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Old 06-30-2016, 04:59 PM
  # 12 (permalink)  
Gottalife
12 Step Recovered Alcoholic
 
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Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: New Zealand
Posts: 6,613
Maybe the meeting is being used to 12 step newcomers. This was never their intended purpose. 12 step is a one on one thing. But you can get this pattern, week after week, "oh look we have a newcomer so let's talk about our drinking".

I prefer recovery based meetings where we talk about the solution. Big book and step studies are good for this. If we have a newcomer, we make sure they get to talk with someone after the meeting.

If you can picture the newcomers experience over their first few weeks, in the 12 step meeting, they are just going to hear about drinking every week and after a while they think that is all AA is, same old same old. People often complain about this on this site, they say it is triggering, and they may have a point.

In a recovery based meeting they will have heard about different aspects of the program in some depth, what action is needed to obtain freedom from alcohol. The topic progresses through the book or the steps each week, so there is never any repitition, except in reaffirming the program as we go back to the start every so often.

I was so full of fear I could not speak for quite a while in AA, and when I did, I spoke a lot of tripe. I look back and shudder.

My work put me through a personality test in the mid eighties and I was quite an introvert. I have done a few of those tests over the years, and have gradually changed. My last one had me as a mild extrovert much to my surprise.

I worked and continued to work the steps, 1-9 initially and 10,11,12 as a way of life. Today I have no problem with fear of people except maybe for the odd day when I feel a bit off. But I think everyone has off days. It is part of the human condition.
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