kj3880

This disturbs me.
I hope you didn't scare anyone considering going to an AA meeting away with this statement. You know, there are a lot more AA meetings than NA meetings in my area and in most areas. So that's why you see some of us there.

Try to open up your mind a little bit and understand that we are more alike than different (alcohol is a mind-altering drug just like my DOC, percocet, was a mind-altering drug). You aren't any better than us, and not that much different, from what I can see. We're all sick. You don't understand why people take drugs? I took 'em cause I had a prescription to take my DOC after a series of surgeries on my spine. You say that you don't know why people become addicted? No one knows why certain people (us) become addicted to drugs or alcohol. I don't know why you drank too much, either, but you are welcome at NA. Seriously, come on in and join us. And we'll relate to you as best we can.

We have a lot of "just alcoholics" that come to my homegroup. They seem to like it there. I agree that people who come to AA should identify as alcoholic if they want to talk at a meeting, but most addicts do that when they share. Lots of alcoholics that come to NA say "I'm an addict/alcoholic." I've never heard anyone in my area correct or censure them. We're just glad they showed up and we hope we can help them. I understand singleness of purpose, but do you really want to exclude people who are getting something out of AA?

So please try and welcome everyone who has a substance abuse problem as long as they are respectful of AA traditions at the meetings. And maybe hold out your hand to an addict who needs your help. You might just get to keep what you have by giving it to one of us.

Hey, if we don't hang together, this disease of addiction will hang us individually. (adapted from a quote by Ben Franklin)

KJ

Pinkcuda

Here's the deal. It's not about our individual sobriety or how and where we get it. It's about the preservation of AA as it was intended. We can all agree that AA has become so watered down that we can no longer deliver the message. Therefore we are not getting sober. We can not tolerate problem drinkers, Court Orders or those that got a DUI and think it will look good for the Judge. Those people drink but they are probably not Alcoholics. Still they are welcome with open arms and they're told to keep coming back. That was not the intent of AA.
People come in and talk about their problems and the reason they drink.(or so they think)
This was not the intent of AA
AA was intended for Alcoholics as described on Pg.24 of the Big Book in italics that have a desire to stop drinking. Period. No one else may call themselves a member. Therefore I go to closed meetings only.
The main thing is not my opinion or what I believe. It's not your opinion or what you believe.
It's about what AA believes. Here is AA's belief as to drug addicts in AA as written by Bill W.
http://aa.org/pdf/products/p-35_ProO...anAlcohol1.pdf
It's all to often I quote the book and get told I'm wrong. When it comes to AA we have to do it exactly as intended or it's not AA
Call it what you want but it's not AA

bugsworth

Addiction is addiction regardless what aa or Bill Wilson has to say about it.

I do not understand how one can understand addiction to alcohol but not to drugs.
As Spock says..."That is not logical."

Ananda

"we" do not all agree that AA has become watered down. AA is still deleivering a message and people are still getting sober.

I am an alchoholic/addict. I attend AA. Although AA took it's name from the book Alchoholics Anonomys, Meetings of this group exsisted prior to the writing of the big book and the 12x12 and other literature.

Alchoholics gathered together to share their struggles with this desease and how they each stay sober so that others may get and stay sober.

I continue to share with others how I stayed sober today what works for me, and encourage them to find the path that works for them.

As far as addict/alchoholic.....If you want to not drink today...I will share with you and hope that you will share with me.

gravity

I am an alcoholic and have been attending AA meetings for 9 months. In live in a smaller town and we have 2 AA meetings per day but only 3 NA meetings per week.

Self described addicts and alcoholic/addicts do attend our AA meetings but are the minority. The only thing that used to bother me was the graphic stories of drug use (eg. needles, collapsed veins, infections, etc.). Shares of this nature are a rare occurence (only twice actually). But then, some drinking horror stories have creeped me out as well. Oh well…we are all sober.

For the most part, the discussion is about working the steps regardless of a persons DOC. We talk about the same solution. I do not see how this detracts from the effectiveness of an AA meeting. How helpful I find someone’s share is not dependant of their DOC. I believe that we have a very strong local program.

I have no idea if alcohol and drug addiction are the same thing. What I have seen is that the 12 steps have worked for many alcoholics, addicts, and alcoholic/addicts that I have met.

I personally know a couple or people that have issues with “addicts” attending AA meetings. I get where they are coming from but I do not agree with them. If someone is in need of help and comes to the doors of AA, I will definitely welcome them.

“Love and tolerance of others is our code."

Pinkcuda

AA is watered down. You would never imagine Bill and Bob pinching each other on the cheek and saying "Fake it till you make it" or "Take what you want and leave the rest"
Bill says to Bob, "you just come back next month and pick you up another desire chip"
That was not the way it was then, but that's what it has become.
The instructions in the book are crystal clear as to who may be a member of AA and who is not.
The book is the leading authority in this case. If it's not in the book, it's not AA.
But while we're on the subject let me ask a question that is relevant.
Why did NA diversify and develop offshoots such as CA, CMA, OA etc..if this "One Size Fits All" mentality is so prevolent?

bugsworth

Good question Pink...could it be money?

