“We had failed to see that though adult in years we were still behaving childishly” (Page 115, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)
When I was new, I was self-centred, often wildly upset, and sometimes antisocial.
Outside AA, my behaviour was rightly curtailed or censured.
In recovery, too, when I misbehaved, I was brought sharply back in line.
Not everything was suitable to share in meetings. Not every behaviour was suitable for the time before and after the meeting. Not every topic was fair game over pizza.
I was elaborately ill but not wholly insane and not a child, though my behaviour was childish.
I had to learn fast to control impulses and to observe the etiquette, if I wanted help.
Turns out I could can it when I realised which side of my bread was buttered.
And thus I started to grow up.
The people who boundaried my behaviour were not putting me down: they were encouraging me to live up to my potential rather than treating me as an incorrigible wretch of whom nothing more could be expected than the level at which I was performing.
Carte blanche would only have harmed me.
More important than the freedom to ‘be myself’ was the opportunity to become what I could be.