Program vs. Fellowship

[bluidkiti]

Program vs. Fellowship

There Is an Important Difference Between the Two

Anne W

When I first joined Alcoholics Anonymous, I took the Program and the Fellowship as one and the same. It was a long time before I ever considered there might be a difference between the two.

Today, I know there's a difference, and it's important. The Program, whether it's Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Emotions Anonymous, Al-Anon, CODA, etc. is what's written in the books. For A.A. members that's Alcoholics Anonymous, known by most of us as the Big Book, and The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.

The Fellowship is when any two or more of us gather to share our 'experience strength and hope.' Meetings are part of the Fellowship. So is conversation over coffee, web sites like this, online meeting, books (including mine), etc.

I'm working the Program when I'm working with any of the Steps or Traditions. I'm involved in the Fellowship anyplace else I'm talking about my Program.

The distinction is important. Without understanding the difference, it's easy to assume that, for example, anything and everything said at a meeting is the last and authoritative word on the subject.


Advice Is Not the Program
If for instance, my sponsor tells me not to get involved in a relationship or make any big changes during the first year of recovery, I may think this advice is part of the Program -- it isn't. It may be good advice or bad, but it's based on my Sponsor's opinion and part of her sharing 'experience, strength and hope.' And it should be viewed as such.

When someone suggests another needs to get ready for an inventory or they have to remain perpetually powerless over everything other than their addiction, they are sharing what they believe, and NOT what's actually in the Program.

This is why I believe it's important for 12 Steppers who are not dealing with alcoholism get familiar with the Big Book and the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions... even though it may seem odd at first glance. But in truth, those two books are the original source material; when you're dealing with a different addiction/dysfunction, you need only substitute the name of the affliction to discover how they apply to you.

You may be surprised to discover you too have a belief about Program that simply isn't true.

Anne

[MajestyJo]

It is so important to know, that when I share, I am sharing my program. My program is the result of years, going to AA, NA, CA, and Al-Anon. Also included Adult Children of Alcoholics and Women for Sobriety.

I often close a talk sharing my story with, "May the Spirit of the Universe and the Fellowship of the Spirit, reside in all of you and give you peace. The peace and joy that they have given to me."

[MajestyJo]

Really like this. It affirms a long-time belief. I can work my program within any fellowship and the common denominator is the 12 Steps.

For so many years, I would hear "You belong to that other fellowship. My sponsor was a heroin addict who found her recovery in AA, because NA was a trigger for her. I went to meetings from one end of the city to another, and my sponsor said, "Go to the meeting where the long time members are." I found that most of them went to their own group and seldom went to other meetings. I didn't have a car to get around, but I knew I had to look at all aspects of my disease, going back out was not an option. At first I had a healthy fear, if I miss a meeting, I would relapse. Without meetings, I was into self and allowed others things get in the way of my recovery. Having said that, I had to find an outside hobby, for me it was bridge, so that I had some balance in my life. You can become addicted to meetings, church, computers, TV, etc.

I had an AA sponsor, co-sponsor (always a Native American), NA sponsor and an Al-Anon sponsor, as well as going to counselling for some outside issues, like sexual assault at 15 years sober.

I had to be willing to do what ever it takes. For me to use is to die.

[honeydumplin]

When his business venture bombed out in Akron, and he had a dollar's worth of nickles he'd exchanged from a hotel bar to make a phone call, Bill Wilson was not working a program. At that point, there weren't any. He didn't practice the twelve-steps. There weren't any of those either. He was reaching out to another drunk, in order to keep himself from drinking. That original meeting with Dr. Bob, which was to be merely twenty minutes, turned into several hours, and several days. Guided by the hand of a power much bigger than any of us, it eventually grew into Alcoholics Anonymous.

Based on personal experiences with the Oxford groups, and a history of drunkeness, it would still be bold to assume that the first few hours of that original encounter between the two gentlemen were spent trading war stories, or mapping out a program for future alcoholics. Bill had about six months, and Bob, like a lot of us, had less than 24 hours under his belt and another drunk left in him. More than likely, they were united in one common unity—trying to stay sober. And that small spark that passed between the two of them that day, is the same one that we pass between each other to this day, every time a telephone is answered, or a outstretch hand is extended to a new person coming through the doors. Our program was, and still is, based on fellowship.

Early on, during one of those white-knuckle moments when nothing seemed to make any sense, and I was hanging on by my finger nails, I can remember seeing a sheet of paper with a list of phone numbers. After dialing a few, a fellow drunk answered. He was on vacation with his family at the beach, and it was if I could hear the surf in the background. He took the time to listen to me ramble on about some things, and said that he'd been exactly where I was. He asked me if I had a meeting schedule. Since a meeting was in less than two hours, I agreed that I would definitely be in that meeting. Looking back, I'm so grateful that somebody was on the other end of that phone. Not necessarily to coddle me as an alcoholic, or even berate me into submission, but to engage me with a form of humanity, that could have only been offered by another sober alcoholic that already had a program. One hammered out long ago, in a fellowship among the Oxford groups, and the two founders previously mentioned.

Using only the established program to stay sober results in isolation, while using the fellowship alone to stay sober results in losing out on both. It is not an either/or exclusive proposition. Once the two become separate entities, then I become separated from them. When the program cannot be worked over a cup of coffee, or a drunk cannot work through the steps during the course sharing in a meeting, the twain shall never meet, and we all lose. That isn't anyone's advice, or even my biased opinion. Its an indisputable fact.

Thanks for letting me share.

[MajestyJo]

At first it was the Big Book, and I learned to find myself in the pages of it, but it took two years for me to identify and not compare, and I had a lot of denial.

For me it has always been the 12 Steps, first in the Big Book and then in the 12 & 12. The 12 Steps and Traditions are a common denominator between all the fellowships.

It isn't the drug that is the problem is me. It was my thinking, that obsessive/compulsive thinking that kept me bound to my addiction(s).

I had to go for outside help. I went to AA because of my denial. I always knew I was an addict, some is good, more is better.

At the moment I am listening to some 60s music hosted by Davey Jones, and it brings back a lot of memories. It was not a good time in my life. Earlier I watched a 1956 Lawrence Welk show, I was 14 and one of the worst years of my life. So glad I don't have to live that way any more. It wasn't so much drugs and alcohol, although came to play a part of my life, it was my thinking and my perception that were the roots of a lot of resentment, anger, rejection, abandonment, etc.

The fellowship loved me back to good health, until I could work the steps and learn to love myself. They were very healing, and the program is a 'we' thing, that kept me coming back and not feeling alone. I was not the only one who thought that way or followed the thought with action, which would have been better left undone.