The New Horizons group in Bend, OR

Welcome to the New Horizons 12 Steps and 12 Traditions meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. My name is Stephanie and I am an alcoholic.

They have just muted everyone's microphone. It's very important to keep background noise to a minimum so we can all hear clearly. Also, if you have haven't already done so, we ask that you change your screen name to your first name and Home group. This is how we will be calling on people to share and I have asked Russ to please read What is a A.

Hi, I'm Russ, I'm an alcoholic. We have Alcoholics Anonymous or many thousands of men and women who have recovered from alcoholism. We have solved the drink problem. However, we believe that strenuous work, one alcoholic with another, is vital to permanent recovery. The purpose of an A A meeting is that of carrying the A a message to the alcoholic who still suffers. Therefore, we share our experience, strength and hope as to stay sober and help others

recover from alcoholism.

Experience with alcohol is one thing all AA members have in common.

Therefore, we have to confine our membership to Alcoholics. Our membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism. Hence we may refuse none who wish to recover. Nor ought a membership ever depend upon money or conformity. Regardless of age, gender, race, or religion. Any two or three Alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an A A group, provided that as a group they have no other affiliation,

meaning we are not allied with any religious or political organization. We do not affiliate with other 12 Step fellowships,

the treatment industry, or any other institution. We do not wish to engage in any controversy and we have no opinion on outside issues. We neither endorse nor oppose any causes. There are no dues or fees for a membership. Each member squares his debt only by helping others to recover. In the words of Bill W Sobriety, freedom from alcohol through the teaching and practice of the 12 Steps is the sole purpose of an A A group. Thank you.

Thanks Roz. Do we have any new people with us today under 30 days sober who think you may have a problem with alcohol? If so, please mute and introduce yourself.

Is there anyone attending today here for your first time to New Horizons group? If so, would you care to tell us your name and the name of your Home group so that we can welcome you?

Christopher. Alcoholic early risers. Welcome, Christopher.

Hi, I'm Jill. I'm an alcoholic. Early birds. I'm from Virginia. Hi,

welcome

Debbie 00 Debbie Oh Gateway Big Book discussion group Monday night

and I'm from Ontario, Canada. Welcome Debbie. Glad you have joined us today. Hello everyone from Arizona Monday night. Big what step city. Awesome. Welcome, Angela.

Hi everyone. John here from Scottdale, PA new and old timers group.

Awesome. Welcome John.

Do we have any non alcohol I guess visiting from the professional community or other 12 step fellowships?

Do we have any AA anniversaries to be acknowledged today?

All right, the format for the meeting is as follows. Our speaker will share with us for about 20 minutes on whatever step we left off on last week. The 1st Friday of the month will be used to study the tradition of the month. We will then spend the second-half of the meetings sharing our experience with the staff or tradition. If you unmute your phone to thank the speaker or to share, Please remember to mute yourself again promptly. And please allow me to introduce our speaker for today,

Ed from the Tuesday Night Speaker Group in Texas.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you, Stephanie. Thank you, Kerry for inviting me. And this is what you're dealing with today is I got on and as I've been looking around, I'm like, there are so many people from New Hampshire here because of the initials NH. And finally about 8 minutes of being logged in, I found like New Horizons, got it, never mind. So hopefully I bring more than that to the table when we talk,

when I talk. So I don't know, I, I've been to your meeting one other time and I don't know that I, I heard it,

but I really love what you guys do asking if there's any professionals because the speaker meeting is a, as best Pi tool. It is the best opportunity we have to get our message out to professionals about what we really are. And, and so, you know, one of my old home groups, we met in a church and we, every month we send a letter to him inviting the clergy and the staff to our open speaker meeting so they can see what a, a was about. And granted, we're only sending it to the church. So we knew when

new showed up and we greeted them and introduced ourselves and we found out who they were. And one of the coolest things that happened through that process is when the minister showed up and heard an AA talk, he, he was floored because he had no clue what a A was really about. And he said, you guys aren't in the soul saving business. I said, no Sir, that's your deal. We want your drunks. And what ended up happening was, is because of that meeting, he started sending members of his congregation to the A, A meeting.

