Question
2:
Would
the Fellowship discuss, share experience and make recommendations
whether, throughout AA's service structure, members of special
interest groups are sufficiently represented?
Extracts:
“Mindful
of …...'s comment in committee Six Question Two, that this forum is
where those in service can get background to the conference
questions, I thought it would be a good idea to include this AA
Grapevine article from 1946 as background. Special interest groups
have been around for a long time, tolerated rather than encouraged I
think. The wisdom in this article as relevant today as it was in
1946. Some things don’t change. I think it would be unwise to have
representation of special interest women’s groups in the service
structure.
‘Women's Meetings’ AA Grapevine October
1946
NOW that women form an increasing membership in Alcoholics
Anonymous, there seems to be a general feeling that they not only
have a specialized problem, but, like the purple cow we'd rather see,
they are one! Once every blessed so often, a woman comes in, works on
the program, learns to tolerate and even to like all her
fellow-men-and-women, and in general makes herself an admirable
member. But for every dozen who do that, there is a basketful who
become a combination nuisance, headache and problem.
Now
there are plenty of men who make trouble. But somehow the trouble
women cause is either so dramatized, or so disheartening, so shoddy
and unnecessary that it seems far larger and more important than it
actually is. At any rate, an unfortunate or harmful episode here and
there is no longer an isolated experience. And while the writer of
this is just one woman A.A. sticking her neck out (and very grateful,
thank you, for anonymity in doing so), it is the thoughtful opinion
of a number of old-timers, in groups all over the country, that it
might be well to recognize the special difficulties that women
present and meet them honestly. So this is a symposium, gathered from
a number of groups. And letters of opinion and reaction are
welcome.
Not Blanket Indictment
Here,
then, is a list of perplexities and snags. Because the resulting
friction discourages newcomers, and because such matters often cause
slips of members well along in sobriety, no one who seriously wants
to do the best job possible with and for sick people, should postpone
facing the subject. But remember, as you read, that the faults and
complaints apply only to some women--to many, perhaps--but not to
all. They are not blanket accusations of the sex.
Female
Frailties
1. The percentage of women who stay with A.A. is low.
Too many of them drop out after the novelty wears off; a few months
to a year and a half.
2. Many women form attachments too
intense--bordering on the emotional. Best-friends, crushes,
hero-worship cause strained relationships.
3. So many women want
to run things. To boss, manage, supervise, regulate and change
things. Twenty want to decorate; one will scrub or mend what is
already around.
4. Too many women don't like women.
5. Women
talk too much. Gossip is a cancer to all A.A. groups and must be
constantly watched. Men gossip far too much, too. But few men use it
for punishment, or revenge, or cutting someone down to size. Once the
news value has been absorbed, men generally drop a topic. But women
worry the same dead mouse until it's unrecognizable.
6. Women are
a questionable help working with men and vice versa. In 12th Step
work, the intimate confidences often lead to the pity that's akin to
love, and is often mistaken for same. The protective, the maternal,
the inspirational interest often lands one or both in a broadside
slip--and sometimes in extra-marital experiments, which, however
clothed in the glory of "honesty," are disillusioning to
many others, and frequently present a troubling question to those who
are actually trying to live the 12 Steps.
7. Sooner or later, a
woman-on-the-make sallies into a group, on the prowl for phone
numbers and dates. Oddly enough, perhaps, she does not wear a placard
and is not always easily recognized. Results of her operations can
cause havoc.
8. A lot of women are attention demanders. Spotlight
sisters. They want to be spoonfed, coaxed, babied, encouraged,
teased, praised and personally conducted into recovery.
9. Few
women can think in the abstract. Everything must be taken personally.
Universal truths, to many women, are meaningless generalities. These
women are impatient of philosophy, meditation and discussion. This is
the kind of woman who figures "Just let's have this bargain;
we'll pay so much faith down and the rest in installments."
Which is a deceiving deal, for such buyers are generally the ones who
have to watch the collector come and take the piano back.
10.
Women's feelings get hurt too often. They rapidly and frequently are
misunderstood.
