Hi All,

Is our objective just to watch and complain? We know AAWS, Inc. does not act, or spend as the majority of this forum believes they should. Are there any solutions to this.
[Al C said: ] AAWS is "supposed" to represent the Fellowship.  The "solution" (to me) is as obvious as my reflection in the mirror. 

Is it possible to correct the problems through the power of the purse?
[Al C said: ] I don't think that this is the only way to correct ALL the problems by a long-shot, but it would tend to get "their" attention. 

If they don’t have money could they continue in ways which are not agreeable?
[Al C said: ]   The sad fact is that they do have the money, and until it's drawn down to a realistic level, they'll continue to ignore (in my opinion) whatever they choose to ignore, and the Fellowship be damned, with very few exceptions (my view only).

Are the masses in AA today stupid or ill informed?
[Al C said: ] I've belatedly come to realize that, at least in my former home group, folks seem to have gotten into a "comfort zone", and don't wish to, either actively or inactively, hear about the activities of our/their trusted servants. 

Is the service structure so broken it cannot be repaired?
[Al C said: ] My opinion only, but I believe it not only can be repaired, but that we're a part of the problem if we DON'T go about some method of participation IN the repair.  Service...I'm old enough to remember when the place that you got gasoline for your car was normally called a "Service Station".  That's my analogy.  The attendants seem to be poking holes in the tires while they're cleaning the windshield...now...yes, you ARE getting service, but you're also being provided with a great DIS-service in the process.  We need to get rid of those who're poking holes in the (our "customer's") tires. 

Is there a need for AAWS, Inc.?
[Al C said: ] Yet another analogy..."But SIR!!!!!...we've ALWAYS issued cavalry swords!!!!!".  'Nough said.

G'bless,

Al C.

I forwarded copies of this paper to our delegate, alternate delegate and several past delegates in our area.

I talked to the alternate delegate the other night as illustrated in a previous post.

This morning I got an e-mail reply from our delegate.  He noted a kind of a slant in  some of the opinions in the paper.  But, his one comment I found most interesting was that he thought the author might be involved in clubs or politics.  Hmmmmm…..?????

Anyway, both were glad to get the paper and actually read it.

tmd

Hi All,

Is our objective just to watch and complain? We know AAWS, Inc. does not act, or spend as the majority of this forum believes they should. Are there any solutions to this.

Is it possible to correct the problems through the power of the purse?

If they don’t have money could they continue in ways which are not agreeable?

Are the masses in AA today stupid or ill informed?

Is the service structure so broken it cannot be repaired?

Is there a need for AAWS, Inc.?

It is just my dingbat opinion but this is gsowatch (or perhaps more correctly aawswatch) not aa meeting watch.

The numbers are all questionable as is the whole opinion piece. It is full of generalizations that are not necessarily true such as the demise of groups. The demise of groups can only be ascertained from GSO registrations. Not all groups register, as is their right, such as the Nicollet Group in Minneapolis which started around 1941 (I did read they did register with the intergroup within the last 10 years). Even where I live I have helped start three groups and we do not register and there are two more that have been in existence for about eight years that have not registered. And since we are not registered we certainly are not going to fill out any GSO or Grapevine survey. The numbers at meetings is very misleading. I know for a fact there are still meetings through out the country that still pull in those large numbers and yet for us in my area to ever attain those numbers we would have to bus them in from Minneapolis, Milwaukee and Chicago. (lol)

BAJ

Lets get this thing going.

I read this the other day, It is long (sorry)

That question is being asked by a lot of alcoholics lately.  What happened to our high success rate?  30 & 40 years ago, we were keeping 75% or more of the alcoholics who came to us for help.  Today, we aren’t keeping even 5%.  What happened?

What happened to that wonderful A.A. Group that was around for 20, 30 or 40 years?  There used to be 50, 75, 100 or more at every meeting.  It is now a matter of history; gone!  More and more groups are folding every day.  What happened?

We hear a lot of ideas, opinions and excuses as to what happened but things are not improving.  They continue to get worse.  What is happening?