And so if we can recognize them, especially on Zoom where people are coming from all over

in which I'm actually sort of a fan of if, if we can recognize that and then ask the question like you guys do, what we can do is we can find out who's here and is there any professionals? And one of the things we also working on at our group is sending out letters to the local community, the DA, the the court systems, let ask if the professionals come to our speaker meetings, check us out. I know it's on a night time. I know it's inconvenient, but if you're curious what a A is, what better way to come in, sit back, relax

Speaker and to hear what A is truly about South kudos. Awesome. I've never heard that in another group. And I love it,

you know, and I love the fact that you guys study the traditions in your group. I've been fortunate enough to be blessed with three legacy sponsorship my entire life. And if you look at the triangle, the triangle, the base of the triangle is recovery. Because he's going to do the other two without the 12 steps. I mean, nobody's sitting out there over 1/5 of whiskey thinking I really need to read some concepts tonight. You know,

It just doesn't happen.

So we have to have the base of recovery. We have to have the base in the 12 steps. And but once that happens, I was taught that

we have these other two legacies and they've been passed on from that first generation of Alcoholics Anonymous and all that we ride the coattails of giants. And, and so that got passed on to the second generation who got passed on to most of us who are in the third generation of Alcoholics Anonymous, which I believe in passing on to my sponsees also. And we hand this stuff off to them because it's what we were given. And there's a saying that I love that. If you want what I have, then do what I do.

And what I do is I study all three legacies and I pass that on to those guys come after me. And because it was passed on to me and, and whereas I think it's vitally important we talk about it individually and study them individually, I think it's equally vitally important that the Home group talks about them together and we see how these things can apply in our day-to-day group life. We only meet once a week, so it's really easy for us, but frequently you guys are going to meet seven days a week coming Sunday.

And it's hard for anyone person to be at 8:00 every single meeting to monitor and to see what's going on. But if we've taught this is what our group does, then then we don't ever have to deviate from what our group does just because it's what we do. It's it's not strange, it's not foreign. And, and we don't do that by nature. We do it by studying and we do it by growing together and learning the three legacies of Alcoholics Anonymous. And, and so once again, another congratulations on doing that. It's something that's felt

by the wayside of my opinion in a lot of places. If you go to a traditions meeting, it's frequently liked attendance and, and how awesome is it to come here? And there's 38 people, the people who who are truly interested in, in that legacy, our second legacy, the legacy of unity and our traditions. And so I love that that you guys do that and you apply it. We do a down here. We have a thing called a

quarterly, we do a step or tradition speaker where somebody comes in for the entire month and speaks on three traditions a night or three steps a night. And November is our month where we're going to have our traditions speaker And so we're going to have our incoming delegate come down and, and, and talk on the traditions. So it's something that we can continue to put into our group also, and it's something that I I believe in strongly. So

thank you for doing it and thank you for continuing to keep the three legacies alive and not just becoming A1 legacy group because it gets sick in my experience. You guys, Carrie did not ask me to come and stand on a soapbox and a bunch of fluff. So I'll move on to what she actually talked, asked me to talk about. I was just really impressed with what I heard you guys share at the beginning of the meeting. And and so I was asked to come and talk on Tradition 10 today

and I struggled. I'm like, does this even apply in our today's society? And, and I, I figured it did, so

not a problem. I agreed to it. And you know, one of the things I, I, I talk to people about frequently when, when they start talking about how great their program is, I ask them and I challenge them. Are you practicing the 12 traditions in your program? Because the 12 traditions to me require me to get out of myself and truly find a new humility at level of humility that is not, that is foreign to a guy like me. I'm egotistical, I'm pompous, I'm arrogant. I love me some me

and to practice the 12 traditions, what that requires is for me to put the entire fellowship ahead of my own wants. And that's I don't put anything ahead of what makes Ed happy before the program, if I'll call it synonymous. And so when you guys taught me this and you guys taught me about the traditions, it took my, it truly took my program to a whole new level because I think I work in the steps really well.

