AA Speaker – Brooke C. – Bend, OR – 2021
AA speaker Brooke C. from Bend, OR shares how understanding the difference between meetings and groups transformed her recovery and why belonging to a home group is essential to sobriety.
Brooke C., sober since September 1984, spent years in Al-Anon and Al-Ateen before realizing she was the one with the drinking problem. In this AA speaker meeting, she walks through how discovering her home group and understanding the service structure of Alcoholics Anonymous became the foundation of her long-term recovery—and why the group, not the meeting, is where real growth happens.
This AA speaker discusses the critical difference between a meeting and a group in Alcoholics Anonymous, explaining why belonging to a single home group is essential to recovery. Brooke C. shares how practicing the traditions within a group conscience setting transformed her understanding of surrender, accountability, and fellowship. She covers the spiritual purpose of groups, how to participate in group decisions, and why the service structure depends on strong groups rather than proliferating meetings.
Episode Summary
Brooke C. got sober in a small town in Wyoming in 1984, but her path wasn’t straightforward. She spent years in Al-Anon and Al-Ateen, convinced her problem was other people’s drinking. The turning point came when she tried to get elected as secretary-treasurer of a newly forming AA group—not because she wanted to serve, but because she hoped it would get people off her back about her own drinking. A delegate at the group formation meeting stopped her: “She can’t be your secretary treasurer. She’s not an alcoholic.” The rejection infuriated her. That night, she couldn’t get drunk enough to numb the pain, and it was the last drink she ever had.
Her early sobriety in Cody, Wyoming, was shaped by scarcity. There weren’t 90 meetings in 90 days—there were barely two meetings a week. So members would pile into cars, drive an hour to another town, go to a meeting, and drive back. They’d stay out until late talking and building relationships. It was in this context that Brooke C. learned an AA lesson that became central to her entire recovery: the difference between a meeting and a group.
She watched as the program began emphasizing meetings over groups. New catchphrases emerged: “90 meetings in 90 days,” “all you need is a resentment and a coffee pot.” Groups splintered and multiplied. Meeting apps made it easy to find a meeting anywhere, anytime—but they made it nearly impossible to find a group. The emphasis shifted from belonging to a community to collecting meetings. Brooke C. saw this as a fundamental misunderstanding of AA’s service structure.
The big book’s “Vision for You” describes informal gatherings of sober people trying to pass the message to the next person, then explains how it became customary to set aside one night a week where newcomers could bring their problems. That’s a meeting. But a group exists outside the meeting—it’s where members gather to conduct business, discuss the message they’re carrying, handle twelve-step calls together, and make decisions about how to stay true to AA principles.
Brooke C. joined a home group that takes this seriously. They’re called the Three Legacies group because they commit to all three legacies: the twelve steps, the twelve traditions, and the twelve concepts. Before they even held their first meeting, the group spent six months in group conscience meetings clarifying what their message would be. Now they meet every Thursday at 6 p.m. (mountain time) as a hybrid teleconference. Their business meetings happen on the third Saturday of the month—and they budget four hours for it.
Why four hours? Because they don’t rush. They use “sharing session style”—going around the circle alphabetically, asking each person to speak to the issue being discussed. They circle through multiple times to ensure everyone feels heard. They consult the traditions and the concepts. They rarely vote; instead, they talk until they reach substantial unanimity. When someone still objects, they don’t override them—they pause, listen more, pray about it, and return to it later if needed.
This process feels impossible to people raised on parliamentary procedure and quick decisions. But Brooke C. explains it’s the AA way. Tradition Two says the group conscience trumps Robert’s Rules of Order. When she was an area chair and someone called the question to cut off discussion, she ruled them out of order and explained why: stopping the process of fully discussing something goes against AA’s spiritual principles.
The real gift of a home group, she says, is learning how to grow up. When you’re so angry at someone you want to throw something and storm out—but you can’t, because your sobriety depends on staying connected to these people—you have to find another way. You have to learn the traditions and practice them. You have to surrender your will on small decisions so you can stay part of something larger than yourself.
