jimhere

Thanks everyone for all the great replies.

It so happens that I've got a guy coming over in a bit. We are going to sit down and read the book together and look at Chapter 4.

I love that activity, and like Steve, if I didn't get the opportunity to do that on a fairly regular basis, I too would have left a long time ago.

That, along with regular inventory and pretty rigorous discipline of meditation is what keeps the experience alive and growing for me.

I'll check back in later. Once again thanks. Especially to the two members who sent me PM's extending a hand. I do appreciate it and am probably not that good at expressing it.
Jim

24hrsAday

jim after reading your post i must say i am Very Grateful for my 9am home group meeting! we have a small group of old timers that is really special. it is IMHO the best A.A. meeting in Town! i have been blessed to be able to Attend and hope to be able to for some time to come.. we all need what we need!

Sugah

Sug raises her hand.

I read jimhere's original post to my husband (partly because I recognize and respect that he often sees things from a slightly different angle than I do and partly because, sitting here beside me, he was the most readily available member of our local AA). I wanted to know if I might be deluded, wearing the proverbial rose-colored glasses. He didn't think so.

We're a small district -- two large rural counties with perhaps twenty groups spread across them. I could tick through a couple dozen members without even trying hard who have two to four decades of sobriety. Most of those I know well I'd characterize as "elder statesmen."

Until I read jim's original post, I hadn't realized how valuable it is to the rest of us that these long-time members are not at all reluctant to reach out for fellowship. One married couple with almost sixty years between them have had some very significant issues within their family and with their own health. They've taught us that we create our own fellowship, that to put on a happy face and shuffle off to a meeting prevents the rest of us from learning how to be of service to each other. They've helped me to see the truth and beauty in the oft-repeated phrase, "Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional."

When I'm permitted to comfort someone who's dealing with a son or daughter at war, a cancer recurrence, the loss of a parent or spouse, or a financial difficulty, when I -- with less than a decade of sobriety -- can pray with someone and share experience, strength and hope, regardless of the "X" number of days, months or years sober the person in need has, I also learn a lot about emotional sobriety, in living one day at a time and not having to pick up a drink over difficulties, and not having to "put on a good face" because, by God, we don't want the newcomer to think there might still be trouble in life once we pass a certain magical number of years after we put down that last drink.

If become isolated, my program prescribes an inventory -- not pointing a finger at others as the cause of my isolation. If the God of my understanding can show me how to create the fellowship I crave, and my faith is an active faith, how can I be isolated?

I have other thoughts on the subject, but I've gone on long enough.

Peace & Love,
Sugah

jimhere

"...its definitely not one you can bring up in a meeting..."

I don't know about that. We talked about it in our meeting last night. That, plus the recent experience I shared in the OP is what moved me to mention the whole topic to begin with.

We believe in challenging each other to grow in our group. That's why we ask questions and pose considerations. We believe it is time to graduate from the rather easy spiritual kindergarten that most other groups willingly keep themselves in. Most don't want to do that for fear it might scare of the newcomer. So they dummy it down to the point where there isn't any substance.

There was a question, I think it was "Why didn't the gentleman go to his home group?" Because his home group is like the ones that Jon referred to in his post. The group is like many around here. It was taken over by the ill-informed majority to the point of becoming just another AA lite meeting. So the the people with time left. I invited him to join our group.

To answer your question Carol, you can count me as having a pretty contented sobriety. I'm fortunate for the most part. I do have the fellowship I crave. Just not always in the fellowship, if you know what I mean.
Jim

shaun00

This has been my experience....in my area anyhow.
i am guity of not being as diplomatic as steve at times.

i cast my mind back to why my sponsor was at a meeting that i sat in moaning my head off......he told me of a solution...to recover.
BUT....he also told me "you wont find it here"..

he knew it was a weak aa lite meeting but he still attended.....20 odd years sober.....he told me he needed me as much as i needed him.
at the time i thought it was just a sales pitch.......now i understand more.

old timers are few and far between here......they sit at home rather than battle with everything that isnt aa...bitter?........maybe
ive come to the conclusion that i cant change what aa has become here..
but i can do what my sponsor did for me.

