SeaSnark Stevie

Snark:  Snide remarks.

I spoke a while back about what happened at my regular morning meeting to a couple of disruptive members - one who made short, overtly religious statements, another who spoke defensively about distinctly non-recovery subjects.  As a good group should, the members agonized over what to do, deciding eventually, after years of bickering, to ban the most disruptive of the two and rejoicing when the religious proselytizer went elsewhere.  Only under the most severe circumstances do we throw up any roadblocks to anyone who wants to attend our meetings - this really is a life and death proposition for the real alcoholic so we take that responsibility seriously.

I have noted with great chagrin over this time that some of the members who bitched the most about these two women play fast and loose with the procedures established by our group consciences and also by what I consider matters of common courtesy.  There are people who talk at length, ignoring our suggestion that the large size of the group dictate that remarks shouldn't exceed 3  minutes.  3 minutes is a pretty long time to talk.  Try talking for 3 minutes some time.  You have to fill a lot of air to talk that long.  And there are other people - who aren't anywhere as interesting as they think they are - who talk at every meeting.  The problem is that there are a lot of folks who are tentative, less confident, and need a beat, a pause in the sharing before they'll speak up.  My friends know that if I get to the place that I think my message is so good I need to be heard at every meeting that I should be taken out behind the woodshed and roundly thrashed.

I have noticed that I'm managing to work in my irritation at these situations every time I talk.  One of the benefits/curses of getting older is that there is less of a governor between what I should say, what I want to say, and what I do say.  My people-pleasing character defect has faded from view long ago.  There is a right way to go about things and a wrong way.  The right way would be to bring this up in a group conscience - I mean, who made me the arbiter of the group's behavior?  Besides me?  Or maybe I could quietly approach someone after the meeting and make my opinion known.  I mean, everyone loves to have me tell them what to do, right?

Instead, my remarks are getting a little passive-aggressive-ey.  Snarky.  Too much superiority is oozing out.  It's starting to feel mean-spirited and not at all helpful.   Maybe I should stop doing it.