Conservative Friend of Bill in Distress, seeking FR FoB input/comment

OK, I understand that one always need to tread carefully when posting a "vanity" at Free Republic, even in the General/Chat forum, especially as a "newbie." Like many, I've lurked on and off for about 5 or 6 years before getting "motivated" enough to actually join a few months ago (a bit more on that below). So, I am treading carefully. I don't have an article to post as reference or as a subject since this thread is of a very personal nature. However, at this point in time, I can't think of a better forum in which to start this discussion than Free Republic. Why is that? It is because I can't think of a forum in which I am more comfortable sharing some very intimate aspects of my life, and I also can't think of a place where I am likely to engage in a discussion with people whose insights and opinions I respect and value more. I will assume, that since you've bothered to click onto this thread, based on its title, you probably have more than a passing interest in the topic. Hence I will also assume that you will bear with me a bit and read through the background paragraphs which tell the story of how I have arrived at the point that I am at the present (I will try to be brief!).

Actually, I just saved the many paragraphs of background, etc. that I typed in to another file since I found that I was writing far too much for the thread starter. I can sprinkle some of it in to the thread as it progresses or share it some other way if anyone is interested. I realize that I need to get to the bottom line here. I just got off the phone with my (now former) sponsor. Needless to say I am a bit disturbed, but do not regret the actions that I took during this and a few prior conservations. This man has been my sponsor for almost 7 years. (My first 2+ years in AA, then I went "out" for a little over a year, and the 4+ years that I've been "back.")

At this point in time I am very disillusioned with AA in some regards, and the people that I've meet at the meetings in my area. I live in a very "blue" part of NJ and like the vast majority of the rest of the population, the people in the rooms are very liberal and very loud about it. I can honestly count only 3 people that I've meet in the meetings in this area that are willing to identify themselves as being "not liberal." I know that politics isn't supposed to be a part of AA at all, in principle. But in reality I haven't seen that in practice, at least not around here. I've got to believe that there are meetings in other parts of the country where the members make more of an effort to keep their political views out of the rooms, at least I hope there is. And I also realize that if I lived elsewhere (in more of a Red state), the spillage of people's political views into the rooms would not be offensive to me. But we probably aren't going to be moving for quite some time so I need to find a way to deal with my situation in the present, and present location.

I am not intending to make this thread into an "AA cult bashing" thread. While I have had some issues with some of the aspects of the AA program, I am very grateful for the fact that the AA program saved my life, twice. In a much more pronounced way the second time. As I came back in January 2006 after coming very close to destroying my life one more time, I was fortunate to have my sponsor from the past, went through the Steps again in a much more thorough and meaningful way and became active in service of all types, and sponsored a few guys (without much success). I took to heart Bill W's message of a slip being a way to kick you up the stairs instead of down, and will admit that I was one of the "ungrateful b@st@rds" that went out after have some time under my belt. I also started "using the phone" in a way that I hadn't in the past and was very happy and grateful for, yet another, chance at a new life. In short, AA truly became a "design for living" that I am happy to incorporate into all aspects of my life. So okay, here comes the "but..."

When I came back I was still pretty much "apolitical" although I have always had a very strong Conservative fiber running through my body since childhood. I'm in my early 50s and for a good part of my adult life I was just too self-absorbed and apathetic too really be involved in politics. (I sort of almost unconsciously adopted my late father's attitude of "they are all crooks, none of them are any good.") Looking back I was pretty comfortable with my head in a bucket of sand and allowed all of the surface elements of a "good life" that we live in this Country to allow me to become totally complacent. I'm old enough to have been alive before the complete indoctrination of our society was in full force, and I also attended private Catholic schools through high school, so I grew up thinking (foolishly I now see) that Liberty and Freedom would always be safe in America, our Constitution would always be honored, and that we simply had to "sit out" the bad presidents like Carter and Clinton.

But I began to be uncomfortable with all of the "Bush bashing" that I would be exposed to by my sponsor and the guys that we hung around with after the meetings. I more or less kept my mouth shut because I was always told that politics shouldn't be a part of AA, and didn't want to cause any problems (and there were a lot of things about Bush that I didn't defend anyway). I also hadn't been "awakened" to the ugly reality of what had been going on in our Country since Wilson, FDR, and forward. (Yeah, I'll say it, "I was an ignorant dope with no one but myself to blame.") As I mentioned above, I would lurk on and off of Free Republic for quite some time, and had been listening (again, on and off) to conservative talk radio since Rush was first getting started. So when this whole 0buma craze erupted onto the scene my instincts told me this was trouble, I just didn't realize how much trouble it would be (or I would have woken up earlier). So of course, being that I live where I live, I began to see more and more 0buma stickers on the cars, tee-shirts and buttons in the meetings, and couldn't help overhear the before- and after-meeting discussions of how great things would be, and even suffered through the sharing in the meetings about all sorts of "great" experiences people were having on the campaign trail. I still kept my mouth shut for 2 reasons:

1. I didn't wake up until early March of 2010 (soon before I joined FR).
2. I didn't think it was "right" to discuss politics within an AA setting, so I refrained.

