Posted on 05/27/2010 1:23:54 PM PDT by zzeeman
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.)
Exactly, to me (I now see that I was very naive) I always looked at AA as a refuge from everything else. No matter what was going on in the world, I saw that hour in the meeting as a respite. But that doesn't work for me any longer. I think that it is a combination of "waking up" and understanding the serious nature of what is happening around us, and recognizing why I could no longer be comfortable sitting in a room with people that I no longer wished to be associated with.
I no longer have any desire to drink, not because I used to go to an AA meeting several times a week. It is primarily because I humbly ask my Lord specifically for help in staying sober each day. And secondarily because I have learned how to use the wisdom in the 12 steps as a "design for daily living."
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.
You raise a very good point that I have been thinking about quite a bit. I can understand the wisdom of (at least for me at the present) "taking what you need, and leaving the rest," but I don't want to be completely selfish in this regard. For a number of reasons I am a "bit different" than most of the rest of the people in that particular meeting, and can recognize that a newcomer may feel comfortable talking to me for one reason or the other. I have come to the point that I realize that I have to find new meetings to attend, so that I can be in a position to give something back. If I am not comfortable in a particular meeting, and don't want to be there, I won't be much help to anyone there!
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.
I would never include one word about anything political in an AA testimonial or even within the confines of "sharing" in a meeting. I just don't think that it is appropriate at all. I have been willing to talk to and share information with others that are still "left leaning," including some that I have known from within AA (outside of the meeting construct). All I seek from them is an indication that they are at least willing to explore the concept that there is a great deal more data, "news," and information out there than that which they are spoon-fed daily by the state controlled media outlets. If they are willing, I am happy to continue. If they are not, I simply have no time to waste on them, nor wish to be in their company. It may sound a bit "harsh" to some, but that is where I am at. (I actually believe that if more people were willing to make a stand like this, and follow through in cutting off these lazy and ignorant people, maybe the message will get through faster. I think that the longer we are willing to "tolerate" their treason, the worse it will end up.)
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.
I always let them know as we part company, that if they ever change their mind and want to begin to think for themselves and stop their acceptance of being lied to on a daily basis, they know how to get in touch with me.
Your input and advice was worth far more than I paid for it! Thanks again, Colonel.
I agree wholeheartedly DG. Thank you for encapsulating that thought so clearly and succinctly!
I even sponsor a fervent liberal without any problems.
Fortunately, politics rarely crops up into my home group, but I know who all the lefties are, and I just consider that they are still sick with another disease besides alcoholism, and it makes it easier for me to dismiss their liberal leanings.
Most importantly, stay sober. Any way you can. Continue to develop your spiritual growth and God will keep you safe.
As far as writing goes, I was very fortunate that my parents sacrificed greatly so that my two older sisters and myself were able to attend non-public schools all the way through high school. I am also fortunate that I am old enough to have attended schools when the "basics" were still taught rigorously, I'm not sure that they do much of that anywhere anymore. I also find that if I just take a moment to re-read each sentence/paragraph after I type it in, I will catch most (but not all!) mistakes that my fat fingers or haste have worked into my thought!
Thanks again!
What’s more sad is that they don’t want anything to interfere with the feeling they get from drinking that political kool-aid and encouraging one another in their intoxication.
I honestly don't even know if it gets to that point with a lot of them. If you are constantly told that you can not trust your "stinking thinking," "that your best thinking got you here," and that only very bad (possibly "deadly") results will come if you "re-join the debating society," I don't believe that most of them are even fully conscious of what they are thinking and doing. JMO.
Perhaps the bigger lesson for me is to not seek perfection in mankind, no matter what the affiliation and organization may be. My personal belief is that we are living in a fallen state here on Earth, and that it is a mistake to forget that. Thank you again for your input.
The traditions say that "Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon A.A. unity ". It sounds like the meeting is fragmenting because politics is interfering with the primary purpose of the meeting - recovery from Alcoholism. Answer this question in your own thinking - who is distracted from the primary goal - them or you? If politics has become a main focus of the meeting, then you need to find another meeting. On the other hand, if you are allowing yourself to be distracted from the primary goal of sobriety, you need to refocus and stop taking other people's inventory.
