Saturday, December 26, 2009
Thursday, February 26, 2009
AA's Singleness of Purpose
An excerpt:
“I am an alcoholic. I have a drug history as long as my alcoholism, but I am not an addict. The stories I have heard of addicts, gamblers, and so on elicit sympathy from me, but do not reach that place in me of identification that I find in the story of another alcoholic- that place where I actually begin to feel the pain experienced by the speaker and relate his experience to my own. Thank God you had alcoholics speak to me of alcoholism when I came into AA. Because identification is so vital to the recovery of alcoholics like myself, I do not wish to risk weakening my effectiveness by speaking of my drug use in an AA meeting.
“We alcoholics come with many “related disorders” of drugs, gambling, overeating, sex, depression, anxiety, and so on, but by choosing to join AA we have chosen a common ground on which to relate to one another- alcoholism and recovery from alcoholism. Given the diversity of people and problems in AA, the unity necessary to function as a group would be impossible and our effectiveness with newcomers diminished if we did not keep our focus on our common problem. I have to relate myself to the group as a whole for my own recovery and the recovery of those I would help. I would hate to see the day in AA where an alcoholic’s chance to recover was dependent upon whether we had the “right” person with the “right” set of problems for him that day on the answering service, Twelve Step call, and so on. I would hate to see the day when any real alcoholic finds himself unable to relate to a speaker or discussion due to too much talk of problems other than alcoholism that he does not possess. I want every alcoholic to have the chance I had to enter an AA meeting and come to realize, as I did, that “those people are like me and maybe if I do what they did it will work for me too.” ”
