Posted on 05/27/2010 1:23:54 PM PDT by zzeeman
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.
Does anyone have any thoughts about this aspect?
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.
Good first post... congratulations!
How does it feel to breath actual air again?
Put your dependance upon God.
He only requires ONE step... of faith.
1. Knowingly or not, AA functions like a liberal
petrie dish. Self loathing is required as litmus for
“growth”. As long as you feel badly, there is a
certain amount of absolution and a huge amount of
sympathy. Who doesn’t want or need either? It’s your
new “monkey”. Self loathing serves the puppet master,
because in the end it leads to America loathing.
2. To be right or to be happy? What a stupid
pairing of concepts. To be right (correct) is a
virtue. To defend your position vigorously and
persuasively is required to be a functioning
INdependant (not dependant) adult. According to
AA’s self loathing subtext, to be happy would be
a selfish indulgence. So do they want you to loath
or love yourself? Which is it? Can’t have both.
3. Interesting that your AA group is saturated with
mindless liberals. Would anyone know if this is common?
The Twelve Step group that meets at our church is by far
liberal and enabling. Would it be safe to draw some
conclusions about addictions and liberalism? Is there
data regarding the number of people who see the conservative
light once they are sober?
4. Try Rich Warren’s “Celebrate Recovery” Twelve
Step Christian based program. Not saying you will
find only conservatives in a Christian program, but
it might be less rabbid than the one you came from.
http://www.meetup.com/Celebrate-Recovery-New-Jersey/
Try Promise Keepers or find a local conservative church or political club to get recommendations for some solid mens groups. There will be plenty of men with AA experience wherever you go. You just need some conservative associates - life will be much more relaxed and logical when you deal with other conservatives.
I went from liter a day to stone cold sober in three days and that was seven years ago. You can do the same if you try.
Regards,
GtG
PS Your "scary" thinking is a good indication that you will find RR a plan that you can work with, and which will work for you. Best of luck.
G
Congratulations and a healthy handshake for your successful jump into sobriety.
I suggest taking a picture of yourself after a shower and shave, posting the picture up on the wall and comparing yourself to it every day. Feeling like having a drink? Look at the picture and ask yourself if it’s okay with him to start drinking again.
Hang around FR and you’ll meet lots of great conservative Christians who you would be proud to meet. You never know, you might have one on your street or in your town.
Good Luck and God bless.
I have no experience with AA structure or meetings, so I'm of no value to you on that topic.
However, reading through your post, I get the impression that you are growing and emotionally maturing in many directions (and on many life issues) at the same time.
I also get the impression that you may be co-mingling issues that are making your struggle harder than perhaps it should be. Reading your post, it appears to me that these issues need to be dealt with separately:
1). It appears that your AA attendance should be re-focused on staying sober. You have received numerous feedback comments on that issue already. (It also sounds like you have been successful in controlling your alcohol dependency, and you should certainly be proud of that.)
Your success, your testimony, and sometimes just a warm welcome at AA meetings may be just the helping hand that someone newly joining the AA group needs to break free, and stay free from their drug dependency.
You may be as important, if not more important, than anyone else there, in helping a new member, at any given point in time. For their own reasons, they may see you as someone (perhaps the only one) they can really talk to.
2). You are certainly on the right track with your move from a liberal world-view to a conservative world-view.
You are doing the right kinds of things in educating yourself, joining FR to meet and discuss things with other conservatives, etc. (see my tagline).
But you may have to assess how you are using/will use this newly found power generated from the knowledge you are gaining.
I assume that at AA meetings, individuals give testimony about where they were in dependency, where they are now, and what led/helped them get from there to here.
I also assume this "sharing" of your life experiences is primarily to help you, but also to show others that you are not there to judge any failures in their lives.
I believe that while not everyone will respond positively to your testimony about your liberal to conservative conversion, I do believe that every liberal will respond negatively (at least initially) to hearing the truth (because it doesn't fit their world-view).
However, presenting the truth in the same manner as an AA testimonial, I believe that it is possible that some liberals will be influenced by your testimony of the fact that you had a liberal world-view, that you don't now, and why.
