And-a

And-A’s

What is an And-A? It’s someone who needs our help. They obviously have no idea what they are doing here. They are very sick and they may or may not be alcoholic. They probably most definitely went to Treatment. They say, “Hi my name is _____ and I’m an alcoholic AND-A…. (an addict, alcoholic-addict, addict-alcoholic, and sometimes they just flagrantly say I’m an addict). What they are really saying is “I’m sick!!! but I’m not humble” or “I’m sick and ignorant” – you have to figure that out from their demeanor.

It is a Principle that whoever saves you becomes your Home. Like – the Ugly Duckling. Or when human babies are raised by a wolf-pack. If people go to Treatment first and then come to us and we do not properly educate them on what AA is and What It is Not – then AA is just going to be that free support group for people who don’t want to drink/use anymore. It is our responsibility to educate them on AA.

Why would we not educate people on what AA is an what it is not? Maybe because are too lazy to have found out for ourselves? Because we think we know because we figured it out on our own and we don’t want to be wrong, or have more to do than we thought? Or because of FEAR?

Information On AA Pamphlet This pamphlet provides simple guidelines to what AA is and what it is not, minus the line about A.S.A.P. – who the hell knows why they put that in there but just shows that our own office does not really get it about the Third Tradition.

The Long-Form of the Third Tradition states that any two or three alcoholics gathered for sobriety may call themselves an AA group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation …

Of course this brings up the Men’s Meetings, Women’s Meetings, Gay Meetings, Birds of A Feather, Rockstar Meetings, Doctor’s Meetings, and Artist’s In Recovery Meetings, and all the others!!! but this is another topic that I will have to discuss later – there is so much to write!!!

But it’s the And-a’s I wanted to discuss now. I am an alcoholic, and an artist. Do I say, “Hi, my name is ___ and I am an alcoholic and an artist”? NO. Why not? We are here to share our common problem (physical allergy, mental blank spot, spiritual malady) and our common solution (12 steps, 12 traditions, service) to alcoholism. Yes, being an artist makes me extra selfish and self-centered, but really it’s none of anyone’s business that I am an artist, and if I bring that up it’s because I want them to buy my art. I want to be special. I am using AA to promote my specialty thing, whatever that is. It’s attraction, NOT promotion (11th Tradition). I am not using AA to get paid or get laid, am I? If I am, well I will find that my life is going to suck even more than it already does.

Alcoholism and drug addiction are two entirely different things. Drugs are generally addictive to everyone, whereas alcohol is only addictive to alcoholics. I cannot help a heroin addict. Their first step is entirely different from mine. There is the factor that drugs are generally illegal – and that adds a whole other component to the problem, but the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is the manifestation of an allergy, says The Doctor’s Opinion, whereas the action of drugs, is the manifestation of addiction. Alcohol, by it’s very nature in alchemy, isolates the Essence or Spirit of an entity, and suspends that Spirit in the solution of alcohol. That’s why tinctures are alcohol-based. So for alcoholics, it’s a spiritual thing going on with alcohol, and with drugs – it’s an addiction- a dependence by the brain on the triggered dopamine receptors. I am not going to go into this all here but feel free to do your own research.

Often, alcoholics find that they can use drugs to control their drinking – and then get addicted to the drugs. This is for each alcoholic person to figure out with their sponsor who is properly armed with the facts about themselves.

It is definitely NOT to be spoken about in an AA meeting, open or closed.

An open meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, is still for people who have a desire to stop drinking. It’s a good place to bring a newcomer. Although it would be good if a newcomer could also go to a closed meeting and that people would welcome them and help them to discover if they are alcoholic, since that is why we have AA meetings in the first place. The program of AA happens one-on-one with a sponsor, after all.

Family and friends can attend. Students learning about alcoholism can attend. All non-alcoholic people can attend open meetings, but only to observe. Closed meetings are for Alcoholics only.

These are mechanisms. I wish we did not need these mechanisms because really mechanisms are only created for people who have the defect of character that makes them unable to stand up for principle. Other mechanisms are having your group meet at 6am. We used to say “It cuts out the dead weight”. It’s a mechanism.

If every member of AA were properly armed with the facts about themselves and all AA Principles, we would not need these stupid mechanisms. The Blue Card is a mechanism.

All mechanisms are there to do is protect us from having to stand up for Principle, face our fears, and do our jobs – to help the And-A’s figure out if they belong in AA or take them where they need to go.

But when you are just going to meetings to get something, then it’s too inconvenient to think about others or take time out of your day to take someone to a different fellowship. This is where the self-help support group for people who don’t want to drink/use anymore starts to take over what we old-timers used to call AA.

The 5^th Tradition states – “We have one primary purpose, to carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers”. We do not have any secondary purposes. We are not a social club. We are not here to sell Avon. We are not here to have a potluck. We are not gathered to pass out our business cards… I used to go to a meeting in my hometown where I got sober where people would bid jobs across the room.

Some woman would say “I almost drank today because my pipes burst and ruined the carpet” and then all the plumbers and handymen would share afterward subtly bidding the job in their share.