How do we attract those absent old timers back to the fellowship?....its a very valid point you raise jim.
most oldtimers i know of that went drinking here......took the ultimate sacrifice within a short period..

i cant talk for the whole of the uk.......just my little bit....

navysteve

I understand that all too well-

I have appointed myself as the savior of AA a time or two ( well maybe three) what ended up happening was that I ended up as sick as the fellowship I felt was sick ( and still do feel that way in many regards)

I don't hear the message that was carried to me in meetings, if that makes me miserable and angry because it concerns me then I guess I don't see it in myself, I am a slow learner, but I do feel grateful that I was shown how to recover and feel an obligation to pass it on. I get asked to speak alot where I live and get called on often to share, which is flattering, and I can only change my actions, which I do. We have a Big Book meeting now ( with some help from far away friends) that is drawing people in. It is not a Big Book meeting with alot of rules, people are free to get the experience out of the book that they are capable of getting ( meaning that each individual is going to receive from the book their own experience, not someone elses so they can sit in a meeting and parrot the wisdom of others) which is great!

I personally do not feel as if I am angry, when I see wrong today my civic responsibility causes me to act, sometimes my emotion gets in the way. When I sit in meetings and see what I believe is a mixed message I feel a certain way- and it isn't positive.

But today I can take action, in fact I have to! I tried walking away and it didn't work

jimhere

I do not intend to become one of those bitter old-timers sitting at home in isolation wishing for the good old days. At the same time, I don't intend to turn a blind eye and pretend everything is all right when it isn't.

Notice I said "I don't intend to become one of those bitter old-timers." That means I'm not an old-timer yet. I think I am still an adolescent. But I have been around long enough to watch the changes Steve spoke of and Jon spoke of. I have walked out of meetings in disgust. I've written tons on inventory about AA, the people in it, and AA meetings.

I do believe that there are some of us, that as we progress along the path, do need more spiritually than others. It is kind of like at almost nineteen years sober I need AA more than some people in AA need AA. Some of us do need to go deeper while others are satisfied with the "keep it simple stupid" and I" know it works but I don't know how it works" approach. That's fine, but that kindergarten stuff doesn't get it for many. Maybe a lot more than I suspect. Saint Paul sad that when we are spiritual infants we need milk but as we grow spiritually we need solid food. And many old-timers, and even myself, although I don't consider myself an old-timer aren't finding that solid food. Sure I work with newcomers and take them through the steps and that keeps me growing, but it doesn't always fill this need for a deeper fellowship.

That's why we have the group we have. Like I said, we challenge each other. And because we are not afraid to go some places other groups won't, we are getting a different type of AA member showing up. In the last two months we've had one guy thirty-five years sober show up oout of the blue. He was dying and ours was the first meeting that he came to in 21 years! Thank God he came to us. He would have fell through the cracks at the other more touchy-feely meetings that meet that night. Just a few weeks ago a guy with five years showed up. He said that he was spiritually confused and didn't know where to turn. And recently a woman seventeen years sober joined the group and got another woman from the group who is two years sober to be her sponsor. Now don't get me wrong, if a newcomer walks through the door, we'll 12th-Step him or her. Right now the group is growing because I think it fills a need for both newcomers and old-timers alike. The newcomer needs to find recovered alcoholics who are growing on the spiritual path and the old-timer needs to be with a community of people that challenge and encourage one another to grow.

Music

The difference between an "old-timer" and a "newcomer" is time and experience. Other than that, we're all human and are subject to life and it's terms which bombard us every day; some we can do something about, and others we just have to grin and bare it.

