Here where I live, you really don't hear much about the 12 Steps and the program of recovery. Just about every meeting raffles off the Big Book (because the groups cannot afford to give them away anymore), and the 12 Steps are posted on the wall along with the 12 Traditions. But we mostly hear drunk-a-logs. Matter of fact, the Big Book Step Study Meeting is known by many as "That Nazi Meeting."

And that is okay. For I know it is my responsibility, when I'm asked to speak, to share the message of recovery and the 12 Steps, when I go to those meetings.

When I see someone that is in and out a few times, I ask them if they are ready to try something different this time. And I let them know that there is a better way to recover and live a better life and it is know as the 12 Steps.

If they are tired enough, desperate enough and feel like they are banging their heads against the wall, they just might take me up on my offer.

But I have never read in the Big Book anywhere, or neither was I instructed by anyone, to go up to these people, grab them by the scruff of the neck and tell them, "I think you have had enough and so now you are going to do it my way, as it is suggested in the 12 Steps and the Big Book."

Matter of fact, if someone ever came up to me and said that, I wouldn't even bother to introduce his face to my fist, I would run as fast as my legs could carry me, and as far away from him as I could.

I am a statistic, I am one of those that chose to thoroughly followe their path. All of those that came before me.

My own honest opinion,

Harry

There was a time when AA was AA
The wheat was separated from the chaff, After you have proven yourself to be an alcoholic and displayed a sincere desire to get sober via AA you may have been allowed in the door.

Fast Forward 75 years and every Tom Dick and Alley Cat gets sent to AA by treatment centers where they learn the exact opposite of what AA is all about.
AA has been overwhelmed and overpowered.
Find an underground meeting where AA is AA and they require you check your coat, umbrella and ******** at the door.

judge jury and executioner

[QUOTE=LexieCat;2674225]Robert,

Simply not true. I was given a message of fellowship and not drinking. Perhaps this was a NJ phenomenon in the mid to late 90s, but I have spoken to quite a few from across the country who say their experience was similar. There was no talk in meetings about steps, except in a distant, passing manner. As optional concepts to consider, not the process that would bring about a spiritual experience that would save my hopeless ass. Never did someone offer to take me through them. Not once. And that is our job, based on what I read in our text. Not to wait for them to come to us, but to offer it to them.

Am I saying AA failed me? No. I'm saying that the core message of recovery was so diluted over time that I was offered friendship, fellowship and slogans. By people who absolutely loved me and wanted to help me.

Again, not true. You are making assumptions. Very few people were working the steps in the 6 meetings a week I went to. I heard work a step a year, or not to work the steps-- they aren't necessary. And: the only step I have to get right is the first one. Heard that one over and over again.

I was put on auto-pilot: here's the coffee. Meet Joe, Sam, etc. Welcome. Don't drink and do 90 meetings in 90 days. No big decisions or relationships in the first year. Find a sponsor. Keep coming back. Problems? Bring them to a meeting and share about them. You'll get tons of free advice!

And you know what? I turned around and did the same thing to the next new person who walked in the room.

I do apologize for the use of the word "lazy" as it describes people. It's unfair. From what I can piece together from talking to people who've done a lot of research on AA, it seems the organization, when overrun by the philosophy of rehabs, did not push back.

A sick mind can not cure a sick mind. I'm insane when I'm an active alcoholic, and you expect me to take initiative and work some steps, even when no one around me is doing it? My sobriety is my responsibility, yes. But we as recovered alcoholics have a responsibility to carry the message, actively.

Can someone show me where I said we need to badger people about slow progress?

I said we have a responsibility to carry the message, to actively seek out the newcomer, qualify them, share our experience and offer to show them how we did it. And quickly. Meetings for me were rarely about the message of recovery. And they still aren't here in North NJ, with rare exceptions.

Me too. Sincerely. But I have an opinion, based on my recent experience, that AA has lost its way. Four years ago I would have thought that anyone who wrote that was hopelessly arrogant. So I know how it comes across. But I need to talk about it. Until the moderators decide I'm a problem and toss me, I suggest anyone who's uncomfortable with it avoid my posts. Or tell me why I'm wrong. But don't tell me I don't have a right to say it.

Oh, so now you're going to blame the disease for your decision to go back out and drink. Try again.

