It's been awhile since we had a new sticky, lets see if we can come up with a thread so good it begs to be stickied
So, in this thread lets try to debunk some common myths about AA, not discuss our pet peeves, but actual misconceptions new people may have so we can refer new people to it when they have questions.
Please be clear about what is your opinion and cite your sources about why you have it.
1. The Only Requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking
Misconception: You don't need to be an alcoholic to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, you just need to not want to drink.
This I believe is the most common misconception, because that is what the short form of the third tradition states, when in fact the long form states:
3.) Our membership ought to include
all who suffer from alcoholism. Hence we may refuse none who wish to recover. Nor ought A.A. membership ever depend upon money or conformity. Any two or three
alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an A.A. Group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation.
This is covered in masterful detail in 12 steps and 12 traditions, and is in my opinion required reading as to why we have tradition three.
OK, my opinion is that it was phrased that way in the short form in order not to scare newcomers out of the room before they had admitted to themselves they were alcoholic, as it has been noted, we are a sensitive people, and it has been said that alcoholics are the only people that can be laying in a gutter and still look down on other people.
2. Meeting Makers Make it and
90 in 90
Another common misconception is people begin to think the "program" of AA consists of attending meetings. I have seen debates about whether attending meetings is even actually helpful here.
Well what is the primary purpose of a meeting?
5.) Each group has but one primary purpose-
to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.
So the alcoholic who is still suffering goes to meeting to learn about AA, and those those that have "recovered" go to carry the message. What is "the message"? There is a solution and it consists of having a spiritual experience as the result of working the steps.
Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest.
Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now. If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it — then you are ready to take certain steps.
At some of these we balked. thought we could find an easier, softer way. But we could not. With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely.
So what is "our path"?
Our Path is having had a spiritual awakening as the result of the steps.
Meetings aren't group therapy, nor are they self help, they are a venue where still suffering alcoholics can come find out about the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, which is contained in the first 164 pages of the Big Book of Alcoholic Anonymous and consists of working the steps listed in that book.
it became customary to set apart one night a week for a meeting to be attended by anyone or everyone interested in a spiritual way of life. Aside from fellowship and sociability, the prime object was to provide a time and place where new people might bring their problems.
So then people wonder how many meetings did they attend in the "old days"
Seeing much of each other, scarce an evening passed that someone's home did not shelter a little gathering of men and women*, happy in their release, and constantly thinking how they might present their discovery to some newcomer.
*sounds like they had meetings every night
3. It's inappropriate to talk about drugs in your share or while telling your story at a meeting of AA.
Bill's Story:
A doctor came with a heavy sedative. Next day found me drinking both gin and sedative. This combination soon landed me on the rocks.
Dr Bob's Story:
I did not take the morning drink which I craved so badly, but instead would fill up on large doses of sedatives to quiet the jitters, which distressed me terribly.
The Big Book itself is filled with other examples in it's stories.
My opinion: We follow the guideline that says:
We share in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now.
4. It's a waste of time to twelve step someone while they are still drinking or relapsing:
Dr Bob's Story:
About this time a lady called up my wife one Saturday afternoon, saying she wanted me to come over that
evening to meet a friend of hers who might help me. It was the day before Mother's Day and I had come home plastered, carrying a big potted plant which I set down on the table and forthwith went upstairs and passed out. The next day she called again. Wishing to be polite, though I felt very badly, I said, "Let's make the call," and extracted from my wife a promise that we would not stay over fifteen minutes.
We entered her house at exactly five o' clock and it was eleven fifteen when we left. I had a couple of shorter talks with this man afterward, and stopped drinking abruptly. This dry spell lasted for about three weeks; Then I went to Atlantic City to attend several days' meeting of a National Society of which I was a member. I drank all the Scotch they had on the train and bought several quarts on my way to the hotel. This was on Sunday. I got tight that night, stayed sober Monday till after the dinner and then proceeded to get tight again. I drank all I dared in the bar, and then went to my room to finish the job. Tuesday I started in the morning, getting well organized by noon. I did not want to disgrace myself, so I then checked out. I bought some more liquor on the way to the depot. I had to wait some time for the train. I remember nothing from then on until I woke up at a friend's house, in a town near home. These good people notified my wife, who sent my newly-made friend over to get me. He came and got me home and to bed, gave me a few drinks that night, and one bottle of beer the next morning. That was June 10, 1935, and that was my last drink. As I write nearly six years have passed.
Bill's Story:
My musing was interrupted by the telephone. The cheery voice of an old school friend asked if he might come over. He was sober. It was years since I could remember his coming to New York in that condition. I was amazed. Rumor had it that he had been committed for alcoholic insanity. I wondered how he had escaped. Of course he would have dinner, and then I could drink openly with him. Unmindful of his welfare, I thought only of recapturing the spirit of other days. There was that time we had chartered an airplane to complete a jag! His coming was an oasis in this dreary desert of futility. The very thing an oasis! Drinkers are like that.
The door opened and he stood there, fresh-skinned and glowing. There was something about his eyes. He was inexplicably different. What had happened?
I pushed a drink across the table. He refused it. Disappointed but curious, I wondered what had got into the fellow. He wasn't himself.
"Come, what's all this about? I queried. He looked straight at me. Simply, but smilingly, he said, "I've got religion."
I was aghast. So that was it last summer an alcoholic crackpot; now, I suspected, a little cracked about religion. He had that starry-eyed look. Yes, the old boy was on fire all right. But bless his heart, let him rant! Besides, my gin would last longer than his preaching.
What the book says is:
We find it a waste of time to keep chasing a man who cannot or will not work with you.
not: We find it a waste of time to work with someone who keeps relapsing, there are many specifics and qualifications about it in chapter 7 "Working with Others"
There are no "musts" in the Program of Alcoholics Anonymous, the program is suggestive only:
Well a recipe is suggestive only, if I follow a recipe and pick and choose what I put in and what I leave out, I am not going to end up with the same thing the author does.
You don't have to like it, you don't have to understand it, you just have to do it to get what the book offers.
there are 103 "musts" in the Big Book, you can find them here:
A.A. Recovery - 103 "MUSTS" IN THE BIG BOOK.
So there is a start, remember, this is
NOT about your pet peeves, if you are so inclined feel free to start a thread about pet peeves and things that irritate you in meetings, and I will be happy to weigh in there.
Lets use this thread to clear up misconceptions that new people have about AA
All quoted text is from the first edition of the Book Alcoholics Anonymous