The Fifth Tradition and Primary Purpose – Traditions Workshop – Part 4 of 10 – Local AA Speakers

Good evening, my name is Herb and I'm an alcoholic. Welcome to our Twelve Traditions Workshop. Please join me in the prayer for an open mind. God, please set aside everything that I think I know about myself, my brokenness, the twelve traditions, and you for an opened mind and a new experience with myself, my brokeness, the 12 traditions, and especially you this is the forward to the pamphlet a a tradition how it developed by bill wilson published in 1955 how shall we aas best preserve our unity when an alcoholic applies the 12 steps of our recovery program to his personal life his disintegration stops and his unification begins. The power which now holds him together in one piece overcomes those forces which had rent him apart. Exactly the same principle applies to each AA group and to Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole. So long as the ties which bind us together prove far stronger then those forces which would divide us if they could, all will be well. We shall be secure as a movement. Our essential unity will remain a certainty. May we never forget that without permanent unity we can offer little lasting relief to those scores of thousands yet to join us in their quest for freedom. It is the purpose of this workshop to review and discuss each of the Twelve Traditions so we may better understand and apply them to our fellowship and also to our personal lives. Please join me in a few minutes of meditation on that purpose, on that intent. Please join with me in the serenity prayer. God, grant me the serENITY to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can't, and the wisdom to know the difference. We are here to talk about our second legacy, unity. And to review the Twelve Traditions, crosstalk is allowed in a loving and supportive manner to be informed and helpful are our only goals. I can't tell you how beneficial this workshop process has been for me renewing my information, certainly, but renewing my spirit about the Twelve Traditions and the spiritual principles that they represent. And so I have some notes from my preparation, some things that just came to me, or some thingsthat I read and thought that they would be useful as sort of setting up a context for tonight's Fifth Tradition. and the short form of the tradition is each group has but one primary purpose to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers the long form which I've read many times and I've heard many times and I studied many times it just popped for me this time because it says each alcoholics anonymous group ought to be a spiritual entity I hope you hear that the group is a spiritual Entity having but one primary purpose that of carrying its message to the alcoholic who still suffers so I looked up the word purpose that was one of the assignments and I thought it would be good to capture that now it will we'll visit it again as part of the questions purpose the end for which an effort is expended what outcome do we want from the activities that we're going to employ the resources that we're going to use what what is the outcome that we want and it's a wonderful way to plan your day certainly but probably your life what outcome do you want in terms of spiritual entity if in fact a group is a spiritual entity then perhaps play with this it has a spiritual message really most of the meetings but some of them and then we've compared all along we've compared the steps to the traditions and sometimes even the specific step to the corresponding tradition the literature i'm reading seems to do that sometimes it's a little bit of a stretch but it's always thought provoking the fifth step reveals the exact nature of our wrongs and the fifth tradition reveals the exact nature of our purpose perhaps our talents reveal our vocation and purpose who we are is our destiny our talents reveal a message that we are in fact communicating or our invited challenge to communicate. Our talents indicate the intended audience. I think that's really clear when we talk about one alcoholic talking to another alcoholic. Our talent as having recovered makes us uniquely equipped to talk to another alcoholic and be able to have some identification. And of course we've given out a distribution thing that had what we are invited to sacrifice with each of the traditions and take actions on. So are we invited to sacrificed our complacency for compassion, complacency for compassion and are we more inclined to receive comfort rather than give comfort along the spirit of the saint francis prayer in meditation some time ago a phrase came to me when i was thinking about a particular aspect of the book that i was writing my second book And I actually have this phrase in there. The inclination is the invitation. Think about that. The inclilation, the inclination that you have as a person may be the invitation for your vocare to be called, your vocation or at least your avocare, your hobby, your passion. and then given that this is the primary purpose to carry the message perhaps our responsibility is to have a message no no no actually as I'm thinking about it we have a mess every one of us has a message and we communicate it are you happy with the message that you are communicating yeah really huh think about it in a different context I said we're all contagious yeah invited to have a message invited to carry a message and in the spirit again of st. Francis invited to be a message so just some thoughts for us to start and let's go to the assignment So, we'll take a look at Bill's Language of the Heart. Oh, by the way, we have now a nice supply of Language of the Heart if you don't have it, I encourage you to have it, not only for the workshop, I was asked prior to this workshop would it be a book that we should have even if we're beyond the workshop and clearly I said, of course, But the reason I said it is because it's general service office literature. And I personally believe that if our general service, that's worldwide general service officer, decides to put something together and in print and they take the time and our resources to do that, it's probably a good idea that we be at least familiar with it. And so actually based on this workshop and that thought, I'm recommitting to read in the next three months those three books, Dr. Bob and the Good Old Timers, A.A. Comes of Age, and Language of the Heart because I know it will re-center me in our history so that we can start out the new workshop with a renewed vigor about some of our history and maybe even remember some of it. all right so uh page 82 is tradition five and you know the drill we look at each page there are two pages here half a page apiece and we take a look at it and ask are there any highlights on that page or any questions or any experiences that anybody would like to share with what that spade that page stimulates george and george is in compliance thank you trying to set an example the second paragraph says a tremendous responsibility has descended upon us all an obligation so great that it amounts to a sacred trust And that's to help the suffering alcoholic, you know, to carry the message, which it describes further