Anonymity and Humility – Traditions Workshop – Part 9 of 10 – Local AA Speakers

Good evening. My name is Herb and I'm an alcoholic. Welcome to our final workshop on the 12th tradition. 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 12 traditions, and you. for an open mind and a new experience with myself, my brokenness, the Twelve Traditions, and especially you. This is the foreword to the pamphlet, AA Tradition, How It Developed, by Bill Wilson, published in 1955. How shall we AAs best preserve our unity? When an alcoholic applies the twelve 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 than 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 to our personal lives please join me in a few minutes of meditation on that purpose that is why we're here God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change the courage to change the things i can and the wisdom to know the difference we are here to talk about our second legacy unity and to review the 12 traditions crosstalk is allowed in a loving and supportive manner to be informed and helpful are our only goals and as I mentioned this is the final workshop in the series of 13 the first being an orientation they have all been recorded they will be edited and they will be available through the recording a person Dave who has recorded all of our material and how could they find that day 12 step tapes 12 steps 12 step singular 12-step tapes plural calm there's a herb Kagan tab I should look at that all right all right so they'll be on there and available through Dave's company he will be editing them so to tighten them up and also to have them all up there at some point they're available up to week nine right now so you can download them somehow and you'll figure it out short form 12th tradition anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions never reminding us to place principles before personalities long form and finally we of alcoholics anonymous believe that the principle of anonymity has an immense spiritual significance it reminds us that we are in to place principles before personalities that we actually to practice a genuine humility this to the end that our great blessings may never spoil us that we shall forever live in thankful contemplation of him who presides over us all so i have some comments from my preparation reviewing as we talked about last time we have two traditions that are focused on the subject of anonymity so what distinguishes the 11th from the 12th tradition my sense is and we talked about it last time and we'll talk about it today the 11 th tradition is about my relationship to the organization anonymity in terms of my membership in a variety of ways and implications the 12 tradition is about my relation ship to myself and my relationship to the community in anonymity as a spiritual foundation manifested through humility and we'll be talking about that today not necessarily in relationship to the organization alcoholics anonymous although obviously there's lots of crossover there and we talked at length about Anonymity at the public level. 100% anonymity at the public-level. No face, no name. Anonymety by its absolute strictest definition. Public level meaning press radio television and film. Public does not mean in a public audience unless of course there's a reporter there or a camera there if there is no reporter and no camera you can address Congress and tell them that you're a member of Alcoholics Anonymous now of course there are reporters and cameras there but I just wanted to make the point so tradition 12 is a very uh deep spiritual principle for personal spirituality it's about our attitude toward the world toward our relationship with god toward our relationship with people in the sense of no uniqueness and we talked about the mental image of the of the beach of Santa Monica where there's trillions of grains of sand none of them standing out that's kind of the mental image the 12 traditions are the specific application of the 12 steps what a wonderful concept i this is a condensation of all of the reading that you've done and i've done uh in in preparing ourselves for tonight's discussion the application of The Twelve Steps in our relationships with aa as a whole with aa groups and other groups and with society our community the 12 traditions overall are the application of the 12 steps big picture big context now we're going to narrow it down the 12 Traditions like the steps make us whole in our relationship with god in our relationship with ourselves and with the relationship with the world our community wholeness unity that's how it started out with tradition one and that of course is the purpose of the twelve steps that transformation reintegration with our true self through an authentic relationship with the higher power with the true self capital t capital s in the same way the spirit of anonymity is the foundation of the traditions anonymity the foundation of the traditions in the same way that powerlessness is the foundation of each step not just the first step those of you who have gone through the step workshop know that i emphasize of course step one is about powerlessness but steps two through twelve the foundation of them are powerless in step two we're powerless to adequately name god in step three we're powerless to adequately make a decision to have a relationship with God in step four we're powerless to really discern and see and accept all the obstacles in our relationship and therefore in resentment there's a prayer in fear there's prayer insects there's prayer in the final analysis etc through the balance of the steps in the same way powerlessness is the foundation of the steps each step anonymity is the foundation of all and each of the traditions there's a prize there's a promise of privacy the phrase from one of the readings a promise of privacy no names no uniqueness no image no recognition there's also the principle of equality a principle of a quality especially in the uh structure of alcoholics anonymous or in the group of alcoholic synonymous all right there is no authority except the underlying spirit that is manifest through the group conscience all of this is for the intent of fostering humility I love this definition that came out of some of the readings humility being teachable and we've talked about humility before as coming from the Latin word humus which means earth or dirt or sand on the beach common as humility and it's best expressed in the tradition this tradition itself which has principles before personalities that's the the the final sort of uh suggestion i make when i'm having conversations with people about direction and action figure out what the principle is and operate on principle and always take the high road operate on principle and all we take the High Road it's never not served me anonymity means quote giving up and we've talked about sacrifice before in the step work bill