After the election I said to my sponsor and the few guys that got together regularly to hike and have lunch on a weekly basis, "OK, your guy won. I think it is a bad mistake. I'll ask you in 2 years if you still have the same opinion, beyond that, I don't really want to talk about it with any of you." While I was still "asleep," my guts told me that election was a bad thing and I just got even more apolitical. Sports programming and sports talk radio became my drug of choice, and I refused to watch or listen to any "news" on TV or radio since November 2008 until March 2010. (My little deflector that I used when anyone brought up anything political at all was to say "hey, yeah, I like that young guy Kennedy, his brother Bobby seems pretty sharp too, I think they've both got a chance..." to which most people would look at me quizzically and either walk away or change the topic. It suited my purposes at the time.)

Then my life changed. One evening I was working late in my shop and all of the stations only had college basketball games that I wasn't interested in. I was too lazy to switch over to the XM radio and find some music, so I tuned in to listen to an old "friend," Mark Levin. Well, I listening to Mark peel away the covers of the health control abomination and that got my blood boiling. I had listened to Mark on and off long enough in the past to know that he was speaking the truth and was smart enough to understand what was going on. That changed everything for me. I joined FR within a few days, have spent more hours reading and researching than I have ever done in my life, and started to listen to Rush, Mark and other conservative talk radio as often as I can.

I soon realized how bad things had really been in the past (i.e., the building Progressive destruction for decades) and how very quickly things were going down the drain under this present regime. Knowing what I knew about my sponsor's and other AA friends' views were, I became very uncomfortable sitting at meetings with people that were still wearing the same tee-shirts and still had the same bumper stickers. Slowly but surely I have stopped going to meetings, I just am not comfortable sitting and sharing my life with people that I now feel are enemies of my Country. I started to check with the guys that were in my network to see if any of them had changed their views, nope, none of them ("still happy with the election results, think things are going great!"). I stopped calling my sponsor almost completely. I felt obligated to check in now and then, but really lost all sense of having any sort of a relationship with him. I told him several weeks ago that I no longer felt comfortable attending meetings with people that were either committed Satists, too dumb to know any better, or too lazy to get off their backsides and find out what was happening. I asked him point blank, which are you? He sort of hemmed and hawed about it and didn't admit to anything other than being still happy with the election results and firmly committed to the course the regime (my words, not his) was taking the country (i.e,. he was happy with the "change" and still had a lot of "hope"). He gave the expected AA line of making sure to find other meetings, and to not "get back in the debating society..." Then he said his wife was calling and had to go.

I haven't seen him for about 2 months now. Since that conversation, we had a couple of phone calls about his sponsor's death and the funeral arrangements, etc. He called and left me a message on Saturday. I called him back and left a message on Monday. He called me back this morning, and things came to a head, so to speak. After the usual pleasantries, I asked him if he had thought any more about what we talked about a couple of months ago, i.e., his continuing support of the regime. He said that he hadn't. So I asked him if he was willing to open his eyes and examine things. (I used the old "contempt prior to investigation..." saw that is in the Big Book.) I offered to prepare some reading material for him and sit down over coffee for 2-3 hours one on one and give him some information. He said that he wasn't interested. I told him that I can not, for the life of me, understand how an intelligent man in his mid-50s, successful in career and (rebuilt) family, could be so completely unwilling to listen to the idea that there may be a lot of things going on that he won't see on CNN/MSNBC/CBS/ABC/NBC/NPR or read in the NYT or his local paper. He told me that "his best thinking got him here." I said, you've been sober for 25 years now, it is "OK" for you to think again. He asked me if I found a new sponsor, I told him that I hadn't yet, but maybe someday I would find a man in AA that I could respect for their actions and willingness to at least "think" about these types of issues. He asked me what he was supposed to do, "Watch Fox news, listen to talk radio, and go to the Tea Party?" I told him that Fox would be a step in the right direction and that talk radio and the Tea Party would certainly do him good. He fumbled about that being ridiculous and said that he "quit the debating society" a long time ago. He then asked me what I was going to do about all of this "stuff."

