If you want to subscribe to LOL Sober, hit the purple button below. I’m mostly publishing free pieces right now, but paid subscribers do have access to monthly premium pieces—such as THIScomedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes!
I am chairing a Traditions meeting for the next six weeks, so I am knee-deep in reading about the 12 traditions that 12-step founding mothers and fathers set up as a guardrails for recovery. I almost can’t believe I am saying that, because I used to get the hell out of the room when I heard a meeting was a traditions meeting.
Not any more. The longer I have been sober, the more I have seen the way wise sober people keep the rooms of recovery open. I’m so glad the traditions exist as a starting point, and I am so glad that the traditions emphasize that they are suggestions, and every group is autonomous and can do their own thing. They’re both firm and flexible at the same time. Firm, as in, they’ve worked for about 80 years and been tried and true for millions of people to get sober. Flexible, as in, every group is its own entity and can pretty much decide how it will operate. I’ve seen meetings where the majority vote to not do the Lord’s Prayer. I’ve seen meetings where the group conscience is to make sure the chairperson has at least six months of sobriety. I’ve seen meetings where the group conscience is to let anybody with a desire to stop drinking step into service commitments.
I wanted to just throw out an interesting example from about 12 years ago that I ran into in New York City. I’m changing some details to just be on the safe side of protecting identities and even the identity of the church. Please feel free to comment on how you would have reacted.
Let me set the scene. We had a church that was integral to recovery in the area. There were about 10 meetings a week at this church. The church was fantastic. I always felt like they provided meeting spaces truly to do a good deed, not to rake in money. I found the rent to be ridiculously low, and the church tended to work with groups that were smaller in size to make sure the rent was doable.
At a business meeting for a group that met on Monday mornings, the treasurer said that the church was raising rent from $50 to $60 a month. She said the church mentioned it was struggling mightily with its finances and had to increase rent for meeting space. That group routinely had about 30-40 people per meeting, four times a month, and we always ended up pulling in $100 or more. The $10 rent was no problem as far as the funds we had.
Someone made a motion to discuss increasing the rent by $10. Everybody was nodding along, so I assumed it would be an easy yes vote.
Then someone else raised their hand and said, “I will be voting to increase the rent to what the church asked. But I would actually float the idea that we offer to increase the rent a little more, to $75 per month. We have the money, and this church has been so critical to the recovery of so many people.”
A few other people chimed in and said they agreed with that, that we could easily pay the amount. Somebody even mentioned that $50 was way too low for a weekly space like this. I nodded the entire time and got ready to support the idea of paying the church even more than they’d asked for.
There were about 15 people at that business meeting, and I think at that moment, 14 people were ready to vote in favor. Then one guy put his hand up and said, “I agree with everything that was said about this church. And I would vote to pay the rent increase. But I also would vote against going to $75 per month.”
He paused for a moment because some people started murmuring in surprise. I remember thinking to myself, “Damn, this dude is a real turd in the punchbowl. Who doesn’t want to help out a struggling church when we have the money to do it?”
Then he continued. “I think that the church’s struggles should be considered an outside issue. It’s an outside issue to this meeting how the church does financially, and it sets up a slippery slope for supporting businesses, charities, fundraisers, and all sorts of other things. My suggestion would be that we pay the amount that the church asked, and that anybody concerned about the overall wellbeing of the church should contribute on their own. I’m going to mail $50 myself as soon as I get home, and I’d be happy to help organize more contributions outside of this meeting.”
Nobody said anything for a minute. But you could see on their faces that they knew he was right. I still would have probably voted to increase the amount to $75 in the moment because I have such gratitude for that church.
But ultimately, that principle was right and I would bring up that guy’s exact point today if something similar came up. On that day, they put up a motion and it was 15-0 in favor of paying the $60. I loved that the guy volunteered himself to actually chip in money, but that the principles of 12-step recovery made him feel like a group donating money is probably not wise.
I’ll never forget that business meeting. I thought it was a fantastic example of how a dissenting idea can be discussed and even reconsidered. I’ll leave you with a question: What would you have voted if you had been at that business meeting?
This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:
HEARD AT MEETINGS…
At a meeting where the topic was "guilt":
"Guilt is getting caught with your mind in the cookie jar."
"Each day we're faced with a thousand opportunities to feel guilty. Serenity is not taking any of them."
(Credit: Grapevine, July 2008, by Ed L. of Wrightwood, California)
Please spread the word to a sober friend! Find me on Substack… or Twitter… or Facebook… or Instagram… or YouTube. And introducing my web site, LOLsober.com.