I may not have been clear enough in my posts. The meeting isn't fragmenting at all. They are all very much unified in their beliefs. The only other (non-liberal) person that I have met at that particular meeting is a guy that is a RINO (he just thinks that it is a matter of "waiting out a bad administration" and isn't overly concerned about much except hoping that his taxes aren't going to be too high).
Yes, I am the one that is distracted since I can no longer feel comfortable sitting in a room with them and "pretending" to be part of the group. And yes, the onus is on me to find a different meeting that I am more comfortable at, that is what I am doing.
2) I'm sure you are familiar with the "people, places and things" that each individual in AA must avoid in order to maintain their sobriety. They are different for each individual. It just might be that politics is one of those things that needs to be managed very carefully in your life, because it sounds like a trigger to build resentments. We are all interested in politics here on FR, but in your case (and in the case of some other FOB's on FR), politics has to be designated as a second level interest. Sobriety and maintenance of your spiritual condition must come first.
I appreciate your sound advice on this. (My wife has also been tireless in keeping this at the forefront of my mind as well!) When I finally "woke up" earlier this year, I went through a few stages. I started with an overwhelming sense of guilt for keeping my head in the sand bucket for decades, and the terrible fallout that is so drastically changing the future for our children and their children. Knowing that I had been part of the problem and not part of the solution was a very difficult nut for me to swallow. I also felt a great sense of despair and aloneness at that time. (And if you can imagine, it was very difficult to process as an AA member since it wasn't anything that I could work through with the help of my sponsor and network. THankfully I remembered FR and promptly joined, it has been a very big part of my ability to cope with "reality.")
After that, I moved into the "angry and hateful" stage, thankfully my "design for living" and my spiritual condition prevented me from acting rashly. Lately I have moved more into the "firm resolve" stage. I am determined to educate myself and those around me, be more active in Conservative political action, and work in more earnest to keep my side of the street clean.
3) Your conversation with your sponsor seems to indicate that after the "usual pleasantries" the conversation immediately went to politics. Remember that your sponsor is your partner in sobriety - an objective mirror of your condition, if you will. He is not your political debating partner, and politics should have no place in your relationship. Sounds like you guys need to get together and perhaps pray together that your AA relationship can get back to the true matter at hand.
I assume that you are commenting on the last conversation that I described in this thread starter. That was a long time in coming. I may have described some of this elsewhere, I can't remember at this point. I knew this guy for many years and had no clue as to what his "politics" were all about. I didn't care, and viewed that as part of a healthy sponsor-sponsee relationship. He started in with all this Bush-bashing in late 2007 and really ramped it up when the usurper came onto the scene. (He bought in heavily to all that "hope and change" garbage.) I told him several times that I didn't agree with any of that and didn't want it to be a part of the relationship. However, I have to assume that he "forgot" about that and always gleefully got caught up with the excitement of the rest of the koolaid drinkers and just kept it going and going. That is when I started the process of looking for another sponsor (which continues through this day) and began to realize that virtually everyone that I knew in AA was a koolaid drinker. That may be surprising to many, but if you saw how "blue" this area was, it wouldn't be shocking.
So, although I am always ready to see my part in things and act accordingly, I can't take the blame for bringing politics into that relationship. I tried my best to not let it interfere for as long as I could. What I do see as my part in this particular mess, is that I waited so long to act. This "problem" had been going on for almost 2 years at this point, I should have taken action sooner. In my own mind I always knew better than to ever allow politics, specific business items, or even too much "socializing" to creep into a sponsor-sponsee relationship, my mistake was thinking that it was more of a universal tenet. So yes, I know that I have to be willing to forgive my former sponsor for his mistakes in this aspect, and I do. However, I can never excuse that behavior and know better (now) that I do not ever have to tolerate it.
The business of life is fraught with distractions and that is very dangerous to FOB's, particularly when you've got some sobriety time under your belt. There are things of importance that surpass politics, and the maintenance of your spiritual condition is way up at the top of the list.