You were an untreaated alcoholic?? Most "untreated" alcoholics I know were so open minded, stuff just blew right on through, or they were so closed minded they wanted to do things their own way. Which category do you fall under?

Funny, you call me condecending and yet here you are saying what "we" should do or what "we" failed to do. AA should do this or AA should do that. If I sound condecending to you that doesn't surprise me. I think you're just not used to someone being honest with you....but that's just me. :headbange

I do appreciate your efforts to keep this civil, Robby. But the fact that I was not exposed to the message of recovery in a compelling fashion is a critical part of my ESH. Then and now.

What's going on with me is that I'm making my amends. Yesterday, I tried to track down a guy I stole 7 bucks from when I was 7 years old. I know where he lives. I find it odd to repay 7 dollars after 36 years, but my sponsor asked me exactly how free I wanted to be.

This notion that we can not talk about the state of AA is quite perplexing to me. It's all of our business.

OK. Can you tell me why I went out and drank again? This is important.

I'm not quite sure what you mean here, but I'm certainly not doing it "my" way. I'm doing it the AA way.

I'm only talking about what's in the Big Book, Music. Not my opinion. Do you believe we should be following what's in the Big Book?

You have every right to say it... your message is somewhat troubling, however and I am not sure why. I think it is the resentment I hear in the tone of your message. Bill W. used a carrot, not a stick... And to me, with all due respect and consideration, you seem to be carrying a stick. Maybe not, and I have it wrong.

No one has offered to take me through the steps, but when I asked for help, especially when I was struggling with the fourth step.... I found myself at a diner the very next day with a guy 26 years recovered ... and a big book, a pen and paper and a bottomless cup of coffee....

I agree. If alcoholism was heart disease, we wouldn't count the people who made it only as far as the waiting room, and never had the surgery, in our statistics about how effective heart surgery is. And I believe the 6% success rate in AA includes a ton of people who never make it out of the waiting room.

But my point was never to say that the 6% was inaccurate. I think it's very accurate. But I don't believe we are supposed to shrug our shoulders and say it's God's will, or, they'll get it when they get it. This sort of passivity is not what Bill and Dr. Bob engaged in. They went and aggressively found drunks to work with.

Yes, working the steps has restored me to sanity. But I can't simply say, "I got mine." I have to give it away to keep it. My life depends on it.

robert..stop complaining...i have your thoughts often, but stop complaining and start carrying the message one person at a time...not the message that AA sucks, but the message of the steps being the means of recovery.

If you dedicagted your energy and time on these threads helping the newcomer instead of bashing your expereince of AA...you might find your own life better as well.

my god..you sound so like my thoughts...but have that pause to know that carrying the message that AA sucks and the answer isn't found in the meetings...by itself...isn't helping a darn person.

Talk to the newcomer about how the steps changed your life...how you have found an answer. Yes ... let them know you have expereinced the crazy place where what you heard in meetings wasnt the message you needed, but focus more on how you recovered.

Then your expereince can be of benifit to me...instead of simply fueling resentments and anger.

Fair enough, Mark. I appreciate your approach. But I apologized for my tone before, but then realized I did not mean it.

I resent the conflict, yes. I resent being told to stuff it and fall in line. But mainly I resent the maddening way my points are dismissed and I'm told to talk about my ESH. As if these points couldn't possibly have anything to do with my ESH.

I'm afraid we've been so brainwashed to believe that there is no "wrong" in AA that there's no longer any right.

There is an AA program, and it's outlined in our textbook. It saved my life. I will share that experience with anyone who wants to hear it, and will point out what I believe to be are distortions of that message.

I can relate. But it was my decision. There was a big book study that was happening in the same town I was attending meetings at for many years. I choose not to attend because it was on Saturday mornings.

I did not get the Big Book recovery message until 20 years sober. It was my own fault. In a way I believe it was Gods plan all along. That is the way it was meant to be.

2nd step says could restore us to sanity, not would. I am responsible. Not the type of meetings I choose to attend the first 20 years.

Andy

Well, I just came from my home group meeting tonight and heard two people share tonight for five minutes apiece on how the program is not the fellowship and the steps are the program, and you won't get well by merely going to 90 meetings in 90 days, etc.

OK? So that has been MY experience since I have been going to meetings for the past two years. I hear that message constantly.

I find it difficult to believe that no one ever shared that at a meeting or in conversation with you in 11 years. I tend to believe it's more likely that it didn't register with you.

