I am sure you may be wondering what I mean when I say “CA Police”. Well, let me tell you. By the way, this is just one addict’s opinion and interpretation. Throughout my journey in this fellowship I have been exposed to what I believe to be individuals who make it there “right” and “authority” to police Cocaine Anonymous. Here’s how the “CA Police” operate. They attend meetings throughout our fellowship. They analyze and judge how an addict shares, what meetings they attend and the regularity of that attendance. If you do not have an “accurate message of recovery” and you do not attend specific meetings, you are not working the “program”. Just how do the ” Police” reach this conclusion? You have to understand that they are well versed on the Big Book, 12 Steps, Service work and they are in “fit spiritual condition”. According to them, if an addict shares in a meeting and they are not “on point and transmitting an accurate message,” the “Police” have the right to “arrest”, (take their inventory) and denounce their sincerity and fitness to serve and share in Cocaine Anonymous in certain capacities. Oh yes, if you happen to be one of the individuals who is not “working a program” you can make coffee, pick up cigarette butts, greet addicts and maybe provide transportation to people to and from meetings. However, when it comes to chairing meetings, holding chairmanships, speaking in institutions or sharing your story, you have to step back.
Don’t get me wrong any type of service is BENEFICIAL TO ANY INDIVIDUAL ADDICT, but when it comes to positions, which require more representation, or more out front, you had better have your program together as well as be connected to the “Elder Statesmen”. I had one “Elder Statesmen” tell me that even though the suggestion that I made was relative, (it was in regard to another issue) the fellowship would listen to him more because he had more sobriety than me. He did state that it was wrong however, that is just the way things are. You may think that I am being fictitious however; I am simply trying to get a point across. I must remember that the Third Tradition says that “The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop using” and the Second Tradition, which states that, our leaders are but trusted servants they do not govern”.
I believe that each and every addict that is so blessed to have made to Cocaine Anonymous has a story to tell, or a message for some addict who is still suffering. It is not for me to say that your message has no “depth or weight” simply because I personally cannot relate to you. The Big Book tells me we need to concentrate on “similarities instead of differences”. The bottom line is this, our disease of addiction has manifested itself in us in many different ways and we took different roads to get here but thank God that we made it. Our “primary purpose is to carry the message to the addicts who still suffer”. How are we expected to do that if we are busy taking inventories, analyzing, policing and antagonizing one another?
Unfortunately, I too have been guilty of being a ” CA Policeman”, however, I have been truly “beaten into a state of reasonableness” and I cannot afford to count you in or out of this fellowship. I am here today because you took a moment of silence followed by the serenity prayer because I was still suffering. I do not take my recovery for granted today. Remember, “we are people whom ordinarily who wouldn’t mix”, but none of us are ordinary, right?