Attraction Rather Than Promotion – Traditions Workshop – Part 8 of 10 – Local AA Speakers

Good evening, my name is Herb and I'm an alcoholic. Welcome to our Rain Challenge workshop on the traditions. 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 in you, for an opened mind and a new experience with myself, my brokenness the twelve 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 a a's 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 a group and 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 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. join me in the serenity prayer god grant me the serentity to accept the things i cannot change the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference a couple announcements uh Jim Finley is a clinical psychologist and also a spiritual director He works out of Santa Monica and does workshops and retreats around the country. He's doing a retreat December 12th to the 14th, so that's a couple weeks from now, Friday through Sunday at the Mary and Joseph Retreat Center in Palos Verdes. Interesting title, Mystical Sobriety, exploring the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous for us all so he's a person who was in a monastery at the same time I was for about the same length of time and he happened to be in the monastery in Gethsemane a Trappist monastery where Thomas Merton was and Thomas Merten was his spiritual director for six years I didn't have that experience and so if you're interested at all there are flyers on the table you wouldn't have to stay overnight you could commute I doubt whether you could actually get a room if you wanted to stay overnight at this point but you can check it out if you interested also dr. Alan Berger who I co-facilitate workshops with especially on emotional sobriety he's a clinical psychologist who is creating a conference in the South Bay called the evolution of addiction treatment conference well it's at the Weston at the airport this is the second or third third year for the conference. And there's a flyer for that there also. Although it's geared primarily to professionals, it may have some interest to people certainly in recovery at the level that you're in interest in. And then there's the cruise. I think I've mentioned that that's October of next year. There's a flier about that. But more relevantly, there's the workshop that begins in January, and we have lots of flyers there. Take as many as you think you can use for your respective meetings or wherever, friends, etc. Once again, respect the culture of the meeting with regard to non-AA announcements and flyers. well we're here to discuss tonight the 11th tradition and of course it's about anonymity but so is the 12th tradition so i'll spend a little time talking about the difference between the 11th and the 12th tradition. We have two traditions on anonymity. Why do we have them? Maybe in your reading you kind of figured out the contrast. The short form of the 11st tradition, our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. We need to always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press radio and films i put in tv too that may be old language long form our relations with the general public should be characterized by personal anonymity we think aa ought to avoid sensational advertising our names and pictures as a a members ought not be broadcast filmed or publicly printed our public relations should be guided by the principle of attraction rather than promotion there is never need to praise ourselves we feel it is better to let our friends recommend us so just some thoughts and if you've been in the step workshop you've had some exposure to the word anonymous anybody want to speculate on what anonymous means in terms of its word derivatives please george it does it means without name it comes from the greek word onima o-n-y-m-a which means name and when you put an a-n in front of it it means no name so anonymous literally means that there's no distinguishing characteristic i believe i've used the metaphor of the grains of sand on the beach to describe humility that is coming from the latin word humus which means earth meaning dirt meaning common no unique characteristics and of course here in santa monica we have a large beach with grains of sand billions of grains of sand all pretty much the same very little individual characteristic differences none that would be worth remarking about and that's this sense of anonymity that's the sense of humility blending in no uniqueness no ex outstanding characteristics and in the case of the 11th and 12 tradition is now we're going to focus on the 11 no individual name and i believe the difference between the 11 tradition and the 12 tradition is that the 11 refers to no particular name of the person in connection with the corporation the name the group alcoholics anonymous no face represents no person represents alcoholics synonymous from that standpoint the level of anonymity is at the public level lots of confusion about that maybe some ignorance behind that confusion All right, it's at the public level, defined as radio, press, television and TV. No personal recognition of face or name. All right. In contrast to Tradition 12, which I believe is the spiritual principle of anonymity and humility for the individual in their own spiritual life. not necessarily as a relationship to the corporate body of Alcoholics Anonymous, but in relationship to their own spiritual life and their relationship to the community at large. Tradition 11 is about public relations and tradition 12 is about personal relations no individuals connection or no individuals prominence 11th tradition connection 12th tradition prominence bill spends quite a bit of time throughout the literature talking about the price that's paid and that's the denial of self-seeking he makes a similar reference in the step work in his own autobiography in the first chapter of the big book he says simple but not easy a price has to be paid it means the destruction of self-centeredness we must turn in all things to the father of light who provide who presides over all something like that I was also struck by his comments here which he is made in other traditions where the good may be the enemy of the best it might seem like a good idea for a public person who gets sober through a a to then proselytize in the name of AA about his good luck of getting sober, and that certainly might bring in some people. But the problem with that is that if that person then gets drunk or relapses, or perhaps even worse, has an incident of life that challenges his moral character, all right, then there would be sort of an identification of a person with the organization. And Tradition 11 is really meant to try to, once again, reinforce what we learned right from the beginning is the nature of the traditions and the purpose of the conditions, which is unity. We have this corporate body, Alcoholics Anonymous, composed of all the individuals and all the groups and all the states and all the countries we have this corporate body and underneath this