Only ANGRY people 'CROSS-share'!

Extracts from the aacultwatch forum (old): 

“Hi ….....,

Thanks for that. I have never encountered any Primary Purpose goons. I guess I just dont get to enough meetings! Hmmmm, well, at least not in the Essex area anyway. 

So you were in your first year, made a mistake in a quotation and some smart ass from out of town thought he would humiliate you in front of 60 people, and more or less hold you personally responsible for the alleged decline of AA. And this joker reckoned he was sober and had been restored to sanity ??  lol.  It is good that in spite of him, you persevered and stayed in AA, and that you were able to put it to the back of your mind. 

I can remember being cross-shared in my first year by someone. I can't remember now what exactly I said to merit the honour (probably some nonsense) but, as  I was sharing an American guy shouted at me and said "Keep it simple stupid" . That stopped me in my tracks and I just wilted inside completely. I felt humiliated, and furious at the violation of my "sharing space"  in the meeting. However I now consider I got off lightly. A few years ago a sponsee/friend of mine visited Alaska, USA. He attended a meeting in a remote town on the Northern Slope and what he experienced there chilled me as he was telling me about it. He was asked to speak at the podium during a large late Saturday night meeting. While he was sharing he was both applauded, cheered, ignored, cat-whistled, booed, laughed at, insulted and heckled. He said the meeting was like an AA version of the Jerry Springer show. The experience really shocked him at first. Luckily he was sober a good while and generally good humoured too, and he was able to see the funny side of it all. But I do feel sorry for any newcomers in THAT part of the world. I guess you need to have really thick skin to survive there, as well as a bear skin to keep warm! 

I, of course, have been guilty of cross-sharing others myself.  This happened  mainly when I was part of the Vision cult. After I left the wretched cult, I have fortunately been able to make amends to (some) of my victims. Cross-sharing was a particularly nasty way of abusing and humiliating others who dissented from Vision cult dogma. I witnessed much cross-sharing of "outsiders" or "heretics" who worked the program in a slightly different way to the Vision. The sponsorless  David B, founder of Vision/Joys cult (now deceased),  would openly cross-share people AS THEY WERE ACTUALLY SHARING, interrupting them to put them down. I remember him doing a chair in Sunday Joys of Recovery Step meeting (then held at Lilly Road nr Earls Court), and after he finished he said that if anyone didn't share the message correctly (as he saw it) he would stop them! Sober behaviour?? I think not.

Another thing I experienced at Vision was if anyone in the group openly started to question the ludicrous cult dogmas of the sponsorless David B or his chief henchman David C Icons, the response would be a torrent of cross-sharing from the sponsorless David B, David C Icons and their little gang of mindless robots (sponsees). This cross-sharing was often planned and orchestrated.  For example I recall someone who was somewhat "out of favour" sharing that he did voluntary work outside of AA. David C Icons then came in immediately after saying that  voluntary work outside AA is "not allowed" if you're "working the program correctly" - his sponsor (David B) had told him, so it must be true. (Yes, David C Icons really is as childish as that.)

Well,  evidently David B had not read the AA literature  which clearly states that voluntary work outside AA is suggested, even recommended, in the AA book Living Sober.  But the twisted message of David B always trumped AA's message as far as David C Icons was concerned. Sure enough, the following week David C Icon's sponsees all shared about how not doing voluntary work outside of AA was "against the program". David C Icons had clearly lobbied them into a virtual lynch mob. Thus, the out of favour "heretic" was further humiliated and isolated. Needless to say the guy left the group.  Then, to add insult to injury, David C Icons gleefully seized on the fact that the poor chap had stopped attending the group to further justify his (false) dogma that doing voluntary work outside of AA was "off the program" and instil in others a (false)  fear that doing so could lead to drinking. He even laughed about it. "He has gone. Rejoice!" he told one of his followers. So a picture developed in my mind of a good fellow AA member, trying his best to work the AA program and help others, yet being hurt, isolated, humiliated and rejected by Vision, while David C Icons was laughing away merrily in self-righteous satisfaction. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Certainly not the "will" of my Higher Power, or any other Higher Power that represents goodness, justice and love.”

The Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)

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