on. Yeah. It's a sacred trust because it says it's a life and death errand, this recovery process. It's not about quality of life, although it is, of course, but fundamentally it's about life itself. we dare not he says we cannot we dare not I mean I've never heard Bill so directive so single-minded here we cannot we dare not ever be diverted from our primary purpose I love the line in the first paragraph which reflects some of the information that we got last time in the fourth tradition where it said the good may be the enemy of the best and this says did you just turn it down i don't know is that still working all right okay uh to do one thing supremely well than many things badly In other words, there's only so much time and energy. And if we try to do too much, we don't do anything as deeply or as well as we possibly could. Now maybe that's just the outcome that you want. I work with somebody who said 80% of getting the details right is good enough for him. Makes me shudder. But he really meant it. I mean, he's a senior person in the organization. And for him, details were just not that important as long as the big picture. And so, you know, I honor that. It's not a way I could function. I pay attention to 100% detail. I may not get it 100%, but that's what I pay intention to. All right. Please, Alex. If you think you're going to raise your hand, it might be good to kind of like get up and go for it. There we go. Nobody can run like you, though, right? When you were just mentioning that details, I was surprised to find out that I was a perfectionist because my house was a mess and everything was kind of chaotic. I was late for things. and then it turned out that the reason why my house was a mess is because i get so perfectionistic and so caught in all the details that i'd never finish anything because i'd get distracted so i had to learn a saying which was um it's better to do if it's worth doing it's worth doing wrong which is if it'S WORTH DOING IT'S WORST DOING WRONG which is counterintuitive for me yep but it's been helping in my recovery to take it one piece at a time and not to do everything perfectly but do the very best in that moment yeah so anyway so it's just like mark twain said i never learned from mistakes i never made so it'S THE SAME KIND OF THING AND PERFECTIONISM WILL CREATE UH PARALYSIS BECAUSE YOU WANT TO YOU WANNA DO IT PERFECTLY YOU KNOW YOU CAN'T SO WHY start yeah all right please d yeah uh dave addict and uh in my business we have a lot of design reviews and during the design reviews we say we're 50 of the way done we're 70 of the way done or 90 of the weight on and we never say that we're 100 of the way done because even 10 minutes before launch we were still fussing with some of the details software yeah well and that's the same if anybody's a writer here uh you'll write something and you'll be really happy with it you'll go back tomorrow and you start changing it all right and then you'll back the next day you'll start changing is again because every time you get a little bit of an insight or a little bit of a, or your mood changes. Yeah, ours are even predefined. And preliminary design review, we expect we're only going to be 50% of the way done. Yeah, yeah. Sounds rigorous. Tom Alcoholic. Hi, Tom. I hate to interject, but I have a bone to pick with this concept that we talk about. Which concept? This idea of perfectionism. And I think a lot of us are confused between uh being neurotic and having a neurosis and being completely uh focused to the point of being mentally ill yeah and we uh confuse that somehow with this notion of being perfectionist i think it's interesting your colleague that had the 80 rule yeah his theory was probably if you focus on 100 you're never gonna get anything done yeah so just yeah just yeah i just so don't agree with that yeah well i i focus on getting a hundred percent correct and i get a lot done now i'm at the 98 level but my work is really good oh and i bet you're an exceptional man absolutely but i think for the rest yeah but this other guy owns the company so i mean really and if he's happy with that hey and he's getting a lot down yeah but i think for us plebeians down here as bottom feeders i think it's it's unhealthy to somehow prance around yeah thinking that i'm a perfectionist no no in reality i'm so neurotic and so sick and so bent and twisted that my life is chaos and a complete utter wreck and i go to a meetings and profess how aren't we all perfectionists oh and i think that's a really dangerous twisted warped point of view yeah and like i said when of got up here i have a bone an axe to grind well you obviously have a strong feeling about this verging on a resentment so you have some work to do that's all tom it's wonderful we discover new things but i actually agree that perfectionism is not something to be achieved it is in fact a declaration that i'm neurotic i know i actually agreed that anybody who says that i am a perfectionist and really means it if they really understand what that means and means it probably that they're not balanced they're compulsive obsessive in some fashion and they probably need to do some work with it yeah exactly yeah what so a page 83 do we have any highlights on that hi i'm anastasia hi and it's going on um so on page 83 of this subtle vintage so it's you know building up so i'm just kind of going right to it but of this subtle vintage, maybe never drink too deeply. May we never forget that we live by the grace of God on borrowed time. That anonymity is better than acclaim. That for us as a movement, poverty is better then wealth. I just think it's profound and the page prior to that, I think that goes in conjunction is this whole idea of should our present success continue? I like that he used the word should. Because it's possible that it won't and it can't if we actually don't stay present to this idea of mastering the purpose of our own recovery as well as to demonstrate and look for the opportunity of service as an attraction versus a promotion. and should we actually be successful in that the humility that comes with it the responsibility that comes with it I just found it very profound how he languaged it on page 83 the borrowed time and that we're living by grace so we're certainly not doing it on our own and that it is subtle the whole process of recovery because at any given point as we talk about our character defects you know it's not if it shows up it's when it shows up and that's the vigilance in which I think the responsibility of this tradition is talking about yeah we live by the grace of God anonymity is better than a claim he practiced that and you read his history you know that he really shunned the kind of national international recognition that he was offered and he turned it down and then one of the brilliance of the movement was its commitment to poverty all right meaning that as an individual you can't contribute to a a unless you're an alcoholic and you can contribute any more than $3,000 a year and they have in fact had wills read that have bequeathed to them anywhere from $100,000 to $1 million from the will and they had to send the check back because they don't receive money except from individuals who are alcoholic