1/27/17 dated a Memo from NY GSO – found on AA.org… no link provided ..haha
I just had to do a radio show about this ground breaking letter from NEW York Alcoholics Anonymous. www.blogtalkradio.com/saferecovery
http://www.aa.org/assets/en_US/smf-209_en.pdf
Here is a link to the film The 13th Step that exposes the dark underbelly of AA.
Stop13stepinaa's Blog 
My first concern is the memo will not get into the hands of those who need it the most. Second, though, I nearly choked my way through it. To keep this as brief as possible, I’ll address topics mentioned in the memo- general membership, group conscience, sponsors- from my own experiences. It certainly makes it clear where the memo says ‘a person can be sober in AA, yet still not understand what is acceptable.
The general membership can be summed up by what one oldtimer (female) told me: she said quite a few members knew I was in danger many months before I became aware of it- but not a one of them approached me to warn me, or alert me as to what was going on.
Group conscience: another longtime member, also female, seemed to have her priorities straight- she advised me to contact the intergroup secretary. I followed her advice, and the secretary sent a mass email to all of the chairpersons, telling them to contact me, get together with me, and help resolve the situation. Not a one of them ever contacted me. However, when the secretary sent the email he sent a copy to me, and it included all of the chairpersons’ email addresses. I only recognized one person, emailed her explaining the problem and asking for help, and received an irate response: ‘Don’t you ever contact me again!’ She also told me to tear up her email address and phone number- although she’d given me her number months earlier, and even marched up to me in a meeting demanding that I call her.
Sponsorship? I had no need of one, but when one of the other oldtimers (male) said if I intended to go to their meetings I should ask someone, I chose a woman whose ‘sharings’ sounded sincere. What I was told from the GSO was sponsors are supposed to do what they can to keep people safe, and situations like I experienced could usually be avoided; GSO also said if a person needs assistance it’s the sponsor’s responsibility to help. The woman had initially told me she had a very busy schedule with work, family, etc., and if I needed to get in touch with her I should leave a message. So one day I was hiding out in a public park, sending message after message, but she never responded. A few years later I happened to see her in a bookstore, and she looked at me with pity on her face. Unfortunately I was in a hurry (as usual) and didn’t have time to say what was on my mind, but I thought her behavior totally stunk- she shouldn’t have ignored me when I reached out to her for help.
In this particular location, AA is not about ‘recovery’ from anything, it’s a social club; oldtimers display the immaturity and cliquishness of Junior High cheerleaders. They count themselves as each other’s ‘friends,’ would never ‘snitch’ on their friends, and decide amongst themselves who they feel worthy of help and who isn’t- they obviously never grasped ‘principles before personalities’ either. So even if the AA/GSO memo makes it to local AA, you can bet no one will take it seriously.
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