has a line in the in the big book on page 14 that connotes the deflation of the ego at depth that is the work of the steps simple but not easy a price had to be paid it means the destruction of self-centeredness my goodness really that's gentle really the destruction of self-centeredness thomas merton one of my teachers dead of course but well he died in 1968 not necessarily of course um he's the teacher and uh he said meditation is the combustion chamber of the ego don't you love it meditation is a continuation of that deflation of ego at depth we give up sacrifice the latin for holy and to make to make whole, to make holy, to make sacred. To give up the self the self-centeredness. Michael No it's the fire of the love of God is probably what he means That's what that's what dismantles the false self Yeah, be careful when we're talking about ego because that's What the psychologists and psychiatrists get paid a lot of money to help rebuild in you is Healthy ego in contrast to unhealthy ego false self true self The true self is what we're born with and then we immediately begin like crustacean you know accumulating the false self as a survival barrier a mechanism of mascot persona what did we give up personal desires for no the desire for the common good for the common welfare we give up the the personal ambition in favor of the common good and common welfare so the focus is on the message not the messenger hello the focus is on The Message Not The Messenger that's that's so I mean I didn't pick this I mean I pick it up from the readings I don't make this stuff up it's brilliant light versus lantern the fellowship versus personalities it's interesting that bill in the in the 12th tradition uses the same almost same terminology as he used in his autobiography in the big book that I just quoted simple but not easy a price has to be paid it meant the destruction of self-centeredness this is from page 14 we must turn in all things to the father of light who presides over us all the steps are the turning to have a relationship with God in step 3 and then identify and remove everything that's in the way of that relationship steps 4 through 10 and then to foster its steps 11 and 12 well in the 12th tradition he ends the 12th tradition by saying in live in thankful contemplation of him who presides over us all exactly the same wordings he has this mystical vision of the transcendence of the of God of the higher power the tradition 12 anonymity is the spirit of humility at work anonymity as a practice is the Spirit of humility the practice of humility we're giving up personal distinction in AA we'll talk about that tonight specifically how do you address yourself in AAA do you use your first name do you use your first name and initial do you your first-name and last name there's not a controversy but there are two camps of thought not surprisingly one from Akron and one from New York and the spirit of humility at work in the community all right but Bill's very clear and the literature is very clear in general service is very that you all each of you are the only deciders of how much in an anonymity you want with only one exception and that's at the public level at the non-public level you decide how anonymous you want to be anonymity is the foundation or the key but once again they use that wonderful spiritual image poetic image of a protective mantle a spiritual mantle anonymity that protects our unity that cloak over our fellowship that cloak over each individual that protects our unity the anonymity within the person excuse me within the self personal anonymity outside of myself at the public level and that life force of all of this just like the steps is the bill calls them we practice these principles in all our affairs he's talking about the steps here we're talking about that the principles underlying each of the traditions that's why we refer at the end of each workshop to the worksheet we have on principles so that we can try to identify perhaps the unique principle and feel in flavor of the respective tradition that we're looking at what yeah please Mitch And picking between the two of them is very complicated. I can't imagine where there are two competing principles. Would you like to use the microphone? Sure. I can's imagine where would be a case where there would be two competing principles by nature, a principle is a unifying force. So in my own experience, the principle of secrecy or secrets versus anonymity. so not maintaining secrets but maintaining anonymity well but maintaining secrecy is not a principle no having no secrets oh having no secret is a principle well but i'm not sure that i actually say that that's a decent principle having no secrets it's a need to know thing huh i like transparency but there's some things that you don't need to note so let me give you an example of an experience that i had my ex-wife and I are both members of the same Al-Anon meeting. We had a conflict at the time that we were together over whether we should disclose our relationship to their group or maintain anonymity, and we fought over that greatly. And so to me there were two competing principles about... No, there were two competing persons. True. Each of us maintained our own principle. Yeah yeah yeah or no opinion okay you don't see the the um the the absence of secrets in an effort to become healthy as a as a principle a guiding principle yeah i would say the more transparent that you are the probably the simpler that you and the more uh spirit authentically spiritual you are yeah i'd say that right personally and you don t think that that would conflict with i saw it as a conflict with anonymity no you have a conflict with your wife well that's true but it but it sort of portrayed itself as two competing principles you don't see it that way though i don't at all okay i see the two people with an opinion okay and they're trying to work it out in terms of a collaboration and communication which is wonderful and you could in the final analysis agree to disagree we did we did i suspected yeah thank you yeah you're welcome thank you yeah um so the care of god is the source the care of god as it is in the third step made a decision to turn our will and our life over to the care of god the tradition has the final authority in the group and in aa is the group conscience god's will as manifests through the group conscience relying on that spirit with the capital s as the source for one purpose the general welfare of the organization so that it can adequately and effectively deliver the message there's a solution you don't have to live like this anymore you can be transformed you can have spiritual awakening this is the message and to maintain the integrity and the unity of that message that's the reason for the traditions so the unity is the absolute intent all right of the traditions so let's go now to the language of the heart or any comments