Mike left a comment today, the gist of which was that some folks were reading letters from a prison inmate at a meeting, looking, in some apparently misguided way, for help for the inmate. The inmate was not attending the meeting. The folks offering the readings also offered comments on the inmate’s daily living challenges. At an AA meeting. Then looking for feedback from the meeting.

Of course this felt awkward, even angering some. My first thoughts ran along the line that this was somehow a violation of our Fifth Tradition.

Then I read “The Language of the Heart” page 133 where Bill W. mentions that, “by 1937, some of us realized that AA needed a standard literature. There would have to be a book. Our word-of-mouth program could be garbled, we might be destroyed by dissension over basic principles, and then our public relations would surely go to pot. We’d fall flat on our obligation to the alcoholic who hadn’t yet heard unless we put our knowledge on paper.”

It dawned on me! How can we read this inmate’s letters in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous??? They aren’t AA approved literature!

Therefore it makes it very easy. This is a deceptive violation of anonymity. And anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions. Sorry, but you’ll have to stop reading these letters in the meeting…

Post from: Blisstree

Actually It Boils Down To Simplicity

“Personal glorification, overweening pride, consuming ambition, exhibitionism, intolerant smugness, money or power madness, refusal to admit mistakes and learn from them, self-satisfaction, lazy complacency – these and many more are the garden variety of ills which so often beset movements as well as individuals.

While we AA’s, as individuals, have suffered much from just such defects, and must daily admit and deal with them in our personal lives if we are to stay sober and useful, it is nevertheless true that such attitudes have seldom crept into our public relations. But someday they might. Let us never say, ‘It can’t happen here.’”

The Traditions were being formed and, for me, that is quite a list of garden variety ills, character defects, shortcomings or sins.

[*The Language of the Heart, page 4]

Post from: Blisstree

Garden Variety of Ills

“Our AA Traditions are those attitudes and practices by which we may deserve, as a movement, a long life and a useful one. To this end, none could be more vital than our Tenth Tradition, for it deals with the subject of controversy – serious controversy.”

Sounds familiar… try to remember that Bill wrote this in July, 1948.

“On the other side of the world, millions have died even recently in religious dissension. Other millions have died in political controversy. The end is not yet. Nearly everybody in the world has turned reformer. Each group, society, and nation is saying to the other, ‘You do as we say, or else.’ Political controversy and reform by compulsion have reached an all-time high. And eternal, seemingly, are the flames of religious dissension.”

Sixty years ago and still the end is not yet…

“Being like other men and women, how can we expect to remain forever immune from all these perils? Probably we shall not. At length, we must meet them all. We cannot flee from them, nor ought we try. If these challenges do come, we shall, I am sure, go out to meet them gladly and unafraid. That will be the acid test of our worth.”

If you’re an anti, don’t expect us to run…

“Our best defense? This surely lies in the formation of a Tradition respecting serious controversy so powerful that neither the weakness of persons nor the strain and strife or our troubled times can harm Alcoholics Anonymous. We know that AA must continue to live, or else many of us and many of our fellow alcoholics throughout the world will surely resume the hopeless journey into oblivion. That must never be.”

You can beat up on Bill’s character all you want. He’s dead and can’t defend himself. We’re still here and will. You lose so others may live. We’ll embrace your controversy as a way of cementing our future.

Post from: Blisstree

At Peace Among Ourselves

Tradition Two: For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority—a loving GOD as HE may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.

*****

• Do I criticize or do I trust and support my group officers, AA committees, and office workers? Newcomers? Old-timers?
• Am I absolutely trustworthy, even in secret, with AA Twelfth Step jobs or other AA responsibility?
• Do I look for credit in my AA jobs? Praise for my AA ideas?
• Do I have to save face in group discussion, or can I yield in good spirit to the group conscience and work cheerfully along with it?
• Although I have been sober a few years, am I willing to serve my turn at AA chores?
• In group discussions, do I sound off about matters on which I have no experience and little knowledge?

Wow – this is one topic I feel like I could write a book about How about you? Recognize any of this? I sure do…

Post from: Blisstree

Traditions Checklist – Tradition Two

Traditions Checklist – Tradition One: Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon AA unity.

1. Am I in my group a healing, mending, integrating person, or am I divisive? What about gossip and taking other members’ inventories?

2. Am I a peacemaker? Or do I, with pious preludes such as “just for the sake of discussion,” plunge into argument?

3. Am I gentle with those who rub me the wrong way, or am I abrasive?

4. Do I make competitive AA remarks, such as comparing one group with another or contrasting AA in one place with AA in another?

5. Do I put down some AA activities as if I were superior for not participating in this or that aspect of AA?

6. Am I informed about AA as a whole? Do I support, in every way I can, AA as a whole, or just the parts I understand and approve of?

7. Am I as considerate of AA members as I want them to be of me?

8. Do I spout platitudes about love while indulging in and secretly justifying behavior that bristles with hostility?

9. Do I go to enough AA meetings or read enough AA literature to really keep in touch?

10. Do I share with AA all of me, the bad and the good, accepting as well as giving the help of fellowship?

Comments accepted…

Post from: Blisstree

Traditions Checklist – Tradition One

“Is my brand of AA so attractive that other drunks want it?”

