aa Spoken Here Community Group
Fellowship Where you can share your thoughts, feelings, stories and get support to gain and continue sobriety.
It is posted on another board that at least one member has been banned very recently, probably today. Coupled with the revival of the respect and tolerance post:
As a group member, I'd like to know what's going on. Do I have that right??
As a group member, I'd like to know what's going on. Do I have that right??
She will respond so just be patient please.
Night from the UK :)
How far do they plan to take this matter of degrees?
sometimes we dont know the reasons... sometimes we see a picture that is half painted... and sometimes we feel how we do... because we are triggered by our own shit....
please remember that there are people here who log on to keep themselves alive... and thats what i am doing right now...
selfish or not.... i dont know... but all i know is that i am drinking and diying and just walked out of somewhere that is supposed to help me... and picked up a drink... all i can say is please dont take this place away from me... bacuse i need it... but also ... please dont make it difficult for me to come here... because of shit... sometimes in life shit hits the fan... just watch that the bits dont rebound on you... is all i can say...
this place has been a life line to me and i will defend it to my allmost while i can .
if anyone was going to be banned ... them i am sure this mental one would have been
There's a sociological point I hope is worth making again here, because anyone's early acquaintance with AA can be quite an unnerving experience. AA is not an organization in the same structural category as, for example, Celebrate Recovery, which has clear-cut definitions and insignia of membership, as also do such institutions as Harvard, the Army, the Moonies or the Episcopal Church. In these institutions there are formal and official procedures for inducting, identifying, regulating and terminating members. In such organizations, if someone misrepresents the doctrines, mission statement or operational policies of the organization as a whole, such a person can be reprimanded, silenced or even expelled.
This is not the case at all with Alcoholics Anonymous, and it can be very disconcerting for both newcomers and impartial observers alike. There is no Board of Admissions, and there are no background investigations, physical or psychiatric exams, no aptitude, competence or literacy tests, no formal course of study or training nor creed to attest to, pledges of allegiance or oaths of honor required for entry or subscription renewal reminders for extended membership. There's no top-down chain of command, no grand pooh-bah, no faculty, campus police or MP's, and no financial records locked in a safe somewhere that the rank-and-file aren't allowed to see. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking, and there are no attendance records, performance evaluations or periodic peer reviews required for renewal.
Here, as I see it, is the most significant difference between AA iself and this forum. No one in AA itself, individually or collectively, has the authority to throw anybody else out. No mucky-muck from the central office in New York can walk into a local group, pull rank and start bossing people around. If there is or has ever been a durable organization where that sort of anarchy is actually spelled out in its articles of incorporation, I've sure as heck never heard of it.
That's not to say that mini-hierarchies and authoritarian cliques don't spring up on websites, in local groups and in the parking lots-- I've seen quite a few in my time. But thanks to our Traditions, these never take hold in the wider fellowship because there are simply no administrative offices, teaching accreditation curricula or positions of authority available in AA's wider, overall structure. In other words, if you don't like the way things are done in one group, try another. But outside of those individual groups there are no regional, state or national tribunals for in-house redress of grievances and the dispensation of justice.
Those who require the protective mantle of an official creed, a supervisory chain of command and a higher court of appeals are simply out of luck in real-time AA. Some may see that as an structural weakness, but many of us say it's quite possibly our greatest source of vitality because it forces us to get along with other people as equals and without the artificial protection afforded by institutional authority figures.
I stress that because the ability to just let other people be themselves in a democratic give-and-take setting needed to survive in AA is a painfully learned social skill for most of us. We can piss and moan and tattle our tales, but there's nobody up in the executive suite who will listen or give a hoot. The bottom line is that those who can't stand the heat generated by the degree of social friction that automatically ensues in such a power vacuum are probably better off staying out of the kitchen.
So now again comes the hard question. Is this board part of AA, or has its name been adopted and its organizational principles compromised in service to a minority agenda?
Just be careful what you say as you might be deemed to be mentally unstable and labeled a trouble maker.