any questions like we've been doing welcome but we're going to go now to the language of the heart tradition 12 is on page 92 a very little there there's mostly on 93 and we'll wait for a minute before we turn the page a little bit on 94. so any highlights on 92 and 93 that anybody would like to comment on question comment share an experience with hi george barrel alcoholic george yeah at the top of 93 the first paragraph you know it says principles come before personal interest and you know we say at the meetings we chant or those who care to chant uh principles before personalities and this puts it a little bit in a different light before personal interest and again that's that's humility yeah and and it uses a couple terms here that uh we're not actually quite familiar with i think the assignment asked us to look them up and define them and that's self-effacement and self-renunciation sounds pretty monkish to me what is it that we mean by self-efficement and self renunciation anybody look up and have a definition please you have to come to the mic though you don't have to i strongly suggest it overcome your reluctance walking hurts right now nicole alanon hi nico self-effacement modest not drawing attention to oneself self-renunciation is the renunciation of one's will self-sacrifice and unselfishness yeah yeah and and so i put down self-effacement no face the true spirit of anonymity to shun notice abandon oneself isn't it interesting that bill suggests on page 63 as part of the third step that we're willing to abandon ourselves utterly to god really kind of an ideal statement right and self-renunciation the denial of self seeking no attachment to self or the definitions that I had and so I think it's fine it's really ironic that Nicole and I are the ones that are giving those definitions had to say it come on there's an elephant in the room right all right anybody have any anybody else have highlights please yeah that's right highly represented in her absence Katie alcohol gallon I really liked with the way he goes through all the traditions in these paragraphs. It gives us a wonderful recap. Right, and it reminds me of in the 12 and 12. The 12th step does the same thing. Yes, it does. And you go back and go, that's a good summary statement. That's what it is. I really liked it. Thank you for pointing that out because I had missed it. Step 12 in the 12 and 11 does exactly the same thing. He looks back over his shoulder and gives us some recap before he continues his commentary on the 12th Step and then here on the 12th Tradition. we give up something for our general welfare this is where i got that material we listen to god we exclude no alcoholic we don't rely on human authority or government and the whole purpose is to carry this message our message and we don t allow money property or personal authority those step six obstacles to get in our way. I love this phrase. The people who serve officially in the organizational structure of Alcoholics Anonymous, in the service structure, they hold authorizations to serve, never to govern. They hold authorinations to serve but not authority to govern it's a wonderful poetic contrast never need to praise ourselves he calls it the pitfall of vanity Richard Richard Norton alcoholic hey Richard I've recently begun doing that in my meeting because using your last name using my last name Interesting. So that's a new phase for you, and what's motivated that? Two things. One is I heard somebody else doing it, and I thought, you know, that's interesting. And I thought about what does that do? What function does that have for us in the meeting? And I realized that Dr. Bob was pretty insistent that people use their full name in the meetings, and he was asked what was the purpose of that and he said well how else are you going to know who they are in the phone book well we don't use phone books anymore but if someone asks do you know anybody who does a lot of step work and would be a good step guide and they don't know my last name to refer to me they may not be able to find me so if I really want to be of service I need to be named and at the same time I need to be anonymous. And by that, I mean I need to have no name in service. I need to be without name in service. It needs to be only about the service not about the name. I merely represent the service. I don't represent the name." I've thought about this a lot. I made coffee at the early morning meeting at the Marina Center for many, many years. When I first started making coffee there, the coffee maker was inside a room and you couldn't see the coffee-maker. They took that wall down. Now you can see the coffee maker. And when I first starting doing that, man it was great to make the coffee back there you know you just nobody knew who you were it was just coffee you were i was coffee i wasn't richard i wasn t you know i wasn' t there they took the wall down and what i found was and i recently quit making coffee i gave it up i found that i had begun to be there to be admired for my coffee. Because it was good coffee. I am the coffee man. I am not only the coffee maker, but I have a special way of laying it out. Okay? Yeah, John knows. So I thought about this a lot. And I thought about these words that you've already named. Self-effacement and self-renunciation. But I found another one in the second line on page 93, to be nameless. And that's where I come to the idea that my purpose in service is to be the service and not the person. The only way that service can be delivered is through a person. but I would really like to be able to make coffee without anybody knowing that it's me making coffee and it's just the coffee and it just shows up now I've thought about this regarding the entire organization of Alcoholics Anonymous how many of you know the name of the head of the board how about the service committee that takes care of publications anybody know that name how about the name of the Southern California Area Assembly chairman you probably know and you know and you because you're an associate with them right and you want to know their name so you can speak to that person when it's time to do so. Do the rest of us need to know? No, because they are only service. They are not names. That's all they are for us. For me, they are just service. I find that idea fascinating and I would like to be that nameless service. That's what I would like to be and at the same time how can you find me to do the work group that does the fourth step unless you know my name this is a struggle it really has been it's become a spiritual struggle for me do I have a name or am i just service and and that reinforces the concept of the message versus the messenger but let's be really clear and richard has introduced us now to this topic about how do you address yourself in the rooms of your own 12-step fellowship the people in akron are very clear based on dr bob's opinion that's