Tradition One says each group ought to be a spiritual entity. She reads from AA Comes of Age the definition of true fellowship: it requires a common ideal involving complete release from selfishness, a common task big enough to capture loyalty and imagination, and a comradeship so solid that members respond to each other’s unspoken needs spontaneously. In that kind of fellowship, the energy usually wasted on jealousy, vanity, and keeping up appearances becomes available for creative, spiritual use.
Belonging to one group also keeps ego in check. Brooke C. admits she’s always wanted to spread her influence and change how things are done. But when you’re committed to one group, you learn humility. You practice the traditions there. You show up to business meetings. You let others have a voice. And slowly, growth happens—not despite the difficulty, but because of it.
Notable Quotes
I couldn’t drink, I couldn’t not drink, I couldn’t get drunk enough—and that was my last drink.
A group exists outside of the meeting. The meeting is where you invite everyone and newcomers bring their problems. A group is where the real work happens.
The traditions point directly at my character defects, which is why they’re hard to deal with sometimes.
When you’re so mad at somebody you want to throw something at them and stomp off and leave—but you have to come back because it’s a matter of life and death to be connected to Alcoholics Anonymous—you’ve got to find a way to get along with these people.
A group conscience that’s informed of the facts, the issues, and the principles is what we’re aiming for. It takes time. But by the time we’re done talking, we’re almost always unanimous.
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Topics Covered in This Transcript
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Full AA Speaker Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated and may contain minor errors. For the best experience, listen to the audio above.
welcome to sober Sunrise a podcast bringing you AA speaker meetings with stories of experience strength and Hope from around the world we bring you several new speakers weekly so be sure to subscribe we hope to always remain an adree podcast so if you’d like to help us remain self-supporting please visit our website at sober-remix than a sober Sunrise we hope that you enjoy today’s speaker hello there everybody my name is Brook and I am an alcoholic um my sobriety date is honor about September 21st 1984 and my home group is an AA group um I want to thank Carrie for asking me to do a little bit of sharing about this and before I get started somebody want to tell me how much time I have I was named Brook because I Babble and I don’t want to babble too long so go ahead and talk until five yeah that’s fine bro go ahead and talk until five minutes until the hour okay well thank you very much okay again uh really appreciate you all um showing up I am sitting um in a parking lot surrounded by a whole bunch of snow in Northern Wyoming where it’s been just a little bit chilly and stormy and um I uh really appreciate the fact that people have come to the meeting even though I think I couldn’t remember who said it but somebody said you know this is not a very popular topic um so I think it’s pretty important one so for that again I appreciate you all being here and uh thank Carrie for inviting me to talk a little bit about it uh because I got sober in a small town in Wyoming I have maybe a little bit different experience than those of you that maybe got sober in larger towns um first I should let you know that I was in alanon and altine before I figured out who the real drunk in my life was um I thought I could go to those two programs and quote unquote work the steps and drink and do other things and basically blame everything on the drunks of my life and that worked until it didn’t and I got to that point point where it’s really kind of interesting my last drink and I don’t I um I don’t exactly know when my mind and body were cleared so that’s why I say I’m not entirely sure when my sobriety date is it’s on or about but I do know that that last drunk I had was that um I thought my problem really was that I couldn’t get to enough meetings and so I was going to a lot of Allan on meetings you know things were really kind kind of going badly in my life and um I didn’t see drinking as being a big part of that but I thought as an alanon I wasn’t making to enough meetings and so out of town uh where I lived there were some folks that wanted to start an AA group and uh started a meeting and uh there came a point when they decided to be a group and they were going to have elections and I was totally prepared to stand as the secretary treasurer of that group I thought it might give me access to a little uh additional funding and thought it would be a really good Alibi because people were starting to ask me if maybe I didn’t have a little problem and I thought if I could say that I was a secretary treasur of an AA group that they would get off my back and um so I stood they were about ready to elect me and there was a delegate in the room that said wait a minute she can’t be your secretary treasurer she’s not an alcoholic so I wasn’t elected and it made me so mad I thought I would go out there and get good and drunk at that uh that that that group and especially that delegate and um that was the one night that I couldn’t quite get there it was getting harder and harder to get there you guys probably know what that is that’s any place but here and no matter how hard I drank or how fast or what and uh doing my usual shuing and driving I just I was still stuck here and um it it was um it was quite a dilemma it’s like it couldn’t