and no more than $3,000 a year because they know that money would corrupt the deal. All right? Yeah. And that was the insight that Rockefeller had way back when when Bill was thinking he was going to get all that thousands of dollars from the dinner of the gathering of the millionaires that Rockefeller put together. And Rockefeller ended the dinner by saying, oh, by the way, boys, put away your checkbooks. Money's going to spoil this thing. Bill just got real depressed. A primary spiritual aim carries... Oh, hi, Tommy. I didn't see it. Sorry. No, no, no. It's very interesting. I heard a talk that Bill gave in 1954 in Texas the other day and he talked about that experience with the Rockefellers and apparently over about a five year period they did end up receiving about $15,000. Maybe even more, yeah. Yeah, but they got doled and Rockefeller actually sat down and wrote letters to all the bankers who attended one of those particular functions where he was so poignant in talking about how money might spoil his thing. And he actually took time out of his busy entrepreneurial life and wrote personal letters to these bankers, who sent small sums for... Well, he said in the letter that he was going to contribute $5,000. that's right and so bill knew that if the people who were getting the letter saw that rockefeller was going to contribute 5 000 with his billions they only had to give 50. that's right but it's interesting because he had the foresight to see that this movement could die on the vine yeah and he breathed just enough life into it to keep it moving yeah uh but he did uh put a few bucks forth but more importantly he i think he gave of himself yeah in order and arranging these uh meetings there were several meetings and he wrote the letters and he was really personally involved and and uh really put himself out there to uh help uh alcoholics well and as paul harvey would say and the rest of the story um bill and bob kept exact records of the money they received from the rockefellers and the other people and returned it once the proceeds of the book began to come in and they paid back all the debt all the money that they had been given by non-alcoholics pretty impressive primary spiritual aim of aa carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers alcoholism i want to go back to the comments about neurotic lest we leave that hanging the way i think it was left hanging you know it's on a scale of one to ten and i've mentioned to you in in my prior workshop that as a recovering narcissist, I was originally deemed by my psychologist an eight on a scale of one to ten, 25-30 years ago. And his comment was, the people who are 10 are in prison. All right? Yeah, yeah. So he was trying to get my attention, which he did. but recently a couple years ago i asked him dr allenberger uh so what does it look like now and he said probably two two and a half three so there's been an incredible improvement but not a full recovery all right and so that narcissism is it's a dsm label all right it's definitely more maybe even more than neurotic but um there is mental illness in i believe all people and a certain amount of neurosis in all people but that it would be like a scalable 1 to 10 type thing in terms of severity alright so I just needed to clear that up in case anybody was feeling bad about maybe being neurotic neurotics anonymous is us right all right all it so the 12 and 12 tradition 5 in the 12 and 12 starts on page 150 there are four pages let's take a look at the first page anybody want to comment on highlights on the first page well the only highlight i have is that uh again shoemaker stick to thy last you know what that oh jason did you want to make comment about what i'm making comment on yeah well then go ahead um it's just a question jason alcoholic i don't know what the heck that means well that's what i was going to just yeah all right so he's saying he's this is a kind of a quote from his times using the language that was prevalent in a day where there were people who were masters at different technical skills and they had apprentices that the master would train and so this is a shoemaker kind of one of the wisdom sayings alas there's something like the foot made of wood that they form the shoe around right so in the shoemaker of olden you may have we have one in our neighborhood actually he's from the old country whatever country that is and he has created yeah he's created this magnificent place where he does absolutely fabulous work in terms of making shoes or repairing shoes but he has a last which is as we pointed out that it is something that fits into the shoe that they can then work on please justin just an alcoholic you know i read this uh this weekend and then um i started thinking like this is the heart of of the matter he stuck it in the middle because it was so important you know that this is really what aa is all about yeah and the only thing it's all about it's not about anything but helping others yeah oh i mean i agree it's the 12th step isn't it having had a spiritual awakening we tried to carry this message to alcoholics in the step workshop i challenged us to answer so what's the message i'm going to ask you here he says each group has but one primary purpose to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers so what is the message of the group that's not a question necessarily but you because you had something else to come up with well the message tothe group is that we have an answer to alcoholism we have a solution. That's the message. But what I'm commenting on here is not anything specific, but Bill is just very powerful here in saying how important it is, how much of a mission it must be for us to help others, to give them the benefit of our experience in recovery, and that it's just absolutely necessary. He's very powerful in how he expresses this, you know, with the analogy to doctors who are one of the most highly regarded groups in society presumably yeah well in fact listen to the language that he uses just as firmly bound by obligation are the members of alcoholics anonymous who have demonstrated that they can help problem drinkers as others seldom can i mean that's as much of a directive as i've seen bill give where he's usually much softer than that and um and george pointed out uh in terms of the answer to the question that the group's message is that we literally have a way out from the problem all right we have a solution to your problem in the same way the steps indicate that the message i believe in the 12th step is a spiritual awakening the message of the group is much broader it's like we have a solution to the problem of your drinking it happens to be a spiritual awakening which means that you find god but they don't even get to that level they're just saying we have away out from the problem and the misery. You don't necessarily know what we have and therefore you don't know whether you want it or not. What you're very convinced of when you're first in coming to a meeting is that you don' t want what you have. That's why you're there. All right, the next page 151. Anybody have any highlights or comments on that page? Hi, Kim, Al-Anon. Hi, Tim. There is another reason for the singleness of purpose. It