“In the
mid 1990s I attended the Joys of recovery group in London for 1-2
years. My sponsor, who was a member of the group, insisted that I
attend each week while we worked through the Steps. Though I was
largely uncritical at the time, taking them and their practices at
face value, some things did jar and stick in my memory.
Firstly,
there seemed to be some kind of order of sharing: To share from the
‘body of the hall’ you had to raise your hand (like at school)
and then be selected by the secretary. Each week the meeting would be
attended by maybe 100 people, and there was no shortage of hands in
the air when the opportunity arose to share. However, it was
generally the same people who were picked, and, what’s more, they
seemed to be chosen in pretty much the same order each week - first
would come the grand old sponsors, then their sponsees, and so on
down the chain. During the time I attended this meeting there were
three secretaries, so you might expect them to have different
‘favourites,’ but this was not so, they all seemed to follow the
same pattern.
The Joys
of Recovery are fairly well known for a very upbeat style of sharing.
Generally I found this unobjectionable except when any lone voice
shared doubt, pain or confusion. This would inevitably be followed by
an orgy of cross-talk, which was painful to hear. I vividly remember
the harrowed look in one victim’s eyes when they hurried away at
the end. They say ‘you never leave a meeting feeling worse than you
went in.’ I doubt that was always true at the Joys of Recovery.
Regarding
sharing: of particular interest to me was the subject of ‘what
happened,’ as in ‘what it was like, what happened, and what it’s
like now.’ Hearing AAs tell of the pivotal moments in their lives
has been a privilege. I regard very highly the sharing of those
lucid-moments, interventions, prayers, meetings, twists of fate,
conversations and various rock-bottoms that lead us away from
alcoholic drinking and into sobriety. It’s remarkable just how
unique such things can be. At the Joys, though, there was an unusual
degree of similarity in these shares. Each individual’s story
seemed to centre around the phrase ‘and then I got a sponsor.’
Before finding a sponsor, life had been awful for them and after,
life was wonderful. Before long I found it a bit spooky.
Sponsorship
wasn’t just to be talked about. Each week, for the first few weeks
of attending, I was asked at least once if I had a sponsor. My answer
was always yes. However on one occasion a long-standing member of the
group pointed out that a sponsor should be of a certain kind and
suggested I might like to choose a new one. He only relented after
being told who my sponsor was (a member of the group).
And what
was my sponsor like? I count myself fortunate that: 1. I was already
rooted in my own little corner of AA. 2. he was a fairly junior
member of the group and not much longer sober than me. I suspect
these factors mellowed his approach, as he wasn’t as extreme as
many. Even so, I had to attend the group each week; Step Three was
to be done with him, using the prayer in the Big Book, and on our
knees; and Step Five was for his ears only. If memory serves, he
always referred to his methods as ‘the Big Book way,’ even when
his suggestions bore only a loose resemblance to those in the Big
Book.
And
myself? Well, I was sober before ever attending the Joys and have
stayed sober since. There seems to be no shortage of meetings like
the Joys of Recovery these days, but I rarely attend them - not more
than once, anyway. Which is fine for me, but what of newcomers?
There may be some good news here. A counsellor friend told me that
most of her clients were burnt out ex-Joys members, who needed help
to get over the experience. It’s an ill wind that blows no-one no
good!
MH”
Cheers
The Fellas
(Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)
PS. Our
thanks to our contributor