could drink I couldn’t not drink I couldn’t get drunk enough um and that was my last drink and then it gets kind of fuzzy for a couple weeks there so I have no reliable witnesses to tell me what my sobriety date might be but so I think it’s somewhere there in September uh I went into a meeting somewhere after I detoxed um and I’d been practicing in the mirror saying my name’s Brook and I’m an alcoholic and it was like oh no I don’t want anybody to know um and really I was hoping for some of the pain to go away and to get some people off my butt and uh went into this meeting and I accidentally said my name is Brooke I am an alcoholic at that time I was at Anda and um I don’t remember anything because it was like a piano dropped on me and I couldn’t breathe and it didn’t matter that I’d been around AA for 30 years um it was it was something different because uh um yeah I couldn’t breathe and the only thing I remember from that one meeting is that there was a guy over in the corner who was like it’s about damn time I really didn’t think they know they knew what I’d been up to but um that was because um there were groups there in Cody where I I got sober and um um in talking about uh Cody maybe being a little bit different um they I I got sober just about the time that we were getting some of the fruits of having a lot of treatment centers around and uh a time when we were not being very good at practicing our traditions and that’s kind of where things began to split a little bit and uh we would hear things like you need to go to 90 meetings in 90 days and where I got sober there weren’t 90 meetings in 90 days and we would try to go to more than two meetings a week and the way that we would do that is a bunch of us would get together and you know get into an old galopy with you know I don’t know eight people and everybody smoking and we would drive an hour to some other town and we would go to their meeting and then we would drive back and it was really kind of an amazing thing you know it was like get in the car we’re going to this meeting and we would go to a meeting someplace and uh I really learned about the group because we did things together we um after our meeting um we would go out and have coffee and some of us would stay in the Country Kitchen until we got kicked out late at night and um there was a lot going on in between meetings and in that time we started hearing bizarre things like um know all you need to start a new group is um a resentment in a coffee pot and looking back on that now it’s like no no no you need like a resentment and a big book because if you read your big book you wouldn’t need another coffee pot you’d learn how to deal with your resentment and stick there with with your home group but it was a lot easier for us to just kind of take our ball and go someplace else and and start a new meeting that didn’t happen so much where I got sober I got to witness that that later and then we would have a lot of people saying wouldn’t it be nice for us to have another meeting and have another meeting and have another meeting and um the town where I got sober it’s probably got um 18 meetings a week now and they are all one group they never found it necessary to start sharding off into different groups and um but it was during that time where we just had more and more meetings all the time that it got to where it was really hard for us to be able to tell the difference between a meeting and a group and and um because I’d come from a group with these meetings um when I went other places is it was even more confusing to me because you know everybody would show up at this meeting and you know everybody go keep coming back it works if you work and then everybody disappeared and I began really kind of understanding a little bit more about the group and please understand that I’ve been in service work uh well I tried to be in service work before I got sober but I’ve been involved in one form of service work or another since um since I got sober I was around people that were like you need to go put the chairs up you need to go put the chairs down why don’t you do the coffee stand there and greet people um so it would be a couple years before anybody would invite me to look at being a GSR but certainly I’ve always been involved with it and I understood from being involved in service about the group um but I’m not sure that I really clarified that until sometime later and probably my favorite thing comes from the big book where in a vision for you it talks about um there are many informal Gatherings of these people happy in their release and trying to find some way to pass this message John to the next person um then it says it became customary um to set aside one night a week where everyone and anyone uh would be welcomed and newcomers could bring their problem and so as I was really looking at that and started reading like Passad on and Dr Bob and the good Old-Timers um and really getting a better understanding of the Traditions I started really understanding how important the group is and I’ve always tried to a home group there have been a lot of times when I didn’t like my home group but I participated in it anyway um and I feel really lucky now because I have u a three legacies Home Group uh we are a hybrid group um that means that um we use one of these platforms we’re actually a teleconference call uh we have m one meeting a week we meet on Thursdays at 6 o’clock that’s mountain time and you can call in from any place and um take take part in our meeting so our meeting is hybrid and so far it’s been pretty incredible and it’s really nice uh the big book says we’ll help you to create the fellowship you crave and so I’ll tell you that it’s been a