A newcomer's tale (Richmond Tuesday: Ormond Road)

“Hi fellas,

My name is S. and I am an alcoholic. A month ago I went to my first AA meeting in 18 months. I didn't touch a drop of alcohol in that time. The reason I hadn't been to a meeting for 18 months? Because of the cult - but in that 18 months I was struggling daily and eventually I felt the need to give AA another go. My friend R says he wrote to you recently and he told me all about your website and having looked at some of the accounts I thought I’d share mine.

I first came to AA in September 2009 and I was wrecked. I live in Twickenham and went to my first ever meeting at Richmond Bridge friendship club on a Monday evening. After the meeting I swapped numbers with a very young man (who at the time I felt was too young to be an alky but that's not for me to judge) and he insisted I went to the Tuesday night meeting at Ormond Road in Richmond the following evening. I was still very new to AA and was keen to try more meetings. I think he was just trying to be friendly and get me involved but he insisted I went to THIS meeting on a Tuesday. I went along anyway and got a cup of tea and many people asked me for my number. One of them was called B and he said 'can I take your number? My sponsor tells me to take newcomers numbers and call them'. He seemed to be the ringleader even though he had a sponsor at the meeting. Everyone at that meeting shared about how they had a sponsor and I didn't have one but I wasn't ready. I told them I wasn't ready and I was asked if I wanted to stay sick. It wasn't B who asked me that but it was a guy called R who was a sponsee of his. I've seen R at meetings recently and he seems to think nobody else in AA has ever heard of the steps, the Big Book or a higher power concept. Apparently their sponsor/sponsee relationship ended in a near punch up a while back. B gave me the "six suggestions" and told me I should also go to meetings on Kingston hill and Tolworth and what seemed like a hundred different meetings in Ealing (and guess what he said? 'Look out for happy Dennis because he's good) and he said they carry a stronger message there. I was taking anti depressants at the time (and still am) and B told me I should go to my doctor and ask him to 'unprescribe' me my medication. After the meeting we all went to Pizza express across the road from the meeting, and one evening as I was leaving the café B told me I'd been elected to do the washing up after the meeting and that it was now my home group. I wasn't comfortable about it because I wasn't sure if AA was right for me and I couldn't even go next week anyway, so I missed the next meeting and was phoned by B and he told me I needed to put my "home group" first. I continued to go to the meeting for the next three weeks and it all went okay until I was quizzed in pizza express afterwards as to whether or not I was doing the six suggestions and I said I wasn't as the idea didn't appeal to me and B and his mate who everyone seemed to refer to as S were telling me I was half measures and I was not well by AA's standards and B was even shouting across the table at me: 'IF YOU'RE NOT GOING TO DO THIS YOU ARE GOING TO DRINK AND STAY F-ING SICK', which is odd as he always shared about being spiritual. He later 'apologised' but then continued to shout at me as if I were a schoolboy and he were a demon headmaster. This all upset me very much but I felt insulted when S told me that I didn't have to do any of those things, even though he'd gone to town on me over how 'lazy' and selfish I was...all just to say that I didn't have to do any of that stuff...some 'suggestions' those are. Afterwards I decided I was through with AA and didn't go back to ANY meetings for 18 months. I was so upset that I wanted to go back to the church and tell the vicar what was going on in his church hall. I also had to change my number as I was getting many phone calls every day from the same few people asking me where I was and they often said my life depended on that particular meeting.

After I came back to AA I was still broken even though I was dry and physically better, but simply not drinking was a struggle and I decided to try again and hope I didn't see B or R or S. I turned up at another meeting and I met someone who I met at my first meeting, he was my friend who wrote to you before, and he told me all about a Vision for You and the big meeting in Eton Square and aacultwatch and I thought I'd write. I remember B talking a lot about what he referred to as 'the vision meeting'.

Before I was so angry and hurt that I wouldn't have given two hoots if it destroyed AA but I found there was more to AA than this cult...a lot more. I'm still very angry now which is why I remember it like it was yesterday but I think your cause is worthy. Also, they know about aacultwatch at the Ormond Rd meeting and they look at it with a great deal of contempt and speak derisively of its 'unspiritual ways' - because they know what spiritual is!!!! I think they feel that way because deep down they know the score. I'm no Big Book buff but they remind me of the boy whistling in the dark to keep up his spirits. I do hope you publish this on your website as people need to know what goes on at that meeting. I've been to a lot of meetings around Richmond and Twickenham since I've been back and I have not seen B or S at any of them because they don't go to any other meetings round here. In fact there were loads of people who only turn up at that meeting even though there's a meeting every day in Richmond and some of them don't live in Richmond and if I remember correctly B lived miles away from the meeting. there are a few leaflets advertising a convention in Canterbury floating round meetings here. my current sponsor tells me its an unofficial convention and the guys at the Tuesday meeting are the ones who distribute them round here and some leaflets got dropped off at my home group (which is not a cult meeting) but we put them straight into the recycling box.

I think I was lucky as anyone else might have been too hurt to come back to AA. I never wish to go back to that meeting and I would advise any newcomers to think twice before they go. I suggest (forgive me for using that word) that you add the meeting to your cult where to find page. It's a real shame as a lot of the people I saw there were genuinely nice and had been around for years.

Keep up the good work

S”

Comment: Unfortunately this is a pretty typical account of those who have the misfortune to fall into the hands of the cult (with the usual mix of “love bombing “ and coercion in order to gain compliance!) This is NOT what carrying the AA message is about!

Cheerio

The Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)

(our particular thanks to this member for their courage in speaking out)

PS Contact details for the venue are included below (for complaints):

Richmond & Putney Unitarian Church
Ormond Road
Richmond
Surrey
TW10 6TH

Rev Linda Hart: revlahart@gmail.com
Vestry phone number (Rev Linda Hart): 0208 332 9675