AA Traditions and possible SPAM…

Johnnyboy

I have been becoming increasingly maddened (not angered–there is a difference) by the lack of enthusiasm from my home group.  Our treasurer, although she has the same amount of time as I, knows nothing of the 12 Traditions and when asked a simple and reasonable question from a member of the group regarding the treasury, reacts with hostility, fear and arrogance.  Not good for someone with 8 years of sobriety.  The members with some of the longest sobriety (20,22 and 17 years) have little or no concept of why the 12 Traditions are important, why they work and their history.  Shocking.  It really is.  As the former GSR I have tried to help them when they came to me for answers regarding the Traditions and my answers suite them when thy wanted, but when they wish to do anything willful, they always cite the 4th Tradition and autonomy, as if this gives them freedom to act as they wish.  What it gives them is the freedom to be wrong.  Read the 4th–it’s what it says.  So I have a choice.  I can stay, and continue to be disappointed in a group that pays little or no respect to the program that has saved their lives or find another home group.

Recently a young woman sent a comment to the old address of this blog, when it was on Blogspot.  It has been a while and she said so.  It’s a strange comment and although her blog seems to be real, it smacks of Spamminess.  She also, like many young people in AA, have violated the 11th Tradition by posting her picture and hometown on the ‘About/Contact’ page.  Granted, no last name, but how many Lydia’s from Wilkes-Barre in AA are there?  I have emailed her thanking her for the comment and redirecting her to the newer site. I also reminded her about the 11th Tradition and about how GSO has concluded that this now applies to electronic media as well.  Whatever.  Newcomers.  I was that excited too, and naive.  Still, there is probably more hope for her than the members of my home group who cannot see that by selling Hazelton literature we are aligning and supporting an outside institution, thus in conflict with the 6th Tradition.  They voted that one in…

Johnnyboy

Well, I asked for it…

Johnnyboy

I wanted lots of snow, and now I have it-about three feet in spots here in Somewheresville due to winds and drifting.  It is supposed to end late this afternoon, which will be good and I am glad it’s finally winter.  As mom would say, “Well it is December so it’s time we had this…”

Christmas was quiet and a little sad.  Since it was just my elderly mother and I there wasn’t much hoo-pla or goings-on, but that’s alright.  I was a little disappointed that my sister who lives closest to us didn’t come down for even a night or two. Mom would have loved that.  This is the sibling who has grown somewhat distant in the past year or so.  I imagine that she’s having emotional difficulties in dealing with my mother’s aging and so forth, but then again, I am only imagining this. It would have been nice to see her and mom would’ve gotten a kick out of it.  The other sister is doing well and on her way with my niece on a little trip before the niece goes back to the Women’s College she is attending.  She’s practically a straight-A student which is a big testament to her mother and the Waldorf School she went to in Maine.  In many ways I am jealous.

I am jealous because I could have thrived in that kind of environment, and there were, and are still, two of these schools quite nearby–a Steiner School just across the border and a Waldorf just up the road.  My father, unfortunately, is narrow-minded and traditional when it comes to education.  His problem was that I could never focus on discipline and my studies and was always doing well at what I wanted to do and not what he wanted me to do.  After reviewing my past I am convinced that I have ADD.  I show all the classic symptoms.  His own ignorance prevented me from blossoming and growing.  Instead he stunted my growth with insults and invectives, accusing me of being lazy and stupid.  I remember once that he called me a “goddamn moron”.  I shit you not.  Sixth grade in Iowa.  This is from a man who claims to love me?   I have always wondered who it was who told me that I was stupid and lazy.  I always knew it was him, but was incapable of admitting it to myself.  I always blamed someone else.  No wonder I believed him–he was my father and fathers do not lie.

I had a visit with him last weekend in the Big City as well.  It was a painful 12 hours long and I felt better the more distance I put between the two of us when I left on Sunday.  I can’t bear to be around him.

I guess I have some resentments around my family, but maybe that’s natural given the time of year.  I am two weeks into my 9th year of sobriety and much has improved in my life–no thanks to most of them, by the way.  I need to set some new ground rules. For a start, no more books or clothes for gifts.  If you ask me what I want and I tell you and you get me something else, I am sending it back to you.  Unless its flowers.  I like those.  And coffee.

Johnnyboy