Karpman Drama Triangles and AA groups

In my experience, most AA groups are pretty functional, really. Sure, there are dull sharers, people hauling around buckets of emotional entrails, and the usual range of batty newcomers, bleeding deacons, and tiresome old windbags, but we've all played all these roles, and we love and tolerate each other anyway.

Occasionally, very occasionally, things get very dark. When this happens, there's usually a Karpman Drama Triangle in operation. It typically starts with a Persecutor (Bulldozer), who persecutes through control, bullying, or officiousness, sometimes in response to perceived persecution by others, which creates a backlash, which then results in the Persecutor construing themselves to be the Victim, with the person pushing back construed as the Persecutor, and the original Persecutor then switching to Rescuer on their own behalf. Sometimes the Rescuer acts on behalf of silent, shadowy Victims who are secretly reporting their victimhood to the Rescuer and making murky accusations about other Persecutors. Third parties outside this dynamic then see the group as the Victim, become the Rescuer to the group, and try to rein in the Bulldozer or support the Victims, and are subsequently construed as or actually become Persecutors in relation to the original Persecutor. The technical terms for the resultant furore are: shitshow / clusterfuck. Within a few days or weeks, everyone's now involved, and the room is rife with charges of harassment, prejudice, ostracism, and a hundred other ills.

How do you solve this?

It's always worth trying to solve this through openness, communication, etc., but once you twig that there's a real agenda (namely the desire for conflict masked as pursuit of a group good) rather than a misunderstanding or miscommunication behind the kerfuffle, recognise that the system that has developed cannot be unravelled by common sense and reasoning. The purpose is conflict, specifically to relocate denied shame, guilt, and fear elsewhere, so if the present 'issue' is resolved, the conflict will merely shift around, like a booted parasite, to the nearest available host. The system is self-perpetuating and becomes the forum for the replaying of many individuals' unresolved inner conflicts. If there's a sufficient groundswell of unwellness enabling the group to become a venue for a collective version of the Karpman Drama Triangle (KDT), it's important to acknowledge that the fuel lies in the psyches of the individual participants, not in the ostensible content of the exchange. This is way bigger than any individual.

If you're in any doubt that the KDT has been activated, ask yourself how your body responded when you received that last text or phone call. Breath shortening? Heart racing? Clammy feeling in the skin? Nausea? Excitement? Trepidation? A sense of dread? If any of those just happened, you've been KDT'd, someone has just shifted their shame, guilt, and fear onto you, and you've taken it on board. Welcome to the battleground, buddy.

Do not try to handle this one to one, outside the setting of the business meeting / group conscience, because it cannot be handled. At the first sign of the conflict between members sluicing into the relationships between group officers, call a halt, and defer all discussions to the next business meeting / group conscience. If you're a member, refer the issue to the GSR. If the GSR is the problem, refer the issue to the chair, secretary, or treasurer. If there is no one sane to refer the issue to, run for the hills.

The only way out is through the group conscience. Hammer out the substantive issues on the anvil of the Traditions, follow Robert's Rules and standard procedures for sane business meetings / group consciences, and adopt reasonable, tolerant, loving, non-punitive, and essentially freedom-supporting proposals that create a paddling pool for people to splash around in. The group usually votes in favour of sanity, and the troublemakers take their trouble elsewhere, either by leaving or altering how they participate in the group.

Sometimes groups do not survive this without a cull of members who resign their posts or quietly take themselves off to other meetings. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes, the group dies, and new groups come to take their place. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Groups can too readily be worshipped instead of God, and groups develop egos, just like people do.

When you're facing a seriously troubled dynamic, the best thing to do in my experience is let it take its course. Let the river carry you, or clamber out up on the banks, but do not try to swim upstream or against the current. Let the group conscience become the crucible where base metal is turned into gold, and let God solve the problem through the individual consciences of well-meaning members.

In the meantime, use Emmet Fox / Ernest Holmes meditations to envision God's divine intelligence working through the situation. Attack this on the flank rather than head-on. Step back, place the future in God's hands, and let God guide the way. That may mean, when your turn comes to share at the business meeting or group conscience, speaking up clearly, briskly, and firmly to side in favour of individual autonomy, Live and Let Live, Let It Begin With Me, controlling and regulating no one but oneself, leaders serving not governing, not taking oneself too goddamned seriously, unity, primary purpose, minimal organisation, minding one's own business, attraction not promotion, principles before personalities, and the general light touch, love, tolerance, and sense of humour that characterises AA at its best.

But never be frightened to just leave. It's OK to want peace and to just go and where peace is rather than trying to create peace where it isn't. You can't extinguish a fire by blowing on it. That just feeds it oxygen. Deprive it of fuel, and it dies its own death. If the building is burning, get out of the building. Who is the fuel? YOU ARE. So, maybe just leave them to it and go to a crappy meeting where people are at least nice and just leave everyone else be.