is the great paradox of AA that we know we can seldom keep the precious gift of sobriety unless we give it away. I've been having such an experience with these traditions and actually it's the experience of really working the steps Because until I work the steps in myself, I can't really have that primary purpose. I have to get out of myself first, and I've been having that experience. But in Al-Anon, you know, our primary purpose is that we help families of alcoholics. And so I had this experience the other day, and what it does for me is after a meeting, there was a woman who didn't get to share. And so I went over to her and I said, do you want to share? And she said yes. And so she shared and I felt her pain as I was the newcomer too. And I felt in that moment my primary purpose was just to listen to her. Just to let her say it out loud and to listen for it. You know, and not watch myself in my defects of let me say the right thing. Let me enable. Let me pick a slogan. Let me let me feel good about making you feel good, you know And it was just I had just sat there in the moment I was having my own 12-step experience But I was listening to her and she was just in a lot of pain but it is that mirror image because when I when I When I greet someone who's in pain I that's who I used to be so I can go right back to that day And so it is kind of unification of that experience of sharing our experience strength and hope and the primary purpose is really helping me because there's really nothing for me to do except share my experience and hope yeah that's what and ensure it that in that case by just listening all right and you know we're really good animals at the basic level human beings are really good animals and they have a sense when you're listening. And they have a sense, when you are listening from your experience, all right? And I'm reading some material now on attachment theory in psychotherapy. It's amazing, allright, the kind of research that's been done about our ability to perceive in an unconscious way all the stimuli around us that's not verbal, that's conscious. We're just receiving the message at a cellular level. And this is research now. And it's actually really startling. It's motivated me now to know more about what goes on in the brain, actually. So you'll be getting more of that next year. The only thing that matters is that he is an alcoholic who has found a key to sobriety. And then he says, these legacies of suffering and recovery, legacies of suffering and recovery. Very few people find a spiritual life unless they have in fact had some type of suffering. and they are looking for a solution. Please. Bonnie, alcoholic? I was going to tie the last reading along with this one. In the center of the grapevine reading, it talks about our singleness and purpose and that eventually society will think us able to cure the world. Oh, yes. And in here it talks then more singly about the alcoholic. To the newcomer, our ability to help a newcomer in no way depends upon his learning, his eloquence, or any special individual skill. The only thing that matters is that he is an alcoholic and has found a key to sobriety. And in maintaining that primary purpose and trying to make sure that others are able to relate to people with similar problems, A lot of other 12-step programs have come up. And I'm finding that in Alcoholics Anonymous, there isn't always that singleness of purpose. If I go to an Al-Anon meeting, I can't say that I'm an alcoholic. If I Go to an NA meeting, I can say I'm a alcoholic. But many people come into AA and bring all their other issues, and there seems to be a watering down to that singliness of purpose Yeah, there's a couple... Oh, what do they call them? circuit speakers i've heard talk about the there is no alcoholic and uh addict alcoholic and food addict alcoholic sex addict your point it's that i'm an alcoholic if i'm in a meeting of alcoholics anonymous i'm unalcoholic if and i spent six months with the alanons that when i was about 10 years because i knew i needed some more information and some of that wisdom that they had and boy right away when i went in the meeting because they it was a local meeting and they knew who i was they made it really clear you know you don't talk about your alcoholism or that that fellowship all right as your point is and at first i thought don't you know who i am And actually, they did know who I was. That's why they warned me. But your point is so valid in terms of potentially watering it down. You can believe anything that you want, and you can say about yourself anything thatyou want, but respect the culture and the traditions of the meeting. Please. um i'm sarah and i'm a food addict hi sarah and i i could use a little bit of help about that because it seems to me that that's putting an awful lot of emphasis on the substance yes it is rather than on the disease that we have a common disease do we well if cravings I mean I think a lot of the 12-step programs are mine is based on that when we take in a certain substance it with me it's flour and sugar which basically have a common reaction yes craving an obsession and the dynamics of the disease are the same But the substance that's involved is different, right? But how important is this apparently pretty important? Okay, but that's why I'm asking why I Mean I would even go so far as to say. I mean, I'm not saying that Cancer doctors should come into an AA meeting and talk about how their consciences you know they did but I I I don't know that I agree with this part where it's talking about... Well, you don't have to. That if a cancer doctor doesn't follow his path and is self-seeking instead, that he's going to suffer because I think he's gonna suffer in the same way that we suffer. He's gonna be disconnected from God. and he's going to have the consequences of self-centeredness in his life. So I just, you know, I don't... What happened to the Washingtonians? But didn't they go in a different, totally different direction? Yeah, they wanted to solve other problems than alcohol. They wanted to resolve slavery. they wanted to solve women's rights okay that's but that's different that's like in a different ballpark i think it's about identification well i yeah i think you couldn't identify with oh okay you made your point okay thank you kim hopeful alcoholic um along the lines of what that lady was saying a couple of months ago I was at a meeting in my home group and it's part of a group and the girl identified as an addict yep and I stopped her and I'd already discussed with people who know the tradition better than I do about this I said should I pull her aside did they go no stop her in the meeting you pull her side you're making it personal this is a meeting thing and I doctor and she went I said this is A Meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and it says in the format only alcoholics can participate and so it's an open meeting an open meaning got it the meeting exploded this is a very important issue I don't know no wait wait let's let's just let let's not jump out let's have hands rather than our anarchy so so so the meeting exploded I'm the devil I don' care if you identify as an alcoholic mass murderer but if you're