Gottalife

Forgive me for labouring a point Doug, but there is advice in the thread that bearing your soul in a meeting is a good thing to do. What you wrote above did not soud that general. In my early sobriety I saw a newcomer do exactly that, then a few days later regretted it so much that he killed himself.

Just as an example of what I believe is meant by general, the specifics of say I got a series of convictions for car theft, burglary, and assault, becomes the general my drinking episodes got me in trouble with the law.

Or another example of a person I knew many years ago - "I once pushed my girlfriend's face into a charcoal grill and held it there scarring her badly" becomes the general when drunk I sometimes got violent and really hurt the people or person closest to me.

One of the other problems with specifics like the one about the girlfriend is that there will likely be women in the meeting who have been traumatised by similar events, and when a man stands up and shares in detail about that sort of abuse, it scares the heck out of them. It is one of the main reasons some AA women have told me for starting a womens group. It can be very damaging to one's self and others to reveal too much.