Adopt the position!

Extracts from the aacultwatch forum (old):

“.........

I have found the advice given on page 95 of our basic text Alcoholics Anonymous to be most sound and helpful in the matter of sponsorship. It also runs counter to the actions and attitudes of the Cult in its various forms. Here it is (with my emphases underlined):

..Never talk down to an alcoholic from any moral or spiritual hilltop; simply lay out the kit of spiritual tools for his inspection. Show him how they worked with you. Offer him friendship and fellowship. Tell him that if he wants to get well you will do anything to help.

If he is not interested in your solution, if he expects you to act only as a banker for his financial difficulties or a nurse for his sprees, you may have to drop him until he changes his mind. This he may do after he gets hurts some more.

If he is sincerely interested and wants to see you again, ask him to read this book in the interval. After doing that, he must decide for himself whether he wants to go on. He should not be pushed or prodded by you, his wife, or his friends. If he is to find God, the desire must come from within.

If he thinks he can do the job in some other way, or prefers some other spiritual approach, encourage him to follow his own conscience. We have no monopoly on God; we merely have an approach that worked with us. But point out that we alcoholics have much in common and that you would like, in any case, to be friendly. Let it go at that.

(From Big Book page 95 - working with others.)

The exact opposite is practised by the Cults!

For example - people in the Vision cult are told they MUST get on their knees and pray to a God they may not really believe in. This, it seems to me, goes against freedom of conscience and may also be a denial of human rights. To coerce people into a religious act is a denial of basic human rights I would say.

I used to be involved in the Vision cult and I remember a sponsee  I had at the time who asked me what was the point of going through the steps to stay sober - if all you had to do was pray on your knees for a sober day. God either gave you a sober day or he did not. If he did, then any further steps were irrelevant.  And if God didnt give you a sober day, then kneeling and praying for a sober day was a waste of time. I can remember thinking at the time that he had a very good point. When I asked my Cult sponsor why exactly we had to pray on our knees for a sober day - he said that it was an act of "humility". This didn't make sense to me either. It reduced humility to being a mere "pose" easily feigned.

Indeed it is easily faked for it also struck me that the leading members of the Vision cult - David B and David C (Icons) and others, were VERY FAR from being humble in their interactions and attitudes within AA. Also it struck me as somewhat a contradiction to be kneeling in the morning and then jumping around AA telling everyone all about it and coercing others to do likewise.

"True humility doesn't make a presentation of itself" was what one real AA oldtimer told me later. And its true.

Today in the west london area of AA, we have a deranged individual - "Happy Dennis" (sponsored and directed by David C Icons - Happy Dennis is one of his "successes" by the way LOL !!) - who has set up over 20 meetings in one area which he controls with no democratic mandate. His performance/sharing usually involves a overly long lecture about how many times a day he kneels and how humble he is, (he even writes "poetry" about it! ). Meanwhile this same man ignores the decisions of the local intergroup, publishes his own literature which is a total distortion and travesty of AA , and indeed contradicts it in many respects. Recently he told a sponsee that he couldn't have a relationship because " relationships were only for the production of children in marriage". He dictates, bullies and coerces newcomers on matters of life-style, work, sex, relationships, morals and medication etc - matters on which he has absolutely no legal authority or warrant to direct others.

It would seem to me that Cult "humility" is really nothing more than an ego-inflating pose, a charade - a self-satisfied self-righteous posturing, closely followed up by arrogance, attention-seeking, lies, fraud, boasting and bullying.

…....”

The Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)

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