11. Far too many women A.A.s cannot get along with
the non-alcoholic wives of A.A. members. They feel ashamed or
defiant, and they show it. Often they unwittingly forbid
overtures--and then feel snubbed! Lots of A.A. women feel they attend
a meeting to be helped--and concentrate to the point of rudeness on
non-A.A. contacts. If they behave superciliously toward the
non-alcoholic wives of members, they should hardly complain of being
treated coolly in return.
Jealousy
Crops Up
In
a great many cases it is those non-alcoholic wives whose attitude
causes the general ill-will. Too often they feel superior--and show
it. Some are convinced that alcoholic women are loose morally--or
have been and probably will be again! These suspect all women A.A.s
as potential rivals. Even when no threat of sex is present at all, a
large number of these wives resent closed meetings and the intimate
talks and confidences at which no non-alcoholic can be present. They
feel left out, hurt, outraged and resentful. And were we in their
shoes, might we not find it hard medicine to let our man take? Even
were we good sports, we might feel self-conscious in front of these
same women. How many women A.A.s stop to realize that?
Before
any other consideration, let us remind ourselves again that not all
women have the faults mentioned, nor has any one woman all the
faults. And human nature being what it is, a number of men have these
selfsame faults to a disastrous degree. But somehow, women can cause
more trouble, and what is even worse, keep the memory of the
unpleasantness alive longer and more acutely.
Not
all groups have suffered from having women alcoholics either. But
those that have, and the individuals who care (1) that women make a
success of recovery, and (2) that they hurt as few people as possible
doing it, have given long and careful thought to the difficulties.
Tested
and Suggested Solutions
Here are some of the gems of wisdom--and
please write in any thoughts you have on the subject:
A.
Women drift away.
This seems to come from four causes:
1.
Disapproving, or resentful, impatient, or possessive relatives. No
woman will remain long with any interest if she is forever having to
defy, or make apologies or take sarcasm from those closest to her.
2.
Reaction. When the honeymoon is over and it's a matter of settling
down to steady loving work, when the swing of the pendulum goes from
excitement, discovery and elation to the extreme of boredom, apathy,
distaste, or disillusionment with another member, she is apt to go
off the deep end.
3. Ulterior motive for entering A.A. She was not
honestly seeking to get well for herself and her life, but for some
purpose. Once that goal is achieved, her sobriety and her enthusiasm
for A.A. evaporate.
4. She never grasped the full program. She was
one of those, perhaps, who found a miracle return of health in the
1st and 12th Steps, plus group therapy. But those who brought her in
never sufficiently impressed upon her that there are 11 Steps that
mean work on ourselves and only one that means work with others!
Then
too, women, while drinking, frequently had the thrill--wholly false,
but very convincing at the time--of feeling they were cute, amusing,
bright and witty, or full of energy and power. They find sobriety
crushingly bleak and their ego bleaker. Since comparatively few have
come in at a very young age, most women find the reality of facing up
to middle-age or advancing years just too gagging--particularly since
they have wasted their capabilities, drinking away time and
thought--and are so poorly equipped for maturity.
Rooted
in Subconscious
Put this down to rampant vanity if you will but it
goes deeper into the subconscious than that, for men too know vanity
and dread of age. Add the feminine slow poisons of the Prince
Charming dreams, the Cinderella-rags-to-riches, the glamour-girl era,
the stay-young-at-least-look-young campaigns that, however disavowed
by the thinking woman, are as much a part of her subconscious as air
is a part of water. (With exceptions, as to any rule, of course.)
With A.A. she faces reality. The reconversion of the biggest war
factory is a no more involved job than that!
A.
Newcomers (men, too, but particularly women), should be made
thoroughly conscious that they are very sick people--far sicker than
they fully realize, and that their outlook and viewpoint, their
tastes and their judgments are neither what they once may have
been--or will be after a tested and sustained period of sobriety. A
woman coming into A.A. is usually highly emotional; she has lived
through a period of that peculiar kind of abyssmal loneliness that
only drinkers can know, and her gratitude and dependency on those who
are kind and helpful are apt to be all out of bounds and
mistranslated both by herself and others. All her reactions are apt
to be intense (even those who reached the lethargic slow-thinking
stage can form fixations) and she should guard against any strong
attachments, male or female, until she has been sober long enough to
have achieved some stability.