Bill W. wrote,

            “In the years ahead A.A. will, of course, make mistakes.  Experience has taught us that we need have no fear of doing this, providing that we always remain willing to admit our faults and to correct them promptly.  Our growth as individuals has depended upon this healthy process of trial and error.  So will our growth as a fellowship.

            Let us always remember that any society of men and women that cannot freely correct its own faults must surely fall into decay if not into collapse.    Such is the universal penalty for the failure to go on growing.  Just as each A.A. must continue to take his moral inventory and act upon it, so must our whole Society if we are to survive and if we are to serve usefully and well.” (A.A. Comes of Age, pg 231)

            With so very few finding lasting sobriety and the continued demise of AA groups, it is obvious that we have not remained willing to admit our faults and to correct them promptly.

            Seems to me that the Delegate of the Northeast Ohio Area, Bob Bacon, identified our mistakes and our faults when he talked to a group of AA’s in 1976.  He said, in essence, we are no longer showing the newcomer that we have a solution for alcoholism.  We are not telling them about the Big Book and how very important that Book is to our long term sobriety.  We are not telling them about our Traditions and how very important they are to the individual groups and to Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole.  Rather, we are using our meeting time for drunkalogs, a discussion of our problems, ideas and opinions or “my day” or “my way”.

            Having been around for a few years, and reflecting on what Bob Bacon had to say, it would appear that we have permitted newcomers to convince the old-timers that they had a better idea.  They had just spent 30 or more days in a treatment facility where they had been impressed with the need to talk about their problems in Group Therapy Sessions.  They had been told that it didn’t make any difference what their real problem was, A.A. had the “best program”.  They were told that they should go to an A.A. meeting every day for the 1st 90 days out of treatment.  They were told that they shouldn’t make any major decisions for the 1st year of their sobriety.  And what they were told goes on and on, most of which are contrary to the Program of Alcoholics Anonymous! 

            Apparently, what they were told sounded pretty good to the A.A. members who were here when the TC clients started showing up at our meetings.  And a lot of the A.A. members liked the idea of the treatment centers because the centers provided a place where they could drop off a serious drinker, if he/she had insurance.  That eliminated some of the inconveniences we had been plagued with before; having to pour orange juice and honey or a shot of booze down a vibrating alky to help them “de-tox”.

            When A.A.  was very successful, the folks who did the talking in meetings were recovered alcoholics.  The suffering and untreated alcoholics listened.  After hearing what it takes to recover, the newcomer was faced with a decision; “Are you going to take the Steps and recover or are you going to get back out there and finish the job?”.  If they said they “were willing to go to any length”, they were given a sponsor, a Big Book and began the process of recovery by taking the Steps and experiencing the Promises that result from that course of action.  This process kept the newcomer involved in working with others and continued the growth of our Fellowship.  Our growth rate was approximately 7% and the number of sober members of Alcoholics Anonymous doubled every 10 years.

            With the advent of the rapid growth of the Treatment Industry, the acceptance of our success with alcoholics by the judicial system and endorsement of physicians, psychiatrist, psychologist, etc. all kinds of people were pouring into A.A. at a rate greater than we had ever dreamed possible.  Almost without realizing what was happening, our meetings began changing from ones that focused on recovery from alcoholism to “discussion or participation” types of meetings that invited everyone to talk about whatever was on their mind.  The meetings evolved from a program of spiritual development to the group therapy type of meeting where we heard more and more about “our problems” and less and less about the Program of Recovery by the Big Book and the preservation of our Fellowship by adhering to our Traditions. 

            What has been the result of all this?  Well, never have we had so many coming to us for help.  But never have we had such a slow growth rate which has now started to decline.  For the first time in our history, Alcoholics Anonymous is losing members faster than they are coming in and our success rate is unbelievably low.  (Statistics from the Inter-Group Office of some major cities indicate less than 5% of those expressing a desire to stop drinking are successful for more than 5 years; a far cry form the 75% reported by Bill W. in the Forward to Second Edition).  The change in the content of our meetings is proving to be death-traps for the newcomer and in turn, death-traps for the groups that depend on the “discussion or participation” type meetings. 