Yes, I fell into the "my life got better before I did" trap before I went out. The maintenance of my spiritual condition is at the TOP of my list daily. I couldn't agree with you more!
If you can honestly say that politics is not interfering with your serenity then I'm sure you can just deal with things as they are. But frankly, based on your post, it sounds to me like you're getting a bit distracted. Try refocusing. Make amends with your sponsor for getting off-track. Maybe take a breather from FR altogether - because FR is primarly a one-sided venue and it tends towards grandstanding the conservative side of things (not that there's anything wrong with that). However, this type of environment/pep-rally is not the place to find serenity.
As I noted above, I definitely went through a stage where my serenity was being interfered with big time! And at that point, even though being on FR probably got my blood boiling a bit more than I should have allowed it to, the benefits of making me feel a part of a larger community of like-minded and equally dedicated fellow patriots outweighed the negative aspects. Your point is well taken though (and appreciated!) and I have actually had to "wean" myself off of time spent on FR lately (why it is taking me so long to be courteous enough to reply to the many folks that cared enough to read my thread and respond!). I need to get back to work now, but wanted to spend the time to get through this thread before it became later than it has. I am glad that I have done this today though, or I wouldn't have come across your post!
Peace be with you, thanks for listening.
May it be with you as well, and THANK YOU for reading and responding!
I agree wholeheartedly with your comment.
Perhaps I wasn't clear in the intent of my original comment, so let me repeat it, and hopefully add some clarification:
"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."
I should have indicated that I was talking about your interactions with the liberals, that were separate from the AA meetings. I was attempting to say that an approach similar to an AA testimonial approach might be useful in the political discussions.
Hope I did better this time. Your reliance on the Lord is on the mark. I ask him regularly to give me the strength and wisdom to serve and obey him.
Typing that last paragraph reminded me of one of our Pastor's jokes: An individual with a problem in being patient and letting the Lord lead him was frustrated about something not going his way, so he prayed: "Lord, please give me patience .... Right NOW!"
May the Lord bless you and your family.
Thank you very much trisham!
Based on your being active for 22 years in AA and being a conservative, I wonder if you could weigh in (when you have the time) on the particular root issue/concern that I am currently seeing in AA. (I realize that the issues that I had with that particular sponsor and meeting are very localized issues that just need to be dealt with via separation. I assume that you don't browbeat your liberal sponsees over political issues, I would further assume that you don't bring it up at all, and discourage it from them as well.)
The core issue that I am struggling with now has to do with the thinking and motivation behind those few phrases that are so often used (at least around here):
- "my best thinking got me here..."
- "don't re-join the debating society..."
- be very afraid of "your/my stinking thinking"
While I can see appropriate applications of these guideposts, as I'm sure that most reasonable people can (AAs or not), I have been observing a lot of blind adherence to these "principals" to the detriment of people accepting responsibility for their lives (especially in terms of being a good citizen). Have you seen any evidence of this around you over the years? What are your thoughts about this?
As I mentioned in the thread starter, I truly believe that when you combine the above with:
- people feeling very bad/guilty about their past acts
- people very sincerely wanting to make changes a live a better life (and do good)
- the fact that our public education system and state-controlled media constantly churns out the message that "liberals/democrats = GOOD, want to help people, especially the under-served... -and- Conservatives/Republicans = BAD, greedy evil forces that want to help the rich and hurt the poor"
You end up with a lot of people that will just blindly support leftist, Statist candidates and public policy. In my view it is almost inevitable.
I personally take it as a strong given that the only hope that we (as a Country) have that things can get turned around fast (via the ballot box) is that a large enough number of people throughout the Country will need to wake up. Waking up entails thinking that maybe there are alternative sources and news, data, and information. It further requires them to act upon that "thought" and either read what someone gives to them with an open mind, or make the effort to find it themselves. Then it requires them to actually think about what they have discovered, and decide how that contrasts with what they have previously considered to be "truth."
Very often the next step is that the person must be willing to "re-join the debating society" within the form an internal debate. We all need to go through this step before we are willing to engage in the discussions ("debate") with others.