Personally, I have gripes and groans just like everyone, it's just that my attitude is in general that the glass is always half full. I've learned that between God and AA, a little faith takes me a long way and that everything works out one way or another. Newcomers are important to me because they tend to remind me where I came from. I've learned though that when I meet a brick wall raised by a newcomer, sometimes it's just best to live and let live. When I was new, I had a lot of questions and I asked them. I took the answers at face value and went on "blind faith" a lot. Now days I see newcomers wanting to change the Big Book, be dishonest and/or gripe about sponsors or even having a sponsor, wanting to update the program to suit them etc. Experience is the best teacher so I give my opinion and let it go at that. I know what works and what doesn't. Do I have bad days? Nope!! I have a minute or two some days, and when I need help, I pray and/or call my sponsor. When an "old-timer" goes back out, his decision is driven by the same one that makes a newcomer go back out. He wants to drink!! Just that simple. Yeah, I know there are all kinds of excuses but the bottom line is the desire to drink is more powerful than the desire not to drink.

We're all in God's hands and if I think I have any more power over drinking with 32 years sober than the newcomer with 32 days, I'm fooling myself. All the time and experience in the world won't keep me from that next drink if I don't have the desire to not take the drink.

Good thread Jim!! Thanks!

BP44

Good thread, Jim. I sat in 2 meetings this past weekend on Sat and Sun where men with 10+ years of sobriety basically shared how their lives had become page 52. The problem is neither of them knew that's what was going on. I spoke at length with one of them afterward, he had had an experience with the steps, sponsorship, service work, the fellowship etc. Then began sponsoring himself for a number of years slowly sliding away from the fellowship, the program, and of course service. The man is over 10 years separated from a drink and dying of untreated alcoholism. He senses there is something wrong, and I posed the consideration to him that could it be that he is dying of untreated alcoholism? Could it be that he's trying to stay sober on an old experience? Could it be that he's trying to stay sober on 0 parts of a 3 part program? His pride would not enable him to answer. He took my number and thanked me for my time. All I could do was encourage him and let him know that he had found a purposeful group of AA, and that real help and a real answer was available to him, if he wanted it. My sponsor had the same sort of scenario going on at about 10 or 11 years. He had an experience with the steps, sponsorship, etc. During the first 5 years or so he had sponsors that borrowed money without paying it back, sponsors that got drunk. The last straw he said was one night he was giving out chips and he had to hand his sponsor a white chip. For the next 4 or 5 years he sponsored himself and became disillusioned with AA, the group, the Big Book. He was slowly dying spiritually IN AA. The only thing he didn't do was take a drink or slide completely out of AA. What he did do was changed groups. He started getting involved in that group. Sponsorship is huge in our group, so he found a sponsor and also started sponsoring again. By the time two other guys and myself came to him, he had 3 or 4 other guys he had taken through the steps, and now he had 3 fresh guys that all needed relief. He decided to do something he had always wanted to do, he took the 3 of us through as a group. We met at his place every Tuesday night. Today it's become our own little book study and has grown because we have sponsees of our own that come. We keep him busy. I remember Don P. saying in one of his talks that the best way to keep the old timers busy was to invite them somewhere. Sometimes I think we just have to invite them into our lives, and it will keep them busy. It sounds like the only purposeful meeting in your part is your home group. If that's the case, it seems like you can put your friend to work there. The worst thing that can happen to any one of us, newcomer, teen, old timer alike is to begin to feel useless again. My sponsor says that one of the great joys of his life right now are the Tuesday nights we all gather at his house.

RobbyRobot

"ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS was only ten years old when Bill W., AA's cofounder, wrote: "Those who read the July [1945] Grapevine were startled, then sobered, by the account which it carried of the Washingtonian movement. It was hard for us to believe that 100 years ago the newspapers of this country were carrying enthusiastic accounts about 100,000 alcoholics who were helping each other stay sober; that today the influence of this good work has so completely disappeared that few of us had ever heard of it....