expressed at some length in this for your information page 264 dr. Bob and the good old timers as far as anonymity was concerned we knew that we that we we knew that we were who we were and he says dr. bob there were two ways to break the an anonymity tradition number one is by giving your name at the public level of pressure radio and number two is by being so anonymous that you can't be reached by other drunks which is richard's point he says we we maintain anonymity at any other level is definitely a violation of this tradition the aa who hides his identity from his fellow aa by using only a given name meaning first name violates the tradition just as much as the aa who permits his name to appear in the press in connection with matters pertaining to aa the former is maintaining his anonymity above the level of press radio and films and the latter is maintaining its anonymity below the level of press, radio, and films whereas the tradition states that we should maintain our anonymity at the level of press radio and films and he goes on the point here is bob felt very clearly and strongly as richard articulated his sort of thoughtfulness about it that in the rooms it's incumbent on us to use first and last name in contrast bill wilson feels just the opposite Anonymity is real humility at work The spirit of anonymity We try to give up our natural desires For personal distinction as AA members Both among fellow alcoholics And before the general public there's another piece that I wanted to read probably it's here oh yeah anonymity was originally practiced by for reasons that had to do with the experimental nature of the society and with the prevailing stigma on alcoholism that to jeopardize the reputation and ultimately their survival of the entire fellowship bill concludes the deeper purpose of anonymity was actually to keep those fool eagles of ours from running hog wild after money and public fame at aa's expense look what would i had in mind here it must be in another area where he says the alcoholic it's not there either he said the alcoholic themselves are the only person to determine how an anonymous you want to be the Akron group uses first and last name the New York culture is to use first name only some people use first-name and last initial when I was publishing my book i've mentioned this before i i had conversations with general service office about how to represent that and they they specifically said use your first name and your last initial don't go fully anonymous but don't use your full last name they were very clear in their recommendation they couldn't tell me what to do but they did give me a recommendation based on their experience recently 10 years I've been sober 30 years recently the last 10 years there's been a whole group of people that have adopted Richard's position about making sure people can find them so in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous you'll hear people say I'm John Smith an alcoholic I'm Sally Withers I'm an alcoholic or whatever it is all right um i have chosen after much thought on this not to do that i'm staying with what i grew up with probably because i'm comfortable with it and quite frankly i've never had a problem with people finding me now i'm not so anonymous right i'm pretty visible with the workshops the flyers the website the constant contact the email blasts the books i mean i'm you know and i have to make sure that i have the spirit of it or attempt to have the Spirit of it uh in terms of humility and anonymity but I've done these incremental things of public awareness because and Richard's conclusion how else are people going to find you so i created i had somebody create the website for me finally after years of struggle with it personally because i was convinced by you all that it would be helpful so there's a balance here yeah and and struggle with it pray about it talk to your sponsor about it experiment with it whatever what works for you now george please thank you hi george barrel alcoholic The last sentence in the understanding anonymity booklet says experience suggests that AA members and a couple of things, and then use last names within the fellowship, especially for election of group officers. This is on page 11 you're reading from, right? Yes, page 11. Right. Yeah, it's a really good point. So this is published just after 2010. So it's really recent experience and recommendation. Please read it again. says, experience suggests that AA members use last names within the fellowship, especially for election of group officers and other service jobs. Yeah. I had an experience when I was fairly new. Bob was in the hospital, and I wanted to go visit Bob at Cedars. If you go to CedARS and you say, I'd like to see Bob, they ask you, what's his last name? If you don't know his last name you can't see bob yeah no i mean it is not a clear-cut thing absolutely please nicole alan on so we have newcomers that come into our rooms regularly who may not understand what the principle of anonymity is just yet and some of us like myself has a last who has a last name that is, if you find that last name, it's only my family. So by giving my last name I'm not protecting the anonymity of my family and there's only about 12 of us so anybody can find anything on my family if I were to use my surname. So I feel like that's kind of a cross point there where the anonymITY of my FAMILY is just as important as the ANONYMITY of MY GROUP. And thank you for the thought about that as an alternative and going back to the pamphlet that George was reading from, Understanding Anonymity, which as I say was published very recently within the last three or four years. There's a whole list of bullet points on page 11. I'm not going to read them all. Hopefully you either have or will. But the first one is very clear and that's probably what I was looking for. suggest that a members respect the right of other members to maintain their own anonymity at whatever levels they all right so and then there's more there that fills it in dave stevens alcoholic um on another level i uh i learned early on not to be anonymous and and i'll just tell this story I tell this story, and I haven't told this story for a long time, but when I had 40 Days Sober, I got backstage at a Leonard Skinner show. Major rock and roll band. I'm passionate about that band ever since they opened for Charlie Daniels in 73. Well, I get backstage. I meet everybody. I'm excited. That's my little, that's my God moment. That'S what God did for me. Got me backstage and I met all my rock and role heroes. Well fast forward five years and the bass player, One of the original members was being thrown into a rehab by the band. And he called me because I was the only sober guy he knew because of me not being anonymous. And I don't run around and put my name and Alcoholics Anonymous in the same sentence. I just let him know I'm sober, I