(Into Action chapter, talking about Tenth Step)
Lambda Board, Lambda Users, other friends:
Many claim God gave us ten commandments including Honor God above all and Thou Shalt Not Kill. Humans quickly decided this meant they should kill everybody who broke any of the commandments as their way of honoring God.
Over
and over, AA's International Conference of the General Membership has
decreed that "nobody can be expelled, " "no one can keep you out,"
and
"we're not one bit afraid you will hurt us." Unfortunately, small
groups have decided to bar certain undesirables like the brain-injured
before they scare off newcomers and thus destroy their little AA group. Sad! Sad! Sad!
I understand Lambda Houston has effectively chased off more brain-injured guys than just Philip.
I was told one poor brain-injured guy was kicked out because he was
overheard asking someone if he wanted a b... j... How could that
possibly harm the group? And Lambda says it's gay and proud! I mean this guy had been run over by a bus. His handicap was evident from 25 feet!
When I first showed up at the Minneapolis Founders group, the older, chain-smoking, poor looking regulars scared me at first. Thank God no one ran them off.
Now I am old...I'm fat.... and I am ostentatiously unrich. That ought to scare off any newcomer who is a little sober and still a little young good looking. But, I've been sober 38 years.
I'm sure I scare off lots more new comers than Philip or Charley!
Finally, I'd bet my a hundred dollars that those people who chased off Philip and Charley now wish they had chased me off first.
Let's get back to our primary purpose: To help all who reach out to Lambda for help to achieve sobriety. Ah men
For the whole story about Philip, see the blog below
Tim Campbell************
On February 10, Lambda Chair Frank T. sent Philip B a letter refusing to let him get his 16 year medallion and or attend AA meetings at Lambda. The letter claims he was guilty of "sexual misconduct." Lambda's definition of that is unclear. No one to my knowledge has accused Philip of any criminal intent. He has not been charged with anything similar.
In an on-going effort to educate Lambda users and its board on these issues, we present below the story of the first "sexual misconduct" recorded in AA's own history.
Sexual misconduct in AA
history
On
pages 97-98 of Dr. Bob and the Good
Oldtimers, published by Alcoholic Anonymous in 1980, Dr. Bob’s daughter Sue
Windows tells the story of the first “thirteenth step,” that is, the first sex
with a newcomer, in AA known history thus:
“There
was a man we’ll call ‘Victor,’ a former mayor of Akron, and a lady we’ll call
‘Lil,’ who was the first woman to seek help.
“Together,
Victor and the lady known as Lil started out to write the ‘thirteenth step,’
long before the first twelve were ever thought of. What is more, they say it began in Dr. Bob’s
office—on his examination table—while he (Dr. Bob) was at the City Club engaged
in his sacrosanct Monday night bridge game.
“In
any case, Victor decided it was time for him to go home—but Lil was
loaded. So he called Ernie to explain
the predicament. When Ernie arrived, he
saw Lil grab a handful of little pills from Dr. Bob’s cabinet.
...
“They say Dr. Bob was leery
of anything to do with women alcoholics for a long time thereafter, although he still tried to
help as best he could with any who came along.
And Bill Wilson, speaking with Sue Windows in the 1950s (the year Dr.
Bob died), recalled how they all were scandalized by the episode.
“
‘As drunk, I don’t know why we should have been,’ Bill said. ‘But we felt that the performance of some of
those early people coming in would disrupt us entirely. Lil, I guess, was absolutely the first woman
we ever dealt with.’
“Bill
thought Lil never made it, but Sue said that she straightened out after a few
years, got married, and had children.
Only it wasn’t in the AA program that Lil recovered.”
---------
This editor notes there was
never any talk of barring Victor from AA, just Lil.
The
moral of the story is, recovering drunks have often been downright ludicrous in
their over-reactions to interpersonal problems in AA. Recovering drunks seem most prone to getting
in to trouble hanging around without any group activity going on.
Lambda
is today continuing an old but perhaps not so honorable an AA shortcoming.
Tim
Campbell
Houston
TX
February
22, 2012
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