A Coffee Pot and A Resentment

I must be settling in with The Program in the New City -- I was at a meeting yesterday that really frosted my ass.


"What did they do?" asked Doctor Death, retired.  
"Well, they're not doing it the way I want them to," I replied, quite reasonably, I thought.
"Oh," he said.  "Of course.  The bastards."


I started going to a Thursday meeting where they read the 12 Steps every week.  I like the meeting which means it's a great group.  The group decided to add a second meeting on Tuesday.  So far, so good -- I supported this move so it must be a great decision.  We had a group conscience to make this official, which is what a good group will do.  I approved of the group conscience so - you got it - another stellar decision.  Very few people stayed for the group conscience, of course, as is the norm, and the meeting was disorganized and random, as they all are, everyone talking at once and no one really in charge.


I suggested in the low level chaos that each group should remain separate, rather than combining the two groups.  I pointed out that for any members that could not (or would not) be able to attend both meetings (me, the only one I care about) combining the two meetings would mean that on Tuesday the group would read even numbered Steps and on Thursday odd numbered ones.  I have enough trouble working a good Program without skipping half the Steps, and some of the Steps are very logically paired with a Step that follows.  Hard to give the 4th Step a good whirl without pondering the ramifications to the 5th Step, for instance.


In the noise someone misinterpreted my comment, believing, I believe, that I thought I needed to be there for each Step, or some such nonsense, even though that's not far from the truth.  I suspect that the world can't run without me engaged.  One of the old timers there, bleeding a bit, deacon-wise, made a disparaging comment meant to dismiss my objection.  It wasn't even that disparaging -- I have taken much more egregious abuse with great good humor from people who know me even a little.  In fact, I think I took it with pretty good humor yesterday.  But because the group conscience was a bit disorganized the other people there picked up on the jokey tone of the initial disparagement and started piling on.


"I think we can probably read The Steps without you there." 
"If you miss a Step you can come back next time.  The Steps aren't going anywhere."
"Maybe you should make an effort to come to each meeting."


Stuff like that.  I don't think anyone was being mean-spirited or even knew at whom the comments were being directed.  In my opinion I've come to believe that I'm not cursed with an over- over-abundance of the Ego part of the instincts.  I don't need to be in charge, by and large, and I don't much care what other people think of me.  Feel free to yuck it up at my expense -- it has nothing to do with me and god knows I need it and deserve it, considering how I treat my friends.  But as I stood there, with a smile on my face, trying to appreciate the humor and get a word in edge-wise, I felt my hackles begin to rise.  I felt like they were piling it on a little thick.  Enough already, I thought.


"Well, we had a second meeting before and that's how we did it then," said the bleeding guy, dismissively.  And that was that.   I didn't catch the circumstances of any particular vote actually being taken which I thought was the whole idea of the group conscience.  I left after that remark, grateful that I did actually have to leave to have my cracked tooth repair completed, another personal rampage that will be the topic of tomorrow's thoughts.


I'm free to quit attending that meeting.  I hope that I let this ebb and digest for a couple of days and gain some perspective.  And I need to remember that many meetings are begun with a coffee pot and a resentment.  Maybe everyone else there but me really thinks this is a good idea.  Probably they didn't think about it at all.