Disclaimer: This blog is for me to keep sane and to keep track and to reflect back on what is going on. If you get something out of it great, if not oh well. The names have been changed for the sake of Anonymity.
Yesterday was the first official attendance of the AACoA Meeting. https://anonymousalcoholics.home.blog/2024/09/12/i-am-starting-a-new-group/
There were 4 people, ultimately. Gavin, Linda, me, & my sponsee Christine. (Names have been changed). Gavin and Linda were early. Gavin has been sober a while – in fact, my sponsor Chad is the one who gave Gavin $20 and told him to go get drunk to finish the job. Gavin will never forget that because he wasn’t “done” at the time he had that interaction with Chad. That’s old time AA for ya. Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out – not the extension of “Treatment” that AA has become.
I was thinking, Chad could almost be arrested for that sort of thing today – aiding and abetting an attempted suicide – it would be called these days – Anyway… more on that another time.
I was under the impression that Gavin owned the building.
I got their half an hour early. Gavin was out front waiting for me. He started gabbin’ right away – talking about how he is so stressed about money – they can’t pay the rent on that place yadda yadda he had to appeal to the fellowship this month because he was short on the rent money, etc.
Gavin is known as “Million Dollar Gavin” because he won a million dollars from the lotto when he first got sober. He was high on the hog for a long while but it seems like he is down here with the rest of us low-life’s nowadays.
“Oh, I thought you owned the building?” I replied.
“No”- he said, he was sitting down with the former owner ready to make the purchase and the dude raised the price $600k – so he couldn’t afford it. Someone else swooped in and bought it. So they are renters. Guru Gerry was the former occupant of the building – Guru Gerry is the one that I refer to in these posts as Mr. Guru, because at this time he was still alive. He died in April 2024, so now I can call him by the fake name I made up for him – Guru Gerry.
Anyway, MD Gavin is po’ now, and he went down the list of why – Guru Gerry used to do all these classes and meetings, plus don’t forget – he was my partner’s business manager – and “g”od knows how many other of his “sponsees” he managed in business and got paid for – so he took care of the discrepancies not provided for by the 7th Tradition. He was the king of the meeting – it was known as “Gerry’s Group” and no one batted an eye about that. This was the question I asked in this post
https://anonymousalcoholics.home.blog/2020/07/20/i-do-not-get-it/ – what happens when Guru Gerry dies??? And now here we are.
It seems to me that these are the UNRECOVERED alcoholics – huddled together in fear because they do not have a REAL way to recover and they are too afraid to admit it so they just cling to the excuse that it’s “God’s decision” whether they live or die – they just need someone to blame vs. actually finding a solution – and in this case – MD Gavin is fine with blaming God – rather than seeking a Spiritual Solution… anyway… I probably should stop trying to figure this out – it is never going to make sense to me and I am trying to make sense of “alcoholism”- the truth is – they don’t know the true from the false because they have not recovered – and neither had Mr. Guru – but he was charismatic to self-liars – not to me, but I must also be a self-liar because I am married to a self-liar. Yup. Ok – God please help me. Honestly I prefer to be in the state of humility rather than on the lofty hilltop.
Anyway back to the matter at hand. MONEY. Fear of financial insecurity. When I discussed this all with my advisor (Dean) later he told me that ALL groups have old timers that support the group and pay the discrepancies – it is an illusion to think that the group finances the rent and supplies – and the supportive old-timers are dying off so now the TRUTH is coming out – that they are not fully self-supporting. This is the only Tradition they follow? Good luck.
I told MDG that I am available to do a Big Book Workshop if he likes – but I don’t seem to have that charismatic personality of Guru-Gerry so I might not draw a big crowd.
Nonetheless MDG gave me a key and I asked if it was ok for me to work with my sponsee there, he said yes. Maybe I will pay my $15 a month to this place, or tithe my earnings to this place – I have been tithing 10% to the Mustang Rescue, but I could switch to this place…not that I make a shit-ton but if I am part of that place now, I can put money toward that. After all, I do free energy healing on the mustangs so I can put my money toward AA.
Anyway, back to the meeting itself:
We started at noon with the
Serenity Prayer – and the Responsibility Statement. I felt the Serenity prayer is appropriate – to accept the things we cannot change ie the past – we allowed the con-vid bs and cell phones to come in and destroy our AA Way of Life – Courage to change the things we can – it is now time to take it all back -take back our anonymity – take back alcoholism as the most important thing – 5th Tradition – that we have to deal with – take back reliance upon God – take back humility – Tradition 11 & 12 – etc take back our dignity and our purpose and everything we let slip through our fingers as we were enjoying the internet as a new drug/booze substitute along with the rest of the world.
NO! Wisdom to know the difference – I am standing here by myself – I see- a recovered alcoholic – among others – who claim to have recovered – but if you do not have the courage to stand up to this onslaught on recovery from alcoholism – then you have NOT recovered!
You have more work to do to GET THE COURAGE TO STAND UP!
