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Friday 26 December 2014

The Synanon cult infiltration of AA (Grapevine articles 1968-1979)(contd)


Extracts from the aacultwatch forum (old)

Tenth/twelfth Step Meetings”   AA Grapevine March 1968 Vol. 24 No. 10 http://da.aagrapevine.org/

"Tenth/twelfth Step Meetings
We are not here to talk about. . .inventory; we're here to do the taking.

SEVEN people, five men and two women, sit in a circle in a living room behind closed doors.

The leader speaks: "Since Joe is here for the first time, let me explain how this meeting runs. This is basically a Tenth and Twelfth Step meeting. Each of us is here to do three things: first, take an inventory of how he is doing in his practice of the program; second, invite the rest of the group to help him with the inventory by pulling him up in areas where he is off the beam but doesn't see it; and third, tell the group what he is going to do, with God's help, to put right what he has been doing wrong.

"There is no limitation on rough language. We say what is to be said the best way we can, whether four-letter words are involved or not. Just one caution--don't use this freedom to show off or make the ladies blush. No one is going to be impressed."

The leader continues, "The one basic rule of this meeting is that we stick to the principle of rigorous honesty with ourselves and with each other. There are twenty-three hours in the day for being nice. In this hour, we drop that. Not that anyone here is trying to put anyone else down. Quite the contrary. In this recovery game, it is possible literally to kill with too much of the wrong type of kindness. All of us are sick in the same way, and we all share the symptom of being hardened, long-time self-kidders.

"We've heard it said that the first principle in recovery is learning to get honest with ourselves. Well, this meeting is a means to that end. We have found that, especially in the tough areas--sex is one for me--we often don't get the necessary degree of self-honesty without the help of friends in this program who love us enough to tell us specifically where, how, and why we are full of baloney. Also, we have found that, as experienced self-conners, we too easily tune out one person who tries to pull us up. We resort to some such monkey business as 'Yes, but he doesn't understand. I'm different.' But when three or four move in together and pull us up, it's harder for the monkey to cop a plea. We have a chance to face and accept a tough truth that we would otherwise have ducked--at the cost, very possibly, of our sanity, sobriety, and lives."

The leader ends his opening remarks by saying: "A couple of final points: There are no observers in this meeting; everyone here is here to participate. What is said in this room stays here; some of it will be rough. We are not here to talk about how to take inventory; we're here to do the taking. Finally, and most important, this process is spiritual surgery and God is the surgeon. It's God as we understand Him, all right, but it is, nevertheless, God. Truth is one of the oldest names for the Higher Power. We are trying to find out the truth about ourselves, however tough that truth may turn out to be, in the confidence that, if we do our job thoroughly and sincerely, we will begin, as the Big Book says, to discover that self-will has blocked us off from Him. As a result of what we do here (to consult the Big Book again), our spiritual beliefs will begin to grow more into a spiritual experience. Spiritual growth through such awakening is what this meeting is aiming at, and the rough language and loud voices should never make us forget that."

The meeting starts. The leader begins by discussing his own situation. Then he invites the rest of the group to comment on what he has said or any ways they have noticed him fouling up. One of the group may, for example, point out self-pity in something he said. Another touches on his selfishness in a difficult personal relationship that he discussed. Their comments are specific. After some discussion, the leader decides to make a moral contract with the group to follow a certain course of action in the difficult relationship and to spend time during his daily Eleventh Step work asking knowledge of God's will and the power to carry it out in that situation.

Then it's someone else's turn to discuss himself. He has a resentment which he tries to justify. The whole group lands on him. At first he bristles, but after a while he begins to see where he was hung up and how to get clear.

One by one, the seven discuss their own problems, confusions, and shortcomings, open themselves up to the group, and tell the group what they are going to do about the areas where they are falling down. The circle is completed in an hour and twenty minutes. The meeting is closed with the Lord's Prayer.

I have been sitting in on meetings like this for three and a half months now. They have added a depth to my sobriety, sanity, and spiritual growth which were never previously in the picture, despite the fact that I went into them with over two years of AA sobriety under my belt. In just these three-plus short months, I have seen these meetings have the same deeply positive effect on many lives other than my own.

In addition to saying that I lack the power to communicate just how helpful and great I think these meetings are, I'd like to say a couple of things by way of clarifying what they are and what they aren't. First, they are not, I repeat not, group therapy. They are God and group (in that order) therapy--and, believe me, that's a far different kind of animal. Second, there is really nothing new about them. They hark back directly to the practice of the first AA members. In that sense, they represent a renewal of the early spirit of the movement. For me, they have acted as an antidote for the tendencies to which many of us are susceptible as members of a Fellowship which is now thirty-two years old and has a large membership and a good press. The tendencies are to get stodgy and "respectable," to apologize for God and the Steps, and to avoid an unsophisticated, head-on approach in carrying the message. Just such an approach, the Higher Power, and the Steps are the very things that made AA work in the beginning and, I believe, still make it work today.

T. P. Jr.

Hankins, New York"

Cheers

The Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)

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1 comment:

  1. So, the Grapevine and the bureaucracy at World Service did not have sufficient insight, or will, to block this or criticize this in the Grapevine. Yes, AA survived but it shows a dangerous and disgraceful lack of judgment. A few years ago almost every Grapevine article seem to contain some praise of a sponsor as if that was the only tool in the AA bag of tools. That's minor compared to this and has passed but shows a lack of mature judgement on whomever is rotating editor there. Subscriptions off. I once maintained three, one for myself and two gifts. I now reluctantly maintain one for an older, many years sober, shut-in member of AA.

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