Pro AA woman defending 13 stepper on one of my blogs

We can not make individuals do what we want them to do. Yes we can.

One can not drink and drive.
One can not smoke inside a bar anymore in most cities in the US
I can not bring a knife on an airplane anymore.
One can not text and drive.

There are all kinds of laws.

One can not own slaves anymore.

... That is what the Law is. If a person is sexually harassed the victim of simple sexual harassment has the law to stop them. With their words they can tell them stop it. But most men don't. Yes , women harass men in the work place and AA too. ....this is a common occurrence in the work place. So then we have a lawyer sue the individual and they go to court and they tell the man to behave because he didnt know how to behave and even if he did he still harassed her. So with money he/she is forced to change. The Catholic Church , the Klu Klux Klan were both sued by victims and the victims won.

Let's take the original EAP programs. They get a pilot, let's say who was flying a plane drunk. They take him aside and say, you stop drinking or we fire you. Now they say , you go to rehab or we fire you. The guy changes his behavior on account he wants to keep his job.

AA could easily mandate that all meetings read a safety statement like the meeting I was a part of and it was my idea and my motion to add it to the format. We said that " no one should be sexual or financially harassed in any way" We want you to feel safe" etc. We discussed, many hours upon hours and agreed unanimously to make the change even though we had no men and no predators of any kind at this nice meeting. We wanted to set an example for women to feel safe.

Soon many young woman starting showing up at our meeting telling us their stories. Many horror stories.
It was the Make AA Safer Workshops that really gave the AA community a voice to talk about it with out judgement. Table of 10 , men and women , about 40 people showed up, discussing many aspects of problems, violence, financial scamming, cult behavior, bullying and the 13 stepping and then rape.
The literature was great but it was born out of need from the workshops.

There is so much covering up, pretending it's not my business mentality in AA, and what you are saying here that AA can not kick anyone out. That is seriously twisting what that tradition meant when it was written. Or is it that Bill Wilson was such a 13 stepper that is is just a part of his fucking stupid legacy of treating Lois and other woman like dogs. He was a user. He was a sex addict. Read Tom Powers story who wrote the 12 & 12 with him.

Then I met with the chairman of AA, WARD EWING a priest. He said that the church didn't make changes until the insurance companies said you'd better or we wont insure you anymore. He agreed that AA must address this issues at the World Headquarters as well.

I feel that every delegate and every AA employee needs sexual harassment training. And then that AA GSO should send a letter to every GSR, Area DCM, and Secretary and every Central Office, asking them to hold business meetings and discuss the subject. They should mandate that every district have a Make AA Safer Workshop like Paul C helped me create and their were many put on.

I feel that under 18 should not be allowed at a meeting. There is no teen AA and TV shows should stop pretending their is such a thing which is totally lying to the viewing audience who then drops their teen off at an teen meeting which is sure to have a sexual predator there. This is another whole can of worms.

WE agreed that the Safety Pamphlet that we wrote was good and we would make an announcement and provide them at every meeting. They were a great tool, but because AA is a culture and not just a meeting it is in the discussing in the round tables were each person can just tell their experience, each person can say what they have seen and figure out that as community they have to change it. Left alone doing nothing is deadly as we have seen with Kristine and Saundra Cass in Hawaii who were murdered senselessly.

Im sorry, but I did not wait and nor will I wait for the wheels to turn.

Change has to be fought for.
Women had to fight for the right to choose.
African AMericans had to fight for Civil rights.
The Chinese workers making f##king ipads and iphone are fighting to be treated fairly so perhaps they will stop killing themselves in China because they are so mistreated by APPLE.

I hope after this work I will fight for another good cause whatever that might be and that I will never find myself sitting in a stupid meeting chanting ridiculous garbage from the BB calling myself some untruth label like an alcoholic when I haven't had a drink in over 3 1/2 decades.

And what a joke that is. Who cares? Now looking back...I wish I left AA and found drink link moderation when I was 20 not AA. AA stole much from me. I hope I can save a few young people from wasted 30 years of their lives in AA rooms repeating absolute nonsense that was never proven to be true.

I am free now. I will continue my fight. I am grateful to OP and ST and those that have supported my journey while I was still in AA and since I left and those that supported me while I was leaving.

No one here understands what that was like for me. Unless you got sober at 18 because you wanted to. Were really in love with AA for years and were active in AA service like a fool and stayed sober for 36 years. Then your DAD died from that problem, he lost everything and you saw in a very personal way how AA didnt work for some. ANd so my search began. ANd Why did I not know Smart and Rational and WFS and SOS even existed???

I will not stop till I change laws, make AA accountable at every level and make Smart and other options as popular as Facebook, sliced bread and the internet.

And stop the powerless and disease theory from permeating everywhere.