gonna speak at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous I want to hear the word alcoholic in your identification so everybody went nuts boom boom boom they're going to take a vote on changing the format this that see that's the group conscience that's very valid as I say it's a meeting in a larger group they started calling their sponsors and everybody told them the consequences of what they were about to do yeah if they change the format to allow non-alcoholics to speak in the meeting it's no longer a meeting of alcoholics anonymous they are no longer part of the group well i don't know whether that's true or not because the tradition says that the group is autonomous and they can make up a decision as to how they want to run their meeting but what i'm saying is that meeting was part of a larger group oh i see if they did what they want To do they would no longer be part of that group oh i understand that if you read problems other than alcohol yes pamphlet yes bill states that a meeting of aa that allows for example alanaz to speak yes it's no longer meeting of aaa and an alan on meeting that allows a members to speak is no longer as an a member right they're not in either one of their directories they're not listed they can they're fine do you know double winner meetings yeah but you will not find them in either directory all right so this is and this is with the consequences of their decision this is really an important issue and i would like to have lots of conversation about it let's have respect for the conversation and the principle in the traditions all right as we express ourselves and i'm going to restate the issue as i understood it so i want to be really clear this is a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous it's an open meeting so that anybody can go to the meeting but the meetings culture is that only alcoholics who meant who stake them themselves as an alcoholic can share that's the can't participate that's see format of the media all right so let's we can have conversation about that in any way you'd like to. Please. I think Jason, did you have an issue here with him? No. I want to stay on this subject. Bonnie? I don't know. I don' t want to learn much and I have to gauze my mind because I have people. So when I first got sober I went to a different 12 step program but one night I couldn't find a meeting of that 12 step program so i went to a woman a a meeting and when i said hi i'm bonnie i'm an addict they made me leave the meeting now i was first sober that could have been enough for me to go out so i really that's your problem sorry wait sorry not finished yep okay let me finish If it's an open meeting, that means anybody with an addict or narcotic can go to the meeting. That's correct. I go to an AA meeting that's an Open Meeting and it's never been part of our group conscience that if you aren't identifying as an AA only, that you can't participate. That's your meeting. Our meeting. Yeah, it's good. So it's a meeting by meeting thing, not this is the rule. No, no, no. If you listen to him, what he's saying, and you've got yourself wound up around the axle, he's, he's seeing that exactly. This is the culture of their meeting that only AA's share. That's the, that's the meetings called group conscience. Right. And so. But that's not what I heard you say. I heard you say an open meeting of AA. You can go, but you can't participate. I didn't say that. Well, that's what I heard. Oh, I understand that's what you heard, but it's not what I said because. So the truth is then it's a meeting to meeting thing. Each meeting is autonomous and they can make up their own regulations as to how they want to run their meeting. Absolutely. But the point also here was made that this meeting is part of a larger group and if they change the format that disquals of qualifies them from being in the larger group there's just implications to it there's no rules or requirements there's the tradition uh based on experience that guides each group but there are implications for each group's actions that's all yeah george is going to pass the basket and we're really light in attendance and we came very close to not making rent this last time. So just remember to subsidize this in whatever way you can. Thank you. Jason. Jason, alcoholic. Okay, for question five in a nutshell, A, B, and C, that's what I got out of this work. I'm going, oh, my primary purpose for any group, even like family and friends, Like if I'm going to, obviously an AA meeting, the primary purpose is to carry the message and be there, you know. And share with any strength and hope and whatever I got. But like if I am going to a family reunion, that's the purpose in that group. Yes. And that's why I am there for my family, for the family reunion. If I am go to a birthday party for a friend, it's the birthday party. Yes. And so when I wrote, one of my notes when I wrote in there was so interesting was to listen to the speaker and get the format of whatever meeting I'm in so I can abide by it. That's exactly right. And that realm that's how I behave and interact. The format will tell you the culture of the meeting. Yeah, and then am I willing to set aside myself to be a part of this whole? That's it. Yeah. It's really anyway. That'S it. Wow, look at him. He's on fire. Dang. Nicole Allenon? Hi, Nicole. As a newcomer, I had an experience around this. I was in an early... I'm just going to set this up by saying my very first meeting was at a convention and I met a lot of long-timers. That is not the case for a lot if you're a newcomers. of newcomers so I had very early direction but I still did things wrong and I hate to use that word but I was corrected and I was corrected in a couple of different ways that almost made me stop coming back so now what I try to do is I try see a newcomer as somebody who doesn't know and instead of saying whether they come from another 12-step program or not they're a newcomer in that 12-step program in that meeting and I try to I try to come with a little more compassion and let them just say what they need to say and then come with them after because my experience was I was in the middle of a share in the 15 minutes that they set aside for newcomers and somebody whispered to me in the middle my share that I was doing it wrong yeah And I I stopped. I didn't know what to do I just said thank you and and and really ended mid-sentence and Totally lost it after the meeting Fortunately, I had a sponsor to call but like I said, yeah, not everybody gets a sponsor in their first two weeks of program Yeah, and and but that also reinforces whatever message that you're going to deliver deliver it with compassion and respect and tolerance and in love and wanting to help absolutely thank you thank you Richard alcohol I Richard I see people around me falling asleep so I thought I'd throw a little real excitement when I was that early in my sobriety I did a lot of general service work and I was at a general service regional conference, and we were talking about changing some stuff in the big book. Are you flinching? And one of the things that's bothered me almost from the beginning is this very phrase, primary purpose. Well, if there's a primary purpose, there