Ahhh, The Good ol' Days....

An AA friend passed on to me an email that's circulating around the Internet by some AAer going on at some length about how AA has gotten corrupted as a result of treatment centers and the influx of their graduates into the rooms of AA and that, as a result, our proven "success rate" (whatever that is and however anyone could ever measure that!) has dwindled to unacceptable levels. The email basically concludes that the only solution is to get back to the basics, go back to doing it that way they used to do it in the good ol' days of early AA. Ahhh, then things will be as they should be!

I think not.

The email resulted in my own counter-rant email to my friend --- a rant against the position espoused by the forwarded email's anonymous author. I even forwarded my AA friend a link to a previous blog of mine on this dangerous theme of some old timers that we need to get back to the way it was done when they were getting sober. I mean, why not get some more mileage out of that previous rant of mine? Anyway, apparently, I've still got some steam in me over this, so I thought I'd let it go here.

First of all, one of the cornerstones of early AA (at least as I read it...) is their humility. They didn't claim to have found a conformist or dogmatic cookie cutter kind of a program that would work for everyone in exactly the same way. They knew that such a dogmatic approach wouldn't work for alcoholics like them. I suspect if the early timers in AA heard the dogmatic "back to basics" chanting of some of the folks I hear in AA meetings today, they'd stand up and tell these "I Know the Way" gang of folks to sit down and shut up. They want to hear more about what happened to these folks who found part of their answer by means of a treatment center....

They might remind us to re-read that paragraph toward the end of the first part of the Big Book, on page 164, where they closed this section with the most clear statement of their humble, not know-it-all approach to a program of recovery: "Our book is meant to be suggestive only. We realize we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us."

Why is it these "Beware the end of AA is near-sayers" don't consider that treatment centers are part of this "more" that would be disclosed to us?

Why is it they don't consider that the reason AA stopped doing things like they did in the good ol' days---like having newcomers get down on their knees and saying/doing their 3rd step prayer before ever being allowed into an AA meeting---is that this shit didn't work? They adapted and looked for ways that worked more effectively at allowing people to come into the rooms of AA and to stay as long as they wanted.

Why is they seem to be fighting a never ending battle against the trends currently being seen in AA where we are more and more tolerant of others and their paths into the rooms of AA? Weren't we supposed to get to a point where we ceased fighting everyone and everything? Isn't that one of the "basics" old time AA? The grumpy old men and women who chided new and not so newcomers for identifying as "andas" (alcoholic and a addict) seem to be dying out now and it just doesn't seem to bother most folks how other folks identify themselves in an AA meeting. Personally, I don't see a distinction between alcoholic and addict. Alcohol is a drug. A recovering addict will not do well in their recovery if they consider alcohol "less than" any other drug. A recovering alcoholic will not do well on any sort of marijuana maintenance program. We all know that. I really have more important things to do in my life than concern myself with these semantic nonsensical pissing matches.

In fact, I think I'm done with this rant. Feel better now.

Take care.

Mike L.

Another Bleeding Deacon (the Danger of Reminiscing about the Good ol' days..)

I almost exploded tonight after sitting through an oldtimer's chair where he repeatedly reminisced about the good ol' days of his early sobriety (1985) when AA apparently was being done right and according to the one true "the way it was written in the Big Book" program of AA: newcomers were not allowed to talk (if they did, they were told in no uncertain terms to take the cotton out of their ears and put it in their mouth...); there was no whining allowed; no psycho-babble; etc. I oftentimes find this reminiscing about the good ol' days and pining for a return to such days to be somewhat baffling: I mean, the reason the old days have gone the way of all old days is that people got tired of them and began doing things somewhat differently! I suspect that people didn't like being told to shutup or being treated like children when they first came into the meeting rooms of AA....and so they changed.

Now, normally "this" sort of whining would have been mildly discomforting to me, but that sort of bland response didn't happen tonight because this bleeding deacon went even further and after his chair kept the meeting hostage to his supposed orthodox view of AA by calling only on his trusted friends and never opening up the discussion period to volunteers (you know, ME!) except until the very end, five minutes before the meeting was over. When I wasn't called on, I thought I was going to implode.

I suppose that I (and the meeting) was lucky when I wasn't called on, that I didn't speak anyway or yell out of turn with some fraudulent "burning desire". It probably would have been less than helpful to the newcomer and to my now undeserved reputation as a rather nice and nonjudgmental sorta guy.

Hoping to avoid a pestering resentment for not being afforded a chance to present a counter view to this narrow minded and one-sided view of this miraculous and ever-evolving program of Alcoholics Anonymous, I went up to talk to him after the meeting was over... In the past, I would have just left the meeting to go outside and chastise him behind his back.... But I've been trying to avoid gossiping recently and thought that since I had a problem with what he did that night, that I should talk to him rather than to others outside of the meeting.

What saved me (and him) though was that before I was able to go up and talk to him (to explain to him what he did wrong!) I got interrupted by a woman who came up to me to thank me for saying something in a meeting a few weeks before---when she was attending her first AA meeting. Apparently whatever I said was something that struck her to the core and gave her hope that maybe one day she'd be able to get and stay sober. All of a sudden, it became more important to me to talk to her and help her deal with the immensely difficult task of getting and staying sober than it was to correct the old bleeding deacon.

I know from past experience that such bleeding deacons love the program of AA as much as I do, they are just attempting to reach out in service in ways that they believe are most helpful. I know that not everyone responds well to the sort of unremitting kindness and acceptance that was so important to me both in my early recovery and today. There are those who need some sort of "tough love" before they can extricate themselves from the grip of alcohol and other drugs. My reaction to this oldtimers was as much a bleeding deacon response to life as his was and that is not something I'm all that proud of. You know why we bleeding deacons bleed, don't you? It's because we keep falling off our high horses!

Oh well, back to the drawing board...

Take care!

Mike L.