as bill uses the metaphor or at least the poetic reference in the big book this the spirit of the universe underlying the totality of things the spirit of the universe that life force which animates this corporate body and what and that's the unifying force field for alcoholics anonymous this spirit of the universe he calls uh the purpose of aa of course is to provide a message it's not to provide meetings it's Not to provide traditions it's NOT to reinforce the step process at all the total purpose of Alcoholics Anonymous is to carry the message that you can recover Alright through the steps through a relationship with God through fellowship through service that triangle that is Supported by the twelve principles of the steps the twelve Principles of the traditions and the twelve principals of the concepts that triangle That from my personal imagery Represents all three parts of the human being we treat our mind through transformation of the steps, and we treat our body literally through the mechanics of going to meetings and detoxing in meetings and staying detoxed in fellowship. But we detox our spirit through the concepts of service, through the service that we carry to one another. As Bill says on that same page that I quoted earlier about simple but not easy, at the bottom he says we perfect and enlarge our spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others the word sacrifice permeates the step work we sacrifice alcohol the first half of the first step and we sacrifice our self-centeredness in the second half of the second step and the balance of the steps are the implementation of that sacrifice the turning from self-centeredness to other centeredness and it's the same theme with the traditions where we're sacrificing our connection our individual connection in terms of the prominence of that or the revelation of that in the public arena and we're also sacrificing power and prestige in terms of living the 12 principles of the traditions in a sense of the spirituality and the humility that goes with that he calls a has a lifeline and that is to carry the message and we keep that life line clear by not getting it mixed into individual prominence or the corruption of motives through power and prestige this I've mentioned the steps are for the sacrifice of the addiction and of the self-centeredness but also we can't keep it unless you give it away which is one of those spiritual paradoxes a conundrum that doesn't make any sense in the world of logic we we sacrifice our time and our energy and our money the traditions ask us to sacrifice our prestige and our power and our individual recognition that sense of anonymity that sense humility all for the singleness of purpose of the unity so that we're not there's no one-upsmanship in Alcoholics Anonymous at least theoretically right right I mean this we have standards that are ideals vision statements and Ernie Kurtz says it the best in the title of that second book that he published right the spirituality of imperfection it's perfect for us the spirituality of imperfection. We're perfectly imperfect. He has another wonderful poetic phrase. He calls the traditions 11 and 12, the protective mantle, spiritual invisibility. And I couldn't help but then think about the Harry Potter movie where the young boy is taking this cloth that he puts it over himself to become invisible it can walk around all right this is the invisible mantle traditions 11 and 12 that makes us invisible i mean this is the goal makes us literally invisible to one another in terms of any type of status or any type of special characteristics a protective mantle spiritual invisibility talks about individuals using self-restraint so that we can make the solution really visible because it's about the message not about the personality but we do have lots of committees and organizational structures that support the communication of the message not just through 12-step work but in the sense of carrying the message from in terms of sponsorship but in terms of health, HNI, hospitals and institutions. And that permeates the entire organization of Alcoholics Anonymous. There's a committee that basically suggests guidelines for how to bring material and the message into prisons and hospitals and treatment centers where people can't come out to meetings and get the message so we bring the message in to them. There's also a whole cadre of people that talk about literature prepared for and delivered to professional people, like doctors and nurses and psychiatrists and psychologists and even insurance companies and even in schools and even to government agencies and the courts and the police systems. if you have any interest in getting involved in any of that there's mechanisms for that so that people know and i'm a great believer in that i had personal angst over these two traditions when i was developing my workshops and lots of people encouraged me to set up a website well i'm kind of a when it comes to technology so i had a lot of prejudice about no i can't do that because it's against the traditions and what but as i looked at the traditions and as i talked to people who were much more familiar with them than i am and much more familiar with technology and i took it into prayer and sponsored conversation it it was very clear to me that a website was necessary in order for people to find resources that they wouldn't be able to find otherwise and here's how that works and this was given to me in meditation if somebody doesn't know about a resource it's not an alternative but if somebody knows about the resource then they can say yes or no if they don't know they have an alternative they don t but if they know they have an alternative or a resource they can use it or not and that's really i think the spirit of the message in alcoholics anonymous it's not about promotion we don't market the message but we do provide information information versus promotion we set we prepare brochures and we send them to the hospitals into the police courts and to the government agencies and wherever else we feel that churches for instance might be a wonderful place for people to get involved in terms of bringing the message if you're involved with one of the faith traditions meet with the pastor the rabbi or the minister and talk to him her about your own recovery and whether or not it might be helpful to have some literature or perhaps at least for you to be a resource i'm a resource in my own parish all right and uh just because i want to be helpful now the pastor has no idea about what anonymity is and so i mean we have a group of 30 men in a like this and he goes oh yeah i heard why don't you tell him about your alcoholism and all and it's kind of like hey i mean all right let's go for it you know so it was all right though it was all right no harm no foul there were no reporters there right which is the issue here in tradition 11 all right so those are my opening comments anyway any comments concerns questions about what we've talked about now we're going to dive into the material now okay so let's take a look