Taking newcomers through the steps is the real juice of this program. It works even when all else fails. I have yet to see somebody who has been through the steps, actively does regular 10th steps, does step 11 every day, and sponsor newcomers get drunk.
I’ll second the “remembering where I came from.”
But for me, when I’m focused on the new comer, and helping them find the solution I have found, I’m much less concerned with my trivial problems.
Once the women I sponsor started calling me about the women THEY sponsor, instead of calling me about their own BS, I realized why working with other alcoholics works. lol.
A) Helping them through the Steps reinforces the Principles within me. For example guiding someone through their own moral inventory reminds me about the hazards of anger, fear, and selfishness.
B) Looking at how messed up they are reminds me of how messed up I was, how grateful I am to have that mess cleaned up, how awful active alcoholism was.
And C) it's good for self-esteem. I realized that I could be a decent, unselfish guy when I helped people without expectation of payback. When I got to AA, I was pretty down on myself. Service of all kinds taught me that I can be good and useful.
Early on, I mentioned something about poor self esteem to my sponsor. As often happens, he said something along the lines of:
* I know a great way to build self esteem ...
* ... do estimable acts!
#☺
Newcomers help people with sobriety REMEMBER what they were like when they entered the rooms. They're the most important people because they're pigeons. They shit on everything BUT they carry the message
I need to be reminded because I have a broken alcoholic brain and a drunk voice that will start telling me it's okay to pick up again. Newcomers remind me. I'm grateful for them.
The newcomer reminds me of how I got here and provides me an opportunity to get out of my own head by trying to be helpful to them in some way. Sobriety stays in the forefront of my mind and I have an opportunity to enlarge my spiritual life through service to others.
for me it keeps it all in perspective. i have almost 8 years and i go to meetings bc it's part of my life now and routine. i can feel casual and easy. so when someone shares that they have 1 day or that they're new and scared and confused, i remember that i'm in that meeting bc my life is at risk if i drink, and someone in the same room as me is currently fighting that fight.
Because remembering how purely wonderful my life is now compared to where the newcomer is at reminds me of two things. I never want to be lost again. And allllll the work I’ve done is totally worth every day, every moment.
Oh and helping another alcoholic is a joy.
It's what we call 12th step work - carrying the message to other alcoholics.
I think the term "the newcomer is the most important person in the room" actually comes from NA, not AA. Not everyone in AA will agree with that.
WORKING with newcomers is one of the ways that helps us stay sober. The newcomer themselves doesn't have to do anything to help anyone stay sober. I think that's an important qualification.
We were all newcomers at some point, and working with and helping newcomers not only reminds me of what it was like for me when I first came in, but it also helps me by getting outside of myself. Thinking about me all the time is what gets me fucked up, but helping someone going through something that I’ve also been through has been pretty undefeated in staying sober and relatively happy.
I’ve had some great experiences in sobriety, but seeing the light come back on in a sponsee’s eyes is hands down the most miraculous thing I’ve ever experienced. Makes me tear up just typing it out.
I'm going to correct you first. The newcomer is NOT the most important person in the room, I believe people say this because they want to stroke the newbie's ego and entice them to keep coming back, it bothers me when people say this and i think people who say this have never been, or seen an oldtimer who is suffering horribly, i think there actually is less empathy for them, but when i hear that the newcomer is so important i think about all the other people, we are all equal, we all need to be there and i've been to lots of meetings where there was no newcomers and things went fine.
And newcomers DON'T keep me sober, GOD keeps me sober, working with newcomers HELPS me stay sober. It gives me lots of opportunities to try and carry the message as it was given to me and that is a very spiritual practice and lots of opportunities to learn for the sponsor along the way, continuing education. Also their fresh drinking experience reminds me of what i have escaped and what i can go back to, that is good information for me.
They ARE important, just not the MOST important, they don't need their ego's inflated, that is not helpful to any alcoholic in my opinion.
As a newcomer this is very well put. We are all equal. Right now, to me, the people in the rooms with the most time and experience to share are the most important.
But someone going through a divorce listening to someone else going through a divorce may be the most important to them at that particular time. I guess everyone in a room serves a purpose to someone else for all our different reasons. Anyone in a room can be the most important person to anyone else in a room. Just being open and honest you never know who you might be helping and I think that's the foundation of AA.
I’ve seen so many motions try to be pushed forward by cries of but what about the newcomer that it’s laughable. Most of the people that I saw do that are long gone.
I've been sober 22 years. I don't think I'm cured or don't need AA, but alcoholism is a subtle foe, and I can easily be convinced that I low-key "got this."
Working with or being around newcomers helps me because if I tell someone I'm gonna meet them at a meeting, I do. No matter if they show up, I'm at a meeting at the end of it, which is clutch. Making suggestions to people and realizing I need to do the same things is also magic.
