructive in any way. It just sounds like you want to get to know someone before sharing things about yourself with them and I think that's totally normal!

Inside or outside AA, I don't participate in gossip and I know that you can meet some really cool people in recovery :-)

48heath

Be careful in the fellowship who you tell things to.Have you got a sponsor? This is the person to share your personal stuff with.

AA is no different to anywhere else,there are some people who gossip,I steer clear of them,their type ofsobriety is not what I want.

sg1970

You can do your fifth step with a clergy member if you want. No one in the program needs to know your junk.

paulokes

Someone already said, sharing the worst doesn't have to be done inside the fellowship. In the long run I think it's advisable though, find someone who has been there, done that and been through the same process.

The trick is to find someone with a certain amount of reserve and respect for what's going on. If someone tells me something in confidence, it stays with me especially in AA...thats part of the deal.

I really had to steel my nerves and jump in in early days though...I have had a lot of mistrust and fear of gossip through my life, probably more than most. That was part of what I learned and had to deal with.

Stay safe but be brave...I spent my life in hiding as an active alcoholic...coming out and learning to be open is an experience not to be missed

P

dsmaxis10

My first sponsor told me to tell on myself in a safe place.

dsmaxis10

Habitual relapser after four years of sobriety 23 days now I was always honest that I relapsed even when I'd admit I still have alcohol on my breath from the night before. Then ex habitual relapser would support me and share there experience strength and hope. Some would look at me in disgust but that's there problem.

NoelleR

Some folks, IMSHO, seem to forget something that I feel is very important................

Just because I don't tell someone something (or everything, or whatever) about myself, it may not be that I'm keeping it secret from them; it could be that it's just none of their **** business............

(o:
NoelleR

Gottalife

According to the big book " our stories disclose in a general way" so there is no call to be too specific in meetings, just keep it general.

Also the big book does not specifically recommend an AA member to hear your fifth step unless you consider "close mothed friend" would be an AA member. It is your choice who hears your fifth. I tell the people I sponsor that I don't "need " to hear it, for their program to work, and I suggest a minister of religion as a good choice for two reasons. Firstly they have protection under the law and do not have to disclose anything you tell them to any third party even if you admit a criminal offence.
Secondly, they are trained to hear a fifth. There are no instructions in the big book about hearing a fifth, and inappropriate responses from a sponsor can and have done a lot of damage.

Having said all that, I took my fifth with my sponsor and am very glad I did.

fini

i took it with a nun specifically trained in counselling and volunteering for fifth step.
she wasn't actually interested in all my detailed secrets but very interested in helping me see my patterns, my dysfunctions, my reactionary responses, my defenses that i displayed and acted out in my life and getting clarity on myself.

Tommyh

concerning the original post and where it mentions gossip,my sponsor directs me to pray the sick mans prayer if I gossip about anyone,because down inside there is some defect,usually resentment.
It works.I tried that gossip stuff when he first became my sponsor and it didn`t last too long.
He sent me home to pray for them and me,which is a lot better than gossiping.

there are 2 different things concerning my private information and my past "secrets"

my past secrets(5th step stuff) I told my sponsor,my private information I keep to myself in AA meetings.
That`s a problem that goes around AA a lot,especially in discussion meetings.People saying too much about their personal lives.

Turtle82

I think our whole culture has become filled with TMI today really. I see it on FB pretty much daily. The younger generations even seem to wear their mental/emotional disorders as some sort of competitive badge. These are things that, in my day, would definitely be kept secret to avoid being feared or shunned. Its a good thing, I guess, that there's acceptance these days but such "openness" can make some TMI-uncomfortable. It can also be "attention-getting" rather than "open"... in other words, egocentric. I never heard "you're as sick as your secrets" before and am not sure I agree with it really but, if so, then there's a huge difference between discretely divulging them to someone trusted for therapeutic reasons and indiscriminately broadcasting them. I just don't think a blanket statement like that can be made. If its something that bothers you, then yes, by all means share it with someone trusted; if not there's nothing whatever wrong with privacy. As for gossip, it was wrong in high school and still is anywhere its ugly face is seen. There's an old saying that goes something like "when you point your finger, there are three pointing back at you." That pretty well sums it up except to say there used to be a saying in AA in particular... gossiping was referred to as "tearing flesh." Those who did it were seen as sick.

skg

What we say about others is what we practice in ourselves. Speck and plank, all that. I was overly concerned about what others thought and said about me for a very long time until I learned in AA that what others think of me is none of my business, and MOST AAs think about me far less than I think of myself. We are all selfish, self-centered, and self-righteous.
Shed the worry about others and get on with The Steps. Get a sponsor who will hear your junk and shed the fear. Are you trying to impress people or get sober? Every AA in the room that's working a good program really doesn't care about what you've done, they care about what you're going to do next.

tomsteve

There's a difference between secrecy and privacy.
Yup, there's some pretty sick people in AA that have no problem spreading others' intimate details. They are pretty easy to hear.
The major thing for me wasn't so much sharing my life with someone. It was the exact nature or my wrongs part that was important. An understandning individual- someone who truly knows what the 4th and 5th steps are about, will know its not just about me telling them my actions.it's about why I did what I did. How it effected me. Telling someone, say a comatose Lithuanian, that didn't understand what I was doing and why...Welp....I don't think it would have been very effective.
Seems to have a good effect when the 5th is done with someone who understands what we are doing.

Something that helped me get rid of that fear of doing the 5th step was the first 4 steps. But yer dam straight I chose wisely who was going to hear it.