I hope nobody hates on me for this post, but I gotta say it. I usually attend at least one or two AA meetings a week outside of my home group. I’m not going to name the name of the group that I think is off, but I do want to blog about it.

About a month ago, a member of my home group invited me to attend this other group she goes to once a week for a Big Book study. It sounded good…focusing on the Big Book. When I got to the church, I was shocked at the number of people. After opening the meeting, me and a friend along with others new to the group, were ushered off into a small cramped, hot room with an “AA teacher” (I will explain). We were told we had to go to this other meeting…strange? It got stranger.

We all sat there sweating and wondering what was going on when I guy started talking fast like a TV pitchman and writing on a dry-erase board (just like a teacher). He had the Big Book in his hand and asked us to follow along in the text as he “interpreted” the text for us by telling us what it meant and writing these “interpretations” on the board. Something just didn’t “feel right” about this, but I’m so new to AA that I just sat there. It was an AA class, not an AA meeting.

Anyway, I left there a little unsure about what happened. I thought some points he made were good, but I’m not use to being told what the Big Book says. I’m use to everyone sharing his/her story and what the text in the Big Book has meant to them.

Fast forward to today…I decided to give it one more try and attend the Big Book study this time. I met my same friend there. All hell broke loose before the meeting even started. Some of the members of the group recognized us from last time and insisted that we really needed to go to the other meeting again. We were like…what the hell is this…it’s a free world…why are we letting other members tell us what to do? My friend almost had tears in her eyes because the member who talked to her was rather coarse.

So…I did what any smart person would do faced with the imminent possibility of being indoctrinated into a cult. I told my friend to make a run for the front door and meet me in the parking lot. I headed out the back door, got into my car, raced around to the front of the church, opened the passenger door and yelled, “Get in before it’s too late!”

We drove to my home group to make a sane meeting.

Seriously…I’m not being sarcastic here…this is a true story. I told my sponsor what happened. My sponsor said not every AA group will be what you need to recover and suggested that I ask myself when attending other groups…

“Is this an environment where I can recover?”

If the answer is no, don’t go back. I learned a lesson that I want to share with other newcomers. If you go to an AA meeting and don’t “feel right” for some reason, try another group in your area. Meetings are not the program of recovery. The Big Book explains this in “How It Works” on pg. 59.

Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol– that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God AS WE UNDERSTOOD HIM.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God AS WE UNDERSTOOD HIM, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Categories: On to 90 days by The Web Prophet
Tags: 12 steps, 12 traditions, the big book