Allow me to try to put a fellowship before my wants. And now all of a sudden I have to redouble my efforts back here on the 12 steps to really find that higher power to get out of my own way, to allow the fellowship to grow,

even if I agree with it or if I don't agree with it. I heard somebody say once the traditions just are. They're not good. They're not bad, they just are. There are traditions. So if there are traditions and we might as well practice them because there are and nobody else is going to do it for us. So I'm here to talk about tradition 10. First one I'm going to read is

the long form of tradition. Tim and I got it set over here to the side. So if you seem to look away from the camera, that's why.

No. A group or member should ever

in such a way as to implicate a a express any opinion on outside controversial issues, particularly those of politics, alcohol reform, or sectarian religion. The Alcoholics Anonymous groups oppose no one concerning these such matters. They can express no views whatever. And when I read the long form of tradition, I always read the long form of tradition 10 because the actual long form is the tradition.

The short form is like the Cliff Notes. It's the easy part to match the steps to hang on the wall because we put the long forms on the wall. They hang to the floor and the steps will be all the way up here. And

so I read the long form because it's vitally important that I actually know the tradition. And I understand that what I see on the wall is not the tradition. It's it's just it's simplified version. And what I love about Tradition 10, Bill's a genius. Bill is a genius when he wrote this because for me tradition 10 is a reaffirming of tradition 3IN tradition 5

because if the long form of tradition 3 is. I'll read it real quick. Our membership autumn include all who suffer from alcoholism, hence we may refuse none who wish to recover.

So if I can refuse nobody who wants to come into AA, how can a A have any statements that are controversial to anybody that may want to come in here? The only thing we care about is your alcoholic. So the the one thing I have to be AA is always careful of. In my experience, I haven't seen them do too many things that raise concern in in my opinion. But we we take no, we take no opinions on politics,

general manager of GSO or none of our trustees have came out and say we back this candidate.

And the minute they would do that, now all of a sudden half of the fellowship is going to go like, well, we don't, so we don't belong. And I can almost, and maybe this is just my dramatic mind, but I can almost see this happening is if and when one of those people come out and support somebody in the name of a a, there would be a whole new service structure overnight come about for the people who are in the opposing field. You know, you can almost see

we'll use something stupid. The coffee

crowd and the decaf crowd, the caffeinated and the decaf crowd, somebody in a, a took a hardcore stance on we like caffeinated coffee. And which would be the camp I'm in. And, and all of a sudden there would be a group of people who decided, well, we don't agree with that. We like decaf coffee. And now we need our own decaf GSO. And, and, and as long as we stay out of the argument of what's better, the fact is, is we don't have to argue about it within the rooms and, and, and we don't have to defend ourselves. We don't have to make anybody understand that

or a political organization or we're not a religious organization or we're not anything of those natures. And, and sometimes it could be stuff real subtle. You know, the, the thing I love about GSO is when you, you reach out to them and you ask them any questions on anything,

they'll give you. Our experience shows, but we can't tell, you know, we can't tell you what to do if, if somebody from the public reaches out to them, we have no opinion on that. They, they, they just stay out of it. They, they, they have

to the best of their ability, I think accidentally over the, the manuscript, there was some public stuff that people didn't like and myself included. But the reality is, is we try to stay out of all that stuff that may cause the public to look at us and say, look, see, we knew them a as were a bunch of bombs. And, and, and I like that a lot. For me, it becomes a lot more difficult when I, when I start trying to apply this at a personal level.

