05/17/2026
If we could stop gang banging or thinking like gangsters “for a while”, we thought we were all right. We looked at the “stopping” not the “thinking”. As our gangster mentality progressed, we thought of stopping less and less. Only in desperation did we ask ourselves, “Could it be my thinking? In addition to having survived traumatic experiences, a gangster may exhibit symptoms of avoidance/numbing physiological arousal. The arousal symptoms may include insomnia, angry outbursts or irritability, and a general sense of jumpiness. Some did not choose to become gangsters and some did. We suffer from an illness that reveals itself in ways that make us social adversaries and that makes detection, prognosis, and therapy difficult. Our illness isolated us from people except when we were drinking, smoking, hanging tough, selling drugs, selling s*x and extortion, or finding ways and means to make money illegally. Hostile, resentful, self-centered, and self-seeking, we cut ourselves off from the outside world. We had finally hit rock bottom. We heard about G.A. and thought this might be the time to give this a try. But we found it hard to find meetings. They were secret. Zoom meetings weren't zooming. So i bought a G.A. book and started following the suggestions. One thing led to another and when I got to Step Twelve....I began helping someone else. That led to our new meeting. Where anyone can attend. All thanks to G.A. Global Services for keeping the Fellowship alive for so long.
Ronnie B.