Group News
The following is from Sharing Recovery, a newsletter published by the Connecticut-Westchester Intergroup, June-August 1993:
The Group Conscience
There are two ways for a group to arrive at a group conscience. One is the competitive way, the other is the cooperative way. In the competitive, you push your ideas across, take a vote, and the majority carry the decision. This leaves behind a disgruntled minority that feel that its truths are lost sight of in the decision.
Ego
Ego has been said to mean Edging God Out. How desperately I want to sign this piece so that I’ll be admired and praised — so that I’ll feel less small and gray. But this means I am mistakenly allowing, indeed inviting, others to validate me — thinking that they can fill me up and make me whole.
Service Not an Option
When I first got sober in AA, service was not an option; it came with the package. When we work through the Steps, we eventually get to Step Twelve, which states that “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry the message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.” When I came to SA I was told that AA’s Twelve Steps were SA’s Twelve Steps.
Feedback Corner
The following is taken from the new member orientation format of the Tucson, Arizona SA group:
Letting Go and Letting God
This is the first meeting of SA in a long time that I’ve been to that no one but myself has attended. It’s OK with me because I need to sit quietly and try to set a course for the day. I’ve been sober two years and two months now. I’ve been forced to attempt the Fourth Step again because I do not know how to live.
A Safe Haven
Personally I feel that as a sexaholic, any sobriety other than SA’s would give me easy ways out. I just lost a friend because I did not want to have sex with him. Although I miss him, I have absolutely no regrets about having made no compromise with my sobriety. I feel clean.
Bringing it to the Light
Only when I own up to my addiction by sharing and getting it outside of myself do I have a real chance of living a sober life. At a recent movie I was not bothered by nakedness in a scene. If I had known there would be nakedness, however, I would not have gone. I rationalized my being there by my ignorance of the fact that there would be nakedness. One cannot control everything that happens around one.
Recovery and Movies
I got the idea some time ago at an SA International Convention to try giving up movies. I could see people getting all excited about going to them, and I began to suspect that something was wrong. As far back as five years old, when they cost less than ten cents, I remember them as being a welcome change from the emotionally impoverished family environment in which I lived. For that reason, they had always been an important source of relief.
Group News
The first SA meeting was held here in El Paso recently. At first it was very disappointing. I was the only one there. At first I thought, “I’m the only one with this problem.” Then I remembered ‘Group News’ in the Essay and thought no, I’m not the only one. I’m not all alone.
