darkling

Maybe. But a Group of Drunks - such as the people in my fav meeting - most certainly has more power than I do on my own.
Isn't that the point?

miamifella

They may have more power, but they do not understand your career path, your family dynamics, your financial history etc. Often they can do more harm than good unless you have the strength to stand up to their power.

I have seen a number of people who got into trouble by turning their will and lives over to people who just were unqualified to take on that responsibility.

darkling

With that reasoning, one should avoid sponsors at all costs!
After all, a sponsor's advice is just one person's opinion.

But, I've yet to run into an entire Group of Drunks who would agree on everything - with the exception of Don't Drink.

AA isn't for career or relationship advice. We're not Dear Abby. Our purpose is to stay sober and help others to achieve sobriety. Period.

miamifella

I think you have a healthy way of looking at it. Not everyone who goes into the program has the ego-strength to think about it the way you do.

I lost sponsors and alienated people by not following their career and relationship guidance. But looking back I did the right thing.

nez

When I first started attending AA meetings, I had big time trouble with all the GOD talk, and as far as reciting the Lord's prayer...well forget that.

I was letting individual words get in my way of understanding the overall concept behind the readings, prayers, recitations, etc.

My arrogance was the problem, not the words. I was like the kid who sticks his fingers in his ears and starts singing LALALALALA...

I was lacking in opened mindedness. I was very narrow minded, which was exactly the same thing that I accused the world religions of being.

Today, I can easily read or recite passages from Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Shinto, Bahá'í , etc. etc. etc. I don't believe in any of those religions, or any other for that matter; but I acknowledge the wisdom and ideals behind the passages.

Today...I don't know...and I am good with that. It seems that when I know, I get in trouble and growth has ceased. Also when that occurs, humbleness and humility have left the building... along with Elvis. :~)

darkling

I should have maybe said at the beginning of this thread, that the meeting I'll be co-chairing is a Beginner's Meeting. Quite a few non-newcomers attend, but a few newbies have been known to wander in as well. Not a few of these are international students from the university in town. We're quite the eclectic group some weeks

While acknowledging that I can't "save" anyone [*winking* at miamifella] I'd also like to not frighten them off with "the G-word" at their first meeting. Let's face it, that does happen. More than we'd like.

nez - Having been around for awhile, yes, I also get alot out of reading different religions/faiths/cultures/perspectives. What I find most interesting is how very similar we all are - if we'd just stop labeling everything! [Sometimes guilty as charged, but workin' hard on it!]

Is it too egotistical to hope that a reading I chose might help someone come back - just one more time? [Man, I hope not!]

and - it really was kinda hard to give up my super-power of knowing exactly how to fix everyone else. But what a relief when I let go of it!

Steely

Tkink I didn't mean I believed in a Supernatural being,I meant I found it difficult to understand how, without proof some could believe so.

If I get the proof I'm in

Outside of that I'll just try to practice good, humanist principles.

dsmaxis10

Qi Energy is a power greater then yourself!!! Bruce Lee showed it's POWER !!!

Gottalife

Some really interesting perspectives in this thread to which I can relate. I am not keen on the group of drunks idea. It seemed to make sense when I was new, but it doesn't take long to figure out that humans are fallible, and in any case, in the abcs we reach the conclusion that we that we are beyond human aid, which also puts limitations on what a sponsor can accomplish.

I can also relate to the poster talked bout having a closed mind. I was the same. Certain things like the Lord's Prayer, really seemed to antagonise me, me I have no idea why. Fortunately there was only one meeting that used it, the other fifty didn't, so I could void it through my ignorant stage. Now, like others, I get a lot from the worlds religions. I find prayers that can say what I want to say much better than anything I could come up with on my own, and I freely use the word god because I can't come up with a better word than that to describe what I mean.

Someone else talked about believing if they get proof. That was where I started, justbwith the willingness to do that. And I got my proof through working the steps.

