Meditation for October 7th, 2016
AA Meetings
Earlier I wrote about the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. People who have drinking problems go to AA meetings to learn how to quit drinking using the 12 steps.
These classes usually take an hour, but some masochists endure hour and a half meetings. There are different kind of meetings.
Speaker meetings
These are popular celebrities hopping town to town sharing a drunkalog in a purely entertaining way. When I say celebrity is like saying the most populate kid in Pocatello, Idaho isn’t going to be shit in Los Angelos, California, but will have a great story when visiting Pocatello. AAers like to dress up like they are going out on the town to sit in giant church basements laughing and crying.
Topic meetings
A topic is shared upon. Sometimes people stay on topic while most of the time the people bend the topic to make it about them. A lot of times a person will share as an expert on the topic. Watch as people try and talk about themselves (the topic of every AA meeting) for under 5 minutes. Anything over four minutes is a lie.
Step studies
These are rarely attended and only involve people that want to get a masters in AA. The word study is a loose definition and rather it’s an hour of people sharing their opinions on something that is written down.
Volunteer shares or call on by the chairperson
Some meetings allow peol to volunteer to share while other meetings rather have the chair person (speaker) or meeting secretary call on people to share. AA has a written tradition that, “For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority—a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.” That means that it isn’t God’s will to volunteer and it is taking the matter out of God’s hands to call on people, so real spirituality is silence.
Regional
Meetings meet everywhere in the world. Meetings are different depending on where you go. East coast meetings are very dry and almost religious while west coast meeting teeter on the psychobabble hippy woo woo shit to the down right suit and tie super cults. AAers will always complain about the meetings after moving somewhere.
Club Versus Church
AA meetings are sometimes held in special AA clubs. The clubs themselves aren’t technically part of AA, but you will find members playing cards, smoking/vaping and not doing anything else in their lives but AA meetings. Other meetings are in churches and when those alchoholics enter a church it is now their fucking church. Sometimes members of AA have imaginations and meetings will be in other places like coffee shops, parking garages, tattoo parlors and even bars.
The before and after
AA members love two things: coffee and breakfast, so socially AAers replace bars with cafes and diners. AA groups a lot of times will find a place that can handle a large group of messy loud lewd often poor sons and daughters of bitches and take ownership of it. You will know them by the extreme honesty, the absolute no regard of other diners, the huge amounts of coffee being consumed, large leather bound books, shirts with a circle surrounding a triangle or a dream catcher on it, lots of smokers and usually they have a real inbred look.
AA slips
Sometimes people who get DUIs or other alcohol related infractions will have to attend meetings and get their slip signed. You do t have to do that. The courts don’t check. Learn the time and place where meetings are held, make sure they are still there, have a friend sign your slip or use your non dominate hand. If they require an short explanation of what the topic is, buy the AA book Living Sober, and just randomly pick topics out of that.
Does AA work?
Real alcoholics never get sober.