don' drink, here I am. He'd look at me because he'd invite me up to his room. We'd established a friendship. And he'd say, how do you do it? And I'm an idiot. You know, all I know to say is I go to meetings. I read the book and I got a sponsor That's all I notice a The man died a year and a half later But that changed my life and my viewpoint on being anonymous because that's how you save lives by letting people know What you're doing and be that example. You're the only big book somebody's gonna meet And And you know when people make a decision as to what their level of anonymity is We have a responsibility not to judge them No matter what it is if it's full disclosure of the name. All right, or whether it's to protect their surname by not using it so It's each person's responsibility and And that needs to be respected. Dave, and like Nicole, I've had a couple of incidents where newcomers come into the room and they do not get anonymity at all. In fact, they're calling you out in emails and all that stuff. And so unless I know the people, I do not give my last name. but i had another question that came up just today a friend from high school who's now a facebook friend just got a milestone chip in aa and they posted it that on their facebook page they did not say what it was but anybody who's familiar with the program knows what it is what's your opinion on that well if i heard you say the facts they did not disclose they're a member of alcoholics anonymous or whatever the respective 12-step group is that in fact they have attained some abstinence with regard to an addiction that they had and they have a chip that represents that but they'd never disclosed that they were actually a member of any specific So I would say they're walking a fine line, but they are probably within the letter of the law for maybe not in the spirit of the law because even mentioning the chip probably connotes a membership. Yeah, but it's not specific. So I wouldn't say, you know, yeah, I would say nothing. I said congratulations, but yeah, nice. That's good. Congratulations is a good response. Jason alcoholic. Hi, Jason. I set my Facebook page to where nobody can post anything on my page, so that's never going to happen. But anyway, I'm new to the program, and I have to use discretion on who I let know what's going on with me. Number one, I don't have a full grasp of it yet. But number two, if I were to tell my dad what I'm doing, I would have to go through hours of defending, explaining. Yeah, so it's on a need-to-know base. It doesn't know does it change anything? Not at all exactly You know not at all and I've got friends that are in the program Yeah, friends have been to the program for a long time. They have no idea that I'm in it There you go You know So it's yeah, I mean it is what it is and people who do know me and when they fight I'm fine with it Yeah, you know, but I just I'm not advertising it. Yeah yeah I'm Rob G compulsive over reader and thank you so yeah so I just want to I've sort of arrived at a middle ground myself which is I'm very I understand the reason people I believe people tend to use just their first names in the group setting or in meetings and i i usually respect that culture as well because even if it's a closed meeting you really don't know who's there and if you're you know if your anonymity will be respected i think that's particularly true in the uh in the saa fellowship and those type of meetings uh because there is you know quite a stigma and a vulnerability to being identified uh you know as a sex addict yeah the way it used to be perhaps for alcoholics um however i will say though uh although i don't use my last name in the meetings very much when i make outreach calls to fellows um i always leave my full name to let them know you know it's okay for you to know who i am and this is who iam all right so um so on a one-on-one on one you know one addict speaking to another addict you should i think they should know who I am and I have no problem. Here's the question for you. So you call somebody you met and you're leaving a voicemail and you leave your name and whatever else, do you identify your fellowship and whatever on the voicemile? Well, no, it depends only if I know for sure that it's their personal cell phone or something. He anticipated where I was going with this seat. Yeah. Be very conscience conscious of voicemail there are medical doctors i'm dealing with who ask my permission to call my home and leave a message from their office because they're concerned about the hippa confidentiality yeah and i got oh when i'm doing this work i'm going well yeah When we leave a voicemail, I'm the guy he just met in a And his mother his sister his spouse what they make why you know like Jason Very few people know now if you know already that his voicemails are confidential voicemailed then you You're safe or if you've asked their permission to do that Yeah But that's I'm just raising consciousness about voicemailing and you know I understand the inconvenience of not knowing someone's last name because you know, between two fellowships, I have about eight phone numbers for Dave's and when they call and just say this is Dave and they want you to call back. Yeah, and four of them are Dave S. Yeah. So... Yeah, exactly. No, no. And just the last thing I'll say though is the part I've learned here and that I have a new appreciation for is I think the last things you said about each member having the right to decide what their level of anonymity is. So it actually has started to irk me a little, you know, it's a little kind of inside joke when someone raises their hand to pitch and they don't give a name at all, and inevitably someone interrupts them and says, excuse me, who are you? You didn't identify yourself. And I'm thinking, what business is it of yours, if what they're doing... That's a real... I never thought of that. This isn't really... The name of the group's anonymous, isn't it? They don't have to identify their name. do have to identify in our fellowship because a closed meeting that they're an alcoholic right right i mean i know someone who's been around for years and and when they tell their story they admit that they used a fake name for the first year or two because they didn't want to oh yeah so what's the difference what they say as long as they are a member as long as they have a desire to stop and yeah yeah in japan people are so afraid of being secret see there you go they use fake names yeah yeah depending on their culture huh be very very important richard's gonna say that i've been to japan a couple of times and there'll be a group and all the chinese guys say oh my name is uh bill yeah right right yeah yeah yeah well when i'm in japan i've never been there i'm going to say my name sally or maybe nicole i don't know were you gonna come up and all right you have to wait then we're on page 94 to round out the language of