at the language of the heart and that would be tradition 11 on page 91 grapevine article October 1948 anybody have any highlights on that page 91 that they would like to comment on and the mic in front is live if you'd like to use it I encourage it please My name is Michael, I'm an alcoholic, and I'm 91. So the 11th tradition stands sentinel over the lifelines announcing that there is no need for self-praise, that it is better to let our friends recommend us, and that our whole public relations policy contrary to usual customs should be based upon the principle of attraction rather than promotions. Shot in the arm methods are not for us. about the word that michael just read from here page 91 the 11th tradition stands sentinel over the lifelines i mean you can see the guard there marching back and forth in this illustrious uniform sentinel all right this is the tradition that guards that um i love the line almost tongue in cheek that ends the first paragraph our reputation is already so much better than our actual character well yeah hello you've been to meetings too yeah all right anybody else have any highlights on that good public relations are lifelines one serious public relations calamity could always turn thousands away from us to perish a matter of life and death indeed just turn it down katie alcoholic and at or whatever you know sorry um like most societies we are sometimes scandalous but never yet in public that cracks me up yeah my last drunk was public in it and i mean it's just an interesting thing that here we are made sometimes some of us they made a big noise about being an alcoholic when we're drunk but then now this is a real practice for us to go okay i'm here i'm being a good girl here i am sober for so many years but i'm not i can't go out and get it in the paper not in the papers but you can go out any place that there isn't a reporter and talk about it so don't be shy about that it talks about preserve a friendly and vital relation to all the world about us especially if you're relying heavily on right principles a wise vigilance and a deepest personal responsibility on the part of every one of us i mean there's an amazing amount of wonderful wisdom in this please Hi, Greg. Three different 12-step programs. So the first paragraph it says, I don't know, second sentence, hardly a syllable of criticism or ridicule has ever been spoken of AA. I really, I looked at the date in 1948, you know, 13 years after AA was, I dunno, maybe, Maybe, I don't know, just 13-stepping the whole accusations about cults and like, I don't think maybe my con... I don' t know if that's just my perspective of Alcoholics Anonymous. Thirteen years being sober in AA, but I don''t know what public opinion is of AA now, but I don't think it's as, I wouldn't call it hardly a symbol of criticism or ridicule that has ever been spoken of. I think that's changed since this has been written. We've had lots of time to acquire some criticism. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, more recently, I guess, there's a program, I haven't seen it, 48 Hours, that talked about a woman's death and a man who was just sentenced to prison. And the whole issue is about 13-stepping and they're going to sue Alcoholics Anonymous. Well, good luck with that one. But anyway, we'll see what happens. It will be very interesting. But I suggest that the general population, especially the professional population, has a very high regard for AlcoholicsAnonymous. I've just recently, well, the last five years, been in the professional community of psychologists, psychiatrists, and treatment professionals. and it's a huge world you can't even imagine how big it is quite frankly I couldn't and the respect for the 12-step program is right at the top there's a few people that are leveraging from a marketing standpoint a contrary opinion there's the Malibu treatment center that goes on television that tells everybody they're not 12 step and they are loaded with people coming in because there's a lot of people that don't want to do 12-step oh my god if I didn't have to I wouldn't either exactly please just an alcoholic you know in the last paragraph Michael stopped short of this it says shot in the arm methods are not for us no press agents no promotional devices no big names the hazards are too great immediate results will always be elusive because the easy shortcut to notoriety can generate permanent and smothering liabilities mothering liability yeah yeah and um i just you know over the years i've been sober i've seen you know people you know actors and actresses say oh i'm in aaa and the next thing you know they're getting arrested for drunk driving right and the other thing the thing about the 48 hours as i watched it and the one thing they didn't make clear is that both people were drinking and drugging and druggy and they were slipping and they were blaming aa for that of course yeah yeah you can't win you can lose yeah yeah but it's her sister and she's a victim and she doesn't understand and you know i don't want to prejudge it but there's going to be a lot of judging going on yeah page 92 anybody have any comments on page well and that's the concept that you you talked about justin was where bill said the good the immediate good may be the enemy of the long-term best i mean that's a terrific wisdom saying and we're all about immediate gratification but that doesn't work so well for the human condition let alone the addict what do they call it long short-term gratification planning and short- term denial works much better than immediate gratification in fact there was a study done statistically significant study by psychologists that were dealing with second graders second graders long-term study and they said to these second graders we're going to give you candy and if you eat the candy you will have had the candy but if you don't eat the candy and you hold it for 30 minutes you'll get two candies they ran the study thirty years later they followed up on the people who ate the first candy and not waited for the second candy and the people who waited for The Second Candy all did much better in life than the people who ate the first candy. It was very indicative. Delayed gratification is a character signature that will serve you very well and we all know, we all now. Hey I'm John, I'm an alcoholic. So the through line for me was on page 91, first paragraph, from all over the world naught comes but keen sympathy and downright admiration And then the warning of the future poses no great problem or challenge to AA than how to best preserve a friendly and vital relation to all the world about us. And the final solution or summary, which is so it is becoming our code that there are things that no AA ever does lest he divert AA from its sole purpose and injure our public relations and thereby the chances of those sick ones yet to come. Yeah. Yep. Nicole? it's nice to have the real nicole we've had lots of stand-ins i heard that and wanted to thank everybody for keeping me here in spirit i really appreciate that um nicoLE alan on so alan has this