Lifeblood Of The Fellowship

What do you do when you get a hold of a prospect for the Fellowship – and the two of you go to your first meeting together? Do you make sure that he or she goes the best meeting a prospect can EVER go to?

That is the ONE meeting especially designed JUST FOR HIM – the one that will turn him from “Prospect” to “Newcomer”

THE OPEN SPEAKER MEETING.(Originally for non-alcoholic spouses of AA members.)

Or do you tell him something untrue like, “They’re ALL good!”

Open Speaker Meetings are the lifeblood gatherings of Alcoholic Anonymous. Especially the LARGE ones where 100 or more people gather and they don’t drink.

Of course you can get some real doggy talks coming off that podium. It depends on whose “incoming”. But at least there’s a a chance that the “this” message will be carried by someone. The atmosphere of such meetings can be absolutely electric at times – especially during anniversary celebrations. And we are loosing them, as AAs success rate continues to decline and we continue to lose membership.

Thanks to the treatment center mentality of “SHARING” in group therapy environments, more and more un-recovered AAs are flocking instead to discussion meetings.

Somehow the LIE that we can SHARE our way clear of our drinking problem — that if we “Get things off our chest” — then WE WON’T DRINK TODAY, is heard and used as a means to treat alcoholism – and it’s NOT a treatment for alcoholism.

Perhaps it is true for the non-alcoholic. But for the real alcoholic, this is a deadly concept. If you are a real alcoholic . . . . . . . YOU AIN’T “SHARING” YOUR WAY OUT OF THIS ONE BUDDYBOY!

I hope I’ve had my last experience of walking into an AA meetings with a newcomer who must find God or he will die, and instead being deluged with dramas about drug use, babysitters, road rage, or someones opinion about how to stay away from a drink for “Just one more day” 0r whatever dribble they think will meet with some “Amens” from the “Middle-of-the-road solutions” brigades — anything BUT the Program of recovery detailed int he Big Book.

If more people saved all of that crap for their sponsors or the parking lot or even the diners, perhaps we wouldn’t see so many real alcoholics leaving and not coming back because their problem is not being able to stay away from a drink; and he is hearing that OUR problem is our stooooopid relationships, job losses, runs in pantyhose or whatever else someone thinks is important to bore us to death with.

I know, I know…”Oh but I feel so good when I can share my problems”. Just listen to that. Is there anything more self-centered that such a statement? That’s what SPONSORS are for.

Have you ever wondered what would happen to the fellowship happen if “Open discussion meetings” were eliminated? I think half of the AA “members” would go away because there would no longer be anything in it for them. For THEM – forget about the newcomer – for THEM!

Anyone contemplating starting a new meeting PLEEEEZE make it an open speaker meeting or a Big Book Study. Those are THE meetings that save the lives of newcomers. The discussion meetings have become $1 an hour amateur psychoanalysis sessions — and if your ego can’t resist then PLEEEEZE at least make it literature based – preferably the Big Book.

Let’s save some lives and not our precious little self-centered egos.

Peace,

Danny S