The "treatment" industry has made a fortune off of the 12 step approach. You can find a treatment center for just about any addiction...most using the 12 step approach. How are their recovery rates? No better that aa I would guess.

BTW Bill didn't have all the answers....addiction was around long before the bb and I venture to say will be long after it stops being the final word on the subject.

Ananda

according to you, and some others, I am not a member of AA nor do we have a single aa meeting in our town, nor have I ever been to one. hummmmmm....

Well whatever recovery program it is that I'm going to, I'm really glad it's there and will do my best to see that it is there for others.

debs4321

My home group is CMA. (Crystal Meth Anonymous)

All our literature is based out of the book of Alcoholic Anonymous.
When we have a discussion meeting we read from the book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
We refer to the book of Alcoholics Anonymous when we have questions.

We work the Steps straight out of the book of Alcoholics Anonymous as Bill W. wrote.

NA is not affiliated with CMA.

As I said before, nothing is wrong with NA. What ever works for you.


Thank God for Alcoholics Anonymous.

Zencat

I believe those with rigid thinking interpret the program of A.A. differently from those who are more open minded. Some get stuck in the dogma of the program and miss the bigger picture: people helping people to get and stay sober.

freya

Well, as an Al Anon who will go to any open 12 Step meeting that I can "get my hands on" when I need to go to a meeting, I have to say that from what I've heard people actually say when they are talking the specifics of their experience with alcohol and/or drugs at meetings, I can't tell any difference. In fact, it often amazes me how it seems like I could just switch out the nouns for specific drugs and/or behaviors and all the stories sound very much the same -- at least to me.

I really, really like what a couple of other people have posted here -- about the fact that they go to meetings to hear about recovery, not addiction, because, for me, I SO know that that is the bottom line. I go to meetings to focus on the solution, not the problem...and most certianly not on the "old solutions" (whether they were drinking and/or drugging and/or compulsive caretaking and/or acting out in whatever way) that ended up bringing me into the rooms and didn't work worth sh*t anyways.

Actually, most of the open AA meetings in this area have a line in the Secretary's statement that says "discussion should be kept to issues of alcoholism or recovery"...and it seems to me that that pretty much leaves some room for anyone who is working any kind of recovery program.

A few years ago, I heard an excellent speaker tape of a wonderful woman, Geraldine Delaney, who was one of the first (maybe the 3rd?????) women to get sober in AA....and this was a pretty old tape, ~1970, I think, and in it she says at one point something along the lines of: "I just want to say to all of you people out there who want to keep other addicts out of AA that I just wish you would look down the line a way and think about how it's going to feel years from now when your child or your grandchild finds himself addicted to something other than alcohol and wants to come to AA for help and AA turns him away and refuses to help him because people like you have insisted so selfishly that AA be for alcoholics only. I want you to think about what it's gonna feel like when you have to fall down on your knees and beg HP's forgiveness for your selfishness and your hypocrisy because it has deprived your own grandchildren from being able to get the same help that you have gotten in these rooms." OK...so, not real subtle that lady.....but she defintely knows how to make her point!

Also, there is an article by Bill W. himself that was published in 1947 in Guideposts. It is entitled "Is AA for Alcoholics Only?" Part of the closing paragraph reads: "We of AA cannot help but feel that great things certainly await those who earnestly try our 12 Steps, substituting their own distressing problem for that of alcohol.....To us, grace is an infinite abundance which surely can be shared by all who will renouce their former selves and truly seek it out."

I guess for me, my program teaches me that I need to take care of myself and go where I need to go to get what I know in my heart I need -- and if anyone has a problem with it, my approach has been just to thank them for their honesty and tell them nicely but firmly that, as the object of their intolerance and/or the trigger of their fear and insecurity, I am probably not the best person to help them work through it, so perhaps it's something they need to discuss in further detail with their sponsor. (..and, in truth, I've only had to say that once.)

..and, you know it's not at all that I don't undersatnd the fear that some people have that here is something that has worked so well for them -- that, literally in most cases, has saved their lives-- and they are petrified that if it changes even in any tiny way that it might not be there for them the way they need it to be in the future. [We have people like that in Al Anon, too: the ones that practically fall out of their chair if a new person mentions that s/he is a double winner or if someone references the Big Book (as if that isn't absoutely the primary text of any 12 Step Program --I mean, isn't that kinda like a Christian having a cow because someone references the Old Testement???????)] But, that amount of fear and that level of rigidity and intolerance????...Well, I guess for me, those are things that I see as incompatible with my personal recovery because I just have a real hard time reconciling stuff like that with trust in HP or with any of the principles underlying the 12 Steps.

freya

debs4321

Freya....................

thank you for your post.