At the risk of sounding like a bleeding deacon I have to confess that there are a couple of things, which trouble me. I saw something happen today which made me sit down and thnk.
A woman requested that the group open the meeting to allow her to sit in on it. An alanon, she wanted to sit in and bring up the subject of this being a family illness. Benign? Of course on the face of it. But the leader quickly allowed it to happen. As a result a young man, an alcoholic, protested and walked out. Where did he go? He learned that AA wasn’t for the alcoholic. That was the lesson of the day. And anonymity got stepped on.
During the 70s, we got a look at where AA might be headed, when many groups across the country began to open closed meetings to accommodate an sudden wave of drug addicts, who insisted on attending meetings. I can remember many stories of AA going underground in a number of cities and states. There was much turmoil and angry debates over this matter. Some groups found themselves inn-undated with individuals, taking advantage of these new openings and bringing up subjects of over eating, gambling, and a host of other non alcoholic topics.
I was thinking of anonymity and what it means and, of course, that young man. Perhaps, since alcoholism has received a level of credibility as a disease and endemic, anonymity might not seem an important as it once was. But that passes over the reason of anonymity’s importance in this program. At one time alcoholism was a stigma and individual sufferers clearly wanted to hide from public revelations of their problem for purposes of protecting their families and jobs. Closed meetings protected their anonymity. But anonymity, which is the spiritual foundation of this program is the real reason for closed meetings. The importance of that phase of the program cannot be emphasized too much. As the twelfth tradition states, “We are sure that humility, expressed by anonymity, is the greatest safeguard that Alcoholic Anonymous can ever have.”
Most places have scheduled open meetings to allow others to attend and learn what this program is about. But the need for closed meetings, where the alcoholic has an opportunity to practice self sacrifice and ego deflation is a sacred place and should be a safe haven for the alcoholic to be given the opportunity to recover and grow. It should be an escape from this deadly disease. Which makes me think about the young man again.
Anyway, just letting off steam, as I think about a possible lost opportunity. It’s not something I will drink over and I hope the young man won’t either.