lot of work but we all really enjoy it um so to kind of back up a little bit um the group is at the top of the service structure um not the meeting but a group and now I think when we still have things like you know go to 90 meetings in 90 days we’re really um undermining the importance of the group uh we used to have directories of all of the groups and we’ve gone now to the meeting app the meeting guide app which kind of further undermines it because you can always find a meeting on the app well most of the time you can find a meeting on the app but it’s hard to find a group and because we have gotten to where it’s really hard for us to understand the difference between a meeting and a group I think it’s you know that’s kind of getting worse so the group is at the top of the service structure not the meeting and the best way for me to kind of describe that is that a group exists outside of the meeting and so our group gets together we talk about different things we talk about uh public information we talk talk about cooperation with professional Community um when we have a 12-step call that comes into to one of us we send out a text to everyone but we get together in between times and talk about what happened on the 12 step so those are our informal Gatherings um and then we set that one time aside um to share with newcomers where anyone can is welcom so we’re carrying that message um I’ve been involved in a lot of group inventories and the one question I always ask is um you know what is the purpose of this group and everybody generally chimes in right along with the traditions and says well the primary purpose is to carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers and the tradition says their message so we’re talking about the group’s message and so the next question I usually ask is what is this group’s message and it is really surprising how many groups do not agree on what their message is and we’ll hear everything from there’s a better way of life to you can stop drinking to you know three Legacy stuff but the big thing is that that group of people has not spent time talking about what their message is um for my current home group we actually met as a group for six months before we had a meeting um before we actually had that time set aside to have a meeting wherein we invited everybody because we wanted to make sure that we understood and agreed on what our message would be and that we were making good decisions about what to put in the format and that we did that in a way that it was the entire group um because going to meetings is a marvelous thing I love meetings but a group is where I really had to learn how to grow up and I say that because when you’re so mad at somebody you just want to throw something at them and stomp off and leave only you have to come back because it’s a matter of life and death to be connected to alcoholic synonymous so like I’ve got to find a way to get along with these people and I’m really lucky because I got to watch that you know um early in my sobriety throughout my sobriety where you’d see you know like two Old-Timers just like screaming and hollering at each other and you thought oh my God they’re going to start throwing punches here um and then they like hug afterwards and go out and have ice cream and it was always just kind of a mystery and so I had to learn how to get along with other people in the group and what I was taught was that I could do that if I would practice the traditions and I promise you that learning how to practice the traditions in my home group and then trying to carry that to like district and area has improved my life so much and I hadn’t thought about it until I had a new gal that I took to her first uh group conscience meeting and when we’re all done she said I feel terrible I want to get drunk and I laughed and I said why is that and she said it feels like I just spent Thanksgiving with my family and I was like yes yes that’s kind of what uh having a home group is is like sometimes because we’re all in different spots we’re in different places in the steps we have different understandings of the Traditions but we stick together and stay together and try to hammer out these things so that we can keep carrying the message and so from the service structure standpoint the group is the most important entity in Alcoholics Anonymous and if the groups collapse the entire service structure collaps as well we can’t put meetings in places of groups but from a personal standpoint the opportunities I’ve had for growth because I’ve been a member of a home group um just blow me away and um I learn more and more about that all the time um learning that our common welfare comes first was kind of a rude awakening for me um and there’s different hours like there’s our welfare when I’m talking about you know our group um but there’s also our welfare is in Alcoholic Anonymous as a whole and so there is a surrender that’s kind of implicit in Tradition one that Rivals the surrender that shows up in in step one because it’s like what you mean I’m just not going to be able to stom around and get my own way on all this stuff and then I can’t just be thinking about me I need to think about our group and then that for me again I’m so grateful for that because that’s carried over for my family like when I’m in a difficult family situation I can take a deep breath and say okay our family’s welfare common welfare comes first and so I’m going to have to subjugate some of my own selfishness so that we can get through this as a family unit um sometimes I I laugh that uh uh somebody will say well there’s a workshop going on about the traditions and relationships and I kind of like laugh at that because that’s