Questions via Email: A Little Frustrated, A Little Frightened

 

 

Dear Mr. SponsorPants,

I recently moved to a new area and started going to a meeting at a sober "Club."  I've logged quite a few miles in AA meetings over the last close-to-ten years, but I have never encountered this situation before and I would love your input.

There is a person attending this meeting every other week or so and they are becoming more and more out of control.  On the one hand they talk about bringing a weapon to their last meeting and being "given permission by AA" to use it, and then they talk about how the 12 Traditions guide their sex life.  Their dramatic outbursts cause laughter and some eye rolling from the regular members but no one seems to want to do anything to corral them. 

Is there something I can do -- short of going to a different meeting?  Everyone whispers about them, which I don't want to be a part of -- but they are a big person who loudly proclaims their double-digit time sober.  To be honest, after the comment about the weapon, they scare me.  What would you do?

Thanks!

A Little Frustrated, A Little Frightened

 

Dear ALFALF,

I admit, I'm intrigued by the idea of using the 12 Traditions to guide my sex life.  Especially AA's 3rd Tradition: "The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking."  How would one apply that, I wonder.  "The only requirement for..." -- I'd better stop there, or I'm going to wind up talking about members.

Let's speak plainly, but keep the Traditions handy, ok?

This person has every right to be in an AA meeting -- NOT that you're suggesting they don't, I'm just spelling it out for the folks playing along at home.

But clearly this person has some outside issues -- which, for the new kids, has become AA shorthand for mental or emotional issues which exist independent of someone's alcoholism (speaking loosely here).  This doesn't mean there's no overlap, or that the one might not feed the other.  It is merely an acknowledgment that someone has more than one problem.  Like having arthritis and also compressed discs in your spine -- both conditions will cause pain, both conditions can impair movement, and the former might irritate the latter, but they are two separate problems.

Okay, so they likely have some outside issues, and yet they have the right to BE in the meeting... but they do not have the right to disrupt the meeting to the point that it cannot function -- it hasn't gotten there yet, though.

However you have the right to feel safe in the meeting.

Yet talking about a weapon is not the same as showing it to anyone.  (The legal charge there would be "brandishing a blankety-blank," depending on the weapon, if I'm not mistaken.)  And in your letter no one individual is directly threatened by name, it's just a crazy comment -- one which would make me a little leery too, I want to add, but still just a crazy comment in general.

You're quite right not to participate in the whispering -- that doesn't help anyone (and actually harms the whisperers). 

And I sense from the way you expressed the idea that you don't really want to stop going to the meeting -- that's not an attractive solution to you either.

Which leaves us with only one course of action:  Be an example.

(And you already are, that's clear from what you wrote.)

Go to the meeting and share as you have, your own experience.  Do not engage this individual, but try not to shun (an almost contradictory suggestion, I know, and certainly a difficult middle-ground to traverse). 

AA has no "Sergeant at Arms," no governing body, no way to "police" its members' conduct in meetings.  Ultimately that's good, since many of us evolve to be very different from the way we were when we came in, and that space to behave badly eventually became space to grow.  But when you have someone dramatically erratic who talks a lot about how long they've been sober... it is hard.

It boils down to this:

• Do not put yourself in a position where you do not feel safe.
• Pray for this individual.
• Stay out of the gossip.
• Be the example.

A hard plan, but that's all I have to offer.  I've had similar situations a few times over the years, and that's the best strategy for me to use.  Gently but firmly sticking to being a sober, loving, calming presence in the room is (usually) more effective than confrontation, in my experience.

If you find the situation is getting in the way of your recovery, try going every other week, and sampling other meetings on your "off" week -- just to buffer yourself a little.

It would be easy to suggest you take this person out to coffee or something and try to have a one-to-one, heart-to-heart, but as I read your email and tried to consider the best, most realistic answer, that idea was quickly dismissed.  

From your description this is not a case of two rational people with dramatically differing views, wherein one might respond to the heartfelt sharing of another.  This is something else.

If their behavior escalates, then it might be appropriate for the Club, as the "landlord" -- with rights, responsibilities and liabilities -- to step in and take some kind of action, but as far as what a meeting can do, or an individual within the meeting... well, that 3rd Tradition stands strong.  We cannot compel anyone to change their behavior, no matter how rude or odd, so long as they do not prevent the meeting from going on -- and even then custom and tradition only allow for asking them to settle down or step out of the meeting until they can; but they are welcome back once they curb their disruptive actions. 

When it comes to these difficult situations our best response is to be the example.

A hard answer, I know, but the only one I've got I'm afraid.

Good luck and keep me posted.

 

Comments

[Dave]

interesting.

[shanachie]

We had a guy talk about packing a gun in a meeting, and he shared about wanting to kill someone. A newcomer freaked out, went home and called the cops. So then we had cops coming into our meetings, asking for the guy with the gun. The fellowship has suffered because of it.

People who are are packing don't advertise, for starters. And how many of us said, in frustration or anger, "I'd like to KILL that guy!" And how many people take that literally? There never was any gun, or any real threat. The rooms are full of tough guy posturing, and unfortunately, it will scare some people away. If I was this letter writer, I'd make a point of talking to the new people and telling them that he's full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

[Syd]

There was a fellow at an AA meeting who was disrupting the meeting, undressing, being loud during the meeting. He was asked to leave. He was told by the chair that he could come back when he was no longer disruptive. Dramatic outbursts that happen during a meeting could be considered disruptive. That is unclear from the email. Situations do come up when someone has an underlying condition and as you wrote, it is important to have a safe meeting to attend. Tradition one shines through in all this.

[Jayne Dough]

Although it's probably the rule of the club house anyway, your group has a right to decide, during a group conscience, if it wants to include in its format a request for people to not bring weapons, paraphernalia, animals other-than-guide-dogs, etc. to the meeting. Several meetings in my local area do this.

I always assume that any meeting that does this used to have a problem with 1 or more members' specific behaviors in the past. These types of requests support the safe environment of 12 Step as a whole and/or enforce a group's contract with a particular landlord. They are generally considered to be "autonomy supporting" (rather than Tradition violating).

Some programs even ask that no "sexually abusive language" or "naming specific [insert thing that members are abstaining from]" occur.

If the group wants to set that type of environment, people will vote (after the motions passes/fails) with their feet by either attending or dropping the meeting (or re-voting it next month).

[Guinevere]

I've been in groups where other Big Guys with Lotsa Time have a word with guys like this, and things calm down. The guy might not leave, and that's OK...

As a good friend and mentor who is a psychologist once told me, "We all have to come to terms with our dark side." People who act out in meetings or otherwise provoke me usually are putting their fingers on something I'm afraid of in myself. It's these folks, sometimes, who teach me the most tolerance and patience, while also teaching me firm and flexible boundaries. --G