I told him, number one, Education, I am educating myself on the current reality and our history so that I can help to educate others. I told him that I am active in our local Tea Party. I told him that I hope to be a part of the people (even in NJ, we do have Christie now!) that will hopefully be able to vote out the disgusting reps we have in the House and Senate. And he asked, "What, to elect other crooks that are Republicans?" I said no, it isn't about parties, it is about electing Conservatives that will begin to restore our Country to the way it was founded, based on Freedom and Liberty. I told him that in all actuality, it is likely too late for our generation; we will never see our lives restored to the way things were (at least on the surface) when we were kids and our parents were younger. I told him that this is all about STOPPING the bleeding now, so that our grandkids or maybe their kids will be in a position to restore our Country. At that point, he said that "I was scaring him..." I politely thanked him for all that he had done in the past, and let him know that he didn't need to call me anymore if I was so scary. I wished him well and said goodbye.

OK, so here I am. Needless to say I am a bit confused. To be completely frank, I feel more sober than I ever have been in my life. I feel that I am finally waking up and gaining the courage to speak what I believe to be the truth. I am no longer so insecure that I feel the need to "go along, to get along" with others. I've been to one meeting (out in a more rural part of the state that isn't quite so blue) over the past couple of months, I enjoyed it. I have one thing that I do regularly each morning, I pray on my knees and express gratitude for my Lord's help in keeping me sober, one day at a time. It has not failed me for about 16 years (9 years before AA, and 7 years in AA). So I am not overly concerned about any immediate temptations to drink. Like I said earlier, I am not intending to make this into an "AA cult bashing" thread. I realize that there are 3 immediate issues that I am grappling with that are very much localized or personal in nature:

1. I live in a blue area and the AA meetings are reflective of the population at large.
2. The daily meeting that I attended around 3-4 days per week is one in which members feel free to express their loving support for the regime.
3. My (former) sponsor is a supporter of the regime and is afraid to take his head out of the bucket.

I'm not comfortable attending meetings with people that I consider to be enemies of my Country. I will not be comfortable asking a guy that isn't Conservative (not because we need to share our politics, but because I can't trust anyone that I consider to be an enemy of my Country) to be my sponsor.

The other issue that I have with AA in more general terms is this: does anyone else see a problem with people being so indoctrinated to "keeping out of the debating society" and being so deadly afraid of their "stinking thinking" that they are so unwilling to even spend a few hours looking outside of their "comfort zone" politically? I've spent some time searching the Web to see if there is anything available along the lines of "how does a Conservative function happily in AA?" and haven't come across anything.

I also have a theory about some of what I am experiencing around here. I haven't had a chance to really put a great deal of thought into it, but will try to describe it briefly to spark any conversation if anyone is interested. I've noticed that a lot of the people in the rooms carry around a lot of guilt with them over their past behavior. I fully understand the point of Steps 4-9. I get it. But what I sense is that a lot of people in the rooms still "feel very badly" about what they have done in the past (I still do at times), even after long periods of sobriety. Since they don't want to "re-join the debating society" and are often deathly afraid of their "stinking thinking," it seems to be human nature to gravitate to the easy answer. In this case, to align themselves with the party that claims to be "for the people, esp. the disadvantaged and other so-called victims," the party that talks about "social justice" without ever really explaining what it is. In short, if you feel real guilty about your past, are trying to "live a better life" now, and are too afraid to be willing to actually "think" about anything like this, or engage in any "debates," are you very susceptible to become and/or remain a useful "tool" that blindly supports a leftist/Statist agenda?

Another little saying that I've heard often goes along the lines of "would you rather be right, or happy?" I can understand the sentiments that are behind it, and often view it as good advice in maintaining your serenity. But, like everything else, if taken too far, I believe that it becomes quite dangerous. I think that it can serve to prevent a person from being a good citizen and standing up for the restoration of Liberty and Freedom and the return to the Constitutional Republic that our Founders created.

I'd be interested in anyone thoughts about this theory as well. Thanks in advance for reading through this, and for any pointers to information, or personal insights that you may have.

“I feel more sober than I ever have been in my life. “

My impression after reading your post is, you are growing.

Growth means change.

I hesitate to advise a person with your history of alcoholism to just abandon a system (AA) that has apparently worked for him.

However, is it always the case that an alcoholic has to go to 4 meetings a week, have a sponsor, etc., or is their normally a time when that ends?