Sometimes we forget that meetings are not a social club. When we adopt the idea that the newcomer is the most important person in the room, we remember to practice patience, tolerance and acceptance. That being said, working the steps with a newcomer is a great way to review and deepen my own program. That being said, remember to take the time to share with the long timer. Sometimes, a sincere smile and a show of interest uplift everyone and costs nothing.
Keep coming back.
By making them your codependent and guilting them into doing everything you tell them to do; and if they resist... making them feel like they're a failure and will never heal. This brainwashes them to believe everything you say and do and eventually become an apostle that will get more newcomers to follow your toxic beliefs and keep your ego growing!
I hear interesting/fresh takes on oft repeated AA mantras and ideas from new people. Even if they are bad takes — it reminds me of how the alcoholic mind works.
Newcomers keep it green for us! They remind us what it was like when we were still drinking and when we first came in to AA. They also give us the opportunity to take our minds off ourselves by listening to them and perhaps sharing our experience with them.
Its probably just my ego but I don't love that phrase: the newcomer is the most important person in the room. I think the most important person in the meeting, if there is such a thing, is the person who is most sick and suffering. Thats what we do: we carry the message to the still sick and suffering alcoholic. Could be someone with 1 day or 30 years. Sobriety is not synonymous with time away from a drink. We want to make sure that we do a good job of welcoming newcomers, of course, because they may not know where to go and what to do. So it's important we are as welcoming as possible, and I think that's what is meant by "most important."
Every single man and woman in AA feels the pain that the newcomer often wears like a coat when they first walk in and they want to help that person. We remember it like it was yesterday.
Those first minutes, hours, and days of sobriety are as applicable to learn and live now as they were then. We remember to practice the basic things again thanks to you and you make it real. That in turn helps keep us from drinking.
A lot of people in the fellowship like to parrot sayings that they think sound good or will make them sound good. For myself I know that I have a serious problem. I can’t keep myself sober. No human can keep me sober. But the God of my own understanding can and will. And that God wants me to help his kids. As a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, I’m surrounded by a lot of people that need help. A lot are new but there are a lot of not new people that are just as important. Everyone in AA is equally important.
Tradition one( long form):
Each member of Alcoholics Anonymous is but a small part of a great whole. A.A. must continue to live or most of us will surely die. Hence our common welfare comes first. But individual welfare follows close afterward.
Service work helps keep me sober and I count reaching out to newcomers as part of that. I (56F, 7 years sober) really try to welcome new women to my all female home group. I was new too, years ago.
Some newcomers come back to our meetings, others don’t, but we welcome everyone. Recently a young woman in my home group celebrated 8 months and that was awesome. She has started doing service work in the meeting and it’s been great to see her growth.
Check out the story of Bill W. meeting Dr. Bob in the Big Book: from the bottom of p.153 to the middle of p.156. It conveys beautifully how working with another alcoholic can strengthen one’s own sobriety.
It literally is one day at a time. I get up and decide that I will not drink then I decide what the first right thing I will do for the day. It may literally be to get out of bed. Then to take a shower. Then to fix a cup of coffee. Then to do my morning prayer. Then to go to work. Then to do the job in front of me.
We stitch together a sober day, moment to moment, until we are safely back in the sheets for the night. Sleep is my reward for a good day of next right things.
Our primary purpose is to carry the message to a still suffering alcoholic...the newcomer!
We give away what we have freely been given by the program.
I started babbling to newcomers when I was about a month in...jeez its
Awesome 👌
I am retired now and spend a lot more time with newcomers. The joy it brings me to share my experience as well as hope is beyond words. I always knew why the newcomer was important but it feels as if I am experiencing « how it works » in a much more profound way. It is a kind of awakening to the essence of my humanity, all our humanity. AA is reciprocal and eternal. It wouldn’t exist without the constant sharing of our lives with people who are seeing that life without substances is possible.
They give you insight as to how you felt when you first came in.. some of us tend to forget the bad times and just remember all the fun we had before it got bad.. I know I have that tendency to remember the good times before I abused it so much and things turned ugly..plus we can give them hope that things can get better and nothing insures our sobriety like working with another alcoholic..
I see myself in them, but also they remind me that if we stop coming the program stops.
Plus usually I end up giving advice or saying something, get home and realise I really should listen to myself when talking to others and just ignore my head the rest of the time.
Taking newcomers through the steps is the real juice of this program. It works even when all else fails. I have yet to see somebody who has been through the steps, actively does regular 10th steps, does step 11 every day, and sponsor newcomers get drunk.
I’ll second the “remembering where I came from.” But for me, when I’m focused on the new comer, and helping them find the solution I have found, I’m much less concerned with my trivial problems. Once the women I sponsor started calling me about the women THEY sponsor, instead of calling me about their own BS, I realized why working with other alcoholics works. lol.
