(hartsell at etex.net)
Qualifying: What makes us qualified to speak
in the meeting of recovered (ing) Alcoholics.
This is why in Texas and many other places sobriety
dates are given at the beginning of any talk at
an A.A. gathering. Of course this announcement of
sobriety dates is also an affirmation for the person
stating it.
"Our stories disclose in a general way what we
were like [identifying ourselves as real alcoholics]
what happened [how we came to the 12 Step Program
of A.A.] and what we are like now [the results of
applying what we have learned from AA]."
My understanding of the term's usage.
Sherry C.H.
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WEST TEXAS
From: Tom White
(tomwhite at cableone.net)
I seem to remember the use of qualifying and
qualification from NYC in the 1960s and have heard
it occasionally more recently in West Texas,
where I now live. So I think it is an old and
acceptable AA term, although I am not at all sure
how widespread its use is.
Tom White, Odessa, TX
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BALTIMORE
From: "Carole Seddon"
(seddoca at jhmi.edu)
The way I have heard it in Baltimore meetings is
as follows. The speaker may talk a bit generally
and then say I need to qualify -- what it was
like, what happened, and how it is now.
Carole
- - -
NORTHCENTRAL INDIANA
glennccc@sbcglobal.net
(glennccc at sbcglobal.net)
In the cities and towns of the St. Joe river valley
region in northcentral Indiana, we almost never
hear the term "qualifying." We usually call it
"giving a lead" when someone tells his or her
story at a meeting.
We have many more discussion meetings than we do
speaker meetings, and in modern times usually
have only a single speaker, who speaks for 45 to
50 minutes.
Meeting formats and terminology vary all over
the U.S. and Canada, and in fact all over the
world. We need to get out of the mindset
which we sometimes see nowadays, that everyone
has to use the same words and do everything
the same way. This program is about developing
spirituality; it is not a new religion with
"sacred rituals" which have to be performed
with all the right ritual words and ritual
gestures in order to be "valid" and communicate
the spirit.
Sgt. Bill S. talks about the general custom of
having three speakers, who spoke for ten or
fifteen minutes each, on Long Island (in the
greater New York City area) back in the 1940's,
so the three-speaker meeting was a very old
custom.
In northcentral Indiana, people are often
criticized by the old timers when they give
long leads, talking only about their bad
experiences while still drinking, while
explaining nothing about the positive things
they learned after coming into the fellowship,
and how they learned these things. The old
timers will quietly say, "that is a drunk-a-logue,
not a real lead."
So on occasion I have heard people giving leads
say "let me qualify first" and tell a few
outrageous drinking stories, before they
begin talking about how their sponsors and the
good old timers in the meetings taught them
lessons about how to live a better kind of life,
and their struggles with some of the harder
things they had to deal with after getting sober
(death of a close family member, going back to
school for further education and building a
new career, being in the hospital with something
very bad wrong, etc.) in order to explain how
they learned to use the program to get through
even the really bad things.
Glenn Chesnut (South Bend, Indiana)
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++++Message 3914. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Tommy H. on Big Book changes
("at" vs. "for")
From: Charlene C. . . . . . . . . . . . . 12/3/2006 6:04:00 PM
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Um, I don't have a fourth edition Big Book. Is
that where this word "transcendence" is, in the
third step prayer?
c.cook
austin, tx
- - -
Message 3907 from: Tom Hickcox
(cometkazie1 at cox.net)
The editors tell us some changes are made "in
the interest of clarity." They changed victory
in the 3rd Step Prayer to transcendence, but
that doesn't seem to me to add clarity.
Tommy
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++++Message 3915. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Circle and Triangle lawsuit
From: Gary Becktell . . . . . . . . . . . . 12/3/2006 4:57:00 PM
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Gary Becktell and Sherry Hartsell: there was
no conference decision.
- - -
From: "Gary Becktell"
(gk at kitcarson.net)
No, Jenny, it was not a Conference decision.
It occurred right after the Conference and was
a decision based on the recommendation of 'legal
counsel.' Since the 'logo' (circle triangle) could
not be defended as the 'legal' property of AAWS,
it was decided that it needed to be dropped
altogether.
G
- - -
Original message No. 3910 from: "jenny andrews"
(jennylaurie1 at hotmail.com)
Surely "NY" (i.e. presumably GSO) had no power
to abitrarily drop the circle and triangle symbol
from all our literature etc - surely that would
have been a Conference decision?
Laurie A.
- - -
From: "Sherry C. Hartsell"
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