In L.A. I hear that that’s how a lot of actors get work – by going to the AA meetings where the Directors go.

The disease of alcoholism is alive and well in AA. Our ego’s are not smashed. They are running rampant and have us convinced that if we just get the right this or that then we will be ok.

So for you And-A’s – we don’t care what you are besides alcoholic. If you have the inability to stop drinking once you start and the inability to choose when you will drink or not – you are welcome at AA. So, please stop saying “And-A”. If you do not have these symptoms we will be happy to take you to NA, CA, CMA, MA or whatever A you belong in. If you are both and you are in AA – even an open meeting – we ask that you stick to your problems with alcohol. Why? Because there is still the possibility that a little-old lady might show up at our meetings who only drank alcohol her whole life, and now she wants to quit. She never used drugs at all – and if she comes in to one of these meetings we have today, she won’t be able to identify. We want to be all-inclusive to All Alcoholics.

As a matter of fact, I live in a building where there is a guy who is a true bum – and he drinks Kentucky Deluxe by the pint all day every day. Does not even bother to put it in a bag. He does not use any drugs. He refers to it as “my medicine”. This guy would not be able to identify in a meeting where drugs were discussed.

I know a few ex-junkie drunks who recovered from alcoholism using the book Alcoholics Anonymous and they do not find it necessary to attend any other Fellowships, because – as it turned out – they were only using dope to control their drinking.

I know someone who was a junkie prostitute for 30 years, who attends AA, CA, and SA right now – she likes CA because they use the Big Book. She can be uniquely helpful to addicts but she is an alcoholic herself and she has sex problems so she is taking care of them, in SA at the moment. She does not talk about her sex addiction in AA, she does not talk about her heroin addiction in AA or SA, she is respectful of our Primary Purpose. She knows that there might still be a straight alcoholic in AA who won’t be able to identify if they hear all the drug talk.

I am not an addict. I did my share of drugs, but I walked away from all of them, but could not walk away from alcohol. When I am in a meeting of AA and someone starts sharing about the smell of cocaine in their nostrils, I no longer feel like I belong. The solution to that problem is not necessarily a rigorously honest spiritual program of action.

I drink tea – 1 cup per day so I can keep getting that uplift feeling I used to get from coffee before it started to eat my adrenal glands. Lately, the last few weeks I have been staying up till 2am so I have been drinking 2 cups of tea in the morning. I will soon have to cut it back so I can keep getting my caffeine boost. My adrenals are shot – but I can’t quite get off caffeine – probably till I leave the city life. I guess I am an addict. So, I’m now going to introduce myself as an addict in an AA meeting because of my tea thing? NO!

The Recovery Movement – Born out of Hazelden, Treatment, Chemical Dependency and Substance Abuse – we now have the Recovery Movement. It’s all about money. They tell us we are Anonymous because we are ashamed of ourselves. Anonymous People. They say it’s a crisis? LOL – yea follow the money. It makes my skin crawl but it is coming into AA like pollution washes up on the beach. If we don’t weed the garden, the weeds are going to take over the garden and strangle all the plants we carefully planted.

We are anonymous so that our great blessings may never spoil us.(Tradition 12). So that we give credit where it is due – to God. Because we are promoters and always want to get “mine”. And yet they are coming up behind us in droves. Here where I live, treatment does not even encourage people to go to AA anymore because they have figured out how to make money forever with aftercare groups.

To Thine Own Self Be True, This is a Selfish Program, Enlightened Self-Interest

Treatment, which I like to blame, has caused a lot of trouble for AA. Of course we dropped the ball on our 12^th Step Work when we got fat and lazy in AA in the 60s. I was not here for that. Bill W. wrote a grapevine article inviting Hippie’s into AA in the 60s, but there were just too many people needing help and they overwhelmed us. You could do your own research into that and go down a very long Rabbit Hole if you want…

Harold Hughes, a member of AA who wanted to make a name for himself, (this is what we do- instead of placing principles before personalities) was the man behind the creation of Treatment. This is another post for later. He was not into the anonymity part of AA obviously.

Substance Abuse and Chemical Dependency is where it all started in 1996, when alcoholism stopped being considered a disability by the Social Security Administration. You could no longer get paid for being alcoholic, since it is incurable by treatment, so they had to relabel it for financial purposes. I have personal experience with this – but now it is just accepted. We know that you cannot recover from alcoholism unless you understand the exact nature of it. It likes to live in vagueness – like these terms. That is why it is important to know my sobriety date. That’s a black and white date that says when my first day of sobriety from alcohol was. 2/18/91. I know that I am alcoholic. When I drink alcohol I can’t control the amount I take and I can’t decide not to drink and stick to it. That’s an alcoholic – not these blurry descriptions of nebulous creation: substance abuse and chemical dependency… I am dependent on oxygen – is that a chemical? H2O? Gimmee a break… this is all about REVENUE.

So, please, help our And-A friends figure out what they are. If they get offended, don’t worry, John Barleycorn is our best advocate. P. 24 Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. Alcohol beat us into a state of reasonableness. Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 48.