Can I be Frank?

Off to my meeting at lunch and I might say a bit about my 'letting go' experiences this week.

'Shares' can comprise of anything you want, with varying levels of intensity and earnestness.  If you were forced to categorise, however, I suppose the majority fit into two main categories: a recount of your history and decline into alcoholism, and your subsequent salvation in AA; or an account of your week's experiences being sober - what you got up to, how you were affected, and so on.

Obviously, as I've said, the content comes in very different degrees of emotion and feeling - some can be down-right harrowing, others can be bloody hilarious.  I believe, regardless of whether I like the person or not, all shares are valid and mean a lot to the person sharing them.

Tart

Now there is one bloke at today's meeting, Mr Butcher (not his real name. Mind you, the name he uses at AA might not be his real name; so my made up name may be a made up name for his made up name - a kind of pseudopseudonym...  erm, you get my point), who does not seem to share my view!

Mr Butcher tells stories of harrowing gloom and misery.

Now, there's nothing wrong with that - all shares, experiences etc. are valid.  However, Butcher reveals his disdain for anyone who dares be even on the very slight side of humourous, or have some levity about them.  "I can't be fuckin' hearing about someone who learnt to bake fuckin' bakewell tarts when they fuckin' turned sober", he will say, in his charming Glaswegian accent, "This is a serious business!"

Of course it is, Butcher!  Alcoholism is a fatal, evil disease that one should never be complacent about.  But, surely, whatever way the alcoholic in question deals with their disease is their entitlement. There are no rights and wrongs about this.  As I've said before, if it works, then work it.  Butcher fails to see this.

I must say, this man just exudes bile and nastiness.  Sure, I've encountered folks in AA that I don't particularly like; but Mr Butcher is, without doubt, the most unpleasant character I've met in the Fellowship; and he might well be in my top 5 of vile people outside it too!