Ed C.
09-08-2007, 10:32 PM
“Our Membership”
Our membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism. Hence we may refuse none who wish to recover. Nor ought A.A. membership ever depend upon money or conformity. Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an A.A. group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation. “Appendices I” “Fourth Edition, Alcoholics Anonymous”
I found this append rather interesting and decided that it would be the subject that I would write about this week. It has a lot of information about the membership of A.A. as a whole. I especially would like to emphasize the idea of A.A. membership never depending on money or conformity.
When A.A. first started out there were but a few people who’s goal was to seek out other alcoholics to work with in order to stay sober. They would meet usually in a spot that wasn’t so public such as someone’s house, or maybe a church basement or something. But most of the work that is being talked about in the Big Book is the type of going out on the street in asylums and/or hospitals to find other alcoholics to spread the word of a spiritual experience as a result of the steps. That was the foundation of the membership of A.A..
It’s a lot different today! Man when I first walked into the meeting that was to become my home group, I was confronted with the issue of it being held in a club that was specifically designed to hold A.A. meetings. In this club we were expected to contribute a membership duty and to abide by the rules of the club. Now I’m not saying that there were many rules that would deter someone from becoming a member of A.A., but it was pretty darned clear that if you were a member of A.A. and wanted to meet there that you had to contribute to the club in order for it to keep it’s doors open.
There were many times that I chaired in my home group, and I was told that it would be necessary that I make an announcement that the club needed money desperately to keep the doors open. Something in which made me feel very uneasy being that I was a member of A.A. and had read the above passage many times.
Now I’m not saying that all A.A. groups are like this by any means, but what I’m saying is that they have changed in the idea that membership has to conform to the rules of where most places are used to meet. It has been my experience that there has been many a group in this area that has been displaced just because they have not been able to meet the expectations of whoever or where ever the meeting is being held.
The whole idea of being a member of this group we call A.A. was to become sober and spread the word of how we did it. Now it seems to me that it is an expectation that we have to meet in some place, so this can be accomplished. Everyone is worried that the “newcomer” will not hear this message either if we don‘t have a place to meet.
It seems to me that somewhere down the road the message has been lost in the whole idea of what A.A. is. A.A. is not about meetings and to some extent it’s not about where those meetings should be held to house it’s members. It’s about working with one another as alcoholics to overcome the addiction of alcoholism. The meeting is a great place for this to happen, but it has started to become a place of conformity to the rules of the meeting place. This and the fact that instead of carrying the message of a spiritual experience there has become the idea of the meeting place being the forum to air our dirty laundry or to talk about our day.
I guess the most exhilarating part of being a member of A.A. for me was to go into a rehab and telling everyone there of how the program worked for me. Yet I was expected by the rules of the meeting to follow the “speakers meeting” template. That was I was supposed to talk about myself and how it worked for me. Being the rebel I am I opted to follow my own rules and talk about the program and where it was found. Instead of just doing all of the talking I asked questions and talked around with the other people in the group about how it works. It was perhaps the most productive meeting that I have ever attended. No money, no talk about self, no conformity of how the meeting should be run. Just talk about the program and how it works.
The way I learned about the program was by only a few of us members getting together with the Big Book, reading out of it, and talking about what the stuff meant. We had no rules, we needed no money, there were no expectations. We just talked about alcoholism and the way to overcome it. We didn’t argue about the facts or about how it was that we should be doing this or that. We just plain talked!!!!
Wow what a concept. A bunch of alcoholics getting together and talking about the problem of alcoholism and a solution to that problem. No expectations, no rules, no monetary burden. Well people I really think that is what it was all about in the first place, and like everything else that is good in life we take it and make it so darned complicated that it no longer appears to be the same thing.
I’m not complaining by any means. I really do believe that there are a lot of people just like me who want to stay sober. We can all do that by being members of perhaps the largest membership of people there is. That is by getting together in a meeting with one another and not expecting anything more than to talk to one another about the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and how it works for each one of us. Not about how it should work or how you think it should work for others. Just to plain say “Hey today I’m sober and I followed some guidelines that got me in touch with a power that that is greater than myself”. To be grateful for having one another to fall back on and that we have a choice today.
