Conscience vs. Gossip.

So, there’s a minor, and I mean really minor, issue going on in my men’s meeting. That meeting, for the longest time (by which I mean, something like 20 years), had a rotating chairperson, and speakers were members of the group. For the past year and a half or so, we’ve had a single chair, N., who has steadily asserted a little more in the way of change as time has gone on, being more rigid about the time (fine by me), and bringing in outside speakers once in a while (also fine by me). Those changes have rubbed some guys wrong after all this time. N., when he can’t chair, has always asked Tan Man to chair for him.

Tan Man is someone I’ve complained about before, on my old blog if not on this one. I don’t like him. He went on about wanting to sleep with my ex-wife during my divorce process, in a crude and licentious way. I wanted to put his face through the asphalt in the parking lot. But I didn’t. I never even confronted him about it. I just ignored him. And obviously, I’m still carrying a bit of a resentment about it. I need to let it go. After all, I’ve been divorced nearly two years now.

But here’s the deal. Tan Man is apparently drinking again, and calling guys up from the meeting drunk at night. He hasn’t called me. I have no evidence. And the truth is, it doesn’t matter. I’m told he denies it when called out. But he’s done it before, and admitted it. He comes to the meetings, and pretends to be sober when he isn’t. I confess, I don’t get that. I really don’t. But some people are sicker than others, as they say. And if he’s showing up to the meetings, it’s because somewhere in him there is a desire to stop drinking. So he’s welcome.

But people who are being fundamentally dishonest about their sobriety should not be put in positions of leadership in AA. I feel like I shouldn’t need to put up much of a defense for that statement. It’s one of the basic things about AA. The “leadership” (such as it is – chairpersons do not govern), is a cohort of sober people, working a program. It is especially troublesome to me that a person being (possibly, probably) dishonest about his sobriety would be the group treasurer. We’ve had a problem before with a man being treasurer who was sober, but with a serious gambling problem. Guess where the money went.

People who are active in addictions are not trustworthy. Period. They should not be given any positions of authority. So, what’s my responsibility here? Basically, none. I participated in the group conscience of the meeting and we elected a new chair. A man I really like. Humble, calm. A professional engineer. Sober ten years. I spoke to my sponsor about my feelings about Tan Man. Since Tan Man hasn’t called me drunk, and I haven’t smelled it on him, I have nothing to say about it. It’s not my business until it becomes my business.

What is my business is the health of the meeting. And so I’ve talked to the men who’ve been there longer than I have and we’ve agreed to return the treasurer position to a rotating commitment as well. And that’s as it should be. No group should be dependant upon any one person for the health of the group. It’s a collective environment. But I need to make sure that my motivations are correct.

Just because I don’t like Tan Man doesn’t mean I should be predisposed to consider him to be dishonest about his sobriety. Or judge him an inappropriate treasurer. Just because there’s gossip about him doesn’t mean I ought to participate or pay attention. But I have trouble separating gossip from true questions of conscience sometimes. The important thing is that I don’t start thinking of this group as belonging to me. I’m no more likely to be right about the direction than anyone else is. Which is why we take group consciences. And this one went the right way.

We just talked about the direction we wanted the meeting to go, not about any one person. And I kept my mouth shut about Tan Man, because it’s not my business yet. And probably never will be. Especially as long as I’m nursing a resentment about something that happened two years ago.

So I don’t know about the line between conscience and gossip. But I know that I tend to think I’m important in ways that I’m not, and that that leads me to unhappiness a lot of the time. When I relax, surrender my need to have things my way, participate in the conscience of the group, and only take stands on issues where I truly have something at stake, I am almost always at much greater peace with my decisions. Matters that don’t influence how I live my life and work my program are not so critical, in the end.