"May we always be willing to learn from experience" Bill cautioned.

Founded by six drunks in 1840, the Washingtonians had grown in membership to hundreds of thousands in a short twelve years, and then destroyed themselves as an organization and dropped out of sight. By 1852, all that remained of their spectacular power as a method of treatment was the Home for the Fallen in Boston.

They flourished when they helped one other"

-- quoted from "A Reminder And A Warning", A.A Grapevine, Inc., July 1976


The talk in this thread is no less or more interesting than any discussion over the past 150 years concerning alcoholism addiction and recovery within a fellowship of brothers and sisters in sobriety. I think it important to realise just how many countless thousands of others have already walked the path that we now walk.

I've the utmost respect for others ESH and i like to think my own ESH is respected in turn. These kind of threads are useful and important since real life experiences are priceless and keep the blood fresh, the mind clear, and the spirit generous and forgiving. I gotta say though, this talk about old-timers and newcomers offered is almost comical [to my sensibilities].

In my ESH we are both the newcomer and the old-timer all in the same moment when we're joined in a fellowship of recovery especially at a bigger meeting. Back in the day, back in 1981, me with a few weeks of sobriety, well, just about anybody with even a few months was an old-timer to me. lol.

Those with years and double-digits of years were simply beyond my understanding and just beyond my hopes the truth be told. Time and again i would witness persons accepting congratulations for achieving years of recovery from an impossible alcoholism. On the outside i would be calm and respectful, clapping my hands and nodding with my head, and smiling that fellowship smile we all soon learn to know. But on the inside i was completely electrified that any one could possibly have years of real sobriety and some even decades of sweet freedom and happiness!! How unbelieveable!!

I was transfixed by how one member would be sober day after day and some other would be drunk each meeting without fail. i remember it all so clearly like it was yesterday. Going to meetings back then was like going to a train wreck. You didn't want to watch but you just couldn't help it. So much life and death all in the same rooms at the same times... a very humbling and humiliating experience indeed. The paradox of it all still blows me away thunderstruck and awed time and again.

I was instantly jealous and envious of the old-timers and i both hated and loved them in the same day. And for the newcomer [me as well back then] i was horrified and repulsed by our vile circumstances and yet like a moth to a flame entranced by how some of us / them managed to remain sober one meeting to the next. Although many others were falling away, still others chose to fight the good fight by surrendering all that we could give up that day to follow our recovery program best we could. And how completely satisfied i was knowing that when we gave our best it was enough no matter the troubles of that day we stayed sober and free another 24 hours because recovery works when we work it.

So now my years of sober experiences define me as an old-timer to be sure, and i have no problems with that, why should i? Becoming an old-timer was not an easy walk in the park though, let me tell you, i have earned my stripes. I have had plenty of bad days and plenty of good days, and a few close days that seriously threatend my sobriety and so then my life. I have been through more life troubles sober than i would ever have believed i could have stayed sober through, and yet time after time i stayed strong and sober even at my weakest moments strangely enough.

Of what i have learned these many years is that i am still a newcomer each day to my sobriety and my recovery path. Each day i have something which reminds me from where i have come from and to where i am going to arrive at without fail. i am always grateful that i can still fear my alcoholism with the same rigorous honesty that i had back in the day and so im still transfixed how any newcomer manages to get in a single day of sobriety in spite of it all. How grand and simply amazing that any of us are sober this day! Truly sobriety is a gift of life.

Any ways, i just wanted to say that talking up the differences between old-timers and newcomers is altogether humorous. Having said all that, one real difference i have come to understand is that old-timers usually have wonderful 20-20 vision looking backwards and forwards; and often newcomers are miserably blind and dumbfounded front to back and sideways. Been there....

Have a great safe day!