must be a secondary purpose. So I'm going to pose the question and then I'm going to tell you my experience. What's the secondary purpose? I'll just pose the question. And then what happened was as soon as I suggested that we should change the phrase primary purpose to only purpose, I got shouted down. Thank you. Your secondary purpose is to have fun. oh there you go i'm richard hi richard welcome richard uh when i first got sober um well i tried to get sober in the 70s i went to my first meeting i lived in hawaii and i was a full-blown drug addict in my mind i drank an awful lot but they asked me are you an alcoholic and i said oh god no yeah no way even though i brought two beers to the meeting yeah right and i had it out on the ledge and finished one during the break but no i am not an alcoholic but then i got sober in 1981 up until now and they they there was a mixed bag because we used to have a newcomer's table where you know you had tables back there for the newcomers it was like the meeting and then like the child's thanksgiving dinner over there you know and they would really you know kind of put in our head this is an alcoholics anonymous meeting this is this this is that but then a couple of uh the old-timers they would just say well bill and bob they both took drugs too it's right in the big book they took sedatives and now you know uh but what i wanted to say that the big change i've seen recently i go to a meeting where you have to have over 10 years to speak. A lot of newcomers come, and it upsets a lot of people, and people come back years later, I was so upset about this, but now I have 10 years and I can speak. It used to be for some reason, people went ballistic when somebody would not say they were an alcoholic. You know, I'm just listening, or they'd have them leave, and you know, It was a little skirmish. But lately, we did have a talk about it, and it was great. Last week, somebody said, the judge sent me here. I got a DUI. And a year ago, two years ago, they would have questioned them more. It's a little embarrassing, actually. But now, we just clap. Oh, you got a DEI. And everybody, they're like, oh, I guess I'm welcome. And it's kind of cool. it's very cool so by implication they're saying you have a problem with alcohol or at least you're beginning to experience something right and i like to if they're there and they say that and they're not sure they're an alcoholic i always like to share my experience and then at the very end say and i never had a dui you know just just lucky i guess but i've seen a change and i've seeing i i totally respect clancy when he talks about it boy when he he is so um convincing i mean his certainty could boil water when he talks about you're like yeah throw these guys out you know uh but i i wouldn't want to go to an aa meeting and listen to somebody talk about gambling for the from the podium for 15 minutes i have no clue what the hell he's talking about to me it's like stop throwing your money down you know right like like they should have said to you richard stop drinking yeah exactly yeah really and of course you would have listened to that and then i was just thinking well i go to a lot of different meetings we go to a cigar meeting where you know we it's right in the format it's our primary purpose to stop drinking although we smoked it should be actually i was juste thinking combination aa nicotine anonymous meeting rob i'm rob and i'm not an alcoholic i'm going to speak anyway so there I might maybe show a little bit different perspective on this question, which may be controversial, but I don't shy away from controversy. Because if we're talking about the fifth tradition, we're taking about the primary purpose to carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers or the addict, whatever type of meeting it happens to be. and you know instead of thinking about who gets to speak i like to look at what what are the what do you say and it seems to me out you know alcoholic non-alcoholic if if you're going to speak what you say should should carry the message should carry your message um so quite frankly i mean at my meetings when someone starts their pitch with i really needed a meeting tonight i really need to share i get a little bit uh i get a little nervous i get a little judgmental sure because then i hear i feel like i don't hear the message i want to yell at them this is not group therapy well that's right right yeah that's sort of what what i'm getting at um so so so yeah i mean i i think uh you know what i what i my understanding is uh um if we're there to i think i've totally lost my train of thought i don't know got nervous well you said you had something potentially controversial as well you don't find it controversial i guess i i guess you know my what i was kind of taught is you know when when i speak when i talk about the problem for a little bit right but then talk about if i have personal problems to talk about that's why i have a sponsor that's why i have a phone that's why i have fellows and their phone numbers and that's how i that's how i work yeah that's how i deal with that so yeah yeah fortunately for me in the first five years of my being in aa i did treat the group like group therapy and nobody corrected me and i was able to come back until i was ready to work the steps and have a change so that it was no longer group therapy oh now i remembered why i came up here when he said he it's been a long day he's my poster child i kind of remember when um also they would say they were really good back at that table um they would say that you know if people came and say i'm an alcoholic and i'm an addict it just gives you that little bit of separation i'm either better than you or worse than different you'll you'll not understand me because i did this and then also one guy used to say that's just like saying i'm from new york new New York New York you know it's just like you're from New York yeah I'm Dave Stevens I'm uh hi Dave how about drinking and driving going to jail alcoholic there you go I had to explain that to someone who told me I did not look like an alcoholic dude they must have needed glasses David probably probably and I just I just shared this with her but I have this business where record anonymous events and a couple it doesn't always involve substances my first group that i did a workshop for i recorded under earners anonymous and their thing is prosperity they tried to affect mine so i don't work with them anymore but i just did this past weekend record a clutterers anonymous event and this and i listened i listened and i just wanted to share one of the and i shared this with her one of the cute things i heard was that we are referred to as the beverage meetings which i thought was kind of cute yeah we're the beverage meetings so the beverage at the aa then yes just to put that out there it isn't always about substances yes and that's how they look at us that's fine thank you yeah thank you dave well let's continue with uh the 12 and 12 a very spirited wonderful dialogue up to the mic yep sorry yep page 152 page 151 anybody have any highlights on that bill's really telling a story there i'm sorry i had one i had one little thing on 151 remaining i