Next I reviewed the Flier –
1. to explain what “Anonymous Alcoholics presents” means – in AA History:
Here’s the post about that https://anonymousalcoholics.home.blog/2019/11/28/anonymous-alcoholics/
And I talked about Anonymity – particularly about cell phones – that if AA were starting today – Cell Phones would be left outside in the glove compartment.
Linda – a year sober – said that the Flyer is “Promotion” – so she doesn’t understand the “big deal” – I was able to remain calm, because I have been doing Qi Gong almost daily, and to explain to her – that the flyer is letting people know we are here, within AA. She didn’t get it. She is definitely there to push me and to “not like me” and to prove me wrong. It’s fine – she probably won’t be back and that’s also fine – I would NEVER have been ready for this information at a year sober. She is one of those people – got out of treatment – is sponsoring – has a sponsee who can’t stay sober but she herself could not get sober for 5 years – so – another thing I don’t get about alcoholics – why is it ok for YOU to not have gotten it immediately and yet you can’t let others not get it immediately? It’s the brain – they have an unbalanced reptilian brain and an unbalanced mid-brain so their higher brain is not working properly – they bounce between fight, flight and freeze to emotions- but none of it makes logical sense – they are not recovered. Duh! And yet they think they are ready to run the world. Oh well. God bless them! They are like the boy whistling in the dark – and you can tell a newcomer but you can’t tell’em much!
Back to it: I referred them to the AA Service Manuel – mine is old -not sure what’s in the newer ones – but in the 9th Concept in mine – there is an article on leadership that I recommended they read so that they understand my role in this group/meeting. They are not going to – but silly me- I thought I should justify my position as a temporary authority on the subject of the Traditions and reaching an informed group conscience.
Next on the flier
2. I talked about the INFORMED group conscience – that’s the application part of the group- we are not just studying – we are applying these principles. It is a process because new neuro-pathways have to be created. You know Linda was not happy with me. She likes it one-and-done boom – instant gratification!
3. The other literature – which covers the principles – I figure going through all this old “retired” literature – will beat the principles into their heads – if they stick around long enough to experience it.
4. A hard copy of the book – of course they did not – they relied on The Great Reality to have copies of the book there. OH MY FUCKING GOD. You can’t go up to Central Office to buy a hard copy of the book? We are supposed to supply it for you? You need to go drink some more. Wow.
5. Then Gavin chimed in. He told me that it’s my opinion that AA is not as strong as it used to be. That it’s my opinion that Cell Phones are to blame.
Mind you – there are 2 5G cell towers diagonally across from each other over The Great Reality – so if he is there every day he is likely experiencing the effects of being DUMBED DOWN full on. I am pretty sure this is how Guru Gerry got cancer and died – but of course he also got the “treatment” for “cancer” as well – which of course gives you cancer – whatever- anyway. I digress.
But he did then say that “you can’t get rid of cell phones because these younger kids have them tied to them”
“For 1 hour?” I said. I guess they are not desperate . But then I realized – MDG is desperate – for $$$ so he thinks he has to do what they want or they won’t show up there. Oh I see. MDG is pissed. And, by the way, MDG was constantly saying “Gerry said this” “Gerry said that” – it was like he was bringing the ghost of DEAD Guru Gerry back to have his say.
Principles before Personalities, ya’ll. Oh right- the world has changed since con-vid and we can’t use principles anymore. Well here in THIS meeting we are going to be using principles because that is the point of this meeting – I am happy to sit here by myself – and throw $10 in the basket myself every week – just to have a place that I can come where I know I am doing real AA SERVICE.
6. We didn’t talk about this
7. thoroughly informed – got rolled into 5 as if it was not really that big a deal although I did say that you can have an experience with the Traditions similar to the steps with a group of people who are thoroughly informed –
My sponsee, Christine showed up 15 minutes late – she is 25 years sober and she has been in the resentment portion of her inventory for a year – and she needs me to hold her hand through each resentment now. Wow.
I feel like I am leading a gang of wounded soldiers along a bumpy path. And they all think they are “doin’ great”. They don’t even know they are soldiers – Soul Diers. They are just looking for the Pie-eyed Piper.
Finally we got to the book – I pointed out that the Triangle in the Circle in the book has no copyright notice and explained that. https://silkworth.net/alcoholics-anonymous/the-circle-and-triangle/
Then we got into the book – I read the time line and added 1996 when Social Security stopped calling alcoholism a disability and the medicine cabinets at the treatment centers went from a small box to a big room.
They are staring at me like deer in the headlights.
Then we read the Forward – and this last sentence
I asked them – do you want AA to be as strong for your children’s generation as it was/is for you?
they were offended!
We must leave AA with an enhanced spiritual content – Are we doing that?
When I talked to my spiritual advisor later, he said give it 6 months to see how far it goes. As I was talking to him i looked up at the sky and I saw –
right at me in the car and it flew over my head from Right to Left…
Later – I did a spiritual reading and coincidentally it said “a project you are working on will come together in 6 months…”
I am planning on doing it for as long as it takes – and I can stop paying the club $15 a month if I can put the money toward The Great Reality instead.
Anonymous Alcoholics 