I have found that some people around the tables no matter how much they go to meetings or how much they know the 12 steps and 12 traditions they want their glory of being right. I call this sicker then others. No knowledge what so ever can change me but taking action on myself and accepting people for who they are and what they believe helps me to develop a better relationship with those people. Last week I had an experience with an elder gentleman at a meeting that just insisted on interrupting the meeting and wanting to talk about the group and it’s finances, and other negative problems. I’m not the type to keep my mouth shut so I interrupted him and told him that none of what he was speaking of had anything to do with the meeting itself and that if he wanted to discuss it we could sit down and talk about it after the meeting. So then after the meeting I sit down with this man and he is making all kinds of false accusations about this group and saying that he was a group member. I said “Really? Because you must be the only group member”. This group had been taken over by new comers back in 2011 from Bridgeway that did not follow any steps or traditions and then just recently walked away with everything. Now before anyone gets upset, this sometimes happens when you don’t have a good foundation.
I proceeded to listen to the gentleman and he just kept complaining about how he did not think he should have to get his paper signed and he didn’t understand why he had to go to certain meetings that lasted an hour and 1/2 while people took a smoke break and he felt that he should be able to leave early. I replied that he needed to speak to his sponsor about this situation and he replied that he had no sponsor. I was done. You cant get anywhere with someone that does glory judging.
Glory Judging is a sickness. My definition of Glory Judging is when you want to focus on what everyone else is doing and you want to bring it into a negative light so that it makes you look better.
I was once like him and ran my mouth 1 too many times in a meeting and was asked to shut up. I thought I had all the answers and my knowledge was so important that I had to share it in a group of 50 people or more. Well I learned my lesson that day. I got my feelings hurt because I was asked to shut up, I felt sorry for myself, and I was humiliated in from of everyone. Let me say that being asked to be quiet was not done in a rude way, they where very kind about it but my idea was that I knew all and needed to share all. I learned a lesson that day, Keep quiet and listen, I might just learn something.
Then we have the Glory Judging by those who say, “Well at least I didn’t do that”. Well just because you didn’t get caught does not mean you did not do it. We have all made mistakes and when we get into the cliches of Glory Judging and surrounding ourselves with negative behavior we are continuing to feed our disease. Know one and I mean Know one is free of this character defect but once acknowledged it can be dealt with. Such as Step 4 brings us to most of our defects. I continue to make a list of my defects on a daily basis as I need to focus on myself and my inventory to make sure I’m not Glory Judging anyone or anything. There is a difference in talking to my sobriety sisters and sponsor to get another opinion of my thinking.
turkeyboneheaven 