A few days ago a woman had raised her hand at the beginning of a big book AA meeting I was attending. For about ten minutes she shared a painful experience that dealt with her 30 year old son who was on a serious implosion with alcohol. She indicated that it was affecting her own ability to stay sane as well as clean and sober. Unfortunately, what came next that lasted for the duration of that meeting was quite a bit of cross-talking and not much in the way of loving support for this woman.
In general, cross-talking typically refers to when people speak out of turn, interrupt someone while they are speaking, or give direct advice to someone in a meeting. It’s supposed to be a cardinal rule that people don’t do this sort of thing during 12 Step recovery meetings. Sadly, that’s not always the case as it was the other day for this woman when several people gave her their own advice throughout the meeting in very direct and somewhat angry tones. Speaking about one’s own experiences that relate to what someone else has shared is quite acceptable during any meeting. But looking directly at someone and letting them know that you feel they should be handling things differently can be detrimental to that person’s recovery. In the situation with this woman, she had relapsed recently and had only a week sober so this was definitely the case. And I could tell as she left the meeting that she was worse off than when she came in.
I was extremely grateful though later in the evening when I ran into her in the plaza across the street from where the meeting was held. She was indeed quite upset from what had transpired and had felt the negative tone from many of the comments that were directed at her. I took the opportunity to tell her I was proud of her for what she shared and that I would pray for her situation. I also let her know that meetings are not supposed to be that way and provided her my phone number in case she wanted to reach out for help.
The bottom line is that cross-talking is harmful to the health of any meeting. The point of any 12 Step meeting is not to provide advice to others, to interrupt when someone else is speaking, or to speak out of turn. Doing any of this can harm the person who is sharing an intimate part of their recovery like it did for this woman. Thankfully, God put her in my path after the meeting was over which gave me the chance to help diffuse what happened.
Hopefully, she will come back and find a healthier meeting to attend…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson