aa Spoken Here Community Group
Fellowship Where you can share your thoughts, feelings, stories and get support to gain and continue sobriety.
This topic comes up periodically on DS but thought I would revisit. Sometimes I think that what constitutes help on DS and the way we start to help people in AA is very different. Do you respond differently to newcomers on DS and if so why is that? I know some of it will be because in AA we can talk more directly about AA because people have actively come to AA specifically whereas on DS they have come for help more generally but are there other differences in the way you respond? I have my own thoughts but interested in hearing what other people think before I say anything so I don't affect the direction of the discussion.
Billy
I think at times too that the message, whether AA, SMART etc is lost in the debate between which program is the 'best'. Like O1 is saying many people are trying on the fit and many do not like the colours on offer. I do believe, however, that if a person really wants to get sober they will find a solution.
Guess too with the newcommer on DS all I can offer is tid bits, if that person starts to build on that, then my direction does change.
But if I am really honest I respond differently because I am not convinced that many on DS are serious about getting sober. My time and effort is finite and I would prefer to expend this resource in helping those who want help.
G8
I think I agree with you about whether people on DS are serious about getting sober. I have made many offers to share my experience with people and very rarely has the offer been taken up. Maybe that's just me though!
Controversially I say that I am very glad DS wasn't around when I got sober. I think I would have used it to convince myself I was seeking help when in reality I was doing nothing of the sort. Probably coming here for tea and sympathy and someone to justify my self pity whilst not requiring me to take any action. Not saying everyone here is doing that by any means but I would have done it I think!
I definitely approach helping people on DS differently than I do in AA but I am not sure I know all the reasons for that or even whether I do it differently for the right reasons. More thinking to do as it might help me be more helpful here and in AA.
The way that I would have posted four years ago when I first joined DS is a lot different to how I would post now. My experience back then was confined to AA and indeed I had been told and believed that AA and the Twelve Steps are the ‘right’ way to get sober. By reading here I have come to realize that while AA is certainly effective for those who want to get sober, it is not the only way.
As an alcoholic I would never have tolerated having people preach to me or tell me what to do when I was drinking and I am wary of doing that to other people. However, there is a fine line between preaching and suggesting and if people in AA had not made suggestions to me along the way, I would have been happy to plod along in the comfort zone and avoid doing what I needed to do. Some of those ‘suggestions’ were quite forceful and indeed I sometimes resented the people who had made them, usually until I got over the hurt pride and realized that they were right and I was wrong. When I look back, I believe that I have learned a lot from those people who ruffled some feathers at the time. When I started to post on DS, I tried to share my experience as it was at the time. I hold my hand up and admit that I could have done it better at times but hopefully I have improved a bit with experience.
It came as a shock to me to be told by my sponsor that not everyone who went to AA meetings is an alcoholic, that some are heavy drinkers who can stop drinking at will (maybe with some difficulty) and that these people did not necessarily need the Twelve Steps. I listened to some people who insisted that Step 1 was the only step they needed and others who walked out of meetings when Steps were mentioned. Some of these people were ‘real’ alcoholics and sadly a few have since died from alcoholism and I suspect that some others were heavy drinkers who had not yet become alcoholics. It is probable that such a mixture of people also exists on DS and that may account for some of the recent turmoil that I think has done a lot of damage to the main forum.
For me personally it has come to the point where I find it too tedious to carry on having to justify everything that I posted, just because a small minority of people had a problem with AA. For that reason I stopped posting and had not intended to come back but kept reading now and again and was pleasantly surprised to find renewed activity on the aa Spoken Here forum. On reflection it may have been wrong to walk away from the main forum and I have questioned how I am putting the AA principles into practice since doing that. I do not get annoyed or irritated anymore by the anti AA brigade and I do miss the main forum but I also value my serenity and by choice I avoid heated debates, whether about sports, politics etc. in the real world or the pros and cons of AA in cyberspace. I do not have to avoid such debates and I can hold my own in any argument should I choose to partake but for me at any rate, life is too short for spending time and energy on heated arguments.
So to your question: “What is help”. When I started going to AA meetings, all that I heard at many of those meetings was drinking stories and the oft repeated “keep coming back”. While I did take something positive from those meetings, it was the couple of meetings where people shared about the Twelve Steps that set me on the road to recovery. Therefore, while it is good to welcome new people to DS and to wish them well for the future, I believe that I would not be really helping those people if I did not suggest some action that would lead them to recovery.
Really glad to have you back. Hope you will keep posting at least on aa spoken here if you choose not to be active on the main forum.