RobbyRobot

meditation

I can't even imagine how lonely it could be with 20 some odd years and the program not working for them because they are supposed to be THE PROGRAM as an example of how it works.
People are people and need uplifted no matter how many years. We need what we need to keep on being vital and making it. I personally have experienced this issue just as a person with only ONLY 12 months.
At any meeting it is all about the newcomer. At aftercare we are not allowed to talk because the newcomer has so many issues and needs.
I am all for helping a newcomer but the program has to be designed to help everybody. I had my chip issue-- did not get it at the meeting because basically it was not for me but the newcomer.
The answer has to be someplace as needs aren't being met and I hear this from others, not just myself.

Charmie

i am having an AA Christmas party at my house,and some old timers will be attending.heck,they can bring their wives too of they like! lots of great food,camerarderie and good AA conversation.lots of fun too! should be great.

24hrsAday

my late sponsor said to me one day at a meeting.. "the biggest difference between you and me is i have been practicing the program of A.A. a little bit longer than you" he had about 32 years sober..

keithj

I have definately seen what Jim describes in my local area. A lot of the guys with real long term sobriety don't seem very active. I don't know if it's because they can't find the message of AA in the meeting rooms or something else.

I do know that some of them have been really excited by finding a couple of the solution based meetings here in town. they've gotten re-invigorated and enthusiastic for AA after coming to these meetings.

My current home group was started because a couple of 20 year sober guys couldn't find any serious AA in town. They talked of spiritual awakenings and powerlessness in a meeting, and there was no echo, only blank stares and snide comments about the holier than thou old guys.

That home group attracts and keeps some old guys that had sort of dropped out of AA. But, it also attracts a lot of newcomers as well. Well, not a lot, but a fair number of ne guys that are desperate enough to work the steps like outlined in the BB.

I've never had it so good in AA. That true fellowship that happens when everyone in the room is engaged in the common solution.

Music

I have a cassette tape of Fr. Martin's "Symptoms of Sobriety." In it he suggests that a person with 10 years sobriety(an arbitrary number)who still finds it necessary to go to 6 or 7 meetings a week, missed the message somewhere along the line. When I was new to AA, I went to as many meetings as I could squeeze into a day. Sometimes on weekends, I went from morning 'til night in the same place; meeting every 2 hours. At some point, I realized what the word "sobriety" really means. Sobriety doesn't just mean "not drunk." It means a healthy state of mind, body and spirit which is the whole point behind the AA program. When I reach this point, family, friends, job and entertainment become a responsibility as well as going to meetings. One of my sponsors used to impress on me the importance of striving for an equal balance of AA, work, love and play. In the beginning, my life was about going to AA meetings. Now my AA meetings are about what's going on in my life. I don't believe the point of the AA program is to switch one addiction for another; replacing AA meetings for my drug of choice. It was at first, but not now. It has nothing at all to do with the message at meetings, although there is a big difference in the meetings today and the way meetings were when I first started. I won't go into that now. I used to hear "fear is the absence of faith." If that's true, and I believe it is then "faith is the absence of fear." I very seldom feel any fear these days but that's because my faith in God and AA have grown over the years. That's why I don't attend as many meetings. I just don't feel the need. I thank God for the desire to stay sober. I no longer feel the fear of taking a drink.

jimhere

"...my late sponsor said to me one day at a meeting.. "the biggest difference between you and me is i have been practicing the program of A.A. a little bit longer than you" he had about 32 years sober."

That statement is very true. I didn't mean to imply that old-timers should be placed in some exalted status above the newcomer. I certainly did not mean to imply that there are two classes of AA's. No one is above any one else and the very idea of principles before personalities should prevent this. I don't idols anymore, but I have some heroes.

The statement, "I have been practicing the program a little longer" does have a deeper meaning though. While fundamentally we are all the same, the farther one progresses (and yes there are stages of spiritual development) on the path, one's needs change. So yes, I do believe that the old-timer has needs that can't be met in your usual open discussion type meeting.