all the Traditions are about you know it’s about my relationship with my home group members it’s about our group’s relationship with your group it’s about all of the groups in the world and then certainly how we relate ourselves to the outside world so those Traditions I learned in the group and I think that that’s the best place to learn it and if we’re not teaching each other um and it’s really kind of sad because we’re like practicing on on each other and sometimes we’re not very good at that but if we don’t learn in a group setting then how can we ask a DCM to try to bring the Traditions into District when they haven’t learned how to practice it in their home group um and if somebody ends up in as a delegate it’s like and has never learned how to practice those traditions in a home group then how are we going to get them to start learning to do that at the conference level so the traditions in the home group for me tie very closely in with each other um and why would you want a home group it’s like well because the um the personal frustration translates into personal growth and so that’s why I want a home group um I also um I don’t want to be alone um I know that um AA will do fine without me I will not do fine without AA and so it’s in that Home Group where I belong and um can fight that sense of isolation um and be with people who are like-minded uh one of the things that I always thought bill got wrong and um my first numerous readings of the big book I think he I thought he got a lot wrong but I’ve almost always found that he was right there’s a place in a vision for you where it says give freely of what you find and join us and I thought that that was backwards it’s like no should be join us and then give freely of what you find and what I’ve learned about Alcoholics Anonymous and you guys mention that in your format it’s quite lovely is like the real way that you join alcoholic synonymous is by giving freely of what you find and it’s like if all you have found in an AA meeting is coffee and you can pour some coffee that will help you join us so being a member of a home group um really helps me belong and it gives me a place to start giving away so that I can be part of um it’s also about those personal relationships it’s about people who know me well it’s about people who notice that I’m not at the meeting and call and say are you okay um in my home group now we have a tendency to text one another if somebody is not going to be at the meeting it’s like hey everybody sorry I’m not going to be there I’m doing this other thing so that we all know and if somebody doesn’t let us know we all like descend on them go are you okay what’s going on so it’s really about having a place where I belong where I can start giving and uh where I can learn how to grow because we’re trying to practice those those U principles um and being a member of only one group is I can tell you it’s hard enough in one group little alone trying to do that in two groups um so that’s kind of the spiritual aspect of it but the Practical aspect of it is that um that’s the unit the group is the unit that again is most important in AA and so belonging to one kind of gives us a place where we can have a voice and a vote um and if you’re an alcoholic like me you want to spread your voice and vote around as many places as possible to influence as many people as possible and we just don’t do that so we stick with one place where we’re involved where we participate where we have a voice where we have a vote um there are a lot of other places in the service structure where we can also have a voice um but that voice and vote in the home group is really important um so just having one means your vote isn’t getting recorded in too many places just that one um the other let’s see the other piece of it I mean I don’t know if you guys went through this during the smoking days but one of the things that would happen is everybody would show up at a group conscience meeting uh people that weren’t members of that group so that they could all vote to make things non-smoking and that’s pretty typically alcoholic where we all show up and you know throw our weight around because we want uh people to do things differently and we really shouldn’t do that because it’s up to that group to figure out how they want to do things and if it turns out we don’t like going to their meetings because of what their group has decided okay you know hopefully everybody feels welcome in a meeting um but if you don’t like what’s happening there then you certainly don’t have to go and so that um uh limiting things to that one home group and not getting involved with a group that doesn’t belong to me keeps me from um arrogantly trying to change how everybody’s doing things because I’m always right I’m not always right by the way I’m being Faus about that uh so how to choose a home group is probably a really uh individual question um for me it was about wanting to be part of a group that was um willing to be a full AA group and in that I mean all three legacies so that uh we would be involved with the 12 Steps the 12 traditions and the 12 Concepts that we would participate in the service structure and that we would all make whatever sacrifices that we needed to make to be part of all of that um a lot of times that’s not easy to find because being part of a group takes a lot of time um we are not an open meeting and we are not a closed meeting we decided that we had no opinion on whether we were open or close and that decision took us about an hour and a half to make because we just kept talking about it and talking about it and that’s also something that I learned from a home group because I tend to be impatient and again arrogant