My regular morning meeting is called KIS - Keep It Simple. For a while I thought that the name was tongue-in-cheek because it is the most complicated meeting I've ever attended. The format sheet that the day's secretary uses to get the proceedings started is a little shorter than War and Peace and I'm almost not kidding. It takes 15 minutes to wade through all the boilerplate and actually get to the . . . you know . . . actual meeting part. And then - for some reason that remains opaque to me - we stop the sharing part at ten 'till the hour. For a while I rationalized that this was to enable working people to get to their jobs but most of us are retired or work odd shifts or are ne'er do wells so that doesn't seem plausible. Mostly I don't think about it too closely. I'm trying to reduce dissonance so that I don't go insane.
There is always something brewing at KIS from a minor kerfuffle to a major conflagration. The business meetings resemble a Texas Chainsaw Death Match. A few years ago a group of malcontents broke away and started a competitive meeting at the same time of day. This caused some hard feelings. I keep this in mind whenever my actions indicate I'm rejecting the status quo of anything I get involved with because these actions say, in effect: "I know better than you - you're doing it wrong." The people who stay - the people who think everything is just fine and see no reason to change - can develop resentments. This is what happened.
Some of our current members, hungry for face to face contact in this isolating pandemic, found a "church" building that agreed to let them use a room for in-person meetings. I think this is a stupid idea in a rapidly worsening pandemic but that's really none of my business. No one from this group asked me for my opinion so I didn't give it. In fact, even when people ask for my opinion I'm suspicious as to whether they really want to hear what I have to say. I think they're patronizing me most of the time. The group broke away without telling anybody who is staying on the Zoom platform. The group also liberated for their own use all of the supplies from our regular meeting room - closed because of CoVid - again, without telling anyone. And some of the people who left have commitments on the Zoom platform that they didn't bother to honor.
So, at a joint business meeting today, there were hard feelings. If you didn't see this coming then you're too stupid for me to associate with. Some of the resentments were heartfelt and touching - one man expressed sadness that no one let the entire group know that this move was being planned. Several people were annoyed that the supplies were liberated without clearing it with the group. When one of our members called this stealing - a pretty harsh judgement that might have been best tempered a bit - someone off camera at the live meeting yelled: "Fuck you, Reuben." This came through with exceptional clarity. There was no need to electronically enhance the audio. I've been attending meetings for 34 years and that was a first for me. Clearly, the political divide in our country and the coarsening of our civility and respectfulness, driven by some of our top politicians, is seeping into Alcoholics Anonymous, and this makes me sad. I hope the seep doesn't become malignant.
In my opinion this is a different scenario than the original malcontent break-away. There are people who don't like virtual meetings and/or are eager for a more personal setting. I truly believe that once the pandemic ceases to rage and society returns to a more familiar setting that these folks will come back to the one room.
But at what cost? "Fuck you, Reuben?" I hope that guy has a good sponsor because he needs to make an amends and not a quiet, personal amends, either, but one in front of the whole group. I took some phone calls today. People were jazzed.
Thanks for letting me get this off my chest.
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