handy little um checklist called a checklist for for evaluating our maturity And one of them says that a mature adult does not wait. Where is it? I just lost it Can actually handle delayed gratification somewhere it says that but Just in general this checklist for me has been a really good way to To live the steps and the traditions and I've applied it a lot to my life I have all of it if there's like 12 or 15 of them So I don't want to read all of them But the delayed gratification one is the biggest for me because I don' know what that means in without it like without Hearing about from others. It's I'm it's that feel-good junkie thing Yeah, so I just really appreciate that you brought that up because I'm reminded of that pretty much daily But and that's one of the purposes of the 11th tradition for sure he says here on page 92 we're becoming aware that no member ought to describe himself in full view of the general public as an AAA meaning a member of Alcoholics Anonymous even for the most worthy purpose lest a perilous precedent be set which would tempt others to do so for a purposes not so worthy it's a very strict interpretation and we'll be talking about that throughout the whole workshop tonight let's go to the 12 and 12. tradition 11 on page 180 are there any highlights or comments on 180 or 181 we'll cover both pages any highlights anybody would like to comment on well he makes the point of the attraction rather than promotion in that first paragraph he talks about pieces that are in the newspaper the radio moving picture and television through which people have found information and a message about a possible solution to the problem that they're having and it might be drugs and it be alcohol, and it might be food, and there might be gambling. There's a huge system in California supporting recovery from gambling addiction at UCLA, and if you're not aware of it, you really need to be. It's a prototype for the entire country, and the state of California has literally funded it in millions of dollars in terms of a program of recovery for gambling, And they're quite supportive of the 12-step community. Their philosophy is we need to stabilize them physically and psychologically through therapy and intensive inpatient or outpatient programs, but the whole purpose of it is to embed them in the 12 step community so that they have then some type of a continuity and a resource and support system outside does that sound familiar I'm talking about gambling and then of course that's exactly the from my standpoint the best treatment model for alcohol and drug addiction where if people need that kind of professional intervention that it is then supported by a commitment to an an experience with some type of 12-step community richard alcoholic hey richard by temperament nearly every one of us had been an irrepressible promoter and the prospect of a society composed almost entirely of promoters was frightening yeah i could just see that i mean aa cars you know just yeah everything although i've seen a lot of books like you know emotional sobriety i mean sobrieta sobrieto sobriete it's obvious they're in aa but they don't say it on the cover well it's um there's a psychologist in uh new york who has done a lot of work in publishing in emotional sobrieti and i don't believe that she's in aa but she's very aware of the implications of the kind of harmony and stability that comes from certainly restraint from alcohol and drugs but then she translates it into the emotional sobriety that comes from being aware and awake and mindful and transformed the I mentioned at the beginning the Jim Finley will be doing a retreat on mystical sobriete I went to a one-day workshop that he had done and he's really got a handle on the steps i mean he's got a an entire background in mystical theology and the whole history of mysticism but he's really impressed with the transformative nature of the methodology of the 12 steps so he's paid attention to it you may or may not know that he wrote the forward to my book and he really sees it as a huge connection to authentic and deep spiritual life how about page 81 let's see well once again he's talking about not having any one person or image connected to the organization or the message that's the the clearest way i could say it about the 11th tradition and the simplest is that it's about keeping the message clean and whole not having it connected to any personality or person let's go to page 182 and 183 any highlights or comments on that hi George barrel alcoholic George yeah I was really struck by the by the last couple of sentences this tradition is a constant and personal and practical reminder that personal ambition has no place in a yeah you know which you know in a race interacts with humility that we develop and the last sentence in particular in it each member becomes an active guardian of our fellowship well and that's where that person the the uh personal responsibilities were more true say it again i wish that were more true well you know it's an ideal uh you know here we are you know really dedicated people who have survived the gauntlet of 11 weeks of the traditions workshop and come out on a rainy night all right don't really think about it in la you know nobody goes out in the rain in la right right so you guys are the brave spirits right all right all right so yes just one more i i just thought it was really neat uh i thought it was neat Katie alcoholic Eleanor there was really neat about how the press was impressed with the foundation's lap you know anonymity yeah that that the it was so opposite to the culture it was then even more so today good lord that's what I mean so opposite the culture that it was an attraction yeah to the phone and also the fact that their cooperation but in page 182 they talk about talking self-promoting aas out or they stopped putting their name in it i mean the press themselves did that so i i didn't quite know that well the press was very impressed with the fact that no individual wanted to get their face and their name on the paper i mean that's like what you know it's like totally contrary to their experience and that in itself spoke well of the integrity of the organization and that the foundation wrote most of the news organizations the foundation wrote most at the press and told them not to do oh yes oh yeah uh the point is the general service office today circulates to newspapers and etc and has guidelines for conventions with regard to uh the reporting the pictures the names and everybody's been very educated with regard to that nicole alanon by the way herb i love your color choices for the evening um me too okay thanksgiving you know whatever i'm color blind so it doesn't make any difference match that's why i said nice pink hair no um my i have a question because so and this kind of goes back to the actors in in the anonymous people movie that came out and and how is that not how is the anonymity you know um what's your question that's the question so there there's a show or a comedy show every year called yuckaholics and it's alcoholics