Alcoholics Anonymous has long stood as the last house on the block for suffering alcoholics. We have been sitting on our porch watching the hopeless stumble down the road for 70+ years. We maintain a tradition that makes certain that those who come through our doors are, for the most part, ready for our message. The effectiveness of our spiritual program relies heavily on the willingness of the individual to change, a willingness that is born of desperation and pain.
However, in recent years there has been an alarming trend of outside promotion that I would like to call attention to. Our local court systems, baffled at what to do to reduce drunk driving and substance abuse cases, have begun sentencing even first time offenders to meetings. This alarming trend has led to a decrease in our recovery rates as well as a large group of people, who do not need a spiritual solution to stay sober, infiltrating our meetings, steering them off topic, being disruptive and ultimately, because they never had an interest in staying sober in the first place, drinking again and drawing hope from those young in sobriety.
Our basic text says that when ready we will seek the solution with the desperation of a drowning man, this runs contrary to what I see in meetings today, where we spend more time selling our program to potential alcoholics instead of sharing the solution with those who desperately need it but are lost in the shuffle...What is the price we are paying to plant these seeds? Is it worth it? How many are we losing along the way the were genuinely ready to quit, how many old timers have stopped going to meetings as a result of the lack of focus on our primary purpose? Next up...Our primary purpose...A reason to live...
However, in recent years there has been an alarming trend of outside promotion that I would like to call attention to. Our local court systems, baffled at what to do to reduce drunk driving and substance abuse cases, have begun sentencing even first time offenders to meetings. This alarming trend has led to a decrease in our recovery rates as well as a large group of people, who do not need a spiritual solution to stay sober, infiltrating our meetings, steering them off topic, being disruptive and ultimately, because they never had an interest in staying sober in the first place, drinking again and drawing hope from those young in sobriety.
Our basic text says that when ready we will seek the solution with the desperation of a drowning man, this runs contrary to what I see in meetings today, where we spend more time selling our program to potential alcoholics instead of sharing the solution with those who desperately need it but are lost in the shuffle...What is the price we are paying to plant these seeds? Is it worth it? How many are we losing along the way the were genuinely ready to quit, how many old timers have stopped going to meetings as a result of the lack of focus on our primary purpose? Next up...Our primary purpose...A reason to live...
Attraction rather than promotion...