and we should be able to make these decisions really fast and get the heck out of here because I have better things to do and so being part of that group conscience process and uh taking as much time as we need to to discuss things is a really important aspect and it’s been great for me because I am impatient and because I need to listen to where everybody else is coming from and then talk about the principles in a comes of age Bill talks about an informed group conscience and that is a group that is informed of the facts the issues and the principles and the only way for us to be able to do that is to actually take time to do that um and I think probably with our society of kind of immediate gratification um coming more and more difficult to us uh our home group has our group conscience meeting um on the third Saturday of the month at like 4:30 uh four o’clock sorry I’d be late next week if I I say that um and pretty much we none of us um schedule anything for the rest of the day because as we go through things we talk about things that are in best interest of the group uh we talk about anything going on at the district level we talk about whatever is going on at the area level we talk about anything that’s come up from conference um we talk about anything that we’ve seen at the board level which might be like the uh the minutes from the board meetings um and then we talk about ourselves and so our group conscience is actually closed if you are not a member of our group um then you wouldn’t even know when and where we were having it um so a lot of times when somebody says well I’d be interested in joining our group we we’ve changed we used to go oh yes we want you involved in our group and then they’d never show up um we’ve changed because we’re like oh you want to think long and hard about that because pretty much you can count on four hours for a group conscience on Saturday and we are all committed to being there and we’re all committing to committed to showing up to our meetings and being responsible for the things that we’re supposed to be responsible for so unless you’re ready to work you don’t want to be a member of our group um because that time where we take uh that seems to be the the hardest part and it’s like I have been given so many gifts and sobriety that the idea that I would have to you know that I would be begrudging about giving up four hours a month for a group conscience it’s really kind of silly but in the moment it’s like H you know uh my favorite movie is coming on or something so making that commitment is is kind of tough um the other thing that takes time and we do this on purpose um probably because of people like me is uh we look at concept four which talks about the right U and responsibility by the way of participation and we do all of our things um sharing session style which means we go alphabetically um on each one of those things that we’re talking about it’s like uh Brooke do you you know Bob do you have anything and Bob shares or passes and then it’s Brook and like I said we’re going alphabetically we go through all the way around the entire group of people um to see if anybody’s got any feedback and then we go around again in case somebody came up with something and then we go around again just to make sure we’re done talking about it the interesting thing about that even though that takes a lot of time is that really is the AA process um and we rarely vote on anything and the reason that we don’t vote on anything is because by the time we’re done talking about it and everybody feels heard and everybody’s addressed the facts the issues and the principles uh we are almost always unanimous on everything so so um if somebody still has something that’s kind of U sticking in their craw they’ll say wait a minute I got one more thing but again that takes time and so a lot of people don’t want to be a member of a home group like that a lot of people want to be a member of a home group where um they don’t have to go to group conscience meetings which kind of U defeats the purpose of of um having a home group um and again there is a big difference between that me meeting and the group um the group sets the tone for the meeting and um I I think a lot of times again that we’re just kind of getting worse at worse at that because when you do talk a lot of times to someone about a home group they’re like well I go to this meeting it’s like right is that your home group I was like well I don’t know and a lot of us have been at um meetings where we said I want to be a member of this group one’s our group conscience and they all looked at you like you were crazy and so the so you know you start having a group conscience and then maybe there’s a GSR and um and it takes time so I think that if we’re looking for an easier softer way that’s the meeting the group is the difficult part um and the neat thing for us and I’m kind of all over the place sorry about that um trying to cover a lot of different things and I probably won’t talk until 5 till because maybe there’s some people that would like to share some of their experience or have some questions about it but um the um uh oh now I just lost my thought so maybe I’m going to be done faster than I thought I was uh I was talking about choosing a home group I think that um it’s really one of those things where it says we’ll show you how to create the fellowship that you crave right and I didn’t know that I craved Fellowship it’s like I fell off of a bar stool into a group of people that already had that fellowship and I just rode off of that for a long time time until um I was asked to start being part of that and and I boed almost at all of it and I boed at trying to learn the Traditions I boed at trying to learn how to practice the Traditions um and I think that that’s because uh those Traditions Point directly at my Character defects which is why they kind of are hard to deal with sometimes there are also a couple of places that describe a little bit about what that Fellowship is is about and that Fellowship is just really kind of a um I I feel badly sometimes for people who are recently getting sober I mean the whole covid thing is one thing um but the other thing where it’s like you know I love the fellowship here and it’s like what exactly is that and it’s like well it’s it’s when you run into somebody at Walmart you sit there and visit for a little bit and I think about um really how that’s um not nearly as deep and meaningful as maybe and not that running into de somebody at Walmart isn’t good but when we talk about a True Fellowship um and what that means and I was just trying to see if oh sure enough I do um the best definition that I’ve ever found of Fellowship actually comes from a comes of age um and it talks about um what that is and it’s a result of when um we are staying sober and sharing this message and I’m actually GNA read it to you because I do have a little bit of time here it’s on page 276 of AA comes of age and I always really love this because um I always wonder is that the way my group seems when somebody walks in the door um is that the way our meeting presents itself and if it’s not then maybe we’ve got some work to do one of the things I really love about the long form of tradition five is it talks about each group ought to be a spiritual entity and so when I started thinking about being part of a spiritual entity rather than just sitting my butt in meetings um things kind of started changing for me so I’m just going to read this to you because this is something that’s kind of a favorite of my home group and we revisit it every once in a while and talk about whether or not um this is how we are as a spiritual entity and as a group so from 276 it says three conditions are necessary for True Fellowship the position of a common ideal involving a complete release from selfishness and Division and of course that’s something that I’ve always needed help with the discharge of a common task big enough to capture the imagination and give expression to loyalty the comrad the comradeship the togetherness thus involved as we find out the joy and power of belonging to an organic society and engaging in a whole-time service we can find it at its fullest extent where the ideal is highest and most exacting where the task extends and integrates every ounce of our strength and every element of our being where the comradeship is so solid and deep that we respond one to another without conscious conscious effort realizing the unspoken need and react to it spontaneously and at once under such conditions all the Vitality that we usually waste Upon Our jealousies and our vanities upon Keeping Up Appearances and putting other people in their proper place becomes available for Creative use so that is one of the things that certainly my group talks about there’s some other stuff in the vision for you about you know how we um you know that certain something of the in the eyes of the people and it’s like that’s how we want to be and so we have to do the the work to make that happen and it’s like so I hopefully that is is making some sense and Carrie I really am gonna um stop a little bit early to maybe give everybody an opportunity to talk a little bit about um home groups I mean there’s great ones that I’ve been part of and terrible ones and maybe somebody’s got some questions and um maybe we should use this time a little bit just to maybe talk ask questions and talk some more so I will just shut up unless somebody has a question for me and I thank you again very much for letting me share with you today yeah thank you so much Brooke um so we’re not going to be unmuting because we are recording today and I’m G to be recording the whole hour but um I did put a note in the chat that if anybody has a question for Brooke um please send your questions to me I’ve already gotten one um I think that question actually came to New Horizon so I’m going to take that one while I’m waiting for more questions um I posted a link to uh our welcome letter when you join our home group at New Horizons we give you a new member kit it is not the same as our newcomer packet um it is a new hom group member kit and I posted that letter and the question is is what else is in your hom group kit the answer is the AA group pamphlet which you are asked to bring with you to every AA meeting or to every I’m sorry um business meeting because we open the business meeting by reading a portion out of that pamphlet it’s a different portion every every month um and then we close the the meeting the business meeting by reading uh one of the two declarations off of the back of that pamphlet um and hopefully we use the pamphlet throughout the business meeting as well um and then the other thing that we put in that kit is a list of um home group members contact information um our roster our bylaws um a blank motion form in case you would like to fill out a motion and change something or you know um bring something to the business meeting which you would like to look at be you would have like to have looked at and um the 12 traditions Illustrated which we encourage heavily for people joining our group to uh you know acquire a working knowledge of the Traditions so that’s the first question um Mario I don’t know if people are maybe sending questions to you I haven’t gotten one yet oh here’s one Brooke how to deal with if at all a member calling the question at a meeting uh that is a