On my speaking in a meeting... - 19 April 2009

 Well, then.

I'd like to think aloud about the quality of my meeting shares, possibly looking for improvements.

I claim no formal training in speech, especially extemporaneous speaking. My brother was quite good at it, winning multiple awards in high school; but I focused on math, science, and Acting, if anything.

So, I don't know what some guidelines might be, for engaging a group of people. I imagine that good speech techniques involve:
- maintaining eye contact with different parts of the room;
- "punctuating" ideas with corresponding hand and/or body language;
- short, digestible statements without a lot of illustrating sub-statements;
- concrete examples linked to abstract ideas and theories;
- variation of pitch and pacing, for either dramatic or comedic effect;
- and healthy doses of humorous statements, without becoming offensive.

OK, but what about what one says or doesn't say in an AA meeting, or, back to the point, what have I been saying?

Sooo...
General aside:

Tradition 4 allows each group to suggest how its members participate, while Tradition 5 advises that the groups keep the conversations to alcoholism and recovery from it through the Steps. These, in turn, underpin most meeting formats and specializations.

I prefer meetings that either go through the literature, or are topic-based, drawing a topic from the literature. More than likely, this is because of the similarity to school, as I did pretty well in school. In addition, I'm bipolar, so if it's a free-for-all conversation, then I might rack up a "head full of random thoughts". I think the primary reason I emphasize the literature base is because that helps insure that we're honoring tradition 5.

...and, I don't know about you, but my main reason for going to AA is to find out about recovery. Hence, drunk-a-log meetings, and, more subtly, problem dumping aren't really helping me, as recovery is a rare beast in those...

I also am not a big fan of interruptive cross-talk, as I think that whoever's sharing should be allowed a small chunk of time to speak uninterrupted.

In a similar vein, I think there should be some structure as to who gets to share; otherwise, you might wind up with "the same 6 home-groupers dominating the meeting".

When I do go to "first-hand-up" sharing meetings, I've begun to force myself to a 3 to 10 second pause before I volunteer; as I think that allows the shy new-comer a better opportunity to share. I think it's very important that we give them a chance to speak, because verbalization can help immensely in crystallizing concepts.

Well, what're my points, then? Currently, I need a topic, I need a focus on solution, I need to know that I can speak uninterrupted, and I need to remember the meeting's not centered around me.

Now, then...
Let's focus on what I've been sharing lately. I'll be kind, and keep it to broad strokes.

Given a topic, my first thought is "so, what does that mean?" This leads to literary criticism at times; and/or attempts to connect the topic back to other points in the literature, to try to paint a big picture. Alternatively, I may find myself paraphrasing the quote. I guess these are attempts to see if I understand it correctly.

Early in sobriety, though, I got admonished by an old-timer who said, paraphrased, 'When you start to speak from your experience, then you'll start to share something worthwhile.'

So, I've been working on that over the last couple of years, trying to think, "What is my experience that's connected to this part of the literature?" when I'm sharing. Unfortunately, two things interfere with this line of thought:
- I do not like to repeat myself, as I do not want to become the old-timer sharing the same stories I've shared since I got sober,
- and, I still feel that my program needs a lot of improvement, as I've only half-heartedly done several of the Steps. (i.e. I can't honestly share on Step 10 based only on 1 or 2 attempts)

One thing I have to watch is feeling "compelled to share".

At the open discussion meetings I attend, this usually means some thought is bouncing around my brain, interfering with my ability to listen.

At the round-robin meetings I go to, I've noticed that I'll start sharing if it gets around to me - and I wonder if that's peer-pressure and/or fear based? Basically, am I afraid of losing status simply because I drew blanks on contributing something useful?

Of course, going ahead and sharing without a new point to add to the conversation is probably even more status damaging... I bet you that a lot of the people who are afraid of sharing at meetings are really more afraid of "appearing the fool".

Eh.

Something I do have better control of, when I use my tools, is the length of my shares. A habit I sometimes use is to jot down my thoughts on a scrap of paper when a topic is introduced, especially if I'm introducing it. This works amazingly well at keeping me organized and to the point. Basically, if I have time to prepare an outline of my speech, then I can better "weed the fluff out of the stuff". Unfortunately, I have not been using this practice much lately...

So, I ramble ("Really? You? Who'd a Thunk?")... This could be because I grew up in G/T programs where brainstorming was encouraged. This could be because the audience usually sits there, quiet as a mouse, and I'm probably seeking some form of audience par-ti-ci-pa-tion. Now, one of my college professors once made the comment, "Leaders are known for short statements, as adding qualifiers weakens their point". That being said...

Right now, I find myself rambling in my meeting shares, trying desperately to connect the dots between my experience and AA's 12 Step recovery program. To improve, I should resume taking the time to sketch what I want to say, and I should make more use of passing when I have nothing useful to say.

Then, of course, there's the larger picture about my speech in general, but I'll leave that for another day...