With
men and women thrown together in varying degrees of recovery from a
disease that is charged with emotional disturbance, the pitfalls are
many. Any alcoholic has come through a long lonely time of it
(generally self-inflicted, but lonely just the same), and
affectionate reactions, the old, old rebound, the new return of life
and zest, the happy experience of understanding, tolerance and
sympathy, have been the cause of too many slips to do Alcoholics
Anonymous any bit of good, and have doomed many an individual to
total failure in permanent recovery. Newcomers, therefore, should be
impressed that we are all sick people in some stage of recuperation.
B.
A sense of humor seems to be the remedy here--plus the first active
practice of a little humility.
C.
This may be due to a specific cause of treachery--or from century old
rivalry. For too many generations to count, a woman's only hope of
whatever luxury, care, and comfort her world offered, was through
favor in a man's eyes. Since success could not always be counted on
through our own wiles, there developed a neat technique in cutting
our sisters from under--good!
Certainly a change of heart--or a
change of viewpoint--is necessary in a sound, healthy, happy mind.
Women are a good half of the population, and it behooves us, however
slowly, to learn to like, to understand and to help each other; and
when we have learned that, to pass on the idea as early as possible
to our daughters and female associates.
It's
odd and it's wonderful, that many women have learned to like women
for the first time in A.A. We have, to begin with, that magical bond
of common suffering that joins us in the battle for recovery. It's a
suffering that pretty much strips us of the subterfuges and dodges
we've practiced so long. We should nurture this basic premise and
cultivate loyalty to each other, whatever each other's faults.
Nothing, perhaps, will be more salutary to the whole parcel of A.A.
problems than a feeling which all A.A. women should seek to
establish, sustain and cement--that we stand together. Not against
anybody or anything, but most certainly together. And show ourselves
and the world that we can, do, and like, to work together.
Women's
Meetings
Women's
groups are working out successfully in many cities, though
fundamentally segregation is somewhat contrary to A.A. principles.
Alcoholics are banded together in the fellowship of a basic malady
and as a part of our healing we must help each other and like our
fellow human being regardless of who or what he or she may be. For
women to set themselves up as a special case is questionable to say
the least --particularly
when one of our chief weaknesses as alcoholics has been to stress the
I'm-different-and-nobody-understands-me solitude of thought that
leads to desolation. On these arguments, many A.A.s are against
women's groups. But there are no rules and regulations in A.A., and a
number of women's groups are doing remarkably well. Some women prefer
them.
There
are others who have managed to straddle this point by forming women's
units that have weekly gatherings, meeting in private homes. They are
not run as groups per se, but an hour's discussion is held on a
previously selected allied topic or a point in the program, after
which the main portion of the evening is given to informal talk over
refreshments. Thus each woman comes to know a number of others well
enough to feel a kinship, to go to meetings with, to phone without a
sense of strangeness, and to do 12th Step work with. There can
develop a fine feeling week by week of confidence and understanding
that is often of great aid in averting a slip.
D.
So does everybody, and too often the curb is neither stressed nor
practiced. A lot of newcomers earnestly resolve to refrain from
gossip --only to be disillusioned by others who gleefully broadcast
confidences and embroider details. A "repeater" is
something like a Typhoid Mary. Any A.A. who tells intimate secrets
and blabs case histories is as false to her trust as a priest or a
doctor who would publish a patient's confessional outpourings.
Discretion is a valuable lesson to learn; loyalty and kindness are
even more so. Nothing should be told unless for the immediate and
express purpose of aiding that sick person. We should privately vow
never to tell anything without the knowledge of the person who gave
the original confidence. If we set the aim that high, our tongues
will be pretty well bridled.
E.
Those who are sincere in 12th Step work are not apt to approach it
with the remotest sense of flirtation, Lord knows. But sex
consciousness is not to be denied by those even a fraction more than
eunuchs, and if we pray "Lead us not into temptation," it
should follow that we do not lead ourselves into it. St. Paul's
admonition that we "avoid the appearance of evil" can save
much misunderstanding and many false conclusions.