Our membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism. Hence we may refuse none who wish to recover. Nor ought A.A. membership ever depend upon money or conformity. Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an A.A. group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation. “Appendices I” “Fourth Edition, Alcoholics Anonymous”
I found this append rather interesting and decided that it would be the subject that I would write about this week. It has a lot of information about the membership of A.A. as a whole. I especially would like to emphasize the idea of A.A. membership never depending on money or conformity.
When A.A. first started out there were but a few people who’s goal was to seek out other alcoholics to work with in order to stay sober. They would meet usually in a spot that wasn’t so public such as someone’s house, or maybe a church basement or something. But most of the work that is being talked about in the Big Book is the type of going out on the street in asylums and/or hospitals to find other alcoholics to spread the word of a spiritual experience as a result of the steps. That was the foundation of the membership of A.A..
It’s a lot different today! Man when I first walked into the meeting that was to become my home group, I was confronted with the issue of it being held in a club that was specifically designed to hold A.A. meetings. In this club we were expected to contribute a membership duty and to abide by the rules of the club. Now I’m not saying that there were many rules that would deter someone from becoming a member of A.A., but it was pretty darned clear that if you were a member of A.A. and wanted to meet there that you had to contribute to the club in order for it to keep it’s doors open.
There were many times that I chaired in my home group, and I was told that it would be necessary that I make an announcement that the club needed money desperately to keep the doors open. Something in which made me feel very uneasy being that I was a member of A.A. and had read the above passage many times.
Now I’m not saying that all A.A. groups are like this by any means, but what I’m saying is that they have changed in the idea that membership has to conform to the rules of where most places are used to meet. It has been my experience that there has been many a group in this area that has been displaced just because they have not been able to meet the expectations of whoever or where ever the meeting is being held.
The whole idea of being a member of this group we call A.A. was to become sober and spread the word of how we did it. Now it seems to me that it is an expectation that we have to meet in some place, so this can be accomplished. Everyone is worried that the “newcomer” will not hear this message either if we don‘t have a place to meet.
It seems to me that somewhere down the road the message has been lost in the whole idea of what A.A. is. A.A. is not about meetings and to some extent it’s not about where those meetings should be held to house it’s members. It’s about working with one another as alcoholics to overcome the addiction of alcoholism. The meeting is a great place for this to happen, but it has started to become a place of conformity to the rules of the meeting place. This and the fact that instead of carrying the message of a spiritual experience there has become the idea of the meeting place being the forum to air our dirty laundry or to talk about our day.
I guess the most exhilarating part of being a member of A.A. for me was to go into a rehab and telling everyone there of how the program worked for me. Yet I was expected by the rules of the meeting to follow the “speakers meeting” template. That was I was supposed to talk about myself and how it worked for me. Being the rebel I am I opted to follow my own rules and talk about the program and where it was found. Instead of just doing all of the talking I asked questions and talked around with the other people in the group about how it works. It was perhaps the most productive meeting that I have ever attended. No money, no talk about self, no conformity of how the meeting should be run. Just talk about the program and how it works.
The way I learned about the program was by only a few of us members getting together with the Big Book, reading out of it, and talking about what the stuff meant. We had no rules, we needed no money, there were no expectations. We just talked about alcoholism and the way to overcome it. We didn’t argue about the facts or about how it was that we should be doing this or that. We just plain talked!!!!
Wow what a concept. A bunch of alcoholics getting together and talking about the problem of alcoholism and a solution to that problem. No expectations, no rules, no monetary burden. Well people I really think that is what it was all about in the first place, and like everything else that is good in life we take it and make it so darned complicated that it no longer appears to be the same thing.
I’m not complaining by any means. I really do believe that there are a lot of people just like me who want to stay sober. We can all do that by being members of perhaps the largest membership of people there is. That is by getting together in a meeting with one another and not expecting anything more than to talk to one another about the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and how it works for each one of us. Not about how it should work or how you think it should work for others. Just to plain say “Hey today I’m sober and I followed some guidelines that got me in touch with a power that that is greater than myself”. To be grateful for having one another to fall back on and that we have a choice today.