Take What You Need and Leave The Rest

Now I’m becoming aware of why someone developed that saying…

I’m trying to resolve, for me, this statement that Lulu left in her comment;

“Life saving” should be done at the end of the meeting and thereby avoiding the fall out of unsolicited advice giving and know-it-all attitudes.

I do not agree with it and, to my thinking (yeah, I know), it doesn’t make sense. I’ll tell you why. To limit “life saving” to after a meeting is totally contradictory to what I’ve lived as a sober member of AA. Imagine if God limited His time saving lives to certain periods of time. That’s silly.

Had Steve T. not stood in front of the Blue Point beginner’s meeting, in front of approx. 40 or so other newcomers, and told me in no uncertain terms that “It sounds like you’ve got all the answers,” the process of ego deflation might never have happened. And I could be dead.

I can resolve this easily with something published in this months’ Grapevine. It is a letter from Kay K. What Kay says in her 2nd paragraph rings true as an answer to the unfounded fears of “fall out of unsolicited advice giving and know-it-all attitudes.”

“If they’re ready, you can’t say anything wrong. If they’re not ready, you can’t say anything right.”

Believe what you will, but, imho, eliminating crosstalk is the beginnings of eliminating sharing our experience, strength and hope. Once we eliminate that, we will have violated our Primary Purpose and AA will die.

I will continue to stand tall for crosstalk despite the ignorant ramblings that for the sake of “my program” I ought to remove my head from my a**. As per usual, those that judge don’t matter and those that matter don’t judge.