really great question and so I think probably the first place I go is that something that my sponsor taught me which is uh tradition to always trumps Roberts Rules of Order and so in my home group now we are not formalized enough that we make motions and take votes like I said we actually talk about things until we’re unanimous and we’re all agreeing to go in whatever Direction um and the only experience that I have with that is as an area chair um My First Assembly somebody called the question and I Ruled them out of order and then I gave a really good explanation of why they ruled why I Ruled them out of order and it’s because I think anything an alcoholic synonymous that stops the process of us fully discussing something um goes against our spiritual principles and that even though it can be irritating sometimes and it does take a lot of time our spiritual principles really say that we’re just going to keep beating the dead horse because that’s what we do um and then I also let the area know that they could rule me out of order if they wanted to as well uh what ended up happening was that no one called the question question for many years after that because everyone everybody understood that we just needed to take the time so it’s possible that whoever is chairing your meeting um could remind the person that uh Robert’s Rules of Order is not it’s something we follow quote unquote Loosely because tradition to sometimes asks that we do things not in accordance with parliamentary procedure or Roberts Rules of Order hopefully that’s helpful all right thanks Brooke uh the next question seems to be for New Horizons again um but you know if you have a question for Brooke please uh there’s a couple questions so I think the next one is for Brooke so how long do you consider a person um a home group member before they stop showing up and for our group and every group is going to be autonomous right you’re a member when you say you are period um to be put on our roster New Horizons our bylaws read and you can get our bylaws right off of our website um New Horizons group aa.com and uh you go to the about our group page and at the very bottom of the page there’s a link that will take you to our bylaws and um what we what works for our group is if you would like to be a member in good standing which is a term that the AA comes of age book uses um you show up for a business meeting um um and you put your name on our roster you don’t have a voice that day and you don’t have a vote that day but if your name is already on our roster at the next meeting you have a voice and a vote um if you miss three business meetings in a row you automatically drop off our roster you automatically drop off the list um that we send out for minutes for an agenda every month for all that stuff and one of the reasons is like Brooke we want to make sure that our members are doing work and the other reason is we don’t want to be spamming people who don’t want to participate like why would we want to continue giving you our minutes and our roster and all that stuff if like if we’re bugging you we’re not telemarketers so um hopefully that answers that question and then Brooke how long um have you dealt with minorities opinion I heard you say you’re unanimous that’s also a great question I am usually the minority opinion so yes I’ve dealt with it a bunch um so the minority opinion is um really important to us I mean we really do look at concept five and also the warranties which say that you know we’re going to do things with substantial unanimity so in the times when we do have a minority because we always ask for that it’s like okay we’re kind of feeling that we’re like at three quarters here but not everybody’s bought into this so minority let you know talk to us a little bit more and we all just kind of listen really closely and sometimes we say maybe it’s not time for us to make a decision about this um especially if the person um it’s like we had one not too long ago that had to do with money of course and one of the people was just dead set against what we were talking about and it was just a hold out it’s was like okay so until we can do this and be I mean substantially unanimity means substantially of one mind and unanimous is all of One mind and so we’re trying to get that all of One mind say and so if the person has the ability to articulate it um more often than not we’ll just say well how about if you you know find some more material in our literature or pray about it or talk to somebody about it and we won’t make a decision about it this time um we can talk about it next time and then sometimes it’s like well this is important enough that we need to get back together again in two weeks and have a conversation about it so we do have minority and what happens is we just keep talking about it until everybody feels heard and every body feels like um we’re making the right decision so it it is a tough process because there’s sometimes where a couple years ago we had something and the gal just said you know I’m just being a brat I just can’t stand it I will support you guys going ahead and doing it but I’m just really struggling and so let’s go ahead and do it and if I get resentment over it I’ll do some step work and it took about three or four months and she said okay by the way I want to I want to C go back on that subject and say that I’ve come around to that thing so um we’re not always unanimous but that is what we’re shooting for and we we pay very close attention to the minority especially if it’s based in principles thank you for listening to sober Sunrise if you enjoyed today’s episode please give it a thumbs up as it will help share the message until next time have a great day