Great topic and congrats on your sobriety and
loving concern for the AA program. It is amazing how AA changes from town to town and region to region like that. I finally learned how to get sober by going to old timer meetings and listening to them instead of getting "social". So much was learned and obsorbed from them. I guess my life depended on that. These elder statesmen and women had a keen sense of the ebb and flow of AA and many had seen clubs rise fall and groups get huge and then small again.
Life changes happen and I had to move. In other states I have found the same thing that you have: a giant party in one, will not mention the town, one city where the treatment centers have literally taken over a once thriving grass roots AA with history, and another where heavy drug dealing and prostitution abounded. The same quality that was in my original home group I cannot seem to find. It is concerning to me as well!!
For us to "Stay true to Oneself" is a very important pass down from members past. All we can do is carry our message and know that certain group consciences are exactly that. I have faith that many problem groups will heal given the application of the principles of the program. That is all little ole me can do.
HAPPY SAINT PATRICKS DAY
