DUMPING
I need help with a resentment I have. It concerns a word (or action) I've been hearing used at a lot of meetings. It's the term "dumping." I have decided that it's the complete opposite of sharing. I wonder why I'm hearing it so much. I'm scared that I'm going to hear it more and more, and that it will negatively affect the meetings I attend.
We are called on as members of AA to share our experience, strength, and hope so that we MIGHT HELP ANOTHER ALCOHOLIC ACHIEVE SOBRIETY. Nowhere that I know of is it written that we are called on to come to an AA discussion meeting and dump our problems and feelings in the group's lap in the middle of a meeting which is already underway with a topic.
As an alcoholic, I need to hear other alcoholics SHARE ON AN ONGOING BASIS HOW THEY GOT THROUGH ANOTHER DAY WITHOUT TAKING A DRINK, without succumbing to their alcoholic way of thinking. I need for them, if they are raising a topic, to think it through before a meeting, even talk it over with a sponsor so they can present it in a way that relates to our common disease of alcoholism. That is why I'm in the rooms of AA in the first place.
Dumping, as opposed to sharing, is unloading problems on a dry drunk, hit and run basis. It is not defining the problem and relating it to alcoholism so that it can be discussed in a way that is BENEFICIAL TO ALL OF THE ALCOHOLICS IN THE ROOM. IT IS A WAY OF GRABBING ATTENTION, AS WE ARE OFTEN WONT TO DO IN EARLY SOBRIETY, stopping the meeting in its tracks, HOLDING EVERYBODY HOSTAGE WHILE THE GARBAGE IS BEING DUMPED and then virtually daring the people in the room to deal with it. It certainly does allow for immediate gratification/release but offers no longbenefits.
I used to be able to turn my anger over on this, but obviously, I haven't been too successful if I now have a resentment. My serenity and perhaps one day, my sobriety will be at stake if I can't go to a meeting where I hear people sharing how they recognize their disease in all its camouflaged forms. When they do share their experience, strength, and hope IT BREAKS THROUGH ANY DENIAL THAT MIGHT BE BUILDING. It drums into my thick head on a regular and consistent basis that I truly do have a disease. In my cunning, baffling alcoholic way, even though I have a lot of time in the fellowship, I might conveniently forget. Others before me have shared that reality.
Many might say, let's cut the newcomer some slack. It's better that they say something even if it's dumping rather than sharing. But is it better? I CONTEND THAT HALF MEASURES AVAIL US NOTHING. Since I didn't know how to share in my early days in AA, I ALLOWED MYSELF TO LEARN. I did what the winners suggested. I took the cotton out of my ears, stuck it in my mouth and listened to how sharing was done. I really was willing to do anything I had to do if it was going to get me sober and keep me sober.
DUMPING HAS NOT DONE A THING FOR ME OR MY AA PROGRAM. Whoever is telling the newcomer to "TAKE IT TO AN AA MEETING AND DUMP IT" please stop and consider "dumping" vs. "sharing." DUMPING IS A CERTAIN SHOWAND ATTENTION However, it's about as productive to sobriety as dumping someone else's garbage in the center of the meeting for others to sort out. No, thank you! Sort it out first BY RELATING IT TO YOUR ALCOHOLISM, and then bring it to the meeting and share it. In that way, we all benefit.
Karen M., Basking Ridge, NJ
From the November 1991 AA Grapevine