But I don't think any liberal will ever tend to listen beyond the point that they think they are being attacked personally ("you're a hater/racist/etc." is their default response for rejecting all conservative inputs).
I believe that, as your conservative knowledge and credentials grow, so will your confidence, and ability, in presenting them in a way that doesn't need to be confrontational, (but it can certainly be done in a firm, confident way).
And you will, I believe, realize that some liberals can change (think of yourself when you need reassurance of that), and they will seek you out, (away from the loud-mouth pushy liberal types that they themselves don't want to confront directly) because you gave them a comfort zone in which to admit they might be wrong.
LOL, well, that's all my "free" feedback, take it for what it's worth, and again, welcome to FR.
Last year I played softball with an elderly gentleman named John who never had a drink of alcohol in his life. Unfortunately his adult son is an alcoholic to the worst extreme.
John goes to the meetings several days a week every single week in order to offer guidance to the members there and also maintain his strength in dealing with his own son's alcohol abuse.........
Well thought, well written, well done.
Wherever God sends you, be His ambassador.
It is my belief that you have discovered the KEY. Every human has done things that inspire feelings of guilt. Some are fortunate enough to be able to accept God's forgiveness; others are not.
Leftism specializes in pounding on people's guilt feelings, and then offering an escape: “If you will only follow the party line, you will magically become a good person, and your guilt will disappear.” It is much easier to do surface actions (wear the T-shirt, mouth the talking points, etc) than it is to engage in life changing work with God. These folks are already trying to do the very hard work of staying sober, and so, like most of us, take the path which SEEMS easier.
DG
Haha. I would love to be able to move out of this liberal rats nest some day. But I don’t need to move to a “dry” county anywhere. None of us in our household drink any alcohol, but we interact with others that do without any problems of temptation. Our move, when it can occur, would be to get away from suburbia and all of its inherent issues. THanks!
Thanks for your input. If I thought that I was close to picking up a drink, I certainly would go. I don't ever want to use AA to discuss anything political at all, that is the root of my issue (with that particular meeting). It was one of the things that I initially found attractive ("Singleness of purpose") but I have come to see that it really isn't upheld to any degree (at least around here).
HP - yes, good advice. I have realized for quite some time (as I found myself only calling my old sponsor as a "dutiful obligation" since I no longer had any respect for him and his ignorant views) that I needed to make a change. And yes, I have to find a new meeting somewhere, even if I have to drive an hour or more to get to it.
Good advice on the other front as well. Getting involved and volunteering for efforts within our Tea Party has been a great way to meet more like-minded people. It was also something that was quite revealing to me in another way. In this area of NJ, one will usually see the same (rather large) group of people at all of the various AA meetings in the area. And when I am out and about in the area doing other things like shopping, town/county events, schools, working, etc., I quite often run into people that I know from meetings. A very natural overlap of the population subsets. But, at all of the Tea Party meetings and functions that I have attended this year (some quite large), I have not seen 1 person from any AA meeting, not even 1! I thought that was very revealing...
Thanks Siouxz!
I'm sure, though, that there are conservatives who also attend AA meetings, but I've noticed that people who are meeting-HEAVY, are using AA as a type of "replacement addiction."
I seriously encourage you to find a new sponsor, someone whom shares your conservative world view and then no matter if it takes two hours to get there, to somehow locate a meeting where YOUR PEERS are in evidence.
AA works because it's people LIKE YOU, so you'd better the meeting that fulfills this requirement.
Guilt is healthy, but FALSE GUILT is simply a manipulative head trip, don't feel guilty about dumping a sponsor you've grown out of, replace him or her with a suitable sponsor for who you are TODAY.
My advice. Stay true to yourself above all else or you will not be worth much to either yourself or others. ... You do not need ANY member of the group to be conservative for you to benefit from a program that you know works.
