Live and Let Live basically means Mind Your Own Business, doesn’t it? Yes. Well where’s the line? My sponsor told me that his sponsor told him that he could swing is arm as far out as he wanted to until it actually connected with another person’s face. At that point, his autonomy ended.
When I am in a closed meeting of AA, or any meeting of AA for that matter and another member of the meeting starts talking about cocaine – that’s where they have swung their arm too far and connected with my face because I am not an addict. What they have done then is made it unsafe for me to be there, because they have introduced something that we do not have in common and therefore I no longer belong there because of that substance that has been introduced by that person.
I am an alcoholic. There is a difference between alcoholism and addiction.The minute someone starts talking something other than alcohol in an AA meeting, they have made their business, my business. My business in an AA meeting is to carry the message of AA to the alcoholic who still suffers and to keep the message pure during my lifetime.
Live and Let Live – but when principles of AA are violated – violence is initiated by another – the line is crossed – then I have the Natural Law right to use force of Will against the violence.
What is violence? Violence or violate – both have the same root. Violate comes from the Latin word violatus which means “to break,” as in a promise or oath. That means that once again, Natural Law is at the root, because Violence is the breaking of an oath – or theft of a confidence – or an agreement – and it is always initiated by the thief, or by the breaker – the one who wants something from the other – to which they are not entitled – and so it is the Natural Law RIGHT of the one who is violated – or who has been wronged – to stand up to that violation using FORCE of WILL. Force from the Latin root “fortia” which means “”force, strength; courage, fortitude; violence, power, compulsion” – all of which come from God. Standing up for principles is different from “fighting”. AA’s principles cannot stand up for themselves.
I prayed – feeling that I was being robbed of the agreement that I made when I entered the closed AA meeting – to be in a closed AA meeting – and my turn came and I said, my name is —- and I am an alcoholic and I am not an addict. Live and Let Live. I did not name names or point fingers but I stood up for AA’s principles and for my right to have a pure message in the group I attend that calls itself “closed”.
That same “addict” had been talking about how they were going on a golf trip out of the country and they just have to stay away from one drink, the first one, and they can do that just by thinking it through.
Well, I cannot. I am an alcoholic and I need God to stand between me and that spiritual parasite that I host; Al Kuhl, the body eating ghoul.
Live and let live – but if you are going to try to use violence – or violation – to impose your shit on me – I am going to use force of Will (God’s Will) through prayer, to stand up against it, otherwise AA is just going to turn into a big soup of Anything Anonymous. It exists – go start a meeting – https://alladdictsanonymous.org/ but please don’t use AA meetings to do it out of convenience.
You can only practice Live and Let Live if you are FREE. If you are living in a Communist Country – you cannot practice Live and Let Live because you yourself cannot Live. You have to follow rules or be subject to rules that some other humans who think they have authority over you, who use violence against you to maintain power over you, say you have to follow. No, you have to be FREE to practice Live and Let Live. If you are truly FREE you don’t usually want to tromp on other’s freedoms.
The 12 Steps of AA give us alcoholics a way to become free of all tyranny, to rely upon a God of our understanding to direct us, through intuitive thought. And when that freedom is being violated by an ignorant other or by a bully or by someone who is afraid to feel Powerlessness all over again, then it is my duty to use force of Will hold the line to keep AA pure.
What is it to Live? To be Free… Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness: Life – granted by the Creator, Liberty – from the Latin root – Libertas – freedom – and the pursuit of happiness – (see AA Comes of Age, p. 276) -a sense of well-being and wholeness. Sometimes. I am going to have to stand up for those rights to LIVE if someone is interfering with my Freedom or if someone is subtly trying to manipulate the principles that a group of us agreed upon so they don’t have to be inconvenienced to go to Cocaine Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous.
And let Live – yes I can let others be free to pursue their happiness but if you step on my toe I am going to say “Oww!” and maybe move my foot, unless it’s on my property – and if you step on it again, I will do what I have to do to alert you to the fact that you are violating my property and my rights.
The Creator has granted us inalienable rights – let’s not forget.
Anonymous Alcoholics 