June 18 - June. 24, 2010

First one here? Start the meeting with a topic of your choice. Please compose a topic that relates to alcoholism.
Please read the posting guidelines for this meeting.

Staying Cyber is conducting a Group Inventory and invites all members to participate. You will see the link to it directly under the Business Meeting. You must be logged in to access it.
Questions 7, 8 and 9 are now posted.

Thanks Jan for making me think this morning :)

I believe that as an AA group and on the meeting forums we need to stick with AA. The AA f2f I attend does not support group therapy style meetings, new wave theory or rehab jargon or even dual diagnosis in the discussion. (Those outside things matter only as a tiny part of my story.) They are AA, based on the big book. Some of the time I need to realize or learn what is AA based and what isn't. Some rehab ideas are so common that people think they are in the Big Book! The dilution of AA by not sticking to the traditions which protect AA or incorporating other genres is a threat to AA.

Here on the meeting pages, IMHO, we should follow the guidelines and stick with the topic sharing our E,S,& H. Staying Cyber does give us an alternative forum to discuss anything and everything we would like.

My life is good due to AA. I didn't go to a rehab, so I don't know about that. I have sought outside help.. but my therapists comments or suggestions are not gemaine for the meetings I attend unless they are alligned with the Steps Traditions and Program of AA.

I guess that sounds a little hard nosed, but AA saved my life. I had tried other ways, like therapy to stop drinking and nothing made a bit of difference until I stumbled into the rooms where a simple and undiluted Program was there for the taking.

Good Morning Everyone
When it comes to the traditons I have to remind myself of the importance of them because when I first entered the program I did not see how they applied to me. So I ask myself this question, "What if I needed a meeting and none was to be found or no one showed up?" Today I shudder at such a notion. Traditon One makes it plain for me, "No Fellowship, No Recovery." There could very well be abstainance but not soberity as I know it today.

I have been to a few rehabs in the last 26 years. I thank God everyday for each one, for they along with the program got me to where I am today in recovery. My first attempt at soberity was without rehab and I had learned a lot about what AA was, therefore I was not tainted by the rehab jargon. In fact here in Southeren California they do what I call a chant after readings and prayers. Especially after chapter three and five and the 12 tradtions. I am previlidged to know that those chants were started by a mentally challanged man, who could not read, and it was doubtful that he was an alcoholic. Yet today in just about every AA meeting I go to they do the chants except at very old traditonal AA meetings.

I believe the founding fathers would support this and other area traditons, as long as it did not interfer with AA's primary purpose and member's soberity.

One thing about rehabs I don't agree with is the notion that all addictions are they same. Therefore people come from the rehabs saying that they are alcoholic/addicts, and have problems when they come to AA meetings and it is strongly suggested that they identify only as an alcoholic. I am a polysubstance abuser and I believe there is a difference in substances even if it's only they way they are obtained. It is important to me that if I am in AA that I share to the alcoholic in the room who is having problems with just alcohol. The message of AA must not be diluted to confuse the new person on what AA is about.

All said and done I believe that 'Love and Tolerance', is a common thread through all the traditions, because we are a fellowship of people who normanlly would not mix.

Trust God Clean House Help Others

Edited by GordonM357 - 18 Jul 2010 at 6:17pm

I don't lie awake nights worrying that AA will cease to exist for having been diluted by outside influences. I've seen it happen to individual groups (and to individual members, I suppose you might say), but AA as a whole can take care of itself pretty well.

There will always be Big Book thumpers who can quote every passage (including the one that says, "We realize we know only a little"...), and they will always drive some number of terrified newcomers from the rooms just as they have always done. Yet AA persists.

There will always be those who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but -- despite AA not being in the business of psychotherapy -- some of them will find recovery nonetheless (and some of them won't; and when they quit coming, some of us -- though we may be reluctant to admit it even to ourselves -- will be relieved, because they scared us, and they disrupted our meetings).

There will alwyas be those who have agendas other than recovery. 13th-steppers, proseletizers of various fundamentalist persuasions in search of fresh prospects, power seekers looking for a pond small enough to permit even them to be a big fish, grifters and grafters and who knows what. AA has seen them all. And survived.

When a member shares personal experiences, who among us has the authority to decide what part qualifies as being "AA-based" and what does not? If a person has a problem with gambling, overeating, anger, or any one of a host of afflictions for which there are now dedicated programs (mostly modelled on AA), how far do we go in allowing them to talk openly about these at our meetings before we cut them off and direct them down the hall? If AA were a society of saints where every one of those puzzles found the perfect solution, one thing for sure is that I would never have attended more than one meeting.

HI All. Bill here, alcoholic from Arizona. I have been to drying out places. "Spin dry" places. Church and clergy and rehabs. I never stayed sober very long even though I tried very hard,

This time I came to AA with a friend, bought a Big Book, read the first 164 pages, did everything it said to do, precisely as it said to do it it. No add on's no take away's. He went off to face the world, I stayed local. We are both sober today. I will celebrate 29 Years next month, Aug, 2010.. Good Lord Willing and the creek don't rise.

I still make regular face to face meetings on a regular basis, come join me. Love you all, your much hated "BIG BOOK THUMPER", Bill. LOL :)

















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Edited by azbill - 19 Jul 2010 at 1:46am