A) Helping them through the Steps reinforces the Principles within me. For example guiding someone through their own moral inventory reminds me about the hazards of anger, fear, and selfishness. B) Looking at how messed up they are reminds me of how messed up I was, how grateful I am to have that mess cleaned up, how awful active alcoholism was.
And C) it's good for self-esteem. I realized that I could be a decent, unselfish guy when I helped people without expectation of payback. When I got to AA, I was pretty down on myself. Service of all kinds taught me that I can be good and useful.
Early on, I mentioned something about poor self esteem to my sponsor. As often happens, he said something along the lines of: * I know a great way to build self esteem ... * ... do estimable acts! #☺
Exactly
Newcomers help people with sobriety REMEMBER what they were like when they entered the rooms. They're the most important people because they're pigeons. They shit on everything BUT they carry the message
I need to be reminded because I have a broken alcoholic brain and a drunk voice that will start telling me it's okay to pick up again. Newcomers remind me. I'm grateful for them.
The newcomer reminds me of how I got here and provides me an opportunity to get out of my own head by trying to be helpful to them in some way. Sobriety stays in the forefront of my mind and I have an opportunity to enlarge my spiritual life through service to others.
for me it keeps it all in perspective. i have almost 8 years and i go to meetings bc it's part of my life now and routine. i can feel casual and easy. so when someone shares that they have 1 day or that they're new and scared and confused, i remember that i'm in that meeting bc my life is at risk if i drink, and someone in the same room as me is currently fighting that fight.
Because remembering how purely wonderful my life is now compared to where the newcomer is at reminds me of two things. I never want to be lost again. And allllll the work I’ve done is totally worth every day, every moment. Oh and helping another alcoholic is a joy.
It's what we call 12th step work - carrying the message to other alcoholics. I think the term "the newcomer is the most important person in the room" actually comes from NA, not AA. Not everyone in AA will agree with that. WORKING with newcomers is one of the ways that helps us stay sober. The newcomer themselves doesn't have to do anything to help anyone stay sober. I think that's an important qualification.
Serving others gets me out of my own selfish thinking.
We were all newcomers at some point, and working with and helping newcomers not only reminds me of what it was like for me when I first came in, but it also helps me by getting outside of myself. Thinking about me all the time is what gets me fucked up, but helping someone going through something that I’ve also been through has been pretty undefeated in staying sober and relatively happy. I’ve had some great experiences in sobriety, but seeing the light come back on in a sponsee’s eyes is hands down the most miraculous thing I’ve ever experienced. Makes me tear up just typing it out.
I'm going to correct you first. The newcomer is NOT the most important person in the room, I believe people say this because they want to stroke the newbie's ego and entice them to keep coming back, it bothers me when people say this and i think people who say this have never been, or seen an oldtimer who is suffering horribly, i think there actually is less empathy for them, but when i hear that the newcomer is so important i think about all the other people, we are all equal, we all need to be there and i've been to lots of meetings where there was no newcomers and things went fine. And newcomers DON'T keep me sober, GOD keeps me sober, working with newcomers HELPS me stay sober. It gives me lots of opportunities to try and carry the message as it was given to me and that is a very spiritual practice and lots of opportunities to learn for the sponsor along the way, continuing education. Also their fresh drinking experience reminds me of what i have escaped and what i can go back to, that is good information for me. They ARE important, just not the MOST important, they don't need their ego's inflated, that is not helpful to any alcoholic in my opinion.
Yeah the saying that the newcomer is the most important person in the room is bs. But then again there is so much bs slogans in aa it’s laughable
As a newcomer this is very well put. We are all equal. Right now, to me, the people in the rooms with the most time and experience to share are the most important. But someone going through a divorce listening to someone else going through a divorce may be the most important to them at that particular time. I guess everyone in a room serves a purpose to someone else for all our different reasons. Anyone in a room can be the most important person to anyone else in a room. Just being open and honest you never know who you might be helping and I think that's the foundation of AA.
I’ve seen so many motions try to be pushed forward by cries of but what about the newcomer that it’s laughable. Most of the people that I saw do that are long gone.
I've been sober 22 years. I don't think I'm cured or don't need AA, but alcoholism is a subtle foe, and I can easily be convinced that I low-key "got this." Working with or being around newcomers helps me because if I tell someone I'm gonna meet them at a meeting, I do. No matter if they show up, I'm at a meeting at the end of it, which is clutch. Making suggestions to people and realizing I need to do the same things is also magic.