            Why is this?  The answer is very simple.  When meetings were opened so that untreated alcoholics & non-alcoholics were given the opportunity to express their ideas, their opinions, air their problems and tell how they were told to do it where they came from, the confused newcomer became more confused with the diversity of information that  was being presented.  More and more they were encouraged to “just go to meetings and don’t drink” or worse yet, “go to 90 meetings in 90 days”.   The newcomer no longer was told to take the Steps or get back out there and finish the job.  In fact, they are often told, “Don’t rush into taking the Steps.  Take your time.”   The alcoholics who participated in the writing of the Big Book didn’t wait.  They took the Steps in the first few days following their last drink

            Thank God, there are those in our Fellowship, like Joe & Charlie, Wally, etc., who have recognized the problem and have started doing something about it.  They are placing the focus back on the Big Book.  There have always been a few groups that would not yield to the group therapy trend.  They stayed firm to their commitment to try to carry a single message to the suffering alcoholic.  That is to tell the newcomer that “we have had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps and if you want to recover, we will see that you have a sponsor who has recovered and will lead you along the path the 1st 100 laid down for us”.   Recovered alcoholics have begun founding groups that have a single purpose and inform the newcomer that until they have taken the steps and recovered, they will not be permitted to say anything in meetings.  They will listen to recovered alcoholics, they will take the Steps, they will recover and then they will try to pass their experience and knowledge on to the ones who are seeking the kind of help we provide in Alcoholics Anonymous.  As this movement spreads, as it is beginning to, Alcoholics Anonymous will again be very successful in doing the one thing God intended for us to do and that is to help the suffering alcoholic recover, if he has decided he wants what we have and is willing to go to any length to recover, to take and apply our Twelve Steps to our lives and protect our Fellowship by honoring our Twelve Traditions.

            There is a tendency to want to place the blame for our predicament on the treatment industry and professionals.  They do what they do and it has nothing to do with what we in Alcoholics Anonymous do.  That is their business.  That is not where to place the blame and also is in violation of our Tenth Tradition.  The real problem is that the members of Alcoholics Anonymous, who were here when the “clients” began coming to our Fellowship did not help the “clients” understand that our Program had been firmly established since April 1939.  And that the guidelines for the preservation and growth of our Fellowship were adopted in 1950.  That they must get rid of their new “old ideas” and start practicing the Twelve Step Program of Alcoholics Anonymous as it was given to us.  That until they had taken the Steps and recovered, they had nothing to say that needed to be heard except by their sponsor.  But that didn’t happen.  To the contrary, the old timers failed in their responsibility to the newcomer to remind them of a vital truth, “Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path.  Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program.”  We have permitted untreated alcoholics and non-alcoholics to  sit in our meetings and lay out their problems, ideas and opinions.  We have gone from, “Rarely have we seen a person fail” to “Seldom do we see a person recover”.

            So there we are.  We have had 30 years of unbelievable success by following the directions in the Big Book.  We have had 30 years of disappointing failure by wanting to hear from everyone.  We now have something to compare. 

            We now know what the problem is and we know what the solution is. Unfortunately, we have not been prompt to correct the faults and mistakes which have been created by what would appear to be large doses of apathy and complacency.  The problem we are trying to live with is needlessly killing alcoholics.  The Solution?  The Power, greater than ourselves, that we find through our Twelve Steps promises recovery for those who are willing to follow the clear-cut directions in the Big Book. 

            Do you want to be a part of the problem or a part of the solution?  Simple, but not easy; A price has to be paid.

Yes SIR!

(__)P ~~~~~~ large cup, or \_/p ```````  demi-tasse?  Full octane or lead-free?  Just a bit of service work <wink>

Al (at the pot) C.

From: GSOwatch@yahoogroups.com [mailto:GSOwatch@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of John C.
Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2006 06:59AM
To: GSOwatch@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [GSOwatch] Where's the coffee?

I came looking for coffee? LOL

Lets get this thing going.

I read this the other day, It is long (sorry)

That question is being asked by a lot of alcoholics lately.  What happened to our high success rate?  30 & 40 years ago, we were keeping 75% or more of the alcoholics who came to us for help.  Today, we aren’t keeping even 5%.  What happened?

What happened to that wonderful A.A. Group that was around for 20, 30 or 40 years?  There used to be 50, 75, 100 or more at every meeting.  It is now a matter of history; gone!  More and more groups are folding every day.  What happened?