Believe me, I haven't taken any of this "lightly," i.e., without a lot of thought, prayer, and meditation. As I mentioned above, I had the experience of "coming back" after a trip out. One of the things that I focused on when I returned, was to make a sincere effort to be more "tolerant" of others in the rooms and outside of the rooms. (When I first got to AA, after about 1 year or so, I developed the bad habit getting up to go for a smoke or use the restroom when someone started "sharing" about something that I didn't want to hear (again). Then that led to leaving early, skipping that meeting, etc. All very good ideas if you want to resume drinking!)
I soon found that this practice really didn't require much of an effort after a short while (much like the effort to build and use a phone network) and I rather enjoyed the serenity of the "Live, and Let Live" approach. Believe me, even seeing all of the hats, tee-shirts, and pins in the meetings really didn't disturb me all that much when I was still asleep at the switch. However, once I woke up, that all changed for me. (If you look back at my brief posting history here at FR you can see how much I agonized through March!)
In short, I view these regime supporters as enemies of our Country. My conscience just doesn't allow me to "break bread" with an enemy. That may sound a bit "extreme" to some, but I view this as an extreme situation. I also feel that it would be very hypocritical on my part to participate in a group merely for my own benefit (helping to stay sober, one day at a time), if I really do have an honest, genuine camaraderie or shared interest with the group. All may not share that view, but for me I can't allow myself to be that duplicitous.
I suspect that there are probably some other "Celebrate Recovery" type programs around that are indeed working, God bless them!
I think your advice on the meeting type is key. Due to my laziness, I got into the habit of attending this particular meeting, almost to the point of exclusion of all others, since it is close by, meets 6 days a week, and worked well into my work and family schedule most days. Once I joined it as a Home Group and started taking on a lot of Service responsibilities, etc., I sort of ran out of time to make an effort to get to other meetings.
There is a Mens Meeting that I used to attend years ago, it isn't too far away, I need to make the effort to get back there. There is also a Step Meeting not too far away that I also used to attend in the past. Both of these meetings were more "blue collar" type meetings that I had always felt very comfortable at. But I got into a bad habit of not wanting to go to evening meetings (hey, it is an honest program, I'll admit it right here: they tended to interfere with watching sports and crime shows on TV!)
Looking back, I can see your point very clearly. My regular meeting was pretty much filled with those the kind of people that are more prone to being libs. Kinda like that old "don't go looking to buy a new car at the junkyard..."
And yes, liberalism is a disease (in some cases a symptom of the disease), a mental disorder. I know that I can't allow myself to fall into a "hatred" of them (although I will admit that I do struggle with that fairly often). The ones that a do have a very real issue with (like my former sponsor), are those that will not even begin to entertain the concept that MSNBC and the NYT isn't the be all and end all of news and information, especially if they claim to be so afraid of their stinking thinking that they are paralyzed into a state of perpetual ignorance.
THanks again for your advice!
[I need get to back to work, be back later to continue reading and replying further. Thank you all!]
There are many people that can get (and stay) sober without AA or any other programs. I have 2 family members (that were very active alcoholics for decades) that quit later in life and stayed stopped for 20+ years until their death. Personally I stopped drinking for almost 9 years without any program. I now know that I wasn't as "sober" as I could have been during those years, but I didn't touch a drop and my life improved dramatically.
On the "fellowship" aspect. That was what I found to be the most useful part of going to meetings. Once I understood how to use the steps as a "guide to living" on a daily basis (and became willing to practice them to the best of my abilities each day), going to meetings provided a sort of "community" for me. That is why I find them so difficult now, I really don't feel a part of a group of people that hold such dangerous and disturbing beliefs, and show a reckless disregard for their actions as citizens.
It could be, the stronger more recovered you are, and clear thinking, less dependant, you need less?
One thing that I wholeheartedly agree with BillW on is this: “What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.” It is what has worked for me, both within and outside of the program.
Talking your advice to heart and acting on it to the best of my abilities. Thanks again for your input!
Thanks TC. Funny thing is (at least around here, not sure about elsewhere) is that the few more conservative (fundamental, Bible-based) churches don’t host any AA/NA meetings. The more liberal churches are the ones that seem to host them all (and some in hospitals). Maybe that fact says something in and of itself! Hmmmm.
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