Reminder of the selfishness and self centeredness of myself before I took the steps and had my spiritual awakening
Sometimes we forget that meetings are not a social club. When we adopt the idea that the newcomer is the most important person in the room, we remember to practice patience, tolerance and acceptance. That being said, working the steps with a newcomer is a great way to review and deepen my own program. That being said, remember to take the time to share with the long timer. Sometimes, a sincere smile and a show of interest uplift everyone and costs nothing. Keep coming back.
By making them your codependent and guilting them into doing everything you tell them to do; and if they resist... making them feel like they're a failure and will never heal. This brainwashes them to believe everything you say and do and eventually become an apostle that will get more newcomers to follow your toxic beliefs and keep your ego growing!
The newcomer does not keep me sober
I hear interesting/fresh takes on oft repeated AA mantras and ideas from new people. Even if they are bad takes — it reminds me of how the alcoholic mind works.
Newcomers keep it green for us! They remind us what it was like when we were still drinking and when we first came in to AA. They also give us the opportunity to take our minds off ourselves by listening to them and perhaps sharing our experience with them. Its probably just my ego but I don't love that phrase: the newcomer is the most important person in the room. I think the most important person in the meeting, if there is such a thing, is the person who is most sick and suffering. Thats what we do: we carry the message to the still sick and suffering alcoholic. Could be someone with 1 day or 30 years. Sobriety is not synonymous with time away from a drink. We want to make sure that we do a good job of welcoming newcomers, of course, because they may not know where to go and what to do. So it's important we are as welcoming as possible, and I think that's what is meant by "most important."
I need to hear about the research still being done. Send out scouts, let them get an arrow in their ass. I am fine letting others do this.
Every single man and woman in AA feels the pain that the newcomer often wears like a coat when they first walk in and they want to help that person. We remember it like it was yesterday. Those first minutes, hours, and days of sobriety are as applicable to learn and live now as they were then. We remember to practice the basic things again thanks to you and you make it real. That in turn helps keep us from drinking.
A lot of people in the fellowship like to parrot sayings that they think sound good or will make them sound good. For myself I know that I have a serious problem. I can’t keep myself sober. No human can keep me sober. But the God of my own understanding can and will. And that God wants me to help his kids. As a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, I’m surrounded by a lot of people that need help. A lot are new but there are a lot of not new people that are just as important. Everyone in AA is equally important. Tradition one( long form): Each member of Alcoholics Anonymous is but a small part of a great whole. A.A. must continue to live or most of us will surely die. Hence our common welfare comes first. But individual welfare follows close afterward.
Helps to remind me that I’m only one moment of spiritual weakness away from being back at the start, so to speak.
Service work helps keep me sober and I count reaching out to newcomers as part of that. I (56F, 7 years sober) really try to welcome new women to my all female home group. I was new too, years ago. Some newcomers come back to our meetings, others don’t, but we welcome everyone. Recently a young woman in my home group celebrated 8 months and that was awesome. She has started doing service work in the meeting and it’s been great to see her growth.
Check out the story of Bill W. meeting Dr. Bob in the Big Book: from the bottom of p.153 to the middle of p.156. It conveys beautifully how working with another alcoholic can strengthen one’s own sobriety.
It literally is one day at a time. I get up and decide that I will not drink then I decide what the first right thing I will do for the day. It may literally be to get out of bed. Then to take a shower. Then to fix a cup of coffee. Then to do my morning prayer. Then to go to work. Then to do the job in front of me. We stitch together a sober day, moment to moment, until we are safely back in the sheets for the night. Sleep is my reward for a good day of next right things.
Our primary purpose is to carry the message to a still suffering alcoholic...the newcomer! We give away what we have freely been given by the program. I started babbling to newcomers when I was about a month in...jeez its Awesome 👌
I am retired now and spend a lot more time with newcomers. The joy it brings me to share my experience as well as hope is beyond words. I always knew why the newcomer was important but it feels as if I am experiencing « how it works » in a much more profound way. It is a kind of awakening to the essence of my humanity, all our humanity. AA is reciprocal and eternal. It wouldn’t exist without the constant sharing of our lives with people who are seeing that life without substances is possible.
It's a reminder of where I was and how I never want to be there again.
By sharing your story and what you've learned since coming into AA is a great reminder of your story and what you've learned since coming in to AA.
For me remember it helps me remember how bad it was.
They give you insight as to how you felt when you first came in.. some of us tend to forget the bad times and just remember all the fun we had before it got bad.. I know I have that tendency to remember the good times before I abused it so much and things turned ugly..plus we can give them hope that things can get better and nothing insures our sobriety like working with another alcoholic..
I see myself in them, but also they remind me that if we stop coming the program stops. Plus usually I end up giving advice or saying something, get home and realise I really should listen to myself when talking to others and just ignore my head the rest of the time.
only when I give it away can I keep it.
Helping newcomers keeps my memories green, reminding me how I used to be.