aa Spoken Here Community Group
Fellowship Where you can share your thoughts, feelings, stories and get support to gain and continue sobriety.
Although threads typically evolve and change I can see Holy crap's point about us hijacking the AA meeting thread.
Yet, I wanted to answer Lee's last comment, as I feel these discussions are good.
Simple soultion, start a new thread.
Lee you mentioned that we do not exist to even suggest behavior mod,. Theorectially that may be true but in reality we do it all the time.
We have little aceptence of recovering alcoholics continuing to use other drugs anbd with good reason.
However, we openly accept our members smoking without so much as a word.
Tobacco has an unreasonable, special protection and double standard in our society and in AA and that double standard is deadly.
Don't get me wrong , I;m not talking about intolerance. Yet why do we react so differently to an AA who states he's still smoking pot vs. one who's still smoking tobacco??
I mean no harm here, this is just part of who I am, I see the double stanards, the ironies and the stories behind the story and then like to get it out in the open.
Joel
Yet, I wanted to answer Lee's last comment, as I feel these discussions are good.
Simple soultion, start a new thread.
Lee you mentioned that we do not exist to even suggest behavior mod,. Theorectially that may be true but in reality we do it all the time.
We have little aceptence of recovering alcoholics continuing to use other drugs anbd with good reason.
However, we openly accept our members smoking without so much as a word.
Tobacco has an unreasonable, special protection and double standard in our society and in AA and that double standard is deadly.
Don't get me wrong , I;m not talking about intolerance. Yet why do we react so differently to an AA who states he's still smoking pot vs. one who's still smoking tobacco??
I mean no harm here, this is just part of who I am, I see the double stanards, the ironies and the stories behind the story and then like to get it out in the open.
Joel
>> Outside issue right?
Ah, I wish you had only asked the first question there, Joel! The second presumes and inaccurate answer for the first ...
No, someone smoking or drinking or drugging or having sex or whatever else in front of the door to a meeting room is not an outside issue as is the matter of social reform or presuming to tell someone else what he or she either should or must do.
Time for dinner here at the moment, and I plan to be back to respond to your first question after that.
That would actually be a matter of *smelling* a difference, would it not?! :)
As recovered alcoholics, our job is nothing more, nothing less or anything other than trying to help others who wish to recover. If I smelled pot or alcohol or dirty drawers or anything else that is not part of clean and sober living, I would look for an opportunity to discover whether or not the sufferer has a desire to get well ... then decide what to either do or to not do from there.
I have sat in meetings with people who are pot smokers, and I have let them know they are not sober. I have had gay friends send their group's newcomers to me for sponsorship because they know I will not 13th-Step them, and I have let those folks know there is a way out of their particular version of sexual brokenness just as surely as there was a way out of my own.
It is not our job to try to do anything other than try to help people who want to recover.
Some of you are saying that all drug issues are "outside issues". OK.
Some of you seem to think that only tobacco is an outside issue while other drugs aren't. With that I disagree.
Secondly I'm saying that like it or not being an active drug addict impairs your sobriety to some degree. How could it not?
Thirdly, I hope newcomers will consider tobacco recovery as well.
Agreed. We haver no opinion on either, and we can try to help anyone who wants to recover from either.
"As by some deep instinct, we A.A.'s have known from the very beginning that we must never, no matter what the provocation, publicly take sides in any fight, even a worthy one."
http://www.ralphmag.org/DJ/jung338x509.gif