Meeting Topics – 2026

Topic for the week: Contempt Prior to Investigation

“There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which can not fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance-that principle is contempt prior to investigation.”

–HERBERT SPENCER

This quote first appeared in one of the Stories in the Back of the Book, first edition, titled An Artist’s Concept. The story was dropped from subsequent editions and the quote was moved to appear at the end of Appendix II called “Spiritual Experience”. This would be on page 570 in the Third Edition and Fourth Edition. I like reading the material that is the closest to the beginning of the formation of the AA construct to get a better comprehension of our program at our roots.

Here is a snippet from that story…

“The next day I met over twenty men who had achieved a mental rebirth from alcoholism. Here again it was not so much what these men told me in regard to their experiences that was impressive, as it was a sense or feeling that an invisible influence was at work. What was it this man had and these other men exemplified without their knowing? They were human every-day sort of people. They certainly were not pious. They had no “holier than thou” attitude. They were not reformers, and their concepts of religion in some cases were almost inarticulate. But they had something! Was it just their sincerity that was magnetic? Yes, they certainly were sincere, but much more than that emanated from them. Was it their great and terrible need, now being fulfilled, that made me feel a vibratory force that was new and strange? Now I was getting closer and suddenly, it seemed to me, I had the answer. These men were but instruments. Of themselves they were nothing.

Here at last was a demonstration of spiritual law at work. Here was spiritual law working through human lives just as definitely and with the same phenomena expressed in the physical laws that govern the material world. These men were like lamps supplied with current from a huge spiritual dynamo and controlled by the rheostat of their souls. They burned dim, bright, or brilliant, depending upon the degree and progress of their contact. And this contact could only be maintained just so long as they obeyed that spiritual law.

These men were thinking straight-therefore their actions corresponded to their thoughts. They had given themselves, their minds, over to a higher power for direction. Here, it seemed to me, in the one word “Thought”-was the crux of the whole spiritual quest. That “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he” and so is his health, his environment, his failure, or his success in life.

How foolish I had been in my quest for spiritual help. How selfish and egotistical I had been to think that I could approach God intellectually. In the very struggle to obtain faith I had lost it. I had given to the term faith a religious significance only. I had failed to see that faith was “our common everyday manner of thinking.” That good and evil were but end results of certain uniform and reliable spiritual laws. Obviously, my own thinking had been decidedly wrong. Normal most of the time, it was abnormal at the wrong times. Like everyone’s thinking, it was a mixture of good and bad, but mainly it was uncontrolled.

I had been sticking my chin out and getting socked by spiritual law until I was punch drunk. If one could become humble, if he could become “as a little child” before this powerful spiritual thought force, the pathway could be discovered.”

This writing is absolutely beautiful, and sums up what was intended for us to be once we recover-light, a lamp.

Lamp: a device for giving light

This morning I was thinking about all the concepts, beliefs, and systems I have had contempt for prior to investigation, and what I currently do….I wrote the following in my notebook:

“Sh*tting on things I “oppose” (in my case it was western medicine) is an act of avoidance so I don’t have to put in the footwork to investigate. If I am “anti” this or that so I can fit comfortably inside my team’s box or bubble, then I have contempt, or resentment. Our book says: Resentment is the “number one” offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we have been not only mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick. When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically.” pg 64

-and resentments block me from the light that fills my lamp to be of service to the next sick or suffering alcoholic-my primary purpose for being sober.”

So I ask the group to share on your current “contempts prior to investigating” that are currently blocking you off from your maximum source light/HP ;or perhaps something you have worked through, and now see how your perception, belief systems and fear kept you from investigating the other teams side…not necessarily to become apart of that team, but just to keep an open mind and heart to new information and remove resentment??

On January 9th, I reached 38 years of continuous sobriety. Part of acknowledging my anniversary is chairing this meeting the following Sunday. I will also celebrate at my home group next Wednesday Night. This January, four of us with anniversaries this month will all collect our medallions at Wednesday’s meeting. It feels special because there will be one with 15 years, me with 38, another with 48 and one with 49. Together it totals 150 years!

That meeting reads from “Each Day a New Beginning” and the reading from last Wednesday was on having rapt attention to each other. When I first came into sobriety there was such a roar of thoughts, comments, criticisms and judgements swirling around in my head every minute that I had to learn HOW to listen to the people as they shared in meetings. I asked my nonexistent higher power to help me hear what I needed to hear in order to stay sober another day. I found it so exhausting that I would often come home limp from the effort – but with the one memorable thing that resonated with me and helped keep me sober.

Over time, I found it awesome that when people shared during a meeting, everyone else was silent and attentive. They listened to hear what was being said, not to respond. It remains the one place in the world to me where that is still true. Particularly in women’s meetings it is that deep respect we give one another that allows her to be heard and to have her experience witnessed, validated and shared. Something profoundly healing occurs during that singular attention.

At last week’s meeting, one woman had relapsed and totaled her car so asked for rides to meetings, another in early sobriety remarked she had just come from arguing with her husband and realized now that she had not listened to anything he had said, just waited for an opening to respond, three women let the group know they had reached 60 and 90 days of sobriety, another announced she had 27 years sober, and one woman tearfully described having spent the day at the hospital holding her daughter. The daughter had attempted suicide while in her father’s custody. You could hear a pin drop while each woman spoke.

I try to listen with that deep respect anytime someone in the program calls, or shares her experience with me. I believe simply listening, not “fixing”, not “giving advice”, not “complimenting or correcting”, lets her know that she is important to me, that she matters, that her experience is valuable and worthy of notice. It also lets her often figure out what the solution is to her problem, or gives her clarity on why she is feeling the way she is, and she always sounds lighter by the end of the exchange.

I only learned that because I reluctantly came into the rooms of AA and let this magical program of recovery show me how to live a life richer than anything I could have dreamed during my drinking years. I thank all of you in this meeting for sharing your truth, your experience, your struggles in your shares. I still read every share and find something I needed to hear to make my sober life better every day. Thank you!

And in that spirit, please feel free to share on topic or off, especially if there is some problem putting your sobriety at risk. I swear that honestly sharing the problem out loud de-fangs it so it is no longer a problem

Category Archives: Meeting Topics – 2026

January 18: Contempt Prior to Investigation

January 11: Rapt attention