I,

I used to have people that would come into my Home group and they want to talk about the debate, if you will, or whatever the headlines were in the news. And they come in and start trying to talk to me because they knew something personal about how I believed or whatever. And I look at them like, not in here,

not in here. We don't do that here. If you ever want to grab a cup of coffee, by all means. But not in these rooms. Because in these rooms, everybody is protected. And all I care about is your alcoholic. And I don't care about your beliefs on religion. I don't care about your beliefs on politics. I don't care about your beliefs on any major topic that's on the news headline or on your Facebook page. All I care about is do you suffer from alcoholism? When you pick up that first drink, you lose all control over the amount you take. And if you do that, then I want you here,

I want you to be a part of this deal. And I don't want you to feel like you're shunned or put out.

And so I think as a group, we have to really try for that, you know, and then sometimes it even happens accidentally that we have to talk to people. The church we used to meet in, we, we, we raised our own rent because

in raising that we found out the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts paid more than a a did. So we raised our rent to match what the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts did. And the church was confused because nobody raises their own rent. And in the process of that, they decided to thank us by putting us in their church bulletin.

The minute they put us in their church bulletin and start putting that to the community, the AA meets here and we have a A at our church and now look like we were the Baptist a, a group. And we went to him and tried to explain to him, look, we, we, we don't, we can't have that. We don't want people thinking we're, that we stand for this or we stand for that. And in that moment, they, they were confused, but they politely removed, removed us from their bullets and and allowed us to just to be an, A, a group because we don't want somebody from the outside looking in thinking all they're only for those.

And I'm grateful for that.

I like this in in the tradition 10 on the short form.

The other thing I was going to talk about real quick on the long form, it says a expresses any opinion on outside controversial issues, particularly those of politics, alcohol reform or sectarian religion. I'm a big win on this because the secretary of religion I've always done for a long time, I was really good about not expressing what my personal conception of a higher power is within the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous

because I don't want anybody to feel excluded. The flip side of me looking at this of let me pat myself on the back as I never talk about my conception of a higher power. The flip side of that is am I not bashing somebody elses conception of a higher power? And the thing you see, I don't hear it as much as I used to, but frequently I used to hear people say stuff like I'm a recovering this religion or I'm a recovering that religion, which insinuates that there somebody else's religion doesn't work when the reality is, is

what I grew up in didn't work for me. But I know tons of people in a a that it is working for. So I, I have to be careful. Not only do I, I have to watch my pumping up of something that I believe in or something that I'm for, I have to watch my tearing down of what somebody else believes in. I I remember I had a spawn team one time and he started making fun of a particular religion in, in a A and it's, it's one of them that a lot of people have the view that it's sort of out there on the fringes. And,

you know, and I pulled him aside after the meeting. I said, what were you doing? And he goes, well, I was just a joke. I said, but you know, if anybody in that room

holds that personal religious belief, is that anybody's conception of a higher power? Because I don't know. I said, well, then we have to leave all that out of there because we can take no, no stance whatsoever, positive or negative on what somebody else's belief system is. Because I don't want somebody to think that they don't belong in a a because we're four and, or against something that they may or may not believe in. So I I really try to keep those things out of the room of Alcoholics Anonymous

in here. Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues. Hence, the Ana might never be drawn into public controversy.

And that's the short form. And I love this first paragraphs. And ever since it began, has Alcoholics Anonymous been divided by a major controversial issue. Nor is our fellowship ever publicly taken sides on any question in an embattled world. This, however, has been no earned virtue. It could almost be said that we were born with it. For, as one old timer recently declared, practically never have I heard a heated religious, political, or reform argument among a member. So long as we don't argue them these matters privately,

it's a cinch we shall never publicly and.

This one was tough for me because

anonymity wise, I never put anything on social media because I don't want anybody to ever assume that. Look at this knucklehead over here and look at how he believes. And that must be how a a believes, you know, and I and I, I've held that for years upon years. And I had people, I used to talk a lot of politics on Facebook 'cause I, I love a good debate and I used to talk about it all the time and, and people would try to talk to me about Ed you.

