Originally Posted by
jimhere 
"This is The Bridge To Faith Group. This is a closed meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. If you are alcoholic, you are welcome. If your problem is other than alcoholism, you cannot attend this meeting."
We've had a few get up and walk out in a huff. But we had one ask "What do I do?" My counselor told me to come to AA." In cases like that, we qualify people, ask them if they have a history of alcoholism. If they do not...
Who gets to decide another’s disease, degree of illness, desire, or willingness? I’ve heard it said “playing judge, jury, and executioner of his own sick brother.” I don’t want that honor, I can tell you that.
This is where a few of us went when faced with this dilemma. First we had a problem with people being meeting "screeners" or "bouncers." To some this philosophy cut against the principles of equal membership, humility, and trust in a loving God. It just didn’t feel right. To others it seemed like a policy rooted in fear – fear of what?!? This group or worse yet AA as a whole would disintegrate because a non-alcoholic sat in a meeting? “We cannot make policy based on fear” they murmured.
I think you mentioned you may be employed in the field of treatment or therapy. Then you are probably aware of the confounds of self-report, are you not?
A member of ours spoke up in regards to self-report. When screening them, are we not, in essence, placing an almost unrealistic burden upon certain people to immediately get to levels of honesty about themselves never before ventured?
Isn't an inherent trait of untreated alcoholism dishonesty and self-deception? Wouldn't it be bold and arrogant of us to "expect" them to work through that immediately especially when put on the spot? In fact, “Who the he11 are we to put ANYONE on the spot anyway - who died and made us God?”
Again, when those thoughts were communicated not another word was said. We no longer felt a need to screen meeting participants nor expect them to conform to the verbiage commonly used (introducing themselves as alcoholic) for we found it more therapeutic to place our trust in a loving God to do the screening for us.
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