doing comedy it's primarily promoted in within alcoholics anonymous but other people outside of fellowship know about it so what so what's the what'sthe guideline for the 11th tradition no wait press radio films and tv thank you but that's but was anonymous people not a film the what anonymous people the movie that just came out anonymous did anybody in there say they were a member of alcoholics anonymous you know what i guess not no thank you it's a good movie for that very reason they really honored the traditions if you haven't seen it it's worthwhile it's an anonymous one and um it just says because there's a psychological kind of orientation that we shouldn't say i'm herb i'm an alcoholic i'm herb i'M A DRUG ADDICT I'M HERB I'M A FOOD ADDICK or whatever the nomenclature is in your respective fellowship. They say, because it's a negative, it's diminutive, it is constantly reinforcing that you're diseased and broken. Well, that's really the point, but be that as it may, they are saying it's not good for you psychologically. So why don't you just say you're a person who had a problem with addiction and you're in recovery? There was much tighter jargon there. I had it down when I first saw the movie. But it was actually quite refreshing. It was quite, okay, that would work. I have recovered from a problem with alcohol. I mean, a little more cumbersome, but it would still be quite legitimate to say that. But your point, Nicole, where'd you go? Oh, there you are, is that they're not doing this at the public level. The movie never once, I don't believe, mentioned that anybody was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. They said, if you are, we recommend this verbiage. It was just giving a kind of a current positive psychology slant to how you identify yourself, which I thought was perfectly legitimate. I haven't adopted it. I tried it a couple times personally, and it was just a little too cumbersome. I'm probably embedded in my vocabulary. I'm an alcoholic. I don't have any problem with that. It's kind of like, up until I became an alcoholic, I was a seeker. After I became and alcoholic, I was the finder. So for me it's a quite positive thing. Yeah. Please, John. Is the cover of this and the fact that that's an illustrated brochure related to this issue? Help me. I don' t see his face. Oh, yeah, I see. is not what oh not real people yeah oh I'm confident that's true of course because it's in print yes of course that would be true so John's point of view is the language of the heart you don't on the cover show it to me again uh is a it's actually Bill Wilson I think with his back to you so you don t know who it is because there's no facial picture and the illustrated has a it's a cartoon no real people so that would actually be absolutely in the spirit of and the literal interpretation of the traditions where there's no face and no full name now uh when i was publishing my second book first book actually i made contact with general service office in new york and had some nice conversations with them about how do i go about publishing a book should i call it a member of alcoholics anonymous and no name and they said no don't do that use your first name and your last initial all right i mean that was direction from them we don't care what you do don't use your last name that would be incorrect but uh go ahead and use your First Name and your Last Initial I said okay and with my website now Now that I've done this work, I'm going to have to go through it with a fine-tooth comb to make sure that in fact on the web itself and in some of the documents, it doesn't refer to me as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's okay to refer to AlcoholicsAnonymous but not me as member of it. So I'll have to be a little more careful with that. Even if you don't use your full name? Oh yes, yes, yeah. well that's a really good point but my full name is all over the website so yeah and i have no trouble with that as long as i'm not saying i'm a member of alcoholics anonymous i have not put my picture on my website for one of those reasons though what about the therapist or somebody like Well, first, he hasn't said in your words just now, he hasn'T said he's a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. He said he'S a recovered alcoholic. Yeah, so what? I know some recovered alcoholics who have never gone to AA. Yeah, absolutely. They have several ticks, though, you know. joking 11th tradition illustrated anybody have any highlights on the page that has the words on it in contrast to the cartoons oh yeah so the they have the camera angles at the bottom there and a little illustration as to how to be anonymous on television as i understand it the 48 hours did that in terms of their interviews and so it's about not imaging somebody or giving their full name it says many of us have chosen to tell our friends our neighbors our employers our co-workers our doctors spiritual advisors that we are in aa we are not breaking our anonymity in the meaning of this tradition that's a personal choice we're going to talk a lot about that next week when we talk about the personal relationship to anonymity in the fellowship and what that might mean and whether you should call yourself by your first name your first name and last initial or your full name and there is a controversy in Alcoholics Anonymous there are two different camps guess what the camps are New York and Ohio right and they both have a totally different interpretation bill wilson's camp versus dr bob's camp we'll talk about that next time now it's not a strong deal but it's definitely a cultural thing okay so let's go then to um i'd like to go to some of the brochures go please george it says giving the general public an accurate picture of aa is the chief job of our public information committees yeah these are committees within the general service structure so people who are general service representatives are able to serve in these committees and what they do for one thing is they place public service announcements there are little spots that alcoholics anonymous has produced both video and audio that get played as public service announcements and people have the opportunity preferably people who have some experience in the industry to contact radio stations and tv stations to get these things played often at 2 a.m when you're there you know as well as going out to other people in the in the public who might be in a position to carry the message of AA to alcoholics in their profession, sir. So, John? Go ahead. I'm John. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, John. So I'm referring to understanding anonymity, which was handed out last week. There's more of these if you need more for any reason. And on the copy that I have on page six, there's a section, Anonymity at the Public Level. and on page seven in the second paragraph it reads it did not take long this is sort of related to a conversation we were having earlier but i think it's it's put very well uh it did not take for those at aa headquarters so not a person or whatever but an office to realize that overzealous and self-serving anonymity breakers could jeopardize the fellowships hard one and that's referred to in all this stuff about how hard it was to get the reputation and they saw that if one person was made an exception other exceptions would inevitably follow to assure the unity, effectiveness and welfare of AA anonymity had to be universal and again the sentinel it was the guardian of all that AA stood for This is a terrific pamphlet and it crosses over both tradition 11 and 12 If you haven't read it i really recommend that you do read it especially in anticipation of next week's discussion but it will confirm this week's as well as preparing for next week s discussion on page five it says the greatest single protection the fellowship has to assure its continued existence and growth that's why we talked about the sentinel he says at the at the personal level anonymity provides protection for all members from identification as alcoholics which is a safeguard often special importance to newcomers because of the stigma there's still a stigma not as much as there was of course in 1935 then he says at the public level press radio tv films and other media technologies such as the internet anonymity stresses the equality in the fellowship of all members putting the brake on those who might otherwise exploit their aaa affiliation to achieve recognition power or personal gain when using digital media aa members are responsible for their own anonymity and that of others when we post text or blog we should assume that we are publishing at the public level up until this weekend i did not know this information this was developed in 2010 it's very recent and it's in this brochure and i'm sure there's more information here i'll talk about it in a minute well i'm going to talk about right right now because this this brochures has just the beginnings of the development of that information publicly accessible aspects of the internet such as websites featuring text graphics audio and video can oh this is page nine can be considered the same as publishing or broadcasting that's huge unless password protected a website requires the same safeguards that we use at the level of press radio film and tv i'm assuming simply put this means that aas do not identify themselves as aa members using their full names and or full face photos there's more on the next page 10. when we use digital media we are responsible for our own anonymity and that of others when we post text or blog we should assume that we are publishing at the public level when we break our anonymity in these forums we may inadvertently break the anonymity of others then they give you a reference for some guidelines there that i'm going to be doing some research on to give myself a deeper understanding of the implications of all this of course they have a summary then on page 11 which i'm not going to go through there's bullet points there that you can look at yourself i really recommend you do because that will give you the absolute reader's digest version of what we're talking about here at the same time this brochure the ah well i have the old one uh anybody have the new one it's a blue it's yeah that's the show it to us rob that's that's new one i just have the old one from studies from the past but in my copy and i think the page numbers are the same on page 40 in most places but not all is customary for aas to use their own names when speaking before public or semi-public gatherings this is done to impress audiences that we no longer fear the stigma of alcoholism now that's because there's no reporters available right if however newspaper reporters are present they are earnestly requested not to use the names of any of the alcoholic speakers on the program this preserves the principle of anonymity so far as the general public is concerned and at the same time represents us as a group of alcoholics who no longer fear to let our friends know that we have been very sick people the question of how far each individual or group shall go in dropping anonymity is left strictly to the individual or group concern The exception, all groups or individuals when writing or speaking for publication as AA members of Alcoholics Anonymous feel bound never to disclose their true names. We ought not to disclose ourselves to the general public through the media of the press, pictures, or on the radio. All right, so it's pretty clear information here. and then going back to page 49 again a good summary this is why we see anonymity at the general public level as our chief protection against ourselves the guardian of all our traditions and the greatest symbol of self-sacrifice that we know we now realize that 100% personal anonymity before the public I'm emphasizing and re-emphasizing this so that people really get what this is this tradition is about it's at the public level is just as vital to the life of a a as a hundred percent sobriety is to the each and every member I'm gonna read it again it's a powerful contrast between the traditions and the steps between the group of AA as an organization and the individual a a member we now fully realize that a hundred percent personal anonymity before the public is just as vital to the life of AAA the organization as 100% sobriety is to the life of each and every member that really is powerful summary of what we're talking about here in tradition 11 so let's take a look then at the assignments yes please since you reference this pamphlet yeah please speak about some couple of other things in here that I thought were fascinating I mean great there's a lot of history in here a lot there's a lot wonderful history and and some of the anonymity stuff refers to tradition 12 so I didn't spend a lot of time on it well yeah I'll defer that if you want but no no no tradition 12 well the first thing just is I had not seen that heard this before I read this pamphlet that the fellowship got its name almost by chance that the book was going to be called the way out yep until they found out there were a lot other books there were 12 other books in the Library of Congress and Bill said I do not want to be the 13th book but yeah the other part that I hope everyone looks at is on the last page that's page 50 in this pamphlet where Bill writes about dr. Bob's resting place it's so moving I mean it almost made me cry made him cry I guess but yeah if I can read a little bit there would you see them for a long time now both dr. Baum and I have done everything possible to maintain the tradition of anonymity. Just before he died, some of Dr. Bob's friends suggested that there should be a suitable monument or mausoleum erected in honor of him and his wife Anne, something befitting a founder. Dr.Bob declined with thanks. Telling me about this a little later, he grinned and said, for heaven's sake, Bill, why don't you and I get buried like other folks? Last summer, I visited the Akron Cemetery where Bob and Anne lie. Their simple Stone says, never a word about Alcoholics Anonymous. This made me so glad I cried. And then at the very end it