Got this from another addict, told him i would pass it on
DO YOU!!!! 1. Keep your cell phone on during the meeting?
2. Put it on vibrate but when you get a call pick it up and say "I'm in a meeting"?
3. When someone calls, you open the phone, jump up during the meeting and start talking as you are walking to the back of the meeting or outside?
4. Do you, text or e-mail from your phone during the meeting?
5. Do you keep your blue tooth or ear piece on during the meeting?
6. Do you listen/ read your messages during the meeting?
7. Do you become defensive and respond negatively when someone pulls you up on phone use during the meeting?
8. Keep your cell phone in your hand as if it was attached to your arm?
The question is WHY? Addicts are becoming bold, blatant and ostentatious with their cell phone behavior in meetings. The literature states that money, PROPERTY (the phone) and prestige can divert us from our primary purpose. When did the cell phone become so important during the meeting? When I was new, I had a pager. I was told by an experienced member that I should turn the pager off and focus on the meeting. For 90 minutes, nothing else was more important. I tried to rationalize that I had a young son that I had to monitor and I had to keep it on, "Just in case". Then when I got a job and was stealing time, I felt that my supervisor might call. What justifications I had. The truth is that the disease of addiction will utilize anything to divert us from listening in meetings. I was told that there is a difference between going to a meeting and making a meeting. Going to a meeting requires simple attendance but making a meeting means that I am emotionally and mentally involved, that I am listening with my ears, my heart and my spirit. I am totally enthralled in the process with all of my faculties tuned into the moment.
The job of the disease is to make everything else, priority and minimize the art or gift of listening. Another point is this, we respect places of worship, jobs, classrooms, court rooms much more than we respect our meetings. The place that has kept us clean, we dishonor by using the phone while something is being read or shared.
You say that you are not obsessed with the phone, well here is how you can tell: make a decision to turn your phone completely off before coming to the meeting and don't touch it until the meeting is over (no going outside during the secretary's report to check it either). If you feel uncomfortable or experience some anxiety, then you know that there is something wrong. Monitor your feelings when you decide to turn your phone off during the meeting. The other thing to consider is the newcomer that is modeling behavior. Is it okay to talk on the phone during the meeting? I guarantee that 99.9% of the time, no call is important enough to disrupt what is happening in the meeting. Getting up to answer the phone is rude, shows a level of arrogance and possibly makes one feel important to others, We know that the call is not even that important!
You may feel that it is okay to do what you do with your phone in meetings but take a good look at it: complacency begins when other things become more important than the meeting..................
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The fundamental delusion of humanity , is to suppose that I am here and you are out there .
fact is that people are getting addicted to their phones, or more precisely the contact with people over it. I just let go of a lead carpenter who was texting while working constantly. Long distance internet romances
I had a lady come straight at me in a parking lot while she was on the phone, she was totally oblivious to my presence, that is when I knew the dangers of cell phones. Law just passed here no hands free cell phones only when driving or get a ticket.
I got the email also and there were some good points made It made me more aware of how much attention I put on my phone, phone = $$$ meetings = LIFE no life no $$$ so that comes first.
Its always been a pet peeve of mine. I mean I understand the ocassional, opps I forgot to shut my phone off, but I have accualy watched people answer the phone and start talking as they rudely get up and leave the room while someone is sharing. I never get up while someone is sharing no mater how bad I gotta "GO", want a cup of coffee, or a smoke , or what ever. When someone is sharing I have a responsibility to give them respect, weather I like what they are sharing or not. Weather I like them or not. My phone goes on vibrate one time. If it goes off I wait a moment and check it. I dont even like to do that! If it is home and only if it is home I wait till sharing stops before I get up to call back and I hate to that. The only reason I do it is because I live with potential problems at home that sometimes require my emediate attention. I will say though, that I do need to work on tolerance of others. I have to remember that most of us come from a very selfish world, to put it lightly. That dos'nt make it OK, it just makes it easier for me to exept. Because the truth is, this is one of those issues that will most likley never go away. I have no control over others (short of constuctively and privately calling them on thier stuff) I can only control my reaction or response to thier behavior.
