[Businessmtg] How's it working for us?

[aclaramie at aim.com]

Good morning,

I come from the position having joined the business meeting as I wanted to learn more about how Alanon worked.? Simple as that. I wanted to participate on a level above and beyond the recovery meeting.? 

Prior to coming to ASP, I had never and still have never been to a F2F meeting.? I have been to open AA meetings and speaker meetings prior to coming to Alanon, and had a rudimentary idea of how a 12 step meeting operated.? In my line of work, I utilize 12 step meetings for recovery.? 

Some groups of AA/NA I have "observed" as an outsider, over the years have regular group concious meetings, some do not.? But I can tell you that for the ones that do, I have witnessed more growth in the members of the recovery community who parrticipate in both recovery and group concious.? 

As a newbie, coming to ASP, I had no idea what I was doing. Even though I had a basic idea of what I was looking at, and new the basic concepts of the 12 steps, I was scared.? It was great to be welcomed, but I wanted a meeting RIGHT THEN.? I had to wait a couple of days.? I read everything I could from ASP but was still confused to months.? I was still tentative to post, as you all know, most of us are.? Are we doing it right, etc.? I am an intelligent person and I still found everything hard to figure out.

I agree things need to be changed.? Step back, look at things from a big picture.? Doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity, right?? I learned that in the walls of ASP.? I have learned so much here.

Maybe we could have a trial run of group concious meetings and advertise them to the group.? Let the newbies know they should participate because their ideas are worth just as much as everyone elses.? 

And again, I don't see a problem with sponsors encouraging their sponsees to do service work.? That is what they are here for: to guide us and encourage us.? My sponsor has to have a pretty strong hand with me.? And I still struggle, LOL.? A hands off sponsor hasn't worked in the past.? 

Amanda