bleeding deacon n.— «There is also no professional clergy, but true-believing Program oldtimers are often referred to, more or less affectionately, as “bleeding deacons.”» —“A.A.: America’s Stealth Religion” by...
bleeding deacon n.— «Our town is going nuts with gambling. I don’t have a conversation with my friends when we’re not talking about off-track betting, the Meadows, the Lotto or poker machines. I am not a Bible-thumper or bleeding deacon...
bleeding deacon n.— «Even in aftercare or AA, if this quality of rigidity continues, it can reach a point where patients are no longer viewed by their peers in recovery as a zealot for the program but as “bleeding deacons” who...
bleeding deacon n.— «“If anything is going to destroy A.A.,” says Dr. John Norris, a nonalcoholic physician, friend of Bill Wilson’s and for many years chairman of A.A.‘s board of trustees, “it will be what I call the...
bleeding deacon n. a person who believes himself indispensible to a group, esp. a person who becomes so over-involved in a group’s internal management, policies, or politics as to lose sight of its larger goals; (hence) a person with a negative...