Whatever, your experience is what you believe it to be. My experience tells me that the message is alive and well here in South Jersey. We're only a hundred miles or so apart, geographically speaking.

I do carry the message. Contrary to what some might think, I'm not glued to my computer all day. I am sponsoring men. I am at meetings. I have spoken to two doctors about connecting me with newcomers, and I've already gotten one call.

Perhaps incorrectly, I viewed this as a place where we could talk about AA. In particular, this area-- not the newcomer area.

I don't think AA sucks. I think it's wonderful.

These meetings around here that call themselves AA, not so much.


My time is well-spent as it relates to helping alcoholics. And my life is good.

How do you know that? How do you know that there aren't people reading this thinking, you know, maybe this is why people are disappearing from our meetings. Or, maybe a newcomer is thinking, thank god there's more to this than a bunch of guys standing around with coffee.

To say "AA sucks" would be completely counter-productive. To point out where AA may have lost its way, and encourage other sober people to offer their thoughts, should be productive, at least in theory.

But you see there... "we've been brainwashed" .... I have not been brainwashed to believe there is no wrong in AA. Now maybe it is because of SR, and the strong AA message that I hear so frequently in this forum or maybe the Joe and Charlie tapes, or the Big Book itself.... but I have quite the opposite opinion... that there is, in fact, a right way...

The message I hear at the meetings I attend is usually a good AA message, but often it is because I know what to listen for, and that's because of the work I do when I am not in a meeting...

How would one deliver the message, in a meeting, except to share their own experience?

Am I right in assuming an invitation to Christmas dinner isn't coming? :)

Of course, I can't tell you I didn't hear that over the years. But are you suggesting I should have grabbed on to that instead of the much louder message drowning it out, which told me that the only thing I needed to do was stay away from a drink? Not pick up the first drink? Every day sober was good enough? Too many AA meetings were and are pep rallies for abstinence. That's what I heard. If you are thinking that I should have recognized that as insufficient, I don't know what to say. I wasn't up to the task.

There is no other way. When I share my ESH in a meeting, I certainly talk about the message I heard, or did not hear, in those 11 years. I point out the slogans that made me underestimate the nature of my disease, the often mindless catchphrases we recite that are completely at odds with the Dr.'s Opinion.

I used to do it too. As I said before, I am making amends to people I told to not drink and go to meetings. To above all, resist!

I think I know the slogans and catchphrases and I have probably heard the same messages. I have also heard why those messages can obscure and smear the AA message... But how... That's what I want to hear... what was your experience, what was your part in it? I can learn from your experience, not your opinion.

Basic blocking and tackling of AA is the book, it may be all some have in some places. Your once again a dismissive of people doing real work to get drunks the basic text.

This right here saves me from a long multi quoted response. Your issue is you, not the newcomer, you have a problem with AA because of a perception that AA failed you. There is no way to have a discussion with someone carrying that big of a chip. You failed you.

Don't understand this part. But yeah, the steps are on the wall, how it works is read, and people raise their hands to help newcomers and approach drunks. They are having at it everyday. Maybe you don't see it.

In the book I read about sharing some ESH, offering the book, and if someone is not ready then moving on. Is that selfish and lazy?

The issue is not AA but the fact that it takes some personal initiative on a members part. Initiative that you lacked, and you don't want to face that fact so your on a crusade about AA and the lack of a message. The water is there, people have to want to drink it.

But keep on keeping on, you have a right to speak, and I have right to respond. God is everything or he is nothing so for some reason I am meant to read your words. :-)

What others say about AA and what other groups do that I will probably never see first hand is really none of my affair.If I am so concerned with that stuff,I am distracted from the purpose of why I am sober,which is to be of service to God and others,and seek God`s will.If I am out of the here and now,that cannot be done.If I am out of where I am at this moment,thinking of a sanerio conjured up by a few extremists and others about some meetings elsewhere which are never mentioned,I am out of reality and into un-reality or insanity.It is insane for me to argue about recovery rates for some mysterious unknown groups.I really ain`t that smart anyhow.
I prefer to stay sane by leaving the whole of AA in God`s hands where it belongs.
The best I can do is service on the local level,which I really do try to do.There is where I find my purpose,service and sanity and a relationship with my Hp,which without I would drink again.I also find no need to go underground for any reason.I did my drinking above ground,and staying sober will be above ground.