I have used Matrika for an alias since the mid eighties.  And about see
ing (oops) Sip_AA for a barbie joke along those lines, I don't DO 
Sip_AA anymore or several other conferences because, in my opinion, the
moderators are too rigid about what may or may not be discussed there. 
In my opinion, I agree with what I heard from a real old-timer down in 
the Maryland, Washington D C, Northern VA. area of AA.  He said that if
he had a pimple on his butt and that pimple made him want to drink, do 
drugs or whatever, than it was appropriate to talk about it at an AA or
NA meeting.  I can't agree more.  And one major problem I have with 
electronic recovery is how it avoids the traditions totally - there is 
NO anonymity.  I can't help but think the prohibition against breaking 
anonymity in the press, on radio, on t.v., etc.  might also seem to 
extend to this electronic medium since it is public in the extreme - 
anyone can read these echoes, not just you or I.
The other problem I have with it is that there is no group conscience 
and, in my opinion, I believe that some of the moderators on some of 
the fido echoes come on like the "elder statesmen" (AND WOMEN) that the
traditions half of the (AA) Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions book 
warns us about.  When someone comes across like that to me, I choose 
not to be in that echo any longer.
That's why I stick to THIS echo nowadays where it's generic recovery 
and people are not as likely to pitch a fit when I say what I believe 
is pertinent to my TOTAL recovery and not just one segment of it. 
(Usually what they don't want to hear is the survivor stuff - although 
that is a major reason why I drank and drug, to avoid the feelings I 
didn't want to feel as a direct result of some of the more brutal abuse
I went through as a kid.  I don't blame them for not wanting to hear 
it. Society is in denial and it took a lot to break through that denial
FOR ME - and most of my friends who are recovering survivors.  The 
perpetrators don't want survivors to speak out.   When I hear that same
message from other people IN RECOVERY who don't want to see the 
connection between my abuse and the consequences of it in my life - 
including these addictions - well, I don't need to be around that kind 
of a person.  As far as I am concerned, it is a form of 
revictimization.  That is why I stay in THIS echo, the ACA echo and the
Sip_Survivor and Sip_Incest echo.  It is also why I have made this my 
main focal point in my current recovery work.
If this sounds like I am coming on strong, well I am.  I am really 
tired of dealing with this attitude that says one can only talk about 
what others want to hear either in these other echoes I have left or in
meetings of AA, NA and other similar programs.  When I share in a 
meeting, I do it FOR MYSELF and not to get other people's approval or 
to entertain them or to help anybody but me.  I refuse to be a 
people-pleaser because that is the essence of who I was before I got 
clean and sober, stopped enabling, and started dealing with these other
issues.  
Unfortunately the only other way I have been able to cope is 
withdrawing and isolating.  I don't participate in these other echoes 
any more.  I don't go to many AA or NA meetings these days.  When I am 
told I can not share about the things I need to share about, all I want
to do is just go away and not be there anymore - and from there it is a
smaall step to wanting to just not be anymore.
HOWEVER, I must add that I have NEVER experienced that here and I am 
grateful to you and the other moderators here for that - because I 
still feel like I have a place to go.   I am NOT - repeat, NOT 
(absolutely NOT) - angry with you.  I am angry, but I am angry at all 
the mind games I see being played by some allegedly recovering people 
who use certain positions to manipulate and control - or so it seems to
me.   
For example, the AA group I am in - only occasionally nowadays - is 
being "run" by two men who have BANNED one young man from speaking 
because he wouldn't say what they wanted to hear, and without a group 
conscience.  They have, on their own, called a half way house in the 
area and told them the women with children can not come to this group 
any more, again without a group conscience.  When a friend of mine 
tried to speak to them about it - another man with twenty something 
years who agrees with me - he was told that if he did not like the way 
Ray ran HIS (Ray's) group that he could leave and when he tried to talk
to these two again he was told this again, with an added accusation 
from them that he - my friend- is "a troublemaker". 
And, to be honest with you, if I had to behave like some of these 
people after I had some twenty-odd years or more of "sobriety", well, 
I'd pick up a drink for certain.
I once heard somebody say that if you sober up a jackass, all you have 
is a sober jackass - nothing else has changed.
So I hope you won't personalize this.  As you can see I still 
participate in and post on this echo.  However I don't bother with most
of the rest of the so-called recovery echoes anymore, with a few 
exceptions.  I am very VERY discouraged with the whole system and ready
to write off the 12 step fellowships as a whole pretty much - it 
wouldn't take much more at this point, believe me.  
But then it wouldn't take much to have me write of ME at this point, 
either.
--- TriToss (tm) Professional 10.0 - #66
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