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Thursday 11 September 2014

Brevity is the soul of wit!


Extracts from the aacultwatch forum (old)

Hi all,
There can sometimes be a bit of a problem with a few personalities dominating a meeting by their sharing too long. The solution to this is in the Traditions, and in this case  Tradition One - the common welfare coming first - would be relevant.  Recently I did a chair at a very large lunchtime meeting in central London (not a cult meeting I hasten to add). There must have been about 100 AA's attending. They had a 3 minute limit on sharing, which seemed very short, when I heard the secretary mention it. However the meeting flowed well and the sharing was very much a mix of step recovery/here-and-now issues/feelings etc. Nothing robotic or phoney.   Im my experience large meetings can tend to attract prima donas, self-promoters and attention seekers (cult or otherwise). This is to be expected, after all they have a captive audience for their performances!

My present homegroup was once a cult meeting but has reverted to real AA. They had several "sharing rules" designed to keep the "message" "pure". Actually, on reflection,  it was just a rationalized way of practicing intolerance, impatience, and imposing cult dogma. The meeting was stiff and regimented. There were awkward silences if there were no members sufficiently "on the program" to share! The meeting had a horrible, frigid atmosphere and put a lot of local people off. Following the cult's exodus elsewhere, and a group conscience we have adopted a different tack. We dont put time limits or instruct people what they can or cannot say. This has made the meeting more comfortable and relaxed. However we do still say something like this -"This is a large meeting. Please could you be considerate of others in the length of your sharing so that as many people as possible can come in and share.”

This wording has 2 advantages 1) It requests that people be considerate of each other without imposing a specific time limit on them. 2) The secretary doesn't spend his entire time looking at his watch, or mobile phone time-display, and not really listening to what is being said.

...”

Cheers
The Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)

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