We hear a lot of ideas, opinions and excuses as to what happened but things are not improving.  They continue to get worse.  What is happening?

Bill W. wrote,

            “In the years ahead A.A. will, of course, make mistakes.  Experience has taught us that we need have no fear of doing this, providing that we always remain willing to admit our faults and to correct them promptly.  Our growth as individuals has depended upon this healthy process of trial and error.  So will our growth as a fellowship.

            Let us always remember that any society of men and women that cannot freely correct its own faults must surely fall into decay if not into collapse.    Such is the universal penalty for the failure to go on growing.  Just as each A.A. must continue to take his moral inventory and act upon it, so must our whole Society if we are to survive and if we are to serve usefully and well.” (A.A. Comes of Age, pg 231)

            With so very few finding lasting sobriety and the continued demise of AA groups, it is obvious that we have not remained willing to admit our faults and to correct them promptly.

            Seems to me that the Delegate of the Northeast Ohio Area, Bob Bacon, identified our mistakes and our faults when he talked to a group of AA’s in 1976.  He said, in essence, we are no longer showing the newcomer that we have a solution for alcoholism.  We are not telling them about the Big Book and how very important that Book is to our long term sobriety.  We are not telling them about our Traditions and how very important they are to the individual groups and to Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole.  Rather, we are using our meeting time for drunkalogs, a discussion of our problems, ideas and opinions or “my day” or “my way”.

            Having been around for a few years, and reflecting on what Bob Bacon had to say, it would appear that we have permitted newcomers to convince the old-timers that they had a better idea.  They had just spent 30 or more days in a treatment facility where they had been impressed with the need to talk about their problems in Group Therapy Sessions.  They had been told that it didn’t make any difference what their real problem was, A.A. had the “best program”.  They were told that they should go to an A.A. meeting every day for the 1st 90 days out of treatment.  They were told that they shouldn’t make any major decisions for the 1st year of their sobriety.  And what they were told goes on and on, most of which are contrary to the Program of Alcoholics Anonymous! 

            Apparently, what they were told sounded pretty good to the A.A. members who were here when the TC clients started showing up at our meetings.  And a lot of the A.A. members liked the idea of the treatment centers because the centers provided a place where they could drop off a serious drinker, if he/she had insurance.  That eliminated some of the inconveniences we had been plagued with before; having to pour orange juice and honey or a shot of booze down a vibrating alky to help them “de-tox”.

            When A.A.  was very successful, the folks who did the talking in meetings were recovered alcoholics.  The suffering and untreated alcoholics listened.  After hearing what it takes to recover, the newcomer was faced with a decision; “Are you going to take the Steps and recover or are you going to get back out there and finish the job?”.  If they said they “were willing to go to any length”, they were given a sponsor, a Big Book and began the process of recovery by taking the Steps and experiencing the Promises that result from that course of action.  This process kept the newcomer involved in working with others and continued the growth of our Fellowship.  Our growth rate was approximately 7% and the number of sober members of Alcoholics Anonymous doubled every 10 years.

            With the advent of the rapid growth of the Treatment Industry, the acceptance of our success with alcoholics by the judicial system and endorsement of physicians, psychiatrist, psychologist, etc. all kinds of people were pouring into A.A. at a rate greater than we had ever dreamed possible.  Almost without realizing what was happening, our meetings began changing from ones that focused on recovery from alcoholism to “discussion or participation” types of meetings that invited everyone to talk about whatever was on their mind.  The meetings evolved from a program of spiritual development to the group therapy type of meeting where we heard more and more about “our problems” and less and less about the Program of Recovery by the Big Book and the preservation of our Fellowship by adhering to our Traditions. 

            What has been the result of all this?  Well, never have we had so many coming to us for help.  But never have we had such a slow growth rate which has now started to decline.  For the first time in our history, Alcoholics Anonymous is losing members faster than they are coming in and our success rate is unbelievably low.  (Statistics from the Inter-Group Office of some major cities indicate less than 5% of those expressing a desire to stop drinking are successful for more than 5 years; a far cry form the 75% reported by Bill W. in the Forward to Second Edition).  The change in the content of our meetings is proving to be death-traps for the newcomer and in turn, death-traps for the groups that depend on the “discussion or participation” type meetings. 