the heart are there any highlights anybody would like to comment on our questions about that page I wrote I just highlighted this the 12 points of tradition now he wrote this in 1948 and that's what they were called at that time are little else than a specific application of the spirit of the 12 steps that's where i got that comment of recovery to in our group life and to our relations with society in general the recovery steps would make each individual aa that is the person whole and one with god the 12 traditions would make us one with each other and the whole and whole with the world about us unity is our aim our traditions securely anchor anchored in those wise precepts charity gratitude humility he goes on to say prudent make these virtues part of your meditation As we serve God in happy unison for so long as God may need us. He introduced a whole bunch of terms there. Charity, gratitude, prudence. Anybody look up those words? And have a definition for us? Charity really actually just means love. It's a synonym for that. it's a caritas coming from cara in the latin means heart gratitude of course is that ability to be thankful it opens the heart it recognizes the gift and we've talked a lot about humility what about your relationship with your sponsor and your relationship avec your sponsees how public should that be how anonymous should that be anybody have comment experience with that please say it again what do you mean by public did i say public between uh okay if i said it that's what i meant then yeah i can see it okay i don't remember saying it but yeah yeah well well how public shouldn't be actually i hear what you're well right wait no no george public how public should it be in a meeting at home how public should it be my relationships with my sponsor and my sponsees Nicole Allen on um my I do not share my sponsors information with my sponsor that's appropriate so anything that they give me so there's actually have a few points on this but do your does your sponsor know who you sponsor nope oh okay see probably not that would be my stance it's on a you know my relationship with you is our business and nobody else's so nobody knows who my sponsees are right by my telling them right they may know because they're in groups or they're In meetings or something like that but I don't share that information my wife never knows who i'm meeting with unless in fact they've made a big deal out of it on the voicemail or something i i will share in situations where it is necessary that it pertains to my own recovery i don't know what that means so if a sponsee calls with something that has affected me and i'm not so generally speaking if that happens and And I've gained an awareness from working with my sponsee on that. And I don't have a solution, so therefore I have to tell them I don'T HAVE EXPERIENCE WITH THAT. I'm going to take that to my sponsor. And I may say, I was discussing this with one of my sponcees. That's it. As long as you don't name them, I agree totally. Unless you get their permission. But I have no problem in certain situations saying who my sponsor is. Who your sponsor is? Who my sponsor is. Have you discussed that with your sponsor? In certain situations where it is okay. When people discuss that with me, I prefer that they don't talk about that. Especially in meetings. Especially when I'm present. Yeah, and I think that's what certain situations are. Like I've discussed with my sponsees who my sponsor is, but not pointing the finger, that's my sponsor. yeah it's more like this is the recovery that i'm getting and this is what it looks like um and and you know so they have a grand sponsor basically and then um the other thing that i do is i don't like the the terminology of legacy grand sponsors in all of that business personally Personally I don't like it. It begins to establish some type of system that is very reminiscent of why Americans left England to come over here. The other thing that I have to do is if I'm taking any kind of call that is program related and I am not alone, the very first thing I say to them when I answer the phone is I am not alone is this inappropriate is this appropriate do i need to step aside or do you want to and and then we can proceed from there you know even before they can say this is so-and-so out of their mouth if their name is in my phone i will immediately that's the first thing that comes out of my mouth is before you keep going i'm not alone and what you're saying and i hope it's elevating our consciousness is just be aware yeah that's nice thank you thank you do you well i this is yeah i'm going to the 12 and 12 now and we're on page 184 there's four pages meanwhile george is going to pass the basket so there's a couple points throughout here that kind of go back to the other topic for anonymity inside program versus anonymity out to the world and and i got a lot out of that reading all of through all of tradition 12 here and the first paragraph, I highlighted all of it. The spiritual substance of anonymity is sacrificed because AA's 12 traditions repeatedly ask us to give up personal desire for the common good. We realize that... Let me just say, we've got a small group here. The last two meetings I've had to dip into the pocket to make rent. It's not a lot, but I just want you to be conscious of it with the small group thank you thank you tradition seven tradition seven anyone so because aa's 12 traditions repeat repeatedly ask us to give up personal desires for the common good we realize that the sacrificial spirit well symbolized by anonymity is the foundation of all of them all It is AA's proved willingness to make these sacrifices that gives people their high confidence in our future. And then later on, I'm reading in here and it says, and I'm sorry, I am skipping to page 87. Yeah, that's fine. And it's the second paragraph down. It says, as this tied offering taught public approval swept in, we realized that it could do us inocuable good or great harm. Everything would depend upon how it was channeled. We simply couldn't afford to take the chance of letting self-appointed members present themselves as messiahs Representing a before the whole public The promoter instinct in us might be our undoing and in any ways on and on and non, but then it says and then More within this it talks it talked about But we are still a message if we keep our recovery a secret. We're not actually doing the 12th tradition so it was it was like mentioned earlier saying something to somebody gave them a phone number to call and it's so it's it's i'm a little confused by that like well i think inside but part of what you said was and what you were reading is it really depends on your motive what's your motive what's intention and then what is the practice and if you have any challenges with any of that talk to your sponsor or somebody who understands the spirit of the traditions yeah thanks so