November 2004

FG World Service Office,
Dear Director,

After walking the path for 26 years in Family Groups, I am writing this letter to you to express an opinion of my own about FGs.

FG "World" Service Conference
(US and Canada only!)

Only two countries -- US and Canada -- participate every year to the so-called "World" Service Conference -not to be confused with the World Service Office- while 32 countries participate to the International General Service Meeting every two year. Is not the IGSM the real "World" Service Conference? Should we not change the name of "World" Service Conference for what it really is: US General Service Conference? Should not Canada have a General Service Office and Conference of its own (or even two GSOs and Conferences as in Belgium and Switzerland - one francophone, one anglophone) and be represented at the IGSM with 32 other countries?

Francophone FG members in Canada are the only ones in the World to have a translated Magazine (The Forum - Le Lien) to which they cannot participate unless they write in a foreign language (English) and at what cost? Sincerely, I believe Francophone FG members in Canada (2,5% of all FGs in North America) deserve better than a translation however excellent as far as a Magazine is concerned. It is all up to them to implement that Magazine ("a matter of Area autonony") and I eagerly wish they do. Why not translate "First Things First" and leave the rest? Translations being a compulsory evil, I believe that "international" news from IGSM and W(US&Can)SC Summaries are much more worth being translated than personnal stories. Some of us tried to implement such a Magazine with rather slow success so far because of "political" -- emotional -- opposition from other servants who, as far as principles are concerned, should have no authority to silence nor punish anyone.

Is "Family Groups" an appropriate name?

Let's take another example. A majority of FG members is female (88% in 2003 in North America). A few of them still live with an active drinker but do not complain for they have learnt to cope with their situation. "Live and Let Live", they say. -- A few others made peace with a former alcoholic husband; they got maried again and have no regrets. Their saying goes: "Water runs in rivers and never runs back." -- But, alas, far too many of them, as far as my experience can tell, keep blaming an alcoholic -- a man of course -- for their mariage failure and all that has been going wrong in their life. In spite of FG "World" Service Office genuine and positive endeavor to change the public image of this Fellowship, I wonder whether the latter will ever be anything but a WASP-WC -- White Anglo-Saxon and Protestant Women's Club! Let me explain.

Science and medecine know more and more acurately nowadays that the following diseases often run in families: schizophrenia, depression, attention deficit disorder and alcoholism. Many FG members have one or more of those disorders but very few, if any at all, will ever feel secure enough to speak up about the real thing. Most of them claim "to live with the consequences of the family desease of alcoholism"! for "the stigma of mental illness is harder to deal with than the illness itself" (a person with schizophrenia) even in FGs.

Sincerely again, I wonder wether Family Groups should change its name or disappear. I owe my whole life to Family Groups for during the 1970's and 1980's there were no such alternatives to psychiatry as Emotions Anonymous, Schizophrenics Anonymous or ADD Anonymous, etc. - in Quebec at least. How many FG members are depression-inclined or schizophrenic? Should we not start speaking the whole truth instead of focusing on the alcoholic -- most often a man -- and the public image?

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I believe these issues -- one or even two Canadian GSOs and Conferences, a truly Canadian FG Magazine, and mental illness -- at one time or another will have to be adressed either at Area Assemblies or elsewhere. Silence is just a postponement -a denial- and quite a negative one. In any case, I hope never to forget FG's "principles above personalities" in any direction I may go hereafter. Best wishes. Serenity - Courage - Wisdom.

 

Gulemo
12&12 Pilgrim, FG Private Member,
Quebec, Canada, November 2004

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Notes

• WSO: World Service Office (there must be one)
• WSC: "World" Service Conference (US and Canada only!)
• GSO: General Service Office (32 around the world except in Canada and Quebec - 2 in Belgium French/Flemish, 2 in Switzerland French-Italian/German)
• GSC: General Service Conference (32 around the world except in Canada and Quebec - 2 in Belgium French/Flemish, 2 in Switzerland French-Italian/German)
• IGSM: International General Service Meeting (Conference? - 32 countries represented, except Canada and Quebec!)