AA is quite good really

I went to a very plush hotel for a fundraising ball for children with special needs tonight. I was impressed by the determination and enthusiam of the people who organised it and there followed a long recitation of speech after speech. What struck me was my inability to feel compassion for the children displayed on expensive lcd screens across the room as they learnt in the special way that is taught in that particular school. I've yet to cultivate generosity of spirit I'm afraid, but am working on it. I am not seeking to diminish the suffering of others,the hard work of the people who work there, the people who donate and those who fundraise tirelessly (i've tried fundraising and it is NOT easy-I was a spectactular failure), but a thought that crossed my mind was what about the children that are continuously sexually abused, or those who have alcoholic parents, mentally ill parents, who are repeatedly beaten, ignored, neglected, sent into care. Lots of children who have these experiences ( I am one of them) end up in the rooms of AA. They do not appear on lcd screens at fancy london hotels, they are often forgotten about and hush hushed because society, it seems, doesn't really like to acknowledge that these things go on or the crushing effect they have.

Then it struck me that that AA is pretty cool really, a sort of sprawling mass underground movement that is not really acknowledged or respected by mainstream society, but exists and takes in the adults that these children often become (if they make it that far and get steered in the right direction) who have to drink themselves to near death in order to anathatise the pain and deny the emotional lacerations these childhood experiences leave. AA exists and flourishes and just sort of works without any leaders or wealthy patrons and takes in some of the most wounded people in our society. Cool!