Speaker meetings

[REZ]

I must confess I am not a big fan of speaker meetings. Our home group has them them once a month and I usually skip that meeting. Not all speaker meetings are bad: some a very good and inspirational. However, I have found that people usually get asked to speak because they are "a good speaker" which often means they have a heck of a story to tell, they are animated, have fire in their belly, etc. I have been to far too many speaker meetings where one of the following occurs:

1. The speaker talks about his/her past and using days, drugs, arrests, etc. for the first 40 minutes, and then in the last 5 minutes tries to talk about his/her experience with recovery.

2. The speaker talks about recovery, but he/she is more like a preacher or a motivational speaker. He/she has a great deal of charisma, makes people hoot and holler and clap. As the audience rewards the speaker for his/her brilliance, he/she throws out another nugget. The speaker could go on like this all night, but is finally cut off.

3. The speaker is a stand-up comic, makes everyone laugh and feel good. But you get the feeling it is all smoke and mirrors.

I guess what bothers me about speaker meetings is that what happens too often is that the speaker becomes the focus of the meeting. This is natural, of course, but the danger is that the speaker's ego then takes over. I think it is the rare person who can speak with the appropriate amount of humility but also be genuine and inspirational. I'd rather 2 minutes of honest, heart-felt sharing from a newcomer than 45 minutes of a canned speech from an NA big shot.

[2ala2]

Hi Rez,
I beg to differ with you.
I cannot generalize such an issue. There are good and there are bad. Most , in my op, most are great!
Sometimes a speaker is awful but I pick up ONE word worth the entire meeting.
I love speaker meetings and wait for them as a treat.
Relax...
My advice to you would be to check out diff speaker meetings in diff rooms.

[TONYTEXAS]

I try to be open to hear the message and when I actually can be I get it from everyone and anyone. Its still easier to be judgmental and not hear a word especially people Ive copped resentments towards

[daydream]

Certainly I agree that a speaker meeting should not be an hour of war stories. However, I think there is room for both solemn speakers and the firey ones. Where I live there's not much passion expressed, people talk more treatment lingo and pick apart one another's behavior. When I hear someone sharing with enthusiasm about spiritual principles and what our literature says, it gives me that jolt of enthusiasm I need to feel passionate again about the message we carry. Of course I think it best that the speaker share "I" statements instead of saying "You should". I got to hear some of that enthusiasm this weekend at an na campout. I also got to hear the bare naked truth of some solemn and humble speakers who took off their masks and blessed me with their honesty.

[calabash]

Wow, speaker meetings. What a privilage Where I live na is new, with little clean time, apart from a few who came clean in AA. So we do not have the opportunity to hear these stories and judge them as humerous, boring, war stories or whatever. If we have a visitor from another city, we listen attentively to see what we can learn.

What a luxury to be able to choose not to go, as there will be another next month!~

[Gmoney]

I hear ya Rez,

I think what happens, for some of us, is that after we've been around for a good amount of time (and have seen a lot) we develop a preferrence. I, too, have been to plenty of speaker meetings and seen some "not so attractive" antics or methods of carrying the message. Yet, I try to open to the fact that everyone who's asked to speak at length has a different style, and as our literature says, they're "bound by interpretation and personality."

I guess there will always be those who cater to the audience, those who thump the book, those who glamorize or glorify their using days, and those who have a unique ability to get honest and raw. I believe our speakers are a reflection of the diversity of our fellowship and they reveal the humaness of our members (the good, bad and ugly). The blessing is that, even though I may not get much from the "Circuit Speaker" or the "Spiritual Speaker" or the "Long-winded Book Thumper"...there is someone else who will.

[Paulie]

I have been blessed to be around for a few 24's now and I enjoy speaker meetings, rarely do I hear a share that I do not get something out of in some way or another. I will be honest, there have been times that I have left meetings saying to myself that I do not want to work my program like I felt the speaker was suggesting by the way he/she said they work theirs. But that is all part of it, sharing, learning, taking what we want and leaving the rest.

If I judge the person I know that is my disease talking. I try and remember that the person is saying what they need to say, who am I to say if it is real or not. When I am asked to speak I ask my HP to help me to say what I need to say, and to say something that someone can hear and identify no matter how small so that it helps someone to stay clean another 24 hours.

[REZ]

Well, I guess I am a bit of an old fart and a humbug. Of course, speaker meetings have value, many people get a lot out of them, many speakers are wonderful. Of course, of course. I am entitled to my opinions, however. I do not speak for NA as a whole or my home group!

[Paulie]

Well, I guess I am a bit of an old fart and a humbug

LOL

Yep, that is a gift of recovery, we get to have our own opinions, and respect each others

[Doug]

Rez, you're as entitled to your feelings on it as the rest, even if it isn't the same. As for myself, I do like them, however, I have been to some that have been "painfully misdirected", (read: as REZ described). I was at one two weeks ago where the speaker mostly just talked to her friends, and left the rest of us to wonder when the thing was gonna start.

Whatever. I myself haven't returned to that meeting, but will probably give it another chance at some point.

[REZ]

I went to one speaker meeting where the speaker spent most of the time talking about how her friends at a halfway house got her clean. I heard a lot about that halfway house but not much about NA or the 12 steps. So it goes.

[Paulie]

I have heard shares where the speaker talked about nothing but using, in detail. I left there and prayed hard for that speaker LOL

We are all people, addicts, we all have different opinions. I respect the fact that you dont like speaker meetings much and I am happy for you that you have a choice to pick from.

[Todd J]

I get something from hearing speakers, I am asked to speak often. I believe if ou don't like what I am sharing, the guy next to you might. I believe that we can never please everyone, thats why its a Program of Identification. I share 5 minutes of hell and 45 of Recovery, thats what this is all about.

Sometimes when I see a newer member get dicouraged and walk out of the meeting I'll go outside and have a meeting outside of the meeting, maybe that is what was intended to be my purposw for that moment.


Love & Respect,
todd J.

[Thundar301]

My 2nd sponser had me work on this in meetings with speakers and during some peoples sharing , that is I found myself being judgemental of the person speaking , I was to look at the carpet/floor/ground... and just listen to the message for anything of value that I might be able to use in my recovery. It works more then it doesn't and it was a very good exercise to get me out of judgement of others and into working on Dean...

[Gmoney]

OMG!! I still use that technique to this day - except I just close my eyes!! That way, I'm not focusing so much on the messenger as I am the message.

Hey Todd J. !! Greetings from the "Recovery Is Possible" Area of NA (Rochester, NY)!!

[Spiritual Seeker]

I volunteer to be the "speaker'" at spker mtgs for alanon. I get a lot out of it for my own revocovery. Maybe you can volunteer to be a speaker. It is all part of the process. It can also be considered 12 stepping to give back to the program and stay engaged with it. Sometimes the very thing that bugs us is the very thing we need to take a fresh look at.

[Todd J]

Hey Gary,
I have talked to you before, From The Finger Lakes, I was on this site before, great to see you here again Brother.

Peace,
Todd J