Attraction

AA’s 11^th Tradition is Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films.  There is a lot of confusion among AA members as to what constitutes attraction, promotion and public information. 

Simplistically:

Attraction is this is what I did to create a manageable life after becoming powerless over alcohol;

Promotion is you should… go to AA,stop drinking, get a job, have a sponsor, work the steps, etc., A classic statement  heard at meetings is that it is easy to tell an alcoholic, you just can’t tell the much.

Public information is providing information about AA, how to find a meeting, or how to contact AA, etc.

I got to chair a meeting on the 11^th tradition this morning.  I have done a lot of AA volunteering aka “service work” doing public information type outreach.  That did not keep me sober though I am blessed to still be attending AA meetings and hope to have 9 months again next week.

Reading Dacher Keltner’s Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life this morning before the meeting, I came across a graph showing how women are more concerned with a potential partners income than men are, while men rate beauty as more important in a partner than men do.  Thus we get rich old guys with trophy wives.  What is more important to both men and women than money or beauty is kindness.  That is the most attractive attribute in a partner.

Thus a program of attraction is about being kind to others.  Today we talked about kindness on the day after Thanksgiving.  It was insightful, joyful and pleasant.  Members, new and old, were most attracted to the kindness they received from and were able to give to others.

The Thanksgiving Alcathon schedule was still going on from yesterday until Saturday AM.  A young woman came into the meeting late.  Afterwards, she asked when the next meeting would be.  It was not for another 2 hours.  The next group was scheduled to host an interim alcathon meeting at 10:45.  There was clearly nobody there to run that meeting.  I told her we would have a meeting in a few minutes.  We went outside, chatted with others for a bit and then asked them to join us for an alcathon meeting.  Some left and eight of us started an impromptu meeting with Lea serving as secretary.  After Lea shared, the woman shared and cried with joy about the kindness she had found in AA that morning when we held a meeting just because we heard she wanted one.  It was a powerful moment for all of us.

I am grateful to be a much kinder person these days than I ever knew how to be before in my life.  It feels really good to be positive and spending much less time in negativity.  I am also grateful for my new keyboard which is still slick with some sort of plastic oil or sealant and works great with all the keys clearly legible instead of being worn off like the old keys were.