AA: Covert Op
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My association with AA is a dubious one. I attend a IOP (intensive out patcient witch is acually a Alcoholics Anonymous recrutment program you get to pay for. I attend three nights a week, with 2 to 3 hour classes and meetings a night. I must admit that I go through stages of guilt each time I attend. I’m not there for what the program can do for me, but rather to study the program from the inside for my own curiosity. I don’t hide my views, but I also to flaunt them.
It’s hard not to get sucked into the emotional trauma of stories and confessions that most people in there would not even tell their wife or husband. I think this is the biggest missile that AA keeps in the ammo locker. Once you have been in there awhile, it is true, that no one else can know you like the people in there. I even find myself desiring to spill my guts and cry on the floor in a fetal position with my cup of coffee and pack of marlboro lights. There is something about dumping all your deepest secrets on others, in a short period of time, that creates a instant bond greater than that of a bond of years. In years someone gets to know you, the person and character you are. If they are close enough to actually hear your secrets and failures, the sympathy will be clouded from the effects of your secrets and failures on that person. where in a group setting where the people there don’t actually know you on a day to day basis, and don’t have to put up with you or be hurt by you, are open to your interpretation of your own life. Witch is always slanted to your own lopsided view of your self. So relationships grow rapidly. Makes me think of something I heard about scientifically/genetically modifying tomato plants to be more fruitful. If you have ever grown your own tomatoes, you know there there is no comparison to the crap tomatoes from your grocery mart. You will notice your home grown tomatoes are red in the center, where most grocery store tomatoes are white. That is because the store tomato plants have been genetically modified to grow more fruit per a plant and faster. My tomato plant yielded about 7 beautiful red lush fruits. Where the genetic plants could yield up to 12-13 per a stock in half the time. What am I saying here… umm. Oh ya. The Grocery tomatoes may grow more and twice as fast, but they still receive the same amount of water. It’s just being split up between more fruit. Groups where more is revealed in a short period of time are like genetically modified relationships. They grow fast and are white in the middle. They can not become rich and juicy, layered in complex flavors and sweetness, like true relationships. I’m not saying it never happens, just a general observation from a man that has spent more time in groups than I care to remember. And in each of those groups I left with deep friendships that where always revealed to have shallow roots that withered with the sun’s light outside the dark rooms.
These non-judgmental relationships, mixed with the depletion of outside connections, turn in to a powerful emotional web that can make it difficult to leave, even if you are opposed to the program. I’m only a few weeks in (of a 6 week program), and I know I will find it hard to leave. I feel close to the people around me. And… a few I haven’t pissed off, feel close to me. Yesterday I was a little taken back when the leader used something trivial I had confessed to the group to embarrass me and make others laugh. I have to admit, I felt shamed, and my tail was tucked between my legs. All I could do is cough up a uncomfortable laugh. I felt his first attempt to subdue me (he doesn’t like me too much I think), and it worked. I’ll continue to share with the group, and I’m interested to see what he does with it. I’m expecting more of my views come out and endanger his authority, he will poor on a little more sauce, using the ammunition I have given him from my life. But… maybe not, we will see.
In a later topic – I’ll go deeper into how these emotional bonds are used to entrap people in there weakest time. For someone who has been drunk or high for 20 years, has lost there family and job, or has just suffered the depression and despair that substance abuse enviably leads to; they are a open sore and AA spreads in them like gangrene. Exploiting there fears and loneliness in the guise of a healer. Before they know it, they have no legs to stand on, so they must lean upon the shoulder of AA the rest of there life.
Some have said, “hey if it’s working for them… stay out of it”, and I do on a personal level. But I’m a firm believer that the consequences of truth are more nobel than any cure that comes from a lie.
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All are welcome to our meetings on the beach. http://soberliving.com
oooo fun! Can I wear my new AAAAA t-shirt?