Kana
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Joined: 10/24/2006
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quote:
The sales percentages of recovery chips doesn't mean too much as far as I'm concerned. Members of my home group return medallions (those "chips" received to commemorate yearly sobriety anniversaries, usually called birthdays) in exchange for the next one received (that is, we exchange our 5-year medallion for a six-year medallion, etc); I have been to meetings from Ca to NY and seen this done. While that exchange is also fairly common with the plastic "poker chips" most groups hand out for 1, 3, 6, and 9 months, this ritual is not as universally observed for those "lesser" mementos.
Further, your 3-5% recovery rate seems to me to fly in the face of common sense. For AA attendance to grow as dramatically as it has.... well, that would mean a helluva lot of people through the revolving door if only 5% stayed behind for any period of time.
Finally, that flies in the face of my own experience. A far greater percentage of those I sponsored made it both to one and five years- and I have certainly never considered myself to be any great shakes as a sponsor.
Yeah-that may be the deal round your parts,but most of the places I've seen people keep their chips, especially the year anniversary chips,and pass them down through sponsorship families. But they don't give em back. I think the only time I've seen that is when guys go out, come back and return their old chips as part of the fresh start.
As for 3-5%, sure it makes sense. Most of the people in any given meeting aren't going to be there two, three,five years down the road. Most meetings are full of tourists,people who are there for court, or to keep the judge or job or wife or whatever off their back,there's always a bunch of people who roll in and out on a quasiregular basis, a few people who are really trying,most of whom will get derailed,then the hard core regulars.
All the A's have a stunningly high turnover rate.Now some of this is because people get their lives together, move up and on, lots of it is because addicts are transient by nature, but mostly it's because of the recidivism rate-they go out and use.
AA grew real fast in the beginning, had some big jumps in the early 70s (When the drugs hit), again in the mid eighties (The great rehab boom where) but attendance has pretty much flattened or slightly decreased since the mid nineties. All those other A's, man-they provide competition.
Go to a meeting you haven't been in a few years,see how many people are still there.It's sad and staggering how few remain. I have a buddy who likes to point to the empty seats,remind folks that those are empty because of dead people who passed that others may remain
Lastly, re your sponsorship numbers-what percentage of people who walk in the door actually get a sponsor? I bet it's not large.
Most walk in, never come back.Or they drop by a few times, wander out, scared by God,or the more cultish aspects or religion or because whatever but all because they ain't done, use the revolving door. Few have the humility, the crushed pride,the lives broken enough to overcome that addict ego and ask a stranger for help. Fewer still have the discipline and dedication to remain on the path for extended periods.
And of those,how many end up with a sponsor who is really good and knows what they are about,having had a "deep and effective spiritual experience which has revolutionized their whole lives" they can pass on to another. I walk into meetings and far to often see the blind leading the broken,clueless people giving fatal advice based out of ego or something they heard some wingnut spout from a podium.I hear nonsense, propaganda, lots and lots of ego, and very little real sponsorship.
I'm not knocking or denigrating your experience. Please don't take it that way (What-am I gonna say your experience is wrong?How could it be? It's your experience.) But it's just that,your experience.
And I'm sharing mine as a person who worked within the professional recovery community.
And again,and I can't empathize this enough. AA varies greatly across the country. Certain places have lots of small tight meetings. Others have lots of turnover, huge meetings. There's a homegroup in Cali (IIRC-The Pacific Group) that has like 5,000 people every week. Some areas concentrate on the fundamentals,steps, God,sponsorship, others wander pretty far afield, into what I would term crystal hippie BS.
My point is that it's highly divergent (As expected from a group of junkies and drunks-it's far far easier to herd cats than get those lunatics to march in lockstep)and extremely differentiated,due to a whole bunch of factors,some external, some not so much.
Just cuz my experience doesn't match yours and yours doesn't match mine-that doesn't mean that either is wrong or right. They are simply that, our experience.
Nothing more .Nothing less.
< Message edited by Kana -- 12/10/2013 6:13:24 AM >
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"One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die. "
HST
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