            Why is this?  The answer is very simple.  When meetings were opened so that untreated alcoholics & non-alcoholics were given the opportunity to express their ideas, their opinions, air their problems and tell how they were told to do it where they came from, the confused newcomer became more confused with the diversity of information that  was being presented.  More and more they were encouraged to “just go to meetings and don’t drink” or worse yet, “go to 90 meetings in 90 days”.   The newcomer no longer was told to take the Steps or get back out there and finish the job.  In fact, they are often told, “Don’t rush into taking the Steps.  Take your time.”   The alcoholics who participated in the writing of the Big Book didn’t wait.  They took the Steps in the first few days following their last drink

            Thank God, there are those in our Fellowship, like Joe & Charlie, Wally, etc., who have recognized the problem and have started doing something about it.  They are placing the focus back on the Big Book.  There have always been a few groups that would not yield to the group therapy trend.  They stayed firm to their commitment to try to carry a single message to the suffering alcoholic.  That is to tell the newcomer that “we have had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps and if you want to recover, we will see that you have a sponsor who has recovered and will lead you along the path the 1st 100 laid down for us”.   Recovered alcoholics have begun founding groups that have a single purpose and inform the newcomer that until they have taken the steps and recovered, they will not be permitted to say anything in meetings.  They will listen to recovered alcoholics, they will take the Steps, they will recover and then they will try to pass their experience and knowledge on to the ones who are seeking the kind of help we provide in Alcoholics Anonymous.  As this movement spreads, as it is beginning to, Alcoholics Anonymous will again be very successful in doing the one thing God intended for us to do and that is to help the suffering alcoholic recover, if he has decided he wants what we have and is willing to go to any length to recover, to take and apply our Twelve Steps to our lives and protect our Fellowship by honoring our Twelve Traditions.

            There is a tendency to want to place the blame for our predicament on the treatment industry and professionals.  They do what they do and it has nothing to do with what we in Alcoholics Anonymous do.  That is their business.  That is not where to place the blame and also is in violation of our Tenth Tradition.  The real problem is that the members of Alcoholics Anonymous, who were here when the “clients” began coming to our Fellowship did not help the “clients” understand that our Program had been firmly established since April 1939.  And that the guidelines for the preservation and growth of our Fellowship were adopted in 1950.  That they must get rid of their new “old ideas” and start practicing the Twelve Step Program of Alcoholics Anonymous as it was given to us.  That until they had taken the Steps and recovered, they had nothing to say that needed to be heard except by their sponsor.  But that didn’t happen.  To the contrary, the old timers failed in their responsibility to the newcomer to remind them of a vital truth, “Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path.  Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program.”  We have permitted untreated alcoholics and non-alcoholics to  sit in our meetings and lay out their problems, ideas and opinions.  We have gone from, “Rarely have we seen a person fail” to “Seldom do we see a person recover”.

            So there we are.  We have had 30 years of unbelievable success by following the directions in the Big Book.  We have had 30 years of disappointing failure by wanting to hear from everyone.  We now have something to compare. 

            We now know what the problem is and we know what the solution is. Unfortunately, we have not been prompt to correct the faults and mistakes which have been created by what would appear to be large doses of apathy and complacency.  The problem we are trying to live with is needlessly killing alcoholics.  The Solution?  The Power, greater than ourselves, that we find through our Twelve Steps promises recovery for those who are willing to follow the clear-cut directions in the Big Book. 

            Do you want to be a part of the problem or a part of the solution?  Simple, but not easy; A price has to be paid.

Yes SIR!

(__)P ~~~~~~ large cup, or \_/p ```````  demi-tasse?  Full octane or lead-free?  Just a bit of service work <wink>

Al (at the pot) C.

From: GSOwatch@yahoogroups.com [mailto:GSOwatch@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of John C.
Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2006 06:59AM
To: GSOwatch@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [GSOwatch] Where's the coffee?

I came looking for coffee? LOL

How about using the steps as a personal guideline and the traditions for the group guideline? How about the members not being afraid to correct those who get away from this?

Are these ground rules?