Thanks for letting me stand on my soap box lol
Addict named Jay
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It sure is eazier to get through the moment than it is to get through the aftermath.
we ask members to set their cell phone to silent or vibrate so as not to disrupt the meeting. if what other people do in a meeting disturbs, but not disrupts, perhaps it is your ego
i don't like the cell phone at all but to let the thing rent space in your head is that any better? i go to meetings for me and my recovery like you i let the person shareing finish before i grab a cup or go to the john but i would just let this one go at my home group 1 phone ring you are out till the next meet we enforce this so it don't happen you might bring that up in your meets most will agree rocky
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some of us win some of us lose with god and this program i will be a winner
Good question Lana. I guess the truth would be that every moment I spend thinking about others is a moment that I don't have to think about the stuff I dont like about myself. (Laughing at myself as I write) Thanks for the other comments guys.
Addict named Jay
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It sure is eazier to get through the moment than it is to get through the aftermath.
Thanks for posting this, Anthony. I received the same email and sent it to our area newsletter for publication. I agree that we can't control the behavior of others in the meeting and that there is much that we must just accept, but the "atmosphere of recovery is one of our most valued assets and we guard it jealously."
Whenever an issue like this surfaces in my home group there is usually someone who insists that the program is about FREEDOM and that we can't enforce our will on others. This is true, however, with freedom comes responsibility. Home groups are responsible for establishing and maintaining an atmosphere of recovery, that's why we have formats, chairpersons, and trusted servants. One members rights and freedom ends where it imposes on the rights and freedom of others or conflicts with the groups format. Remember, each group is autonomous and the format IS that groups conscience on how they want the meeting conducted. If any member doesn't like the format, they are free to attend another meeting more to their liking.
If we keep our primary purpose in mind, we will want what is best for the group, and, like the literature says, "what is best for the group is usually good for the individual."
Just my two cents....
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"With a sweet tongue of kindness, you can drag an elephant by a hair." ~Persian Proverb
I also have received this email and asked the sender if I might print it in our area's newsletter. We have had some controversy in my homegroup. A member wanted to add something about cell phone usage and texting in our meeting format. As secretery, I added a brief sentence and now anyone who chairs the meeting skips over the added sentence. So much for group conscience. Not only does my phone have the potential to distract me from my recovery, but it's distracting to the newcomer.
All said and done, I've often found us addicts sharing at the meetings very sensitive, most of us if not all, and as such, I have seen members getting distracted and disturbed because of people walking out, cell phone ringing, and more than the cell phone ringing, the reaction of the other members to a cell phone ringing in itself is a disturbance and distraction for members sharing, at times. I've actually experienced a sharer or two stop in the middle of their sharing while I was chairing the meeting and requesting me to ask the members whispering (or simply talking with each other thinking that they are whispering) to maintain silence... I've in fact seen a member sharing about his parents who passed away while he was using, and how he wished they were alive to see him live clean today, and a few members from behind burst out into laughter because they had their own thing going there.
Now, I can say I need to practice my program, and not get disturbed by all this etc., but when it happens to you where you are the person who gets affected while sharing, that's when that it's all real and happening for each of us. Now, I've been very detached, unaffected and serene on many occasions while sharing in context with the disturbance or distraction, but there have been moments where I have been emotionally very sensitive and vulnerable, or maybe a spiritual weak moment, and I'd have come rushing to a meeting, to be able to share at the only place where I could, with the only people who could understand... and then, when such things happen... one has to experience these moments to know how much it affects the one who is affected by it all... If we can't have an atmosphere of recovery, identification, empathy, love and care at the NA classrooms, where else could we addicts expect it?
This being expressed, I know there just cannot be a perfectly spiritual NA meeting as it could be an unreal expectation, but I also believe that each of us is capable of practising simple, healthy responsible behavior at meetings if we so choose... We can remember to mute our mobiles, we can remember to skip text messaging in the meetings, we can avoid playing games on our mobiles in the meeting room, we can avoid chatting or commenting to another member in the room and wait till the meeting ends, and most importantly, we can walk out if we have to, when a sharer has finished sharing, just before another comes forward to share. I do have a choice to act differently here. Just my $0.02
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"If we do an honest examination of exactly what we are giving, we are better able to evaluate the results we are getting."Chapter 10 - Emotional Pain - NA Way of Life.
Is anyone really so important that it can't wait an hour and a half? This is our lives here. Except for a family emergency, phones should be off...period. Just my opinion.