Certainly
a woman new to A.A. should be advised to tread lightly --and never
singly --with male members. She should be encouraged to work with a
man, or get help from a man member only when another A.A. is present,
male or female.
This
practice of having another A.A. along is a quickly acquired
resolution with many women anyway. (Except of course on visits to
hospitals or other public places where help or witnesses if needed
can be easily summoned).
F. For every lady "tramp" who
comes into a group there are several times her number in wolves and
would-be wolves. Unencouraged she'll drift rapidly out --or buckle
down and do a job. Who are we to judge? We should refrain from
judgment and give everyone a full exposure to our ideals. But being
open-minded and tolerant does not mean to condone anything verging on
loose morals.
The
rest of the difficulties stated in this article are due to the
particular struggle women have in understanding and acquiring the two
foundations of A.A. --humility and honesty. We are born with organs
that involve suffering and sacrifice. We find that this inheritance
evokes in our fellow man the highest and the lowest of instincts. Is
it any wonder that our emotional values, supercharged alternately
with fear and desire, are apt to be unstable? Add to that the
traditional conditioning of centuries of chattel status --of
servitude, of the menial. . .
Recently
in the world's history women have emerged as individuals with rights.
Few as yet have been fully aware that with rights and privileges go
responsibilities and obligations. But when women irk you, keep
remembering how very, very recently were they permitted an education,
allowed even to sing in a choir, be accepted in a college, or be
permitted to own and dispose in their own names.
Until
yesterday then, a woman's only way to whatever standing she achieved
was chiefly through enticement, cajolery, defiance, subterfuge, the
weapon of the deadly tongue, and pandering to man's basest instincts.
Honesty comes hard? Humility comes hard? It's small wonder.
On
the other hand there are innumerable women of our day (many are in
A.A.) whose honesty and innate perfectionism became so ruthless and
so intolerant that it led them into drinking. They perhaps more than
anyone else have to pick themselves up out of the deepest
disillusionment. And they, far more than men, are the ones apt to be
most impatient and critical of their slower sisters whose minds and
moral standards have had no training for the new so-called freedom.
When
we were in favor, in the past, when we pleased, we were praised and
flattered and treated tenderly. We instinctively expect such
treatment now for whatever we do. Of course our feelings get hurt
easily; we are oversensitive--we are cruelly aware of our secret
inferiority, and many of us are acutely conscious of our inadequacy
to handle freedom.
So
let's be patient and understanding, we women, of ourselves and of
each other. And let men remember, when baffled, that women are
working out of an inheritance of abject slavery.
The
real problems aren't so different in the main from those of men. Men
perhaps have other basic defects, some harder, others easier to
recognize, admit, and discipline. Except that we can be dangerous to
each other, thank the Lord who made it so. Let's not kid ourselves.
And let's not make a point of it. But let us recognize it --honestly
and humbly.
It's true that circumstances alter cases. But not
much.
…........
Manhattan, New York “
(our
edits and our emphases)
Comment:
The above article is no more than a rather protracted (and self
contradictory) rationalisation in support of the 'special and different'
brigade. Simply substitute gay, straight, black, white, young, old,
newcomers, oldtimers etc for “women” - together with a few
stereotypical modifications added to further distinguish the category
- and you have a ready made template for yet another so-called
“special interest” group! Of course the author is quite correct
in stating: “.....there are no rules and regulations in A.A ….”
. However there is equally no rule or regulation which states that
the remainder of AA has to accept their inclusion in group listings
or participation in the service structure or indeed their right to
refer to themselves as AA groups. The “they're only guidelines”
defence cuts both ways! If such a group were to object to exclusion
and claim that the traditions prohibits such action the argument may
equally validly be made - well the traditions are 'only' guidelines!
We don't HAVE to abide by them!
Cheerio
The
Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)
PS
We have to say that our very own “Ferret Fanciers in AA”(non-restrictive) recovery group is doing
particularly well. But then we, of course, are the exception!