There is always an alternative though. As someone once said, one wouldn't even look for. Higher power if one's own power was adequate. My power had failed utterly, which was why I was willing to look for a greater one, and AA is all about that, finding The Power to solve the problem.

If belief that human power is the only thing acceptable, then go with the group of drunks collective human power and join the meeting makers make it crew. Many people stay sober a long time on that, but I haven't met any of them doing the kind of thing I have been given the freedom to do. The real benefit of the non human higher power is a completely portable 24/7 defence against the first drink, which means I am not tied to the meetings, I can go anywhere and do anything that free men can do. If a group of drunks is my defence, I can't be away from them for too long. I become a prisoner of the fellowship.

miamifella

The groups that I first attended discouraged use of the word "god." Only "higher power" was tolerated. It was a shock to me the first time I went to a meeting where people threw around the g-word right and left.

I think you have a great handle on what the program can be. There are so many different ways that people conceive of 12-step recovery. It is important that people like you are in the mix.

Bunny211

I am an agnostic. When I talk about my higher power, I refer to the group...the solid, sober women mentors who came before me and showed me how to live. From working the steps I developed an intuition or a GUT KNOWING of what is right and what is wrong and how to live. I think there may be some sort of divine power inherent in all of us but I do not believe in a sky god or in prayer or anything of that sort.

Gottalife

That is strange MF. I have never been to a meeting that contravenes the program like that. The program says everyone can have their own conception of a higher power, and if it is God, that is fine.

It wasn't one of those agnostica groups by any chance?

miamifella

No they were not agnostic meetings.

I hesitate to say this because it sounds so stereotypical, but it is true. but this was in the south where a lot of people were damaged by their specific religious upbringings. I think to a lot of people there the word "god" conjures up some bitter experience.

A lot people would talk about how developing their own conception of god was a new idea. (This shocked me a lot because in the churches and religious schooling of my youth, this was the whole point!)

tomsteve

heres what the program as layed out in the big book says:

We needed to ask ourselves but one short question. "Do I now believe, or am I even willing to believe, that there is a Power greater than myself?" As soon as a man can say that he does believe, or is willing to believe, we emphatically assure him that he is on his way. It has been repeatedly proven among us that upon this simple cornerstone a wonderfully effective spiritual structure can be built.

if a group of drunks is helping you stay sober, that is the beginning.
now onto step 3, which im not sure how turning ones will and life over to something of this world is done.

cejay

^ Exactly.

CJ.

nez

It is not important to me and my recovery, that I know exactly how someone else turns their will and their life over to a higher power, and on what plane, whether it be physical, astral, spiritual, or whatever.

What is important to me and my recovery, is that I do it.

darkling

HUH? "Tied to meetings"? "Prisoner"?!

I'm not a prisoner. AA is not my keeper. Quite the opposite. It's because of AA and the Fellowship that I can go anywhere and do anything.

I don't have to go to meetings. I GET to go to meetings. The people in the rooms are my family.

If it weren't for the people with chunks of sober time, who have showed me how to walk thru hell itself - with grace - I wouldn't have believed it possible. You can only learn that by being able to watch others do it first.

I never would have believed that someone with years - decades - of sobriety could really be happy - until I met them.

A small group of drunks - strangers! - took me under their wing when I first came in. They baby-sat me for close to a month. I was never alone. They - thru AA - literally saved my life. The only way I can ever pay that back is by paying it forward. That's what I do with every meeting I attend.

The "tied to meetings" rationale just doesn't make sense. AA is world-wide. If you can't find a meeting in person or online, you can sure as hell find another drunk's phone number.

Personally, I don't ever want to be so sober that I don't need AA and the Fellowship any more.

BrendaChenowyth

Um... AA is not a group of drunks? Seeing as how... they're people who have quit drinking?

AnvilheadII

not usually the day they walk in the door........

ScottFromWI

I would remind everyone here that another thread was just closed due to arguments about specific recovery methods. Let please make sure we don't have to do the same with this one.