uh page 186 and 187 uh round it out uh he talks about the letter versus the spirit of the law i really like the spirit all right i mean because that's really the life force but we have to pay attention to the letter and not that not to get legalistic about it because once again these are guidelines and there's nobody to reinforce it all right um so let's see at this altitude page 187 press radio films and television 100 anonymity is the only possible answer without exception these experiences taught us that anonymity is real humility at work it is an all-pervading spiritual quality which today keynotes a a life everywhere moved by the spirit of anonymity we try to give up our natural desires for personal distinction as a a members both among fellow alcoholics and before the general public and here it is that protective mantle which covers our whole society and under which we may grow and work in unity. We are sure that humility expressed by anonymity, humility is the principle, anonymity is the behavior, is the greatest safeguard that Alcoholics Anonymous can ever have. Very powerful stuff. All right. So let's then go to the pamphlet, the illustrator there's so much on this material we're certainly not going to cover it all tonight hopefully you've looked at the aa tradition how it developed because there's 15 pages in there on anonymity and the entire pamphlet with a little redundancy has the most current take on anonymity both tradition 11 and 12 kind of mushed together uh tradition 12 from the pamphlet illustrated anybody have any highlights either with regard to the picture or with regard to the pros. Kim Al-Anon. Hi, Kim. So let us always remember that anonymity, not taking credit for our own or other recovery or others' recovery is humility at work and it's been interesting to listen to this conversation tonight about the first name and the full name and you know, I'm still from the perspective of just the first name based on the equality and the non-face and that so that's where i am right now and also and then the separate part of that is you know i hear like the full name to be useful and helpful yeah you know and and i get that but you know when i was new to al-anon um i liked the equality of no one knowing me it helped me kind of find my way in and also it also taught me that I was responsible for my form for a program or for ask for more so for asking for help so you know there's a lot of tools in our program like a phone list you know or you can go up to a person at the end and say hey can I get your number or as people who are in the program for a long time you know part of our services is to extending our hand to the newcomer when they come to you know do you need to share anything you know if you'd like to call me here's my number you know that's still another approach without giving the full name of being useful and helpful even in the outside world you know and that allows me in my recovery to to um so it is not about the person about the name it's about the message for me so and that just um you know that's humility for me and for the other person across from me so our phone list at both of my men stag meeting has certainly the first name and then sometimes it has an initial mostly often it has a full name but it's how the person wanted to be recorded with a phone number and an email yeah so this pamphlet concludes the final sentence our principles come first and they are not our own invention they reflect eternal spiritual values with this tradition both as individuals and as a fellowship we humbly acknowledge our dependence on a power higher than ourselves trust that the newcomer will find you even if they don't know your last name or not you know i don't want to yeah really all right so there's lots of um well we have some time uh katie alcoholic alan i just turned it down oh yeah no no like this okay uh uh i've been just sitting here thinking about how interesting it is because uh my last drunk was public it was in the name my name was in a paper and the name was correctly spelled and everything you know what i mean and so it was a real public humiliation thank god it was a number of years ago but everybody knew and it's very interesting that as a recovering person 20 plus years later i don't get to go hey look look look how cool i am now i'm really really sober and i'm doing good things but it's uh i learned an awful lot about humility at that point but even people in my home group knew about it but i had no anonymity at that time and so my safety place was in the meetings where i could be at one with everyone so it was an interesting be sure to read this pamphlet for any uh review or perhaps even spend some time in meditation about the recommendations because this is the most current take of our experience on anonymity from the official general service office level okay so then we looked at practice principles before personalities in all of our discussions so i'm going to go right to uh i guess number six sure and just ask for any reflections on this we've covered some of this material so what is your real importance in a at work in your relationships with your family and friends anybody have any uh reflection on that they would like to comment or summarize hi george barrel alcoholic you know i've been sufficiently inculcated in the program that i see my real role as a servant to try and help people and at work that has really paid off because i've gotten a lot of incredible reviews on yelp because of my orientation towards helping people and i've also you know what i do is i i'm an expert at what i doing my expertise with people without being specific and there are other people on site who are not expert but who have a stake in the deal And they are often trying to provide opinions which are not in accordance with the facts as I see them. And what I have learned to do, with difficulty because it's really hard for me to keep my mouth shut when someone is telling my client something that's not true, in order to make the deal go more smoothly and, I mean, I'll tell them what I say but I'm not going to have conflict with this other person and that's been really hard for me you know but but i've been able to do it increasingly integrity isn't for exactly no that's great yeah you hope see um i love the phrase that i learned early on in human resources we praise in public we criticize in private and certainly in the corporate or the employment world but it really stands also with friends and family praise in public criticize privately if you have to criticize my kids say it again tell that to my kids okay make an appointment so my answer to that simply and just as a summary is to be a conduit of the message I think what that's what the George's message was that he learned here to be servant of the message and he carried that principle into work which reminded me of Chuck C's book a new pair of glasses because all through