What's the deal with the clubs???

[mmarq56]

Why does it matter what club you go to as long as you get to a meeting. Low bottom / high bottom / what??? we all had bottoms didn't we? Are AA people trying to be better than each other or what's the deal? Get real...it doesn't matter what bottom we had but we all (hopefully) got to our bottom in order to get to our top. I don't buy that BS about low/high bottoms and shame on you that do. All newcomers need to know we are going to be there for them if they walk into our doors, no matter how F-ed up they are! Cut the crap and help the newcomer no matter where he/she comes from.

[Jay Bee]

:153:, NOW THAT'S WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT!!! this is a very powerful thread, thank you so much:15:. I go to alot of meetings, and i see that our message can get diluted sometimes, and if i feel this ,it is my responsibility to na to say we have newcomers here, lets be mindful about what comes out our mouths. It's all about for me is, reach one teach one!!!

[BIG AL]

Actually I hope folks dont have to go as low I as.I ended up homeless and then in a jailhouse treatment center.I now work a top 10 company in the nation.Am I better.I tell you what I am one drink away from being homeless and back in some ratty jailhouse treatment center or prison.But for the grace of god there go I.I beleive we dont pick and choose who we help.God places them in front of us.Little story I was asked to sponsor this guy and I WAS about 2 yrs sober maybe 3.Anyway I didn t want to and avoided him becouse of the way he looked and dressed and felt I should sponsor better people.It ended up I stopped sponsoring the guy.Andf I was praying about it becouse it bothered me.And I heard god say to me [I]n a plan voice.YOU DONT PICK AND CHOOSE WHO YOU HELP YOU HELP WHO I PUT IN FRONT OF YOU.I was so ashamed of myself and made apromise that I would help anyone I could in anyway as was done to me.My sponsor says the worst thing is one alky judging another

[paulm]

the only way I can help someone right now is through my E.S.H. I have nothing else to offer. If I go around judging someone, which unfortunately I have, then I am just trying to satisfy my ego and try to make myself look Physically, mentally or spiritually better , than someone else.... what that eventually gets me is; isolated, lonely, angry, resentful, fearful, and in the end drunk.

[sioux]

The book, yes that book, talks about the different types of alcoholics. It talks about some of us needing to test the waters before we hit bottom. It also talks about others not having to go as far as some of us have to get into recovery. Some of us, it says, are not going to get well.

My bottom may not be yours. Your bottom may not be mine. I may in fact have not even hit my bottom. Then there are the bottoms in recovery too....I have had some tough times in recovery that someone may have gotten drunk over. I have known people that lost loved ones in recovery that didn't drink. I've known recoverying alcoholics get drunk over the weather.

I have seen street drunks condemned as hopeless recover, get master degrees, and earn six digits a year. I have seen people with master degrees earning six digits a year become doomed street drunks. Let no man or woman say they can't recover without certain prevailing conditions that book says.

I do what I can when I can, and the rest I have to turn over to a power greater than Sioux.

I have worked with alcoholics that are earnest in their efforts; others who are trying to get someone or thing off their back. Hard to know who is going to accept the help we are offering, but at some point I have to decide if my greatest asset, my dark past, is going to be the experience, strength and hope someone may find of value in their own path to recovery. I decide if I can help based on my own experiences. I cannot let my ego get in the way of saying "no" or directing someone to another person that may be more helpful where I may be a blunder.

If that makes me appear superior to others, so be it. I didn't get sober to have people decide what I do, how I do things. There is no sponsorship college. We share as best as we each are able to do, where we can, and how we can. That is the beauty of this AA Program.

[DryDaveC]

The book, yes that book, talks about the different types of alcoholics. It talks about some of us needing to test the waters before we hit bottom. It also talks about others not having to go as far as some of us have to get into recovery. Some of us, it says, are not going to get well.

My bottom may not be yours. Your bottom may not be mine. I may in fact have not even hit my bottom. Then there are the bottoms in recovery too....I have had some tough times in recovery that someone may have gotten drunk over. I have known people that lost loved ones in recovery that didn't drink. I've known recoverying alcoholics get drunk over the weather.

I have seen street drunks condemned as hopeless recover, get master degrees, and earn six digits a year. I have seen people with master degrees earning six digits a year become doomed street drunks. Let no man or woman say they can't recover without certain prevailing conditions that book says.

I do what I can when I can, and the rest I have to turn over to a power greater than Sioux.

I have worked with alcoholics that are earnest in their efforts; others who are trying to get someone or thing off their back. Hard to know who is going to accept the help we are offering, but at some point I have to decide if my greatest asset, my dark past, is going to be the experience, strength and hope someone may find of value in their own path to recovery. I decide if I can help based on my own experiences. I cannot let my ego get in the way of saying "no" or directing someone to another person that may be more helpful where I may be a blunder.

If that makes me appear superior to others, so be it. I didn't get sober to have people decide what I do, how I do things. There is no sponsorship college. We share as best as we each are able to do, where we can, and how we can. That is the beauty of this AA Program.

There ARE differing classes of drunks when they first come in. And they are addressed that way so that all of us have a chance to relate to one another and not see the "differences". But I agree, during meetings, that should never come up. When I first got to the rooms early on, the old timers would raise that flag regularly. They'd say "Youre not a real drunk, a real drunk is hanging on by a thread at a hosptal somewhere. You walked in here". Many a newcomer put them in their place. I remember hearing at a meeting from a newcomer retorting to an oldtimer, "Why should I have to wait until I am nearly dead to come here, AA is here to prevent that from happening".
So glad that I dont see that much of that anymore.
For me, its not how much I drank, but how bad the quality of my life was during my drinking. I can say, now that I have a real program, that I have never had more peace than I have right now. I was one of those that the oldtimer liked to hit up with those philosophies, since I have never had a blackout, nor a DUI. Not saying that I shouldnt have got one, I got out of more than my share, and barely squeaked by many a terrible accident somehow in spite of it. And I am GRATEFUL. It doesnt matter to me what someone thinks of my disease. After all, it IS mine, and noone elses.

My sponsor reminds me that "So, you think youre not an alcoholic because you havent had a DUI YET, or lost a family YET or homeless and living out of a refridgeretor box downtown YET? Just remember, YET stands for: YOURE ELIGIBLE TOO". He'd follow that with "Keep doing what you used to do, and those things will happen to you".

I try not to see the differences, but the similarities these days.