That's a breaking tradition 10. I said not at all because I respect tradition 11. I respect the anonymity. So I'm not breaking tradition 10. I don't do the coin on my a, a birthday. I don't do the, what's the new recovery challenge we got going on that I've seen for the last two days proving recovery works. And, and I saw a couple confused faces. It's really annoying. Not your confused faces, but the challenge is going on and I've got friends doing it. I'm like, what are you doing? I'm like,

oh geez. And so I, I don't get into any of that. So I thought I was totally safe

to speak my politics, to speak my religions to my religions. I don't have more than one to speak what I believe personally. I thought, I thought all that was perfectly fine because if I respect tradition 11 and nobody knows that I'm in a A minus my mother, because my mother is so happy that I'm in a A, she tells everybody that she can that her son's sober. But outside of that circle, I thought, well, I'm OK with this. I'm OK with talking about whatever I want.

Who am I hurting with this? And am I sponsor would drop hints and my sponsor is fairly knowledgeable about these three legacies in these traditions. And, and and he, he, he drops hints and politely, subtly, and I, I shut him down because God knows our sponsors are frequently wrong, right? You know, I mean, what do they know? And I know it's not breaking tradition 10. No, it's not breaking anything. And me and him were standing in assembly one day

and we're outside of the assembly that we're on a break and, and the most important conversation on a break

probably where you're going to eat lunch. I mean, let's face it, I mean, when you get out of the assembly hall from the area assembly, you're, you're worried about what's for what food is coming, You know, is a BBQ, is it we're going to have chicken? Are we having steak? What's, you know, So we're having some deep, deep, important conversation and somebody walks by and makes a snide political remark.

And he looked at me and he's got these Bony fingers. He's like

you still think

you have in your political views on Facebook does not affect your AA.

It was a shot to the gut. I did the appropriate thing deflect, you know, and I I did first I'm like they have no right to hold that against me and then I went to they have no right to tell me what I can and can't do. And then I went to they have no right to bring my personal beliefs into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. And finally I can get down to meet. And the reality was is when I break

my when I put that stuff out there, my friends know that I'm in a A and it doesn't matter whether I announce I'm an alcoholic Anonymous or not. What what happens is I now draw that stuff to my personal life where they assume a A is and and and not by written and not by spoken, but by simple affiliation. Have I affected Alcoholics Anonymous

and, and, and for some people, Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole because I may be the only person they know in Alcoholics Anonymous

because I've allowed them to come in and I finally could take a hard look at that. I'm still not perfect, but I've drastically changed the way I do things on social media. I've drastically pulled myself back because what I realized was I don't want my personal beliefs ever to affect my ability to do the 12th step.

And, and honestly, it never did affect my ability. I've I've sponsored guys that believe 100% different than me in every category you can think of because I know that that big book is not does not shun anybody and those 12 steps don't shun anybody.

But I don't know what you guys think because you guys may not feel like you can approach me because of something I've taken a stance on.

I don't want my opinion to ever keep you away from feeling like you can approach Ed. And if, if there's even the slightest chance that a newcomer or somebody with time, like man, I'd really like to go talk to Ed about something he said. But I also know how he believes I don't feel safe or I don't feel like I can, then I'm wrong because I've, I've blocked you from being able to, to openly talk to me. And, and what I found was after a lot of searching,

going through all the excuses,

this tradition comes down to a very personal level to me of I need to watch how my actions are as a whole as a result, you know, back to the Home group, I don't wear buttons, I don't wear shirts promoting, I don't wear anything that would make anybody in that room feel uncomfortable. And I've had to take that exact same stance and extend it to my social media, extend it to my outside world because I don't want anybody to feel like I can't, they cannot approach me because of something. I don't care what you believe, I'll approach,