says, we don't have to go to Akron, Ohio to see Dr. Bob's memorial. Dr. Bob's real monument is visible throughout the length and breadth of AA. Yeah, nice. Yeah. And that says it all, doesn't it? Exactly. Both in terms of the connection to the corporation but also in terms of his personal spirituality of humility exactly uh i'm not sure where bill is buried but probably close to his home but i don't know uh simply i think it's as simple as that yeah but i don't know that either all right so question number five on the oops uh question number four on the 11th tradition how much do you promote yourself a a at work family and friends anybody have a reflection on that that they would care to share either by reading it or summarized okay there we go Kim Allen on my so I don't you know I'm now look I'm a little more clearer on traditional 11 but I'm thinking this answer might be something in tradition 12 but here it goes yeah so So when I first came into Al-Anon, and I was on the drug of feeling really good after about six months of being in Al-Aanon, I thought everyone should have Al-aanon. So I went out and told everyone I was in Al Anon and promoted myself and thought this is good for me, this will be good for you because I like rescuing everyone. Such a helper! I am, thank you. But now going through the steps and the traditions now, and really what I have a lot of clarity in this tradition just tonight and hearing it is the personal responsibility of anonymity for the unity of the group. That's how I'm hearing it tonight from myself. And so interestingly enough, you know, I've been in Al-Anon for a while. So that was like the first year of Al-Aanon where I would promote everyone go to Al-anon and now I've had relationships and connections with friends and family where they'll come and they'll talk about challenges in their lives, and I'll share my experience, strength, and hope. And I'll say, well, you know, I've had that challenge in life and I've tried to look at it through this lens or this perspective. Nothing about Al-Anon whatsoever. And I was just with a co-worker who I work with in a professional organization, and she was going through a tough time, and so I just shared my experience of strength and hope and at the end of our dinner she goes, wow, that sounds a lot like Al-Alanon. and I was like and I paused and I was like it is Al-Anon so anyways full circle well and the point there is she's protecting some of the anonymity where it's on a need to know basis but I'm sure that if you felt it would be helpful you would disclose where you got the information if somebody said well that's all really wonderful wisdom stuff Where did you learn all of that? Yes. Then you would, in fact, share, well, I'm a member of a 12-step program called Al-Anon. Yes. And I have had those experiences too, like in the last couple of years. But it really is about, I feel like it is that responsibility of what is my motive? What is my intention? Prior to this working through the steps, my motive and intention was, I want you to have what I have because I want to feel better and I wantto know it's the right thing. Yes. And I wanto feel safe in your presence. That's right. and if you have my principles you'll be safe right and i'll be controlling and i'llbe happy because you're agreeing with me yes yes yes we yes isn't that lovely oh yes kim for queen sarah food addict hi sarah um i sometimes wonder about people saying how many years we've been in program whether that's a kind of self-promotion and i'm just making a kind of rule for myself now that when i say that henceforth in my meetings that i'll remind myself that it's with gratitude that i'm saying it rather than um bragging yeah and because i can easily start buying my own pr about that and start acting self-important that i don't need to do the kind of things that newcomers have to do and um you know cut myself slack about making outreach calls and so yeah well we'll and we'll talk uh and kim was right uh the it's very difficult and sarah to distinguish sometimes between anonymity anonymity of tradition 11 and tradition 12. and it doesn't make any difference we're having a discussion about it and we'll continue it next week um and and i think that there's a whole relevancy to talking about years of service how about the question should i even raise my hand in a meeting is that self-promotion save that one for next week right thanks nicole alan on um i appreciate what kim said because that's my story mine with my family was a little bit different though early when i came in and i was like i'm an alan on i'm doing great and then i hit my fourth step and i quit talking to my mom and my relationship with my family pretty well sucked um it was far from being an attraction my mom really loathed it because we went from having this enmeshed relationship to me just not really talking to her at all fortunately through the grace of the program and the wisdom of others step eight and nine that's rekindled in the experience is now different and my family is now going to program but not through my promoting it they went because they saw the changes so that thank you yeah thank you i i had the experience and i may have shared it in the step workshop where we were about six months into the step workshop and a woman had been in the workshop and she wasn't apart much participant so i didn't really know who she was um and she had 15 years of sobriety and she was there doing the work of the workshop and i got a call after about her the workshop going about six months from her husband he said my wife been coming to a meeting on monday night and she never told me where she was going or what it was about but recently i asked her about it and she said it's a workshop and that you facilitate it i want to talk to you about that workshop and her participation i thought oh yeah i said okay and we got we got some you know made a date for some coffee and and he sits down he says i'm 15 years sober and i've been sitting back watching her change and And I didn't know what the hell she was doing. And I finally asked her. He said, tell me about what you're doing up there. And we had an hour's conversation and he signed up to do the steps. But she had never said it to him that she was going to a workshop, that she wasn't going to the gym. That she was working steps, etc. Never shared any of that. All right? But her change, her visible behavioral change was the message. And you heard St. Francis allegedly say, wherever you are, preach the good news. If you have to, use words. See, she wasn't using words. It was manifesting through her behavior, through her relationship with him, that he got something was going on and he wanted to know about it. Hi, Greg. and maybe I'm going into a little bit of the 12th tradition here, but I thought how do I promote, and I remember recently I just got elected as chairman of the board for an Alano club and somebody pointed at me at a meeting one time and said yeah he's a board member And I got really worried about puffing myself up too much, and I said, you know, I also clean the