The advice above that says “move” may or may not be practical. Certainly, if your life depends upon it, move, whether that is practical or not.

Is there perhaps an online AA type forum where you can get support that doesn’t involve politics, or that involves more conservative politics?

It seems to me that what you are doing is no longer working, because it is causing you a lot of anxiety and stress. That is not what a sponsor or an AA meeting is supposed to be about! It does not seem to be your fault.

My first reaction would be to wear conservative t-shirts to meetings and stuff, just to get in their face, but truly, that will probably not help your sobriety along. They are the ones breaking the rules about politics.

I also think your insight about the folks at your meeting ascribing to feel-good liberal statements instead of actual d0-good conservative action is correct. That is human nature. It is easier to salve your conscience talking about taking down the Man than it is to work hard and provide for your own.

Are there any AA FReepers who can sponsor zzeeman out there? If anyone reading this is a Friend of Bill, or, knows a good Friend of Bill who can step up, send him a private message!

I’m so impressed with your courage. You need to forgive yourself for the mistakes you’ve made in the past. Seems like the mistakes have made you stronger and a better man.

As to AA, I’d suggest checking out local churches, if they have programs available. Get another sponsor.

I believe all people are doing the best they can with what they have, basically. My view of the “liberal” people are that they are either lazy, afraid, or beguiled by the lies. I have to accept people for what they are, and see the good in them. It’s so easy to see the bad. We’re all in this human experience together. Gotta love them anyway...
Don’t hate people because they are wrong. Just be aware of your own thoughts, actions and be prepared to step in a conversation, give voice to your views in a civil, kind manner, and don’t get angry.

Keep thinking, praying and doing the best you can.

Warmest Regards,
YR

What is that old expression: "you can pick your friends or you can even pick your nose, but you can't pick your family."

Gilbert Chesterton in Heretics tells us:

Those who wish, rightly or wrongly, to step out of all this, do definitely wish to step into a narrower world. They are dismayed and terrified by the largeness and variety of the family. Sarah wishes to find a world wholly consisting of private theatricals; George wishes to think the Trocadero a cosmos. I do not say, for a moment, that the flight to this narrower life may not be the right thing for the individual, any more than I say the same thing about flight into a monastery. But I do say that anything is bad and artificial which tends to make these people succumb to the strange delusion that they are stepping into a world which is actually larger and more varied than their own. The best way that a man could test his readiness to encounter the common variety of mankind would be to climb down a chimney into any house at random, and get on as well as possible with the people inside. And that is essentially what each one of us did on the day that he was born.

"...what each of us did the day that he was born." We can't pick our family members (or our ship mates in a life boat) and yet, as Christians (or others believeing in an Enduring Moral Order) we have to treat them in as our neighbor to be enobled ourselves.

Read Heretics. Learn that to be an Orthodox thinker is bold and not backward. Have Joy in yourself.

You don't need to straighten out others to share healthy thinking in general.

Happiness in not being "right" or making yourself or others happy but is instead a by product of right living. Russel Kirk said that the first priciple for conservatives is the belief in an Enduring Moral Order. That means such for man and for the nation. I doubt that AA believes in situational ethics. Try to concentrate on living your sober life in harmony with right living and the concepts of sober living you have been taught and forget about staightening out the rest of the world until you have your life back together.

Please vote with conviction but you have to realize that other people don't establish your confort level inside your own skin -- instead something within you is leaving that maleadjusted during these times when you are so frustrated with those you meet after being dropped down the chimney.

I pray on my knees and express gratitude for my Lord's help in keeping me sober, one day at a time.

The best thing you could possibly do every morning and any time you feel you could use the support. Come here, too, and people will support you. In your locale you may be stuck with Nobama supporters, but if you stick to the topic of alcohol and general coping skills, it will make things easier in meetings. That's what I tell my kids for liberal professors. Are there online or email or by-phone sponsorships? You can Skype or chat with anyone practically anywhere. Maybe finding a sponsor, even a long-distance one, with whom you have more in common spiritually, ethically, politically and fundamentally would be a good idea. Good luck, welcome, and post anytime. You are among FRiends here.

And if there is an AA Group you can join it there as well.

But NJ is Heavy Liquor Lane. There is nothing wrong with removing yourself from a situation where you need to face daily temptation.

It isn’t an excuse, same reason you wouldn’t go to a bar and sit around watching others drink. You have a choice.

The Catholic Church has their drug and alcohol treatment center on a mountain in the middle of no where in New Mexico, same logic.

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