that book he talks about how can I help you do what you need to get done with his family with his kids with his work with his employees with his clients how can I you get done what you needed to get done and it his whole life turned around just like you talked about it's magical well because people then can trust you if you really have their interest at heart and they know it's not just another manipulation and they'll smell that one out very quickly so the principle for this tradition of course as we've talked about is humility the deficiency in the individual in the group that that acknowledges is the pride of the individual and humility both as the individual and as in the group be one of many and to be other centered in relating the steps to the traditions i'd like to close with a few observations reflections spirituality is a decision I made it really clear in the step workshop step one confirms that we don't have the power of decision and every step after that asks us to make a decision it's really curious it's a decision about our attitude our free will is a choice the steps we choose God is we choose a relationship we choose to do four through ten and we choose to live in 11 and 12. in the traditions we choose humility as expressed in anonymity an altered attitude also spirituality happens through transformation or awareness which we were just talking about that improvement in our consciousness an improvement in our mind that it actually thinks clearly and it thinks based on principles the steps we think about god we think about god's will we think about spiritual principles we think about how to best align ourselves with those spiritual principles In the traditions, we think about generating our awareness of and generating our mindfulness in the group conscience and awareness of unity and awarenessof common welfare. What's in the best interest of my milieu, my environment, my community? Spirituality is action of the body. Notice, my model is of the human being, body, mind, and will in the steps. And I've seen the application of that same model here in the traditions. Spirituality is action of the body, our behavior and our actions. In the steps, we quit resisting and we do acts contrary to our will. In the traditions, we self-sacrifice. We sacrifice property. We sacrifice pleasure. We sacrifice prestige. We sacrifice power. The spiritual life is not a theory, it says in the big book in step transition to step 10. The spiritual Life is not A Theory. We have to live it. It is about behavior. It's not about our thinking. It's Not About Our Knowledge. It's NOT About Our Feelings. It's N O T About Our Emotions. It's About Our Actions. It's ABOUT Our Behavior. how it works and into action the two critical chapters on the step process the principles guide us on this journey of our actions they're principles that guide us on the journey I think it's no accident that Bill uses as I mentioned that summary in his own autobiography in the big book where he says we must turn in all things to the father of light who presides over us all, and he ends step 12, excuse me, tradition 12, thankful, live in thankful, Live in thankful contemplation. An attitude of gratitude, live in thankful contemplation that is presence. Contemplation is not prayer. Contemplation is not meditation. Contemplation is standing in a sacred presence, in a sacred place on the high road to a new freedom, in the Presence of, capital P, the tradition, in thankful contemplation of Him who presides over us all. The traditions we practice humility through anonymity, a guide for the individual in our relationships with AA, with the group, with society, living through God in every one of those dimensions. I extended it to the concepts, although I don't intend on doing a workshop on the concepts. I have done them. And I thought, well, how does the concepts fit into this paradigm, this model? Since I see, in fact, the steps as the mechanism for the transformation of the mind. The traditions as a transformation of the body, actions, guidelines. The concepts are transformation of the will in terms of the structure, the formal structure of the organizational structure of Alcoholics Anonymous. A practice in the service of the message. The AA structure is in service of maintaining the integrity of the message and carrying the message. The AA Structure is so make sure that the message is effectively carried. and I remember in the step process challenging you on page 68 when we came to the fear inventory it says we are in the world to play the role he assigns to turn that into a question what role has God assigned to us the next few words in the very dense sentence says to the extent that we do what God what we think god wills is the extent that we'll have peace so it's really important that we find out what our destiny is what our trademark is what are invitation is i love that word we are in the world to play the role he assigns as a question in the fear inventory and i suggested that you may have an answer by the time you finish your ninth step and are practicing 10 11 and 12. i I know that was my discovery. And on page 103, maybe this is the answer. It certainly has been the answer in my life. It says in the big book, our job now is to be at the place where we can be of maximum helpfulness. It doesn't say service. I love the simplicity, maximum helpfulnes to others. we shall forever live in thankful contemplation of him who presides over us all so i too have had a wonderful experience with this tradition workshop it's completely pumped some new juice into my own commitment to the program and to working with you all the workshops and so for those of you who will be here in january i'll see you then and for those of view who i don't see at that time i know i'm going to see you our respective thank you all right this we owe to our fellowship's future 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 st. Francis listen to the role of responsibility of turning number one and becoming a channel of the message listen to the message and listen to how we become a conduit of that message Lord make me a channel of thy peace that where there is hatred I may bring love that where there is wrong I may the spirit of forgiveness that where there is discord I may bringing harmony that where there is error I may being truth that where there is doubt I may be faith that where there is despair I may bring hope, that where there are shadows I may bring light, that when there is sadness I may bring joy. Lord grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted, to understand then to be understood, to love then to beloved for it is by self-forgetting that one finds, it is by forgiving that one is forgiven, it It is by dying that one awakens to eternal life. So take a flyer if you're interested in any one of those multiple opportunities for spiritual growth and have a wonderful holy holiday. Thank you.