" I remember Don P. saying in one of his talks that the best way to keep the old timers busy was to invite them somewhere. Sometimes I think we just have to invite them into our lives, and it will keep them busy. It sounds like the only purposeful meeting in your part is your home group. If that's the case, it seems like you can put your friend to work there. The worst thing that can happen to any one of us, newcomer, teen, old timer alike is to begin to feel useless again."

Don also said that there is no greater human pain than to be useless. The minute I begin to be useless, I have to do something, change or die. That is why some of these people with 25, 30, 35 years blow their heads off. Drinking isn't an option anymore. So I go back to my OP and a few others. When we take away their purpose by ignoring them and deviating from singleness of purpose, we alienate them from the very thing that saved them to begin with. We do invite them into our group. We take the steps regularly as a group and we invite them into that. We invite them to go into the detox and the jail with us.

RobbyRobot

Absolutely. I haven't been to an organised recovery meeting in years. I just don't feel the need. Sobriety is not a game of showmanship and proof of attendance with a scorecard. Without the real need attending is pointless, prideful, and wasteful.

I do see a new need in my near future though as i'm now retired with ample free time and giving back is now timely important to the quality of my sobriety and fellowship. The path has come full circle at last it seems and the journey begins anew to give away what i have been freely given.

RobbyRobot

navysteve

Another powerful message that has been echoing in my ears in recent years ( hey that rhymed!). I have been going to 5-6 meetings per week for the last two years. When I move to a new area it is common for me to do this ( kinda get to know my new local AA folks for awhile), normally after about a year I throttle back and get into my routine of life. As I said earlier, I get asked to speak often, and get called on in meetings but that isn't practicing alot of 12 steps for me. My job has afforded me amazing opportunities to be of service to my fellows. None of those amazing adventures matches sitting at my kitchen table and doing the steps with a new man ( or not so new man). I approach newcomers in AA meetings in my area often, and offer what was given to me to them only to watch them choose the less arduous path of meetings and white knuckle sobriety and soon they are back out there. And who among us wouldn't choose the easier way when we are still blind ourselves? I wouldn't travel to Philadelphia by horseback when I have a car in the garage would I? Why follow the book when so many other methods have been working? ( or so it would seem). My life today is dependent upon me giving back what was given to me, that does not always mean sponsorship, that may mean getting involved in a group, it may mean answering the hotline. All of these things keep me here, but the message I get and see passed on to others makes me question why I am still here. The statement about feeling like a baptist in a mosque was not meant as sarcasm, that is how I feel in AA meetings here. I just got another new guy last night, and I am working with one who is in the amends process, hopefully things will change. Not looking for accolades, pats on the back, or status, I just want to be a part of what has meant so much to me, but when I hit meetings I feel more separate from rather than part of AA as it is now. I don't fit in with the "solution" based meetings ( as they call themselves- not my title) and I do not fall into the mainstream folks.

barb dwyer

What is described here isn't happening in this area, either.
our meetings range from people with 24 hours - to several with 18+ years,
to some with with thirty five, the other claiming 42 years.

The oldtimers in this area save their shares for the last five minutes of the meetings,
and once I think about it - the whole group often deferrs to their longer sobriety experience.

I know they tried an 'old itmer' meting -
doing it the way they'd done back twenty plus years ago -

and they orneried thmeselves right out of participation.

And their participation in the other groups -
across the board -
skyrocketed.

So, in my opinion, *we* benefitted from the bomb of the other group.
Turns out, around here -
the 'good old days'
wern't as great as they'd remembered.
The old 'my way or the highway'-
wound up running themselves off.

FanofJoeMcQ

I learned early on that my sponsor is just as close to a drink as I am....she'd say 'we both have the same day'...it meant alot to me. As the days racked up, I catch myself feeling the same way. When I have a newcomer looking to me for advice. I repeat what was taught to me. Thankfully, I had some really awesome serene sober folks around me early on and stuff they said sunk in my wet brain. I actually remember it today!