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Old Timers in AA - how to handle them

aihfl

aihfl

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Nov 5, 2015
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El Pueblo Loco
I had an "incident" at my AA homegroup yesterday evening. A particularly obnoxious old-timer who's constantly giving unsolicited, condescending and patronizing advice confronted me after the meeting. He's undoubtedly offended that I get up and leave whenever he talks. I don't give a good goddamned what he has to say because he doesn't have what I want, which is being a dick to those new in sobriety. After the meeting, he told me I need to shut up and listen, and if things were the same as when he came into the program I "would have been told to shut the fuck up."

That really set me off. I told him I didn't give a shit what he had to say because he didn't have what I want and that this is not a college fraternity and by God, just because the old-timers then treated him like shit, he's going to do it to others. Everyone has a right to say whatever they want in a meeting whether they have been sober for a day or a decades.

He then told me "stay in my face and I'll knock your dick in the dirt," at which point I really erupted. I picked up a chair and shouted "let's go old man, let's go."

Anyway, I've tried to humor this motherfucker for as long as I could, but he really crossed a line last night. It's like my former homegroup all over again where there were several condescending old-timers who would always tell me I would never get sober and took great joy in my relapses. Maybe AA isn't for me. Perhaps I should look into SMART Recovery. They just don't meet often enough and the meetings are about a 45 minute drive one way.
 
Wow what a dick. Are there other meetings that you can attend in your area? I am afraid that what happened last night will overshadow any benefit that you may get from continuing to attend that particular meeting. So yeah I would find a different meeting.
 
Find a different AA group if you can. Or better yet talk to a higher up person in the AA group such as a coordinator about him, and tell them what happened so he does not do it to others.

I have never been to AA/NA or any groups like it; but I know people who have and when they went to meetings and encountered rude people they stopped going to the meeting or completely avoided AA/NA which is contrary to AA/NA.
 
I would just kill him with kindness. Be overly sweet, ask a lot of really stupid questions like "so if I pick up the first drink bad things will happen?" "So I shouldn't hang out in the bar just to play the touchscreen game for my enjoyment?" "When I get an hour sober, what should I do? Where do I go from there?"

Just know if he knocks your dick in the dirt, I'll back you up. I'm the type that loves a brawl.
 
He was an athlete in his youth and still works as a personal trainer and even at his age is still pretty built. Did I mention he's also a dick?
 
aihfl said:
He was an athlete in his youth and still works as a personal trainer and even at his age is still pretty built. Did I mention he's also a dick?
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Oh, I see. Yeah, you got that point across well. Don't give him the satisfaction of getting you all riled tho, I say.
 
Fuck AA... It's just a cult anyways. There's a Penn and Teller Bullshit episode where they exposed that the statistics of people that got sober using AA were the same percentage as those who used no program anyways. It's just an old man's club with no emphasis put on the medical side off addiction treatment ime.
 
nuttynutskin said:
Fuck AA... It's just a cult anyways. There's a Penn and Teller Bullshit episode where they exposed that the statistics of people that got sober using AA were the same percentage as those who used no program anyways. It's just an old man's club with no emphasis put on the medical side off addiction treatment ime.
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Yeah yeah yeah, I've heard your line of bullshit before. And it's usually from people who have never tried it. Thank GOD I have two other meetings I regularly go to which is mostly younger people and asshole free zones. And AA purposely stays out of the medical debate. If you think you need psychiatric help, it is the addict's own responsibility to get it. Which I do.
 
If you have two other meetings available to you, just cut this one out. Or replace it with an NA meeting even if drugs weren't your problem. I found NA to be much more laid back and the message is still the same, just when you're listening mentally replace drugs with alcohol.
But as a disclaimer I no longer attend meetings of any kind and feel the program was not right for me but I have stayed sober.
 
aihfl said:
Yeah yeah yeah, I've heard your line of bullshit before. And it's usually from people who have never tried it. Thank GOD I have two other meetings I regularly go to which is mostly younger people and asshole free zones. And AA purposely stays out of the medical debate. If you think you need psychiatric help, it is the addict's own responsibility to get it. Which I do.
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Well stay with it if you're so happy with it. You're the one that made a thread that just reinforced what I already thought of it.
 
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