I guess that I can't help being so totally blown away by my former sponsor's reaction and response (even though it was a week ago!). In particular when I asked him why he was unwilling to even entertain the thought that the garbage that he was feeding himself in the guise of "news and information" may not be telling him the complete story, his immediate reply was "my stinking thinking got me here..." I immediately responded, "You've been sober for over 25 years at this point. It is "OK" to think again! What are you so afraid of?" He was silent for quite a bit of time (a rather awkward point in the conversation!), and then just muttered some more AA lingo and changed the conversation. I am simply stunned by that, and believe that it is very emblematic of a real core problem.
THanks again, interested in your take on the above as time permits!
Now that I understand what you were saying, I can comment on that. Like I said earlier, and very much believe in, I tried to avoid discussing any of this stuff with people in and around AA. I truly believe that our primary nexus with other AAs is the "desire to stop drinking." I found that extending conversations and interactions too far afield from that requires one to tread cautiously. So I've never really engaged any of them in that type of "testimonial" (or using the AA term "qualification") type discussion. However, I can relate the results of the few attempts that I did have when I engaged with a few guys while we were out hiking and this nonsense cropped up.
Each time that I simply asked them "why do you think zero is what is right for our Country?" the response was always "are you RACIST?" "are you GREEDY?" That was basically the level of the dialogue. In fact, now that I am thinking about this, I can recall one time when my "sponsor" threatened (he was apparently "kidding around" but I still think it was fairly obnoxious) to call one of our mutual friends from the program (who happens to be a black guy) and tell him "how RACIST you are and that you don't support his guy..." Hahaha, yuck yuck yuck.... Actually when I look back at that now, I could kick myself for not immediately looking for a new sponsor at that point!
Your reliance on the Lord is on the mark. I ask him regularly to give me the strength and wisdom to serve and obey him.
Dittos to that, and I do as well, daily!
Thanks again Colonel for all of your kind thoughts and willingness to share them!
The main purpose of the program of AA is to enable us to become helpful and useful members of society. That means we rejoin the world around us, all of it, not just our enclave of fellow alcoholics. Of course, how much we choose to participate is voluntary.
My other observation is that currently we seem to be expecting a drastic and unwelcome change in our country. There are plenty of bothersome signs, but I think our increased access to news and opinion has warped our sense of reality. Our we on a dangerous path? Certainly, and I was pretty confused by the 2006 & 2008 elections. I couldn't imagine that there were so many imbeciles voting for candidates who are destroying the fabric of our society. I thought we were irreversibly doomed. But then the Tea Party movement arose and we see that the Democrats are having real trouble in popular opinion polls and in governing. We need to be careful about writing our epitaph too soon.
It appears that many of our fellow AA's are among the group that voted for these Democrats. In my case, I simply dismiss this as evidence of a sickness. One thing that has baffled me for a while is that it's common for us to describe insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Yet, many of our fellows looks at liberal policies and utterly fail to apply that wisdom to it.
Many people in AA and outside of AA are unwilling or unable to grasp the concept that when you do something for someone, you deprive them of the ability to learn how to do it themselves. But that is the liberal model of government assistance. We recognize it as a addictive relationship. Yet others do not see it.
Your real challenge is to learn to live among people who are unable to look beyond the simple adages. In AA, slogans are common and repeated over and over. In a way, independent thought is discouraged. That seems to be another paradox of AA. We let people develop their own conception of God, yet we chastise them for thinking differently from the rest of the group in other matters. Don't let this bother you a bit. Keep thinking on your own, but use the 12 steps as your framework. Step 11 is among the most powerful steps, as it calls for as much development as you dare.
I have to admit that I am a bit of a lone wolf on many AA matters. I am active in my group and service, and have a small group of regular friends. But I am not a big part of the local AA fellowship scene. Nor am I active in local politics. That's my choice, however, not a pillar of my recovery. I have my family and my church and plenty of hobbies to keep me engaged beyond my AA life. Wear the world as a loose garment is the advice from St. Francis, and it is far more useful than most of the pithy slogans heard around the tables.
Keep in touch.
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