Con Science

Conscience:  The moral sense of right and wrong, chiefly as it affects one's own behavior.  

One of my favorite groups is being bedeviled by a few individuals who are DRIVING ME CRAZY!  This means that they need to change their behavior.  If I don't like something then it can't be good because I am, of course, without a flaw, blemish, or defect of any kind.

A few of my friends are similarly OUTRAGED! so we're kind of bitching quietly among ourselves about how to fix these broken people.  I'm dancing right around the fiery edge of gossip without actually crossing the line, or so I've convinced myself.  My reasoning is dubious because I do so enjoy a nice bout of character assassination draped in a cloak of righteous indignation.

Here's the kicker - these individuals really are annoying and they really do avoid talking about recovery and the 12 Steps.  They're frustrating a lot of the group members.  So be it.  I'm sure I was a shining beacon of sound reasoning who was applying the Steps to every moment of my waking hours.  I'm sure I didn't annoy anyone.

Being a great Joiner-Inner my OUTRAGE! has been stoked by these talks to the point where I was ready to take some unilateral measures to fix everything.  It's not important what I was going to do if by "not important" you mean "it's a little too embarrassing to repeat here because I'd look like a real ass."

I began to wonder how I would act if someone that I annoyed - as incredible as that remote possibility is to contemplate - tried to change my behavior.  I'd be like "Yeah, and who appointed you %$!! pope and president, you arrogant %$!!"

I guess this is why we have business meetings and group consciences.  That's where all of the members get together to make a structural change in the meeting instead of relying on one self-absorbed guy to do what he thinks best.  I've been on the losing end of a lot of group decisions, I'll tell you that.  I've brought up matters that I thought needed to be changed and I've been annihilated in the group conscience.  It was a slaughter.  I wasn't even close to being in the majority.  Nothing was changed and guess what?  Those groups are still there.

So I wrote our national office for some counsel.  I will keep my mouth shut.  I will adhere to a group decision, avoiding a Seaweed decision, should a group conscience be called.  I will not be asking for one myself because I think I need to learn something about myself here, not change something in someone else. 

Always a good idea, actually.