From Silkworth.net;

Tradition Twelve: Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.

• Why is it a good idea for me to place the common welfare of all AA members before individual welfare? What would happen to me if AA as a whole disappeared?
• When I do not trust AA’s current servants, who do I wish had the authority to straighten them out?
• In my opinions of and remarks about other AAs, am I implying membership requirements other than a desire to stay sober?
• Do I ever try to get a certain AA group to conform to my standards, not its own?
• Have I a personal responsibility in helping an AA group fulfill its primary purpose? What is my part?
• Does my personal behavior reflect the Sixth Tradition – or belie it?
• Do I do all I can to support AA financially? When is the last time I anonymously gave away a Grapevine subscription?
• Do I complain about certain AAs’ behavior – especially if they are paid to work for AA? Who made me so smart?
• Do I fulfill all AA responsibilities in such a way as to please privately even my own conscience? Really?
• Do my utterances always reflect the Tenth Tradition, or do I give AA critics real ammunition?
• Should I keep my AA membership a secret, or reveal it in private conversation when that may help another alcoholic (and therefore me)? Is my brand of AA so attractive that other drunks want it?
• What is the real importance of me among more than a million AAs?

[Copyright © The A.A. Grapevine, Inc.]

Post from: Blisstree

Tradition Twelve Checklist – Are You?

From Silkworth.net;

Tradition Eleven: Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films.

• Do I sometimes promote AA so fanatically that I make it seem unattractive?
• Am I always careful to keep the confidences reposed in me as an AA member?
• Am I careful about throwing AA names around – even within the Fellowship?
• Am I ashamed of being a recovered, or recovering, alcoholic?
• What would AA be like if we were not guided by the ideas in Tradition Eleven? Where would I be?
• Is my sobriety attractive enough that a sick drunk would want such a quality for himself?

Hmmmmm???

Post from: Blisstree

Tradition Eleven Checklist

From Silkworth.net;

Tradition Ten: Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the AA name ought never be drawn into public controversy.

• Do I ever give the impression that there really is an “AA opinion” on Antabuse? Tranquilizers? Doctors? Psychiatrists? Churches? Hospitals? Jails? Alcohol? The federal government? Legalizing marijuana? Vitamins? Al-Anon? Alateen?
• Can I honestly share my own personal experience concerning any of those without giving the impression I am stating the “AA opinion”?
• What in AA history gave rise to our Tenth Tradition?
• Have I had a similar experience in my own AA life?
• What would AA be without this Tradition? Where would I be?
• Do I breach this or any of its supporting Traditions in subtle, perhaps unconscious, ways?
• How can I manifest the spirit of this Tradition in my personal life outside AA? Inside AA?

[Also worthy of being returned to the top and brought into the now ]

Post from: Blisstree

Tradition Ten Checklist

Tradition Nine: AA, as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.

• Do I still try to boss things in AA?
• Do I resist formal aspects of AA because I fear them as authoritative?
• Am I mature enough to understand and use all elements of the AA program – even if no one makes me do so – with a sense of personal responsibility?
• Do I exercise patience and humility in any AA job I take?
• Am I aware of all those to whom I am responsible in any AA job?
• Why doesn’t every AA group need a constitution and bylaws?
• Have I learned to step out of an AA job gracefully – and profit thereby – when the time comes?
• What has rotation to do with anonymity? With humility?

I think we’ve all seen the coffee maker who refuses to give up his/her commitment. How about the former DCM who “cops” an attitude when their “plan” is abandoned by the new DCM? Or the chairperson who refuses to move out of that position?

How about the newcomer who has put together a year or more and is ready to grow into more responsibility? Are we so egotistical that we sell them short at the expense of our own personal agenda? Do we manage to “put down” the effort and thinking of those who’ve moved in to take over and grow in the commitments we once were blessed with?

Are we that short-sighted that we can’t allow others the same opportunities we were given?

EGO will always equal Easing God Out!

Post from: Blisstree

Rotating Out Is A Matter Of Humility

Tradition Nine: AA, as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.

• Do I still try to boss things in AA?
• Do I resist formal aspects of AA because I fear them as authoritative?
• Am I mature enough to understand and use all elements of the AA program – even if no one makes me do so – with a sense of personal responsibility?
• Do I exercise patience and humility in any AA job I take?
• Am I aware of all those to whom I am responsible in any AA job?
• Why doesn’t every AA group need a constitution and bylaws?
• Have I learned to step out of an AA job gracefully – and profit thereby – when the time comes?
• What has rotation to do with anonymity? With humility?

Sooo – have you needlessly extended finished discussions? Do you perpetually attempt to continue to “get your point across?” When your fellows are sitting and squirming out of their chairs because the GSR meeting has been over for fifteen minutes and you’re still rambling, are you ignoring them? BTW – the next meeting is waiting for you to finish so they can conduct their normal meeting but you’re holding their meeting room hostage.

Perhaps you’ll remember that this Tradition says: “to those they serve” not vice versa…

Post from: Blisstree

Playing The Boss?