say something interesting. I'm approaching you, you know, I wanna, I want to pick your brain. I want to talk to you. That's because I, I understand. But if my actions make somebody else feel like they can't, then then I'm the one that's wrong. It's not you. You're not wrong for not feeling comfortable. It's me that's wrong because I made you uncomfortable. And so that's something I've really tried to start focusing on. There are a lot of things that this tradition applies to in a lot of ways. This thing is getting broken. And, you know, I mean, we don't have

conservative liberal AA meetings. We don't have Christian, non Christian AA meetings. We don't have, well, we don't have a lot of these things that happen. I had a sponsee recently and he's got a a different conception of a higher power. So he went to I won't it. It was a meeting that basically you don't have to believe. You know, the name of the group insinuates that you want to believe in a God a a meeting and,

and he's like Ed,

I was there and they said a lot of good stuff about AA and recovery, you know, but the problem is, is every person took the 1st 30 seconds to a minute to define and like expel any idea that there was a God that was involved in anything. He goes, it just made it just so uncomfortable. He goes, if you didn't have a higher power that you believed in, you wouldn't feel comfortable in this meeting.

And, and and so therefore, once again, we're taking stances on outside stuff. 5th tradition,

we do one thing and we have a primary purpose to carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers. We all have different experiences and in that, once again, as I said at the beginning of the meeting, third tradition, 5th tradition, this, this sort of envelopes and umbrellas them protects them. We don't have that other stuff. We don't allow that other stuff to affect Alcoholics Anonymous and this tradition ensures of that

because we leave it outside the rooms and let us do the one thing we do. And and there's always people looking for loopholes.

I remember I was sitting down with somebody one time and we were doing something for the group. I think we were talking, we're trying to write a group format and and they're like, and I said, well, we need to 5th tradition. We need to

do only Alcoholics share. Well, they're like, well, 5th tradition. I said, yeah, our primary purpose, you know, we, you know, we have a primary purpose and we discuss alcoholism. They're like, well, if there's a primary purpose, that would insinuate there's a secondary purpose. And I'm like, oh, for the love of my goodness, I, I give, you know, I, I have no argument for secondary purpose, you know,

And so there's always people looking for that. But this this really closes the loopholes because we have traditions and then we have a tradition built upon those traditions to ensure that we don't break those.

And that's why I love this build new. The drunk build knew our mindsets and Bill knew that we will look for anything, you know, and the reality is, is we can use this for the good. We can, we can seek out, you know, currently I'm going to wrap this up because I just realized the time and I apologize, but

drunks seek loopholes. We find things. And so currently one of the new things is, is, do we go back to live meetings or do we stay on zoom meetings or how do we do meetings? And, and what I tell people and what our group, my home group's doing the Tuesday night speaker meeting,

we, we're going to a hybrid. And what we did is we reached out to the city and we found out what the city ordinances were. Because if you break the law, you're actually standing in defiance of the law. If you, if you just follow the law, you're just a law abiding citizen. And, and you're not saying you're in favor or against, but when you break it, you're saying you're against it. And so we, we reached out to the city ordinance, We ensured that our hybrid meeting would, would fit the city ordinances. So there's no controversial issues. The press can't show up and say, look at the

they're breaking the law. The cops can't show up and start writing tickets. We're under the umbrella. And then we're going to keep doing the hybrid for or the Zoom for anybody who doesn't feel comfortable yet. And because we want everybody to feel comfortable in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. That's how drunks can use those character defects to our advantage. We find the loophole, we can find the way around it. So hey, we want to have live meetings. Let's find out how we can do that within the bounds of the law. And then we can make it to where everybody can show up. And I love that, you know, I love that we

do things of that nature. We shouldn't use a character defect to just stomp all over it and and rebel. And I hope I hit many points. I don't know if I hit everything. Normally people think of other stuff. But I thank you all for having me. And I'll turn the meeting back over to you. Thank you. Thank you, Ed. We really appreciate you taking the time.