bathrooms here. And then somebody else pointed out to me, hey, you're supposed to do that stuff and not seek any recognition about being of service. And I was like, I can't even brag about cleaning the bathrooms anymore. This sucks. yeah well they obviously took it out of context i thought it was a great retort i thought was a great retort the balancing thing all right and he just saw it in a different light and you know it's okay let him deal with his own four-step uh just to note that i went to that and bill is very east dorset vermont that's where he was raised east dorsa vermont okay it just says bill wilson in two years on his gravestone i'm sorry it says bill wilson what oh there you go see there you guys go there's two of them one of them like someone there's a small headstone that has his the day i mean the year he was born and the year he died then there's like one at the foot just says that he was in world war one oh that he was what world war one veteran yeah there you go very nice you know part of my reflection on how i use this tradition in my family is rather than talk about my experiences and talk about my process and talk about my solutions i've made it a point to ask questions about their life their problems their issues ask you know do they need any help with anything rather than ever talk i'll respond to questions asked of me but my even my answers now are really short unless they continue to prod me for uh more information so that i'm not in fact doing workshops or monologues at home right i kind of think you you you ask answer the question already but you know how you're talking about the husband noticing the changes in the wife well he knew her before yeah you know she changed what about people that come into your life after you've changed like how do you carry the message in that way because your behavior hasn't like you're just the person you are because of the changes and they didn't know how you were before sure that's my question yeah well okay uh my sense is that if somebody is authentically transformed and continuously leaning gently into recovery and spiritual growth that that is so anti-cultural that people will get that and they'll be asking questions about that or not and it's not about whether or not they're recognizing how wonderful you are yeah all right number five how are you an attraction within the groups of a a at work in your family and friends how are you and that goes right along with what Don's question was I mean are you a a person because i've said in the step workshop we're contagious who we are is what we communicate it's very confrontational sorry about that but it i mean think about it who you are is what you communicate not your words sometimes not even your behavior just who you are as a being as a presence and if it's a negative you know creation then you have need to take a look at that in yourself so anybody please the question asking is some way that i do that and that if you are asking questions you are other-centered yes and i'm not asking them for me no and people love to talk about themselves yes so that's i mean in most gatherings like family gatherings and stuff like that you're always on what's up where's it going yeah all that yeah you're attractive to them because you care about them more than you care well and you said something that's really uh in addition to what you said is really insightful i just got it when you're asking questions i'm not asking them because i want to know a lot of times i'm asking them because I want them to ask themselves those questions and to reflect on it and it may have an impact in that conversation or it may have an effect a week later as they're driving their car and somehow that conversation comes back because the question is stayed in them like a bullet in a bucket buzzing around and all of a sudden they wake up to the question they really hear the question yeah which is what i hope i i attempt to do in the workshops hi one way i try to be an attraction in aa i go to a small meeting where pretty much everybody gets to share the format of the meeting says the leader picks a topic to share on and i share on that topic most of the others don't right so you model the behavior of the format that's exactly right you don't have to preach it you have to do it yeah all right consider the balance between promotion and attraction the principles of step six and seven relate and function to the 11th tradition I'd like to just go back to the book here a little bit. This is now Pass It On, and on page 307, Anonymity was originally practiced for reasons that had to do with the experimental nature of the society and with the prevailing stigma on alcoholism. bill concluded that the deeper purpose of anonymity was quote actually to keep those fool egos of ours from running hog wild after money and public fame at aa's expense that's a nice recap for tradition 11 as well as this particular piece from AA comes of age there's lots of material in these books about anonymity I mean like 15 20 page essays on it or the history of it and you can find them by looking in the index if in fact you're interested in more of the background and history and the writing on it on page 292 in this appendix. This is why we see anonymity at the general public level as our chief protection against ourselves, the guardian of all our traditions and the greatest symbol of self-sacrifice that we know. Of course no AA need be anonymous to family friends or neighbors disclosure there is usually right and good nor is there any special danger when we speak at group or semi-public AA a meetings provided press reports reveal first names only we now realize that 100 percent personal anonymity before the public is just as vital to the life of aa as 100 sobriety is to the wife of each and every member it was worth repeating for us So we'll do Tradition 12 next week and continue this, I think, wonderfully rich discussion. I do really recommend that you read these two paragraphs. Well, you know the current one. And this pamphlet on the anonymity, there's about 15 or 20 pages in here. They're very worthwhile. A lot of it has to do with Tradition. uh 12 about personal anonymity the implications of that and then we'll discuss perhaps a couple different approaches to anonymity both endorsed by aa and the final conclusion is you make up your mind as to how anonymous you want to be all right and so you can well we'll talk about that next time. 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, 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 please join me in the prayer of saint 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 where there is error I may bring truth that where there is doubt I may bring faith that where there is despair I may bring hope that where there are shadows I may bring 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 and to be understood, to love and to be loved. For it is by self-forgetting that one finds. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. It is bei dying that one awakens to eternal life. Amen. See you next week.