hope this is more lighthearted than the last thing but but I'm Rob, yeah, still. But I notice Bill's writing about Dr. Silkworth, names him, and refers to him as the little doc. Now was he actually of slight stature? What is that referring to? Yeah, he was small. He was short. Just checking. Yeah, yeah. He was diminutive, right. Well, Bill was very tall, and so was Dr. Bob. Yeah, actually, that's right. all right 152 and 153 are really telling about a story here anybody want to talk about the story please Dave well Dave addict not alcoholic but not better than you where I really highlighted was when he was dubious do you really mean the only reason you're here is to try and help me and to try and help yourself you know I find in my outreach that it really helps me maintain my sobriety right rather than necessarily helping them but it just has been always rewarding to me i always walk away from a phone call or a meeting where i've talked to a newcomer feeling stronger in my sobriety yeah and and that's the paradox the spiritual paradox is like a coin again when i'm helping you i'm really helping myself and i actually know that when i help you i help myself so underneath my motivation for helping you is for me to get better all right no there's no conflict there it's just a nice dynamic that we become aware of and in fact one of the sayings in our 12-step fellowship is that you can't keep it unless you give it away and to the extent that you give het away it grows none of that makes any sense and yet it does experientially thanks Dave Jennifer and I'm sorry I like the the last full paragraph on 153 where he says finally he saw I wasn't attempting to change his religious views that I wanted him to find the grace in his own religion that would aid his recovery yeah well but what but keep in mind can we not do that Well, I don't understand it. We'll talk later on. But I love it when he confronts this guy. And he says, how come you're here? What's the angle for you? And the guy says, well, there really isn't any angle. And he said, give me the business. He says, well, he says, I think you're just a conceited Irishman who thinks he can run the whole show. I mean, it's likely very confrontive. Right. I love that part. So Bill had the ability to see the truth and to tell him the truth and risk hurting his feelings. Humility was the main key to his sobriety. John? That was what I was going to say. Oh, right. All right there. humility was the main key to his sobriety that is he saw the truth of it and he was willing to express the truth okay so let's go to the um illustrated now there's a lot of cartoons on it of course let's see On the whole thing, except there's some paragraphs there on the right-hand side. Are there any highlights that anybody would like to talk about? George Barrell, addicted to alcohol. It says, the business of staying sober must have top priority. If we fail at that, we can't succeed at anything else. The fifth tradition tells us that groups should remember their one primary purpose, which is to help people to succeed at sobriety. But so the individual has to succeed in order to � an individual has to stay sober in order to succeed the rest of life. The group must help people get sober in order to be a success. I also want to comment there's, you know, on the cartoon, I mean, there's a sailor leaving his girlfriend and he's just gotten back from leave and my God, how committed can you be? That's right. Yeah, exactly. Nicole. Nicole Al-Anon. So I really, even as an Al-A-Non and I'm not practicing sobriety because I don't have to. That was a joke by the way. keep your day job obviously I know my sobriety just sucks way worse it's not just a substance so anyways where I love this where it's like the happy guy with all the sad guys I'm responsible when anyone anywhere reaches out for help I want the hand of a always to be there and for that I'm responsible this I have my entire week has been nothing but tradition five with my family I had a there was a tragedy in my family and it's one of those that can either tear the family apart or bring the family closer together and And fortunately for me, I have the steps up to Tradition 5 now. And the singleness of purpose was basically me without lecturing and without saying you have to do this, you have to do that, you can't do that. You have to go through this, but my entire family through the wake of this tragedy was like, well, why don't we try what Nicole does? We'll just all go to Al-Anon. Wow. And that was their solution. I mean they haven't they haven' done it yet, but that's their conversation through this and Gas up the bus It's It's been really hard Because through this everybody is working really hard to try and save this one person And I'm the only one who's making continuous calls asking, how are you today? And separating them as individuals. And that's what this looked like to me. Yeah, truly helpful. Thank you. Yeah, and we posed the question early on in the workshop tonight about what the message is. And somebody made reference to it. And quite frankly, it's here in the literature. This literature is put out by General Service, and in the fourth paragraph, the very last sentence, full sentence, through the personal experiences of its members, it is qualified to carry only one message, how an alcoholic can recover in AA. See, there's the message of the group, of the meeting. It may not be the message of the 12th step, which I interpret differently, but here the reinforcement is that the meeting message, if it's a healthy meeting, is how can you recover, if its an AA meeting from alcohol, if if it's an Al-Anon meeting from whatever they term, the appropriate word, or in your own particular fellowships. Tom. Tom Alcolic. It's interesting how as individuals, obviously we evolve. This notion of responsibility, you know, I do a lot of jail panels. I got sucked into doing a secretary of meeting now. And I'm 17 years sober, and that's a pretty good run. I mean, a lot of us are in this thing for the long haul. And this idea that I help you because I benefit. Like we go into jail and, oh, the only reason I'm here, I really don't care about you. I'm hier because I need to stay sober, and that's why I'm her. And I'm an inmate sitting in the back row thinking, if I get close enough to you, buddy, I'm going to stick this pencil right in your eye. Right, right, right. Because I don't think that's what's really happening at all. And I think over the long haul, we transition from this notion that I help you because I benefit to a notion of responsibility and that we do the right thing because it's the right thing to do. And over the Long Haul, I think that's really more what we're talking about here. Well, I believe it's an organic growth. And there's even a third stage beyond that where we're doing it because in fact, it's the only thing that we're drawn to do. Because organically we've transformed to a place where we really mean it. We care for one another. It's no longer work. It is no longer even an intention, it's a way of life. Exactly. Thank you, Tom. Hi, Doris Alcojo. Hi Doris, you can turn the mic down a little bit. I love the responsibility pledge, it is so amazing. And some sponsors how they are so perfect to really punch you in the gut and awaken you and I'm doing time I mean Amsterdam in Holland and I call a and this wonderful woman came into my life and if she came with a big book and she said if if you wanna change the way you live and you want to learn how not to drink you gotta do what it says in this book. You follow my suggestions and do the work, you're just not an alcoholic, you don't know how to live. When you get out of here, you are going to know how to live and you'll have a family anywhere in the world in Alcoholics Anonymous. Every time, every week she came, she read the responsibility pledge. Like after nine, ten months when the fog was lifting, I said, who are the hands of AA? And she grabbed my hands and said, these are the Hands of AA. And she let me go and said these are the Hands of a AA. On yours and yours and your's and yours. The few people that were in that room she said on yours are on yours and yours. I mean thank God for people like that in Alcoholic Anonymous. Thank you Doris very much well and you thank you yes and you know that the uh format that we use in the closing pay attention today um has adapted and adopted that responsibility statement so that it covers as a umbrella all of our fellowships and I use the term we instead of I all right because I think that's so pertinent to exactly sending us out with that sense of responsibility over time as Tom mentioned it grows from quite like a sponsor direction that we just grit our teeth and do to a responsibility that we feel to eventually eventually organically a passion that is just a gift to us in terms of helping for the first time we did recommend that you look at and review the pamphlet the group if you didn't receive at least three pamphlets that we've handed out to you for free we purchased them so that you could have them and one is the group the other is the illustrated and the other is the history of the traditions and we have an ample supply so if you didn't get it please get it and if you want another copy for some but reason they please take it yeah but in this particular pamphlet if you haven't looked at it and it's not in any particular order so you have to kind of flip through it to see if the relevant tradition is has any article or reference to it this has a couple pages on group inventory so that you can kind of like take a look at this and ask yourself these questions what is the basic purpose of my group what is what more can the group do to carry the message is the group attracting alcoholics from different backgrounds a good cross-section is there an undo or excessive turnover of newcomers that they're not coming back do we emphasize the importance of sponsorship and i won't go through all of them there's 13 questions here but i mean these are wonderful sort of veil lifting to use doris's terms veil lifting questions about oh wow this this is the description of a healthy meeting rob I'm Rob, and I am a compulsive over-reader. There is one thing in this pamphlet I wanted to mention, and I know it can spark a whole hour debate, which we don't have time for, but on page 34 of this pamphet at the very top, it says, staff members at each service desk are themselves recovering alcoholics. Other employees may or may not be recovering alcoholcs. And I did not know that in conference-approved literature, that was the term that they used. Well, they use it in this literature. Yeah, okay. Because the big book does not say recovering. It says recovered. When I think about the primary purpose carrying the message, is the message that you work the 12 steps and you get to be recovering the rest of your life? Or you work that 12 steps, and you will recover, which is a more hopeful message. So I was kind of surprised that they chose to use it. I'm glad you pointed it out. I didn't see that, and I'll take another look at it. Yeah, I think it's worth it. Say it again? They watered it down. Yeah, well, maybe they did, or maybe it's somebody who hasn't thought it through and hasn't really read the big book as carefully as we read it. All right? So here's some additional thoughts I've had about a healthy meeting. A healthy meeting identifies the problem, but spends more time sharing experience and proclaiming the solution. A healthy reading carries directories and the approved literature. A healthy meaning. I go to lots of different AA meetings outside the area where I'm asked to speak or something. A surprising number of them don't have big books. in the meetings it's kind of like what uh the meeting is listed in the directory and is got the correct address and time in the directory how many times have you heard people try to find a meeting and they go and it's not at that time or it's not at that place or it was closed down or whatever A healthy meeting, perhaps, adheres to the traditions, is solution-oriented, welcomes the newcomer and has thought out a strategy of dealing with the people that we talked about, encourages sponsorship, is not a cult of personality but is a cult of principle and shares experience rather than sharing opinions. Just some thoughts that came to me from the reading and the reflection that we did. We didn't have time to go over the personal applications of it. We were actually very wonderfully engaged in the application to our respective fellowships, and I think that's wonderfully productive. I hope for your sake, for your purposes, for you, for your personal growth, that you've looked at the other items Items and invitations to reflect these questions and applied it to yourself and to your relationships at work and to family into your friends because I do believe that that's quite helpful and one of the my Primary purposes of doing the traditions workshop, but we'll maybe experience some more of that next week Our respective 12-step fellowships help their members maintain their personal recovery and encourage them to offer to share their recovery experience freely with others who may have a similar problem. This we owe to our fellowship's future. See, I'm using generic terms here because all 12- step fellowships are invited to come here and participate. to place our common welfare first to keep our fellowship united for on unity depends our lives and the lives of those to come when anyone anywhere reaches out for help we want the hand of our fellowship always to be there and for that we are responsible after a moment of silence please join me in the prayer of St. Francis Lord make me a channel of thy peace that where there is hatred I may bring love that where There Is Wrong I may Bring The Spirit Of Forgiveness That Where There Is Discord I May Bring Harmony That WhereThere Is Error I May Brings Truth That Where THERE Is Doubt I May Bringing Faith That Where Theres Despair I May Being Hope That Where Their Are Shadows I May Being Light that where there is sadness I may bring joy. Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted, to understand than to Be understood, to love than to Beloved. For it is by self-forgetting that one finds. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. It is By dying